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Ocean salmon season looks very bright; Rainfall, river flows concerns for river season

3/24/13

All signs are pointing to a great salmon ocean fishing year, a good follow-up to last year’s record salmon run.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council is seeking public input on its preseason report, which lays out several options for the length of the season and other restrictions for fishing areas along the West Coast.

Council deputy director Chuck Tracy said, “It should be a good year, the forecasts are strong for both the Klamath and Sacramento rivers, which fuel fisheries in Humboldt County.” Both sport and commercial fishing seasons could begin as soon as May, according to Reel Steel Fishing Charters owner Tim Klassen. The council will meet in April to decide which option for commercial, sport and tribal fishing it will recommend to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which will finalize the season dates.

“It sounds like there’s not quite the record run like there was last year,” Klassen said, though he thinks sport fishing season will see an early May opening because fish populations are still relatively high.

Humboldt Fishermen’s Marketing Association President Aaron Newman said the fishery council alternatives indicate a potentially long commercial fishing season.

“If you look at Horse Mountain south, which is where the guys who do it for a living go, there’s between 110 and 140 days, which is really good,” Newman said.

Newman is also an advisor to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, and says he looks beyond Humboldt County waters for what helps the entire industry.

“That was our goal — to find the best salmon fishing opportunity for everyone at large,”he said.“There’s one big pie, and it’s divided up between tribes, commercial and recreational — and between the oceans and river.”

Predicted dry conditions on land could be concerning for tribes and river fishermen — though the effects of drought won’t be felt for several years on ocean fishing, Klassen said.

National Weather Service meteorologist Kathleen Lewis said rainfall is already behind normal.

“It’s expected to be below normal for precipitation, for much of the Northwest,” Lewis said. “It was a drier start to the wintertime.”

Since January, the Eureka area has seen nearly 7 inches of rain, less than half the normal value for the same period of time.

Last year’s banner salmon run coincided with higher than average rainfall — 22 inches from January through March, Lewis said.

“Last year was dry too, but it seemed like we had some good storms that caught us up to normal by the end of wintertime,” she said.

The NWS Climate Prediction Center website shows a probability of below-normal rainfall in its three-month outlook, but the weather service isn’t concerned yet.

“As far as rivers, there isn’t any alarm as far as them being too low on our end,” Lewis said.

Rainfall isn’t the only factor in river levels, and the Hoopa Tribe has already raised concerns about the Bureau of Reclamation’s release of dammed water into the Klamath River.

In a press release, the Hoopa Tribe said the bureau is seeking approval “for a controversial water plan that reduces water for salmon, even though flows had to be supplemented with Trinity River flows last year to keep salmon alive.”

The tribe seeks to avoid a repeat of low releases in the early 2000s, which they say led to the death of 60,000 salmon.

“After the fish kill, millions were invested in the Klamath and Trinity Rivers to restore salmon,” tribal chairman Leonard Masten said in the release. “These efforts made last year’s record run of salmon possible.”

Newman recommended that people with a stake in the ocean fishing season voice their opinion at a public hearing Tuesday with the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

“That’s where fishermen can go and basically tell the council how they’d like the options changed or what option they favor,” he said. “Often times, whatever is accepted by the council is a combination of alternatives.”

Whatever is chosen, ocean fishing looks to thrive for the second year in a row.

“We’re all excited after a couple of bad years five years ago,” Klassen said. “It’s nice to see things rebounded so quickly and so strongly. It gives us hope for the future.”

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First U.S. City Bans Plastic Water Bottles

3/20/13

Concord, Massachusetts has become one of the first communities in the U.S. to ban the sale of single-serving plastic water bottles.

According to the Associated Press, the plastic bottle ban resulted from a three-year campaign by local activists. The activists pushed to reduce waste and fossil fuel use.

Octogenarian Jean Hill lead the charge, telling The New York Times in a 2010 interview, "The bottled water companies are draining our aquifers and selling it back to us." She declared, “I’m going to work until I drop on this."

The campaign Ban the Bottle claims that "It takes 17 million barrels of oil per year to make all the plastic water bottles used in the U.S. alone. That's enough oil to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year." Their website also states: "In 2007, Americans consumed over 50 billion single serve bottles of water. With a recycling rate of only 23%, over 38 billion bottles end up in landfills."

According to the EPA, in 2010, the U.S. generated 31 million tons of plastic waste.

The Town of Concord's website describes the bylaw, stating "It shall be unlawful to sell non-sparkling, unflavored drinking water in single-serving polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles of 1 liter (34 ounces) or less in the Town of Concord on or after January 1, 2013." There is an exemption for an "emergency adversely affecting the availability and/or quality of drinking water to Concord residents."

The first offense results in a warning, the second in a $25 fine, and the third (and each following offense) in a $50 fine. Concord's Health Division staff are in charge of enforcing the ban.

