Water 4 Fish

November 2014 Water4Fish Newsletter
Introduction:
Water4Fish was organized several years ago to oppose Central Valley water policies that damage the highly valuable Bay, River and Delta fisheries including salmon, stripers and bass. Over the years 86,000 people have signed our petitions demanding protection of these fisheries. Thousands of you have sent letters or emails to political or other leaders demanding the protections we need. There has never been a time when our fish have been more threatened than now. Between the drought, agency inaction and a bill pending in Congress, our recreational and commercial fisheries are in serious danger. Once again, we are alerting you to these threats and asking for your help again by sending letters and emails to those who can make the changes we need.

Congressional Action Threatens Central Valley Salmon, Stripers and Bass
A water bill now under development in Congress will virtually wipe out the Central Valley salmon and also begin the eradication of stripers and bass. The bill is a merge from Senator Feinstein's Senate water bill (S2198) which passed the Senate in May and the water bill passed by the House of Representatives last February (HR3964). Development of the combined bill has proceeded in secret, but it is clear that the backers of the bill are willing to allow the total destruction of the $1.4 billion salmon industry and tens of thousands of jobs in the coastal communities of California and Oregon in order to export more water from the California Delta. The Golden Gate Salmon Association (GGSA) has analyzed both of the original bills. They would both overturn the Delta biological opinions and both would do irreversible damage to the ESA listed and non-listed salmon runs of the Sacramento River. Should the merged bill become law, the following things will happen: 1) additional salmon runs will be ESA listed, 2) another shut down of the salmon fishing industry and 3) chaos in the water delivery community in trying to cope with the ESA results. The original House version would take the flows and the pumping back to the unprotected conditions that prevailed prior to the 2009 biological opinions. Those conditions resulted in a near total collapse of the salmon runs and a complete shutdown of the salmon industry in 2008 and 2009. The House version also initiates a pilot program to eradicate non-native stripers and bass. We have not seen the final bill, but enough information has leaked to make it clear that the provisions of the bill will destroy the Central Valley salmon. As soon as it emerges, we will send you more details. To see the GGSA analysis of both original bills, click here: http://www.water4fish.org/salmoncrisis

Please send emails and write letters opposing these draconian measures. Ask your friends and associates to help. We need thousands of letters. For instructions and a draft letter go to: http://water4fish.org/campaigns/index.php/.Water

Drought and Fish Agency Inactions May Also Shut Down Salmon Fishing Again
In the last three years the salmon outlook has taken a significant turn for the worse. California is now in a 100-year drought. The Sacramento River is the primary upstream and downstream migration path for our salmon. In the spring of 2013, its river flow was very low and became lethal in temperature to salmon smolts trying to migrate downstream. Because of those temperatures, the low flows and heavy predation, it was estimated that almost none of the wild spawned smolts survived. In a desperation move, almost all of the hatchery smolts were trucked to the cold water of San Francisco Bay.

The water temperatures in the entire Sacramento River have been lethal to salmon eggs all of this fall. A high percentage of the eggs have perished. Absent emergency fish agency steps which did not take place, the second of three-year classes of the wild winter-run and wild fall-run fish may be near a total loss. The result may well be salmon fishing shut downs again in 2015, 2016 and 2017. We will deal more with this disaster in the next issue.

Thanks for your continuing support,
Dick Pool - Editor

Water4Fish.org P.O. Box 5788, Concord, CA 94524 email: action@water4fish.org








Water 4 Fish | P.O. Box 5788 | Concord | CA | 94524

Thank you for posting that Mark,
Letters sent!
JB

As a follow up to the letter from Water4fish, here's a link to a statement by Senator Feinstein taken from her website on the latest attempt to address drought relief:

http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/publ...4-0a6d2ed0510d

Notice how she characterizes development of the bill as non-secretive and the effort as drought relief for all Californians and not just big-ag. Of course, the development of this bill has been less than transparent. Anyone who would potentially opposed the bill, including other Democrat politicians, were excluded from the development process while it was reported in news media that one valley democrat, all valley republicans and Tom Birmingham, general manager of Westlands were included. It has, also, been reported that the contents of the bill included provisions that would relax environmental and fisheries protections in order to provide reliable water deliveries to big-ag in the main. The attempt to make it seem as tho the bill would benefit those small towns/townships whose water supplies have dried up seems like pie in the sky to me. Facilitating reliability (IMO, a euphemism for increased pumping) of water deliveries from the Delta/BDCP would not benefit those cities/townships who draw their water from wells in the San Joaquin Valley. So, creating a system for reliable delivery of water thru relaxing of environmental and fisheries protections appears to be a not so subtle disguise for increased deliveries of water from the Delta.

Thanks for posting Mark