This is a very interesting article from fish wrap, A weekly "everything to-do with fishing" article in the local marin paper.
Mike Aughney of Petaluma, editor of USAfishing.com and an author of its noted Northern California fishing "hotsheet" newsletter, has a warning for Marin residents who favor salmon. Enjoy those wild, local salmon filets while you can. The Marin food fan who enjoys salmon should know that the government is literally killing this incredible fishery," Aughney said. Salmon are vanishing because of the massive diversion of water from the Delta for southern agricultural interests, a program that is sucking up water along with baby fish, habitat and feed.
"If we don't get some new water policies in place soon, our Central Valley salmon fisheries will be lost forever,"; he warned.
Aughney, a native of Novato and former commercial fisherman who works as a Marin water district foreman, said the salmon fishery has "completely collapsed in three short years,"a tragedy that should resonate with those who focus on "how and where their food is caught, grown and produced."
It's a bleak picture:
- Water exports from the Delta have increased 25 percent in three years, with 2 million acre feet alone going to subsidized cotton growers who get both water and crop subsidies from taxpayers. Basically cotton farmers are harvesting water
to get their subsidy checks which can reach as high as $500,000 per farm," he said. "We need to stop growing cotton and other crops that are unprofitable without subsidies, have a high impact on the environment and enrich only a few wealthy farmers." - Delta plankton that baby salmon and other fry feed on is vanishing, decreasing by as much as 90 percent, and experts blame sharp cutbacks in fresh water flows caused by water exports. "Baby salmon are literally staving to death in the Delta," Aughney said.
- The Department of Fish and Game's Fall Trawl fish survey, which studies fish populations at 116 bay and Delta sites, found the American shad and longfin smelt populations at the lowest levels on record, Delta smelt at the second lowest level, and juvenile striped bass at the third lowest level ever.
- The lowest central valley salmon runs on record were logged in 2007, and this year looks even bleaker.
Just as Vice President Dick Cheney orchestrated the water diversion from the Klamath River to help agricultural interests in 2002, a move that killed 75,000 salmon, Republican administration officials are at the heart of the crisis. The federal Bureau of Reclamation is signing 50-year water contracts without regard for fish. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is boosting a $9 billion water bond program to build dams and a peripheral canal to divert even more water from the Delta.
Residents need to fight back - or kiss bay estuary marine life goodbye, not to mention local salmon entrees.
"Please tell the governor that you don't support his water plan and that you want to see our local salmon fisheries returned to health," Aughney said.
To learn more, check out water4fish.org.
To drop a note to the Schwarzenegger administration, e-mail governor@governor.ca.gov
Good job Daara. Sad but true. I dont think were gonna see any real changes anytime soon so the downward spiral of our fisheries is gonna most likely continue.
