BE HEARD
Here’s what South San Joaquin Irrigation District suggests you can do to save fishing along the Stanislaus River, water sports recreation at New Melones, as well as protect farm and city water for the South County:
• Get the facts, be informed.
• Call or write your congressional representatives and the California Department of Fish and Game and ask what they are doing about predation and the biological opinion.
• Write letters to your local newspaper.
• Visit www.SavetheStan.com for more information and details on how you can help.
It’s not exactly “Jaws” but the predators that lurk in the Stanislaus River unmercifully attack the young.
And how federal authorities might respond to come to the aid of the young may lay waste to the Stanislaus River from New Melones Dam to the San Joaquin River by figuratively scalding fish to death while at the same time threatens to decimate large swaths of agriculture and choke the economic development of cities like Stockton.
The predators are the wildly popular striped bass that lures professional sportsmen to this neck of the woods in chase of $100,000 purses. The young are native salmon and steelhead struggling to survive.
And the solution is substantially increasing the flow of the Stanislaus River by drawing down water levels in New Melones Reservoir. Independent experts argue that is the wrong answer based on the wrong conclusion which is low water flows are responsible for declining steelhead and salmon numbers on the Stanislaus River and in the Delta.
That solution is a so-called “biological opinion”. It would require draining much of the New Melones in the summer when water is needed the most for agriculture and urban uses. The idea is to bring the cooling water down to flood the lower Stanislaus. But there are two problems with the solution. No one bothered to consult with South San Joaquin Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District that have the right to 600,000 acre feet that is key to the federal plan plus the original Melones Dam.
will kill off fish in Stanislaus
The original reservoir built in 1925 was left in place when the two irrigation district agreed to allow the Bureau of Reclamation to build the much larger 2.1 million acre-foot New Melones Reservoir a relatively short distance downstream. At some point in releases, water levels will be low enough to reach the top of the original Melones Dam that holds back 600,000 acre feet. When that happens, water will flow over the top as there is no way to release it at the base. As a result, water closer to the surface that is considerably warmer than water released from the bottom of a reservoir will flow downstream and start raising the temperature of the water.
And while OID and SSJID have made headway in working with federal agencies to get them to reconsider their biological opinion that ignored the non-native striped bass are the main cause of declining steelhead and salmon numbers, state agencies that regulate fish have refused to consider the possibility they are making a big mistake.
What changed some minds at the federal government level were years of scientific data gleaned by the two districts as part of an ongoing stewardship of the Stanislaus River that includes spending upwards of $1 million annually on studies and ecological improvements.
It also helped that two water agencies have plenty of video that shows bass feeding frenzies preying on young steelhead and salmon.
The clever bass wait patiently behind pumps for the young salmon and steelhead to reach them. Then, once they do, the bass strike in a display of intense gluttony that can completely annihilate entire schools of fish.
“We have had data collecting where tracking devices on three tagged salmon show they are swimming side by side for a miles that isn’t normal,” noted SSJID General Manager Jeff Shields. “Then we find out that they were eaten by the same bass.”
Although the California Wildlife and Fish Commission is turning a deaf ear to the case being made by SSJID and OIID, the agency has altered its releasing of young salmon and steelhead into the rivers after discovering bass have learned to wait patiently at the repeat locations where the native fish are dumped into the river.
“They’re smart fish,” Shields said of the bass.
Save the Stan effort
The two agencies shave launched a campaign dubbed “Save the Stan” in a bid to educate and alert not only farmers and city residents in Manteca, Lathrop, and Tracy they serve with water but also water recreational enthusiasts and those who like to fish.
The Save the Stan effort emphasizes there is no “silver bullet” and that water flow isn’t the only factor responsible for the decline of the Delta. Among the “stressors” they list are unscreened in-Delta diversions, upstream diversions, in-Delta pumping, agricultural run-off and discharges, toxic urban run-off, municipal wastewater discharges, state and federal pumps, power plant diversions, industrial discharges and invasive species that are predators on native fish such as the salmon and steelhead
“The SSJID and Oakdale (Irrigation District) are literally in a fight for our lives,” noted Shields.
That fight centers around the biological opinion that is a federal mandate issued by the national Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to protect salmon and steelhead.
The opinion:
•affects operation of the river and reservoirs.
•calls for more water down the Stanislaus.
•operates on the theory more water equates to more fish.
Shields contends the opinion is based on inadequate study and faulty science and did not use river temperature modeling. Nor did it have consideration for “human” or economic impacts and no one consulted the districts.
“They just assumed that because it (New Melones) is a federal dam that there were no local water rights involved,” noted OID General Manager Steve Knell.
The two agencies have trekked to the appropriate agencies in Washington, D.C., including the Bureau of Reclamation and NMFS to provide data they have been collecting at the cost of $1 million a year as part of their constant stewardship of the Stanislaus River.
The data - based on modeling using releases to satisfy the biological opinion - would mean if next year is an average water year New Melones would go dry. It also notes that thanks to the existence of the original Melones Dam with just an overspill release that the cold water pool willdisappear and send warmer water downstream and end of killing the very fish the federal government is seeking to save.
The end result would also be less water for agriculture. That in turn creates a problem for the City of Stockton as SSJID would not have any water
to spare to sell to them via east Stockton to supply urban needs. It would curtail recreation and water sports. It also would mean the loss of jobs in farming and support industries.
The district contends predation is the real problem with 95 percent of the biomass in the river being non-native. Some estimates put the loss to predators between 30 to 50 percent of the total loss of native fish species.
The Stanislaus River currently stands as one of the best cold water trout and steelhead rives in the state.
protect bass finishing
industry first & foremost
That has been made part on possible by almost ideal conditions terms of granite formations and river configuration. It has been helped by district projects such as adult salmon and steelhead passage, juvenile salmon and steelhead downstream migration, non-native predator and competitor monitoring, Honolulu Bar floodplain enhancement project, and the Stanislaus River temperature model.
The long term impacts would put a severe strain on ground water and would mean the fourth largest man-made lake in California - New Melones - would not have any water for much of the year.
One alternative solution suggested by the federal government which is to remove all limits and seasons on bass to reduce the population of the non-native bass has been essentially rejected by the state that appears intent on protecting the bass fishing industry first and foremost.