Tiny fly is why salmon thrive in Yolo Bypass

[Mrs.Finsallaround]

So, how do we get this fly into the delta and other tributaries?????

Read on...

The Sacramento Valley is a well-used landscape. After 160 years of mining and urbanizing, plowing and diverting, you'd think the environment would have given up all its secrets.

But a trio of local scientists recently unlocked a mystery about why young salmon grow faster during floods in the Yolo Bypass, and in the process they identified a new species.

full story at http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/903902.html

[dickwhite]

Biologists have known for some time that salmon and steelhead smolts do much better when the bypasses are flooded. The bypasses are essentially a big soup of nutrients with tons of bugs. For this reason you can expect less salmon returns from brood years during droughts when the bypasses don't flood.

So not only does this create some great wetlands for waterfowl, our salmon depend on it.

Tight lines

Dick W.
Tahoma CA

[wjorg]

The answer is...STOP WATER DIVERSIONS and let people go thirsty.


De~Sal water on the coast and restore the california aquaduct.

[Darian]

It seems to me that there've been some advocacy from the scientists at UCD (and elsewhere?) about using set-backs for levee construction to allow more natural flows. This would provide a wider riparian habitat that would allow the water to carry a higher load of food for animals and fish, etc. during high water periods. This comes up every time the Army Corps of Engineers proposes doing some work on the levy's. I'd bet someone like Tristan would have that info....

Tough to undo what's already been done tho.

[Terry Thomas]

With all of the rain, looks like we may get some of that water in the bypasses after all.

[metalhead]

Goggle Doctor Jeff Mount, UC Davis Geology, or read Cadillac Desert. Someday soon the homeowners of east of the river will wish that their leaders had invested in a bypass rather than cashing out North Natomas. The Yolo Causeway is the only really working flood control system on the Sacramento River.

[Tracy Chimenti]

The flooding of bypasses is a life filling prophecy. In the yolo bypass, puddles left over from winter flooding are often full of crappie, bass, numerous other sunfish species and steelhead. My brother in law planted a stock-pond in the Capay area with crappie and bluegills. The steelies we hooked while fishing worms were 5- to 6-inches in length and healthy and invariably swallowed the hook. All with adipose fins.

The cormorants have cleaned all but the big cats out of the pond, the low-water of this fall a direct factor in that.

Tracy

[Darian]

Metalhead,.... Thanks for the reference to Jeff Mount.

The motivation behind commercial/residential development on the east side of the Sacramento/Feather Rivers in Both Sacramento and Yuba Counties is the potential for increased property and sales tax revenues for local government. That seems to be uniform throughout the state.

Mandatory flood insurance programs gave people a false sense of security (....if it floods so what. ). So, they bought affordable homes in the flood plains.... Not so bad in Sutter County, yet. But.... Once again, growth interferes with environmental concerns.