Plans take shape for a Community Forest near Eureka

From County Supervisor Mark Lovelace's Facebook page, 2/25/13

The County of Humboldt is working with Green Diamond Resource Company and the Trust for Public Lands on a proposal to establish a community forest on the property known as the McKay Tract, located southeast of Eureka near Cutten and Myrtletown. Depending on the amount of funding available, the community forest could range from approximately 775 acres up to 1,415 acres.

This proposal is part of a larger effort by Green Diamond to place a conservation easement over the remainder of their land within the McKay Tract. These remaining lands would continue to be owned by Green Diamond and managed for timber production, while preventing any future conversion to non-timber use. Combined, some 7,500 acres would be permanently protected from development.

The Trust for Public Land is working to raise $6.5 million from a variety of federal, state, and private funding sources for this acquisition, and has already been awarded $1 million from the California River Parkways Program and another $1 million from the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program. If all goes well, acquisition could occur as soon as late 2013.

After purchase, the Trust for Public Lands would convey the land to the County of Humboldt, who would manage the community forest for sustainable timber, public access, recreation and watershed and habitat protection, in a manner similar to the Arcata Community Forest. The forest would become economically self-sustaining over time, with development and maintenance of trails financed through revenues from selective timber management.

The County plans to hold a public meeting in April to provide a project update and receive initial feedback from the community. This feedback will help guide the ongoing development of the management plan. Interested community members can send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to sign up for periodic e-mail updates.

Alaska House Passes Resolution Opposing Genetically Engineered Salmon

2/21/13

The Alaska House of Representatives has come out against genetically engineered salmon, or as critics call it, “Frankenfish.”

Representatives unanimously approved House Joint Resolution 5 on Wednesday. It urges the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reconsider a preliminary finding that genetically modified fish would not significantly impact the environment. The resolution also urges the agency to require labeling for GM salmon, if the product is ultimately approved.

The legislation was sponsored by Anchorage Democrat Geran Tarr. She says genetically engineered fish has not been proven safe.

“The resolution opposes this move for three reasons,” Tarr said on the House floor. “Threats to wild salmon stocks; threats to human health and consumer confidence in wild Alaska salmon; and potential negative economic impact on our wild seafood industry.”

The House joins the Parnell administration, the state’s Congressional delegation, and thousands of Alaskans represented by seafood industry groups in opposing genetically modified fish.

The resolution now goes to the state Senate.

Massachusetts-based biotech company AquaBounty petitioned the FDA to approve the genetically engineered fish — an Atlantic salmon with genes from a Chinook salmon and an eel-like fish to make it grow faster. The company has spent nearly $70 million dollars since forming in 1991.
The FDA recently extended the public comment period on AquaBounty’s petition through April 26th.

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Hybrid levees proposed for San Francisco Bay

2/23/13

As global warming escalates, San Francisco Bay's existing flood protection system will be no match for rising sea levels. But according to a new report by a Bay Area environmental group, fortifying the bay's shoreline with levees fronted by restored tidal marshes will be a cheaper, more aesthetic and ecologically sensitive alternative to traditional levees.

The Bay Institute's report proposes restoring tidal marshes with sediment from local flood control channels and irrigating the marshes with treated wastewater. The plan also calls for "horizontal levees" that are a hybrid of traditional earthen levees and restored marshes.

Tidal marsh restoration in the bay has been a priority for environmental groups since the 1970s. More than 5,000 acres have been restored in the past two decades, with another 30,000 acres purchased and slated for restoration.

"Marshes act as the lungs of the bay," said John Bourgeois, manager of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. "They can clean and filter the water that comes down our tributaries before it hits the bay."

The tall, dense vegetation of tidal marshes can also absorb a significant amount of the energy of surging ocean waves during storms. "The concept is a good one. The physics of it are accurate," said Lisamarie Windham-Myers, a wetland ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. "It's been proven over and over that wetlands help reduce storm surges." Therefore, she said, levees don't have to be as tall.

The Bay Institute estimates that shorter levees fronted by tidal marshes would bring down the cost from more than $12 million to less than $7 million per mile, while providing the same level of flood protection. With 275 miles of bay shoreline to protect, total savings could eventually exceed more than a billion dollars.

"We knew the cost would be reduced, but we were shocked at the actual savings," said Marc Holmes, the Bay Institute's marsh restoration program director.

Funds to build and maintain levees have come over the years in piecemeal chunks from the federal government and local floodplain control agencies. The result has been a patchwork quilt of aging earthen levees, designed to protect against present-day sea levels.

Though rising sea levels are a concern, winter storms riding in on higher tides can cause the most havoc. "In the next century, we're going to get more storms, fiercer storms," Holmes said. "Locations that were once outside of the danger zone are now inside, simply because storms are arriving on higher sea levels."

The goal of the Bay Institute study was to find a way to build a cost-effective network of levees that could lessen the flood threat caused by storm surges, while also providing benefits to the environment. The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project is considering a similar "horizontal levee" for its Alviso flood protection plan, which will be released later this year.