Record Numbers on the Mokelumne

In this mornings paper there is a great article about the record numbers of salmon that have returned to the Mokelumne and several other central valley rivers this season. This year fish counts at Woodbridge dam exceeded any year since monitoring began in the 1940's. The count went from 418 fish in 2008 to more than 18,500 this past season with more fish still coming in.

Want to know why? WATER! Last year we had plenty of water in the rivers, and in October federal officials closed the gate on the Delta Cross Channel which redirects water to the south Delta pumps and then onto southern California and central valley farms.

When the gates are open and the water is redirected from the Sacramento River to these pumps it confuses the salmon from following their normal migration routes. This past season those gates were only closed for 10 days and look what happened, we have RECORD NUMBERS of SALMON!.

The article goes on to say that other rivers including the Stanislaus, the Tuolumne, and the Calaveras all have had record numbers of salmon return this year.

This just goes to show that as long as we keep "REDIRECTING WATER" we're going to continue to have problems. Altering courses of rivers to send water south is destroying our natural resources. Besides saving the salmon we need this "REDIRECTED" water to help flush the delta before it becomes a stagnet swamp choked with weeds and polluted waste water from agriculture.

The full article is from The Stockton Record if you want some more reading.
TONY

Isn't that something. Lets pray for rain.......lots of it!