Calif. farmers say feds make drought worse

USA Today
By William M. Welch
July 28, 2009

FIREBAUGH, Calif. - The road to Todd Allen's farm wends past irrigation canals filled with the water that California's hot Central Valley depends on to produce vegetables and fruit for the nation. Yet not a drop will make it to his barren fields.

Three years into a drought that evokes fears of a modern-day dust bowl, Allen and others here say the culprit now isn't Mother Nature so much as the federal government. Court and regulatory rulings protecting endangered fish have choked the annual flow of water from California's Sierra mountains down to its people and irrigated fields, compounding a natural dry spell.

Computer models improve salmon passage

Treehugger
By Michael Graham Richard
July 27, 2009

Many populations of Chinook Salmon are endangered, and hydropower dams are not making things betters. But is there a way to mitigate their impact? Part of the problem is that predators (like the pikeminnow) gather in the shallow waters downstream of the dam and devour passing salmon. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) decided to do something about that, so they tracked about 4,140 young salmon with a system they call Juvenile Salmon Acoustic Telemetry System (JSATS), and using computer models they figured out a way to get more salmon to pass safely. More details below.

Sockeye salmon numbers crash

Vancouver Sun
By David Karp
July 27, 2009

What was supposed to be a bountiful year for the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery -- the height of the four-year cycle -- is beginning to look like a bust.

Returns are so low for early Stuart sockeye, the first run of the season, that the Pacific Salmon Commission has lowered its estimate by 48 per cent.

Marine pest species costing billions in damage

Science Daily
July 26, 2009

Marine pest species costing billions in damage to fisheries, coastal communities and infrastructure are spreading as the world's shipping nations continue to largely neglect bringing into effect an international treaty setting out requirements for consistent handling and treatment of ships' ballast water.

Silent Invasion, a new report issued by WWF as International Maritime Organization (IMO) delegates met to consider environmental aspects of shipping in London July 13, details 24 cases where significant marine pests were most likely introduced or spread through discharges of ships ballast water during the five years in which the Convention on the Control and Management of Ship's Ballast Water and Sediments was ratified by only one of the world's top ten shipping states.

Colville tribes to get new salmon hatchery

The Seattle Times
July 26, 2009

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation plan to break ground next spring on a $41 million hatchery to boost salmon runs on the Upper Columbia River.

The Bonneville Power Administration will pay for the Chief Joseph Hatchery, compensation for the Grand Coulee Dam, which cut off salmon runs to the upper third of the Columbia Basin. The Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council approved money for hatchery's construction in May.

Southern California pins rain hopes on fickle El Nino

Contra Costa Times
By Zeke Barlow
July 25. 2009

Bill Patzert calls it the "great wet hope."

"You say `El Nino' and everyone's eyes light up," said Patzert, a climatologist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

So when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently predicted that El Nino conditions were returning, some started dreaming of a season flush with water that could drag Southern California out of its drought.

Forecast: record 700,000 coho headed for Columbia

The Columbia Basin Bulletin
July 24, 2009

It's almost time for a changing of the fishing seasons on the Columbia-Snake river mainstem, and in the ocean and tributaries as well.

None of the soon-to-open fisheries is expected to draw more interest than the Aug. 1 start of the Buoy 10 fishery in the Columbia River estuary, according Heather Bartlett, a fishery manager at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Report urges efficiency as a solution to water wars

GreenBiz
July 23, 2009

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The state of California, currently in the midst of a three-year-long drought, is facing significant pressures on its water supply from a combination of factors: The drought is reducing overall availability while a booming population and the state's abundant agricultural productivity are driving demand ever higher.

The result is an ongoing battle for water rights, between agricultural interests, conservation and wildlife advocates, and water for growing urban areas.

Dutch Harbor Alaska remains top fishing port

NOAA
July 22, 2009

Commercial fishermen unloaded 612.7 million pounds of fish and shellfish at the port of Dutch Harbor-Unalaska, Alaska, in 2008, mostly pollock, making it the country's top port for the amount of fish landed for the 20th consecutive year, NOAA's Fisheries Service announced today.

The port of New Bedford, Mass., claimed the top spot for value of landings for the ninth year in a row, primarily due to sea scallops, bringing in $241.3 million in 2008. The port's total landings were down 3.6 million pounds and the value declined by $27.6 million from 2007 primarily due to a significant drop in scallop landings.

Court brings drop of sanity to water limits

The Record Searchlight
By Tom Elias
July 21, 2009

At long last a federal court has recognized that efforts to save the endangered delta smelt actually have some impact on humans and non-marine parts of the environment.

This sea change means that effects on humans will also be considered in appeals of another federal effort, this one to revive river spawning of Chinook salmon.

Endangered turtles released in Columbia Gorge

KTAU News
July 21, 2009

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Oregon Zoo released nearly 60 endangered western pond turtles back to the wild on Monday. The release was overseen by children involved in the Gorge Explorers' Summer Stewards program.

These endanged Washington turtles have spent the past 11 months under lights, simulating perpetual summer, inside the Oregon Zoo. "The lights trick the turtles into thinking it's still summer so they don't go into hibernation," said David Shepherdson, the zoo's conservation program scientist. "The turtles grow and grow, experiencing three years' growth in 11 months."

Giant Alaskan blob mystery solved

Fox News
July 21, 2009

That big, oily black blob floating in the Arctic north of Alaska? Perfectly natural, say scientists.

"We got the results back from the lab today," Ed Meggert of the state Department of Environmental Conservation told the Anchorage Daily News late last week. "It was marine algae."

Action brings sense to muddy water issue

Visalia Times-Delta
By Don Curlee
July 20, 2009

It might be just a trickle, but a stream of hope for improving California's overly regulated water supply began to flow recently.

The crack in the levee occurred because of two important decisions.

Judge Oliver Wanger, a U. S. district judge in Fresno, has been intimately involved in decisions involving water and who controls its flow. He ruled against those who want to prevent water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from flowing south where farmers and 23 million people in Southern California can make good use of it.

Drought spotlights region's patchwork water supply

The San Francisco Chronicle
By Kelly Zito
July 20, 2009

Ana Sarver jogs 5 miles along the Contra Costa Canal every day. But water from the 10-foot-wide channel, just a few steps from Sarver's front door in Pleasant Hill, doesn't flow through her taps.

Her water comes from the Mokelumne River basin - 100 miles away in the Sierra Nevada.

Alaska fish counters weigh the scales

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
By Tim Mowry
July 19, 2009

FAIRBANKS - Like a ghost, the fish appeared out of nowhere, but it didn't escape the polarized eye of Virgil Davis.

"There's a king," Davis announced, pointing to a dark form floating over a patch of rocks in the Chena River at the Moose Creek Dam, on which Davis was standing Thursday afternoon.

Leatherbacks feast off the coast

Monterey County Herald
By Lily Dayton
July 19, 2009

When people think of Monterey Bay, they envision otters, humpbacks, historic schools of sardines -- but turtles?
Many people don't realize that the Central Coast is one of the destinations for the seasonal migration of the Pacific leatherback turtle.

This species travels 7,000 miles from nesting beaches in Indonesia to feast on jelly fish that populate the West Coast in the summer and fall. It takes the mariners a year to journey one-third of the way around the world before arriving at nutrient-rich waters in Monterey Bay. This is the longest migration documented for any in-water vertebrate.

Global ocean surface temperature warmest on record

NOAA
July 17, 2009

The world's ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for June, breaking the previous high mark set in 2005, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Additionally, the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for June was second-warmest on record. The global records began in 1880.

Over 1,000 Snake River sockeye reach lower granite

The Columbia Basin Bulletin
July 17, 2009

Last year's huge adult Snake River sockeye salmon run sent Columbia River fishery scientists scurrying for some answers -- what could have boosted spawner returns to the Sawtooth Hatchery and Redfish Lake Creek to 650 adult fish after the run had averaged fewer than 40 annually over the previous nine years?

That nine-year average includes a return of 257 in 2000 but only two other years of double-digit returns.

Delta drilling planned for canal

Stockton Record
By Alex Breitler
July 16, 2009

SACRAMENTO - State water officials plan to drill into Delta river bottoms starting next month as they explore possible intake sites for a peripheral canal.

The drilling is further evidence that the canal is no longer just a concept on paper as officials move toward on-the-ground analyses and surveys.

Feds make grab for OID, SSJID water in Melones

The Modesto Bee
By Steve Knell
July 15, 2009

Early in June, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a Biological Opinion on the impacts of the State Water Project and federal water project on endangered salmon and steelhead fish populations.

Both projects pump water out of the Delta to send water to Southern California and it is these actions that the opinion addressed. It stated that in no uncertain terms, both salmon and steelhead were being harmed, and immediate and long-term actions are necessary to protect them.