Only in two previous years — 2008 and 2009 — has California’s salmon season been shut down completely. That closure came as the numbers of spawning fish returning to the Sacramento River, the state’s main salmon producer, crashed to record lows.
Now California’s Chinook runs have collapsed again.
Just 62,000 adult fall-run Chinook returned last year to the Sacramento River to spawn, the third lowest return on record and only half of the fishery’s minimum target.
Runs on the Klamath River, in far-northern California, also have plunged, hitting 22,000 spawning adult fall-run Chinook last year, the fourth lowest return in 40 years. Native American tribes rely on the Klamath River’s salmon for traditional foods and ceremonies. What’s ailing the fish, scientists and state officials say, is a variety of factors, primarily in the rivers where salmon spawn. Large volumes of water are diverted for use by farms and cities. Combined with drought, this causes low flows and high water temperatures, which can kill salmon eggs and young fish. Vast tracts of floodplains and wetlands, where small fish can find food and refuge, have also been lost to development and flood control projects.
Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the quantity and quality of river water appear to drive salmon numbers. Eric Stockwell, a naturalist and ocean kayak fishing guide based in Humboldt County, said he wants a season closure even though it will put him out of work. He called it long overdue, given the recurring poor returns in the Sacramento and Klamath rivers. “It’s a shame seasons have been allowed even though we haven’t reached the minimum escapement spawning goals,” Stockwell said. Fishing, after all, has impacts on the salmon population, too. For many Californians, wild Chinook salmon is a rare treat. For members of California’s indigenous tribes, it is a core element of their culture and diet. In the Klamath River basin, the Karuk, Hoopa and Yurok tribes fish for Chinook salmon for subsistence. “The health of our people depends on having salmon,” said Bill Tripp, the Karuk Tribe’s director of natural resources and environmental policy. “Their survival in the basin is imperative. If they disappear, we could lose our ability to survive here.”Read More
Ecological relationships across the Pacific Coast that once guided annual expectations such as salmon returns are evolving as climate change disrupts long-standing connections. NOAA Fisheries researchers report these findings in their latest Ecosystem Status Report for the California Current Ecosystem.“We have seen profound changes underway in the last decade that have altered these relationships unlike anything we have seen in the historical record,” said Nate Mantua, landscape and seascape ecology leader at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Santa Cruz. One effect of the unsettled ocean is that some models scientists use to estimate fishing impacts may no longer work well in this new ocean environment.While the unraveling of familiarly strong connections is not ideal for forecasters, it can produce surprisingly positive outcomes. For example, anchovy continued to boom in the California Current Ecosystem in 2022, decoupling past patterns that linked anchovy numbers to cold ocean conditions rather than warm. These abundant schools of forage fish provided ample food for salmon, California sea lions, whales, birds, and other predators. However, with a rise in anchovy providing ample prey for salmon, we have seen the adverse effects of a uniform diet because anchovies carry an enzyme that breaks down vitamin B1 (thiamine) in anchovy predators and puts their offspring at risk.Read More
Facing some of the worst salmon fishery numbers in California’s recorded history, a coalition of sport and commercial fishermen’s groups is calling on state regulators to immediately cancel the 2023 fall salmon season.The request comes two days after the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s annual pre-season salmon informational meeting, where agency personnel delivered a dismal 2023 abundance forecast. For example, the forecast for fall Chinook on the Klamath River is just 103,793 adults, the second-lowest figure since the current assessment method began more than 25 years ago. Read more
There’s 37 tons of nuclear waste stored in concrete casks at Humboldt Bay and two Cal Poly researchers are encouraging the community to consider “potential futures” brought on by sea level rise.In a Feb. 23 webinar presentation sponsored by the Schatz Energy Research Center and Cal Poly Humboldt, the results of “focus group convenings” on how to deal with the waste from a former PG&E nuclear power plant were described.Jennifer Marlow, a Cal Poly assistant professor of environmental law, is the founder of the 44 Feet Project. The name of the community engagement and research effort refers to the nuclear waste site’s height above sea level.That’s a measure of concern because by 2065, sea level rise is predicted to rise enough – by 3.3. feet – to at times turn the site “into an island that will be increasingly vulnerable to wave erosion, sea level rise and saltwater intrusion,” according to 44 Feet’s website.Co-presenter Alexander Brown, a Cal Poly graduate research assistant and master’s candidate, said the PG&E nuclear waste storage site is the second smallest in the U.S. but is “classified as one of the most at-risk sites to climate change.”There isn’t another storage site available and Brown said relocation is “speculative at this point.”Meanwhile there’s “shoreline retreat” due to erosion. Brown compared a 1952 photo to one from last January showing how the shore slope at the site is “considerably smaller now.”To cope with risk, Marlow said 44 Feet sought to “learn from community members” by organizing discussion groups.The ultimate goal is local involvement “where knowledge is accessible and shared openly,” “coalitions can help fill technical and political gaps” and the public “can enjoy a safe and resilient Humboldt Bay without risk of radioactive exposure.”PG&E’s website says the waste site is “safe and secure” and gets regular federal inspections. Spent fuel is stored in canisters “within transportation casks” and the company describes the entombment of the waste as “an interim onsite storage program.”During a question and answer session, Jen Kalt of Humboldt Baykeeper said PG&E “assumes a static physical environment but we know the bay is changing and not always in ways we understand.”Read More
Fifty years ago, the federal government passed the Clean Water Act to clean up the nation’s rivers, lakes, and oceans, many of which were polluted to dangerous levels. The State and Regional Water Boards were charged with implementing the Act here in California. In addition to setting statewide water quality standards and policy and issuing regulations, the Water Boards are also charged with enforcing water quality rules and penalizing violators.Under current law, those who violate water quality rules (say, by discharging more of a chemical into a river than is allowed) have two options. The first option is to create a Supplemental Environmental Project to clean up the water in the community in which the violation occurred. Nearly all violators, however, choose the second option: paying a penalty into the State Water Board’s Cleanup & Abatement Account. They prefer this option because it allows them to write off their liability. Historically, the State Water Board has returned much of the money from the Cleanup & Abatement Account to the Regional Water Boards in order to clean up waterways in the communities most impacted by pollution.Unfortunately, in recent years the State Water Board has sent an increasing share of Cleanup and Abatement Account monies to only a select few Regional Boards – leaving the majority of California communities (including many low-income communities of color) without the funding necessary to clean up polluted waters. Because water quality violators can simply send money to the State Water Board in lieu of cleaning up after themselves, but the Water Board no longer sends that money back to local communities at the same rate, many disadvantaged communities around the state have seen water quality issues persist or even worsen.California Coastkeeper Alliance is partnering with Assembly Member Papan to introduce Assembly Bill 753 in order to ensure pollution fines and penalties are sent back to the community originally harmed by water quality violations.Read More
