DFG Goes Fishing For Coho Salmon Water
Dead Coho Salmon found along
the dried-up Patterson
Creek. Photo by John Bowman,
Klamath Riverkeeper. If
there’s one thing everyone
in Siskiyou County can agree
on, it’s that the Department
of Fish and Game is
convening a meeting at 7
p.m. on Tuesday, August 16,
to talk about increasing
water for coho salmon in the
Scott and Shasta river
watersheds
.
Other than the meeting time and
location – the Fort Jones Community
Center, 11960 East St. – everything
is probably subject to debate and
disagreement. That’s because
conflicts over water rights and
endangered species run very deep in
Siskiyou County.
The purpose of
the meeting is to talk about
“what we as a community can do for
coho,” explained Curtis Milliron, a
DFG biologist. The agency intends to
ask landowners and growers to reduce
stream diversions temporarily in
certain locations for the health of
coho. Low flows in some streams are
causing water temperatures to rise,
which is detrimental to coho. Some
stretches of streams are drying up
entirely. Water removed from
waterways for agricultural
irrigation can speed these drying
conditions and changes in habitat,
Milliron said.
“This is really trying to establish
a relationship with the community
that is not regulatory in nature,”
Milliron said of Tuesday's meeting.
“We’re not the only ones who care
about coho.”
Siskiyou County Supervisor Marcia
Armstrong said DFG is likely to get
a mixed reaction at best on Tuesday
evening. Hard-line property rights
activists, such as those in the
group Protect our Water, urge people
not to work with DFG or any
government agency, she said.
Meanwhile, the local Farm Bureau and
old-time farming families are
typically cooperative, said
Armstrong, a former Farm Bureau and
Cattlemen’s Association executive
director. She's hopeful water users
will want to help the fish.
“I think some people will quietly
sign up for this,” Armstrong said.
“It’s coming to the end of hay
season. Most of them are going to
stop irrigating anyway.”
Armstrong is quick to defend Scott
Valley landowners and growers as
responsible stewards. “I know there
are people who say it’s the
irrigators who are drying up the
creeks. But that’s a political
ploy,” she said, emphasizing that
the earliest settlers noted the
seasonal nature of local creeks.
The environmental group
Klamath Riverkeeper recently
blamed irrigators for drying up
Patterson Creek, a tributary to the
Scott River. However, Sari
Sommerstrom, executive director of
the nonprofit group
Scott River Water Trust, said
that Patterson Creek diversions
above Highway 3 ceased on July 7 and
that the current conditions on
Patterson Creek are natural.
“No one likes to see dying fish in
stranded pools, but one can’t fight
natural conditions either,”
Sommerstrom wrote in an email to
water trust members. “No one should
be surprised that some sections of
streams dry up every year in Scott
Valley.”
Sommerstrom questioned the timing of
the DFG’s meeting, because 2011 has
been a wet year and because the 927
adult coho counted in the Scott
River watershed this year is a
strong number that is in line with
statistics from the 1960s.
In fact, 2011 has seen above-average
rain and snow, with precipitation
falling nearly until July. But
Milliron said, “The timing of this
meeting isn’t because it’s a wet
year, it’s because we need to act
now. We’ve got a month and a half
where it’s really going to get tough
on coho.”
Click this image to enlarge
it.
Sommerstrom, whose four-year-old
organization pays irrigators to
keep water in streams for the
sake of coho and Chinook salmon
and for steelhead trout,
characterized the situation
differently. She said conditions
for fish are better than they
have been in several years, and
that the main stem of the Scott
is in no danger of drying up
during coming weeks. She also
questioned whether any creek in
California has more coho than
the Scott and its tributaries
are supporting this year.
“This is an artificial crisis. It is not
a real crisis,” Sommerstrom charged.
“I’m tired of all the finger pointing.”
Carolyn Pimentel, executive director of
the Siskiyou County Resources
Conservation District, said irrigators
have already provided a great deal of
voluntary cooperation on fisheries
issues, and they might not be in the
mood to give more.
“People are pretty leery of agencies,
particularly DFG,” Pimentel said.
“People may not be going into this
meeting with real open minds.”
Coho salmon in the Scott and Shasta
river watersheds are listed as
“threatened” under both state and
federal endangered species law. Since
biologists began monitoring in 2001,
coho populations have declined
precipitously, according to the DFG.
Maintaining the native Coho population
in the Scott and Shasta river watersheds
is important for genetic diversity,
Milliron said. Importing coho even from
lower in the Klamath River watershed
might not be effective because those
fish have a different genetic makeup and
might not survive the particular
conditions farther upstream.
Like other salmon species, Coho spend
the beginning and very end of their
lives in cold freshwater streams and
rivers, and most of their adult lives in
the ocean. Thus, healthy freshwater
spawning and rearing grounds are crucial
to the species’ survival. According to
DFG, more than 800 coho spawned in the
Scott River and its tributaries this
year, a significant increase over recent
years.
There are three situations DFG hopes to
address with the voluntary cuts in
stream diversions. In some places, the
agency would like to ensure water
continues to flow where coho are now
living. In other locations, the agency
wants to ensure good water quality for a
short period of time while the fish move
to a better location. Coho are very
sensitive to water conditions and
typically recognize when it’s time to
seek a better, colder water. Finally,
the agency would like to ensure that
some areas, where fish could get
isolated, have water long enough for DFG
to capture the fish and move them to
safe locations. Already, DFG has
captured and relocated nearly 3,000
juvenile coho from Kidder and Patterson
creeks.
Milliron conceded that DFG probably
should have conducted Tuesday’s meeting
last month, before the situation became
urgent. Despite the timing, the agency
would like to establish long-term
relationships, he said.
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