I use an admittedly imprecise technique to monitor the health of the Sacramento River's salmon. Several times during November and December, I walk onto the Diestelhorst Bridge in Redding and peer down at the river.
Back in the 1990s, I often spotted half a dozen or more salmon within a couple minutes. This year, I saw very few salmon. Same story last year. On my two most recent trips to the Diestelhorst Bridge, I saw not a single swimming salmon or post-spawning carcass.
A buddy of mine whose passion is fishing says that back in the 1970s, the Sacramento River through the Redding and Red Bluff areas was thick with salmon and steelhead. These days, he doesn't even bother angling for anadromous fish (species that live in the ocean but spawn in freshwater) because there are so few.
I don't pretend to be a biologist, and I'm extremely wary of drawing broad conclusions based on personal anecdotes. What I know is that I used to see fish in the river every fall and early winter, and now I don't.
All of this comes to mind because of a story in Friday's Sacramento Bee that says the National Marine Fisheries Service will soon release a report that concludes California's water system is driving salmon, steelhead and sturgeon to extinction. Essentially, we've mucked up the natural system so much that the fish can't survive.
The most immediate upshot of the NMFS findings could be new federal mandates on the operation of the State Water Project and Central Valley Project to ensure that fish have enough water at the right times. In other words, less water for cities and farms.
We'll be writing a lot about water, especially the Bay Delta, in coming months. I'm not confident we're going to get to report much good news for fish or people.
- Paul Shigley
