Category Archives: Fish

Boating, Fish, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Drought-ravaged Folsom Lake rises 28.5 feet in just one month

 

Water-starved Folsom Lake is beginning to slowly fill up and recover from its lowest water levels ever.

The state’s ninth-largest reservoir, the main water source for the sprawling Sacramento suburbs, shrank to a mere 135,561 acre feet on Dec. 4, 2015. The previous lowest level at Folsom was 140,600 acre feet, recorded during the 1976–77 drought. An acre foot is enough water to flood an acre of land under a foot of water, and roughly the amount required by a family of four over a year.

With the recent rