75,000 smolts die in transit

[AaronAgner]

Redding, CA - Record Searchlight
By Dylan Darling
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Almost half the salmon haul didn't make it to the coast

Jeff Freund, a driver with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, checks the levels on a tanker truck as 6-month-old fall-run Chinook salmon are loaded in for transport at the Coleman National Fish Hatchery at 4:30 a.m. Monday. The truck was headed for San Pablo Bay. En route, 75,000 of the 100,000 on board died. Another truck carrying 80,000 smolts arrived with the fish intact.

Six month-old fall-run Chinook salmon wait to be loaded into a truck at Coleman National Fish Hatchery early Monday.
Long haul for smolts
In an experiment to see how hauling young fall-run Chinook salmon impacts ocean stocks, and to see how many return to the hatchery, 1.4 million smolts are being trucked to San Pablo Bay from Coleman National Fish Hatchery. Another 11.2 million smolts were released into the Sacramento River system from the hatchery in April. Here are some numbers associated with the haul:

• 300 river miles to the ocean, swam by smolts released at the hatchery.

• 200 miles of highway, covered by trucks hauling the smolts.

• 300 pounds of ice originally added to each truck to keep the water cool; that number will be increased to 600 pounds.

• 200 pounds of salt, added to the water in each truck to help the fish avoid shock.

• $800 worth of diesel burned per day by the trucks.

• $20,000 cost of trucking the smolts.

• Source: Scott Hamelberg, manager, Coleman National Fish Hatchery.

About 75,000 of 180,000 young fall-run Chinook salmon being hauled in tanker trucks from

Coleman National Fish Hatchery in Anderson to San Pablo Bay near Vallejo Monday died.

"We are kind of in the stages of trying to figure out what went wrong," Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery's manager, said early Monday afternoon. "It's part of the risk of trucking fish."

About 41 percent of the smolts being trucked Monday died.

Scientists plan to perform necropsies -- animal autopsies -- on some of the dead smolts to determine their cause of death, said Alexandra Pitts, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento.

"They are going to see what they can see in them, which can tell them a lot more of what happened," she said.

It was likely a problem with the oxygen level in the fish's water that caused their deaths, Hamelberg said. The 2,500-gallon truck carried about 100,000 fish.

A second, smaller tanker truck got its load of the 6-month old fish to the bay unscathed, he taken such a drastic step, one that is jeopardizing the $150 million West Coast salmon industry.

Unfavorable ocean conditions, habitat destruction, dam operations, agricultural pollution and climate change are among the potential causes.

Historically, 1 million to 3 million chinook salmon spawned annually in the streams that tumbled out of the western Sierra Nevada. This year, just 50,000 are expected to return to the Central Valley river systems.

Yates' research projects that an increase in air temperature of 3.6 degrees to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit could be lethal for the young winter-run and spring-run salmon in the Sacramento River. The increase in water temperatures would vary depending on the depth and flows of the river.

Studies have shown that high water temperatures have wide-ranging and potentially fatal consequences for salmon, who generally need water temperatures lower than 68 degrees when they return to fresh water. It reduces their swimming ability, increases their vulnerability to disease and leads to lower growth rates. Spawning females require even colder water of 57 degrees for their eggs to live and juvenile salmon migrate back to the ocean more successfully when the river is no more than 64 degrees.

Higher water temperatures can be offset if federal water managers preserved the cold water stored behind Shasta Dam, near the head of the Sacramento River, and released it when the salmon head upriver. Salmon that once headed far upstream to cooler, mountain streams are now forced to spawn in valley waters because the dam blocks their path.

Thanks to an $80 million temperature control device installed in 1997, the managers of Shasta Dam at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation already are tweaking flows down the river to keep them cooler, said Larry Ball, operations chief for the Bureau's Northern California Area Office.

"We try to optimize the use of the cold water pool of Lake Shasta," he said.

The giant metal device bolted to the dam allows flows to be drawn from the lake's deep, cold water, he said.

Such management of cold water is not an option on rivers that aren't dammed.

"Very pristine places are probably more vulnerable to climate change because we don't have the knobs to turn to manage them," Yates said in an interview with the AP.

Releasing cold reservoir water for salmon at certain times of the year would require a shift in strategy regarding how the state's water is apportioned for farmers and some 23 million Californians.

Reassessing how California's water is managed is one of the recommendations to be released Thursday as part of a separate report by the National Wildlife Federation and the California-based Planning and Conservation League. The report, which relies in part on Yates' study, illustrates how California's fish, waterfowl and other species will struggle to survive over the next century as climate change alters their habitat.

"We need to take a step back and look at how we're going to manage water in a more comprehensive manner and save salmon," said Mindy McIntyre, a water specialist at the Planning and Conservation League.

State scientists say climate change could lead to more winter flooding, summer droughts, warmer rivers and streams, and rising seas that will push salt water farther upstream from San Francisco Bay.

Temperature spikes are particularly worrisome for cold water fish, such as salmon, steelhead and the state fish, the California golden trout, according to research compiled in the National Wildlife Federation report.

The state and federal governments operate 40 dams and reservoirs that were built primarily between the 1930s and the 1970s to tame California's flood-prone rivers and store spring snowmelt. The reservoirs supply drinking water to about two-thirds of state residents and irrigation water to farmers throughout the Central Valley.

Construction of Friant Dam north of Fresno, for example, wiped out salmon runs on the San Joaquin River.

"Fish are the ones that don't have a voice," said Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist at the National Wildlife Federation. "We're not saying those other uses aren't important, we just need to ensure fish are in the mix."

Farmers and cities that depend on Northern California's water already are grappling with less water than they have been used to in the past.

That's in part because of a federal judge's directive last year that state and federal water managers restrict pumping out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by as much as 30 percent. The cutback was ordered to protect the threatened delta smelt.

Those pumping restrictions, coupled with last year's drought and dry conditions in March and April, have left the state's reservoirs lower than normal. As a result, water deliveries have been reduced significantly.

The cutbacks have increased calls by Central Valley farmers, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District and water managers in the San Francisco Bay area to build more dams and consider sending fresh water around the delta by canal or underground pipe.

[Jason Milligan]

So where are they expected to return and spawn, the Golden Gate Bridge? What a bunch of weak lil sissy fish. I bet you a tanker full of bug eyed sow bellies woulda made it all the way to Texas...

[Phil]

Is there anything wrong with putting the salmon back in the streams, creeks , rivers whence they came from once apon a time ?
River is very cold and good up at Redding, Keswick dam area !

Jigs

[Paul W]

So where are they expected to return and spawn, the Golden Gate Bridge? What a bunch of weak lil sissy fish. I bet you a tanker full of bug eyed sow bellies woulda made it all the way to Texas...

It's a shame Salmon fishing is in such trouble, it used to be such a solid fishery!! And I sure as heck wouldnt call Salmon "sissy fish", considering they swim thousands of miles and have to overcome numerous obstacles just to spawn. Not to mention they fight about 5 times longer than a comparably sized Bass.

Paul W

[Steve]

Hey Jigs, temps are fine far upstream, but once they get downstream they face a plethora of problems including high temps, predators, pumps, etc. One of the problems with trucking is that the homing instinct is imprinted sequentially through time as the smolts are making their way to the ocean. Truck them to the bays and they dont get that imprint or the "full map home". Its like creating a GPS route that is lacking too many waypoints! The result is increased straying and gentic introgression which through time leads to decreased genetic diversity. But, at least the commercial guys in the ocean are happy!

[basshunter4u]

OK here is what bothers me. The salmon problem as they say starts with the lack of water diverted other places whether its for agriculture in the valley or going through the pumps down to LA. What irritated me is when I went down to Ventura to fish the HBC and it was raining all the way there, was that we saw the sprinklers wattering the freeway center divide trees in the middle of the day in pouring rain. Thats just wrong. Delta water wasted down in SO CAL. Now I get a phone call that says I need to cut back my water consumption 19 %. Yeah right I already conserve the best I can and now they want another 19%. I use water saver shower heads water efficient appliances shower only once a day with a hair wash every other, extra 30 seconds due to lack of dew, and water my lawn once a week just to keep it bairly alive. What we need to do is split the state in half keep the delta water up here and make SO Cal build more watersheds to store more water and build Salt removal water plants like they do in Hawaii. In the long run we can make it work but we have to start somewhere and watering the freeways in the rain doesnt cut it. My nickels worth

[Kevin]

I guess in return, we'll trade you our Quagga mussels for your water.

[troutnut]

we'll keep our water, you keep your Quagga Mussels.

[snapitoff2002]

If they would have let me truck them over there, I wouldn't have shaken them up so bad! What did they expect?!!! All those turns and fish slamming all over the place. Autopsy? No thanks.. don't spend any more of my money.

[aNNieNsaLTIE]

The 2,500-gallon truck carried about 100,000 fish. -dumb!

less that a gallon per fish to breathe!

C'mon anyone who just visits a simple aquarium store or has a imagination could tell this transport is a risk!

40 little salmons swimming in a 1 gallon jug of crystal geyser you buy off the shelf in Safeway, Gimme a Break! those fish died of suffocation.

Imagine beinb in a car on a long trip to Oregon in a Honda Civic with w/ 40 infants in a car, will you make it?

I think I am out of line...........
Steven

[mark poulson]

We need long term solutions to the water problems, like more dams, and desalinization plants.
Even if they don't seem cost effective, how much is a water starved agricultural industry, low river level fish dieoffs, and industry relocation to better water sources going to cost?

[dockboy]

Mark, you have a good point. We need to find more ways to get water. Unfournately, we can't place more dams and expect the salmon to survive. It would solve much of the problem, yes, but the potential environmental results for posterity could be even more mind boggling than the dam situations now. For short term, there is much to be done around LA. First off, limit excessive watering and waste like Las Vegas or Phoenix does. We live in a desert down here people. Its more natural to have a rock garden or low water, drought tolerant one than acres of lush grass that takes hundreds of gallons of water a day. I have friends in Phoenix that pay in the tens of thousands each year to keep lush lawns. Make our excessive water usage rates that high around here, and a lot of the waste will stop. Also, bonuses should be given to those who turn to low cost and drought resistant gardens in the form of water rate vouchers or something similiar. People will respond if they recieve something in return. Second, we need to find ways to increase recycling of used water, like sewage treatment plants except for runoff from residential areas. Treat and recycle water for reuse in the same residential areas. And remember, we can't just point the finger at SoCal. The northern rice fields take up much of the Delta water. Yet, much of the rice we grow here is exported, and much of what we buy is imported rice from eastern and southern Asia. If we are going to import most of the rice we buy, we probably should stop growing so much here at home, shouldn't we? Its the little things like that that make a difference.
In the long term, the only option I see is desalinization plants. They are prohibitively expensive, and aren't the most efficient, but for now, I see them as the only real option for alternative water. The seas are predicted to rise over the next 50 years. Why not make use of a growing resource? LA is lucky, and so is most of the heavily inhabited parts of the West Coast. We're close enough for desalinization to work for many of the most populated cities in California. We already ruined our few steelhead and salmon fisheries around here nearly 60 years ago, lets no ruin the remaining fisheries by ignoring the potential alternatives at hand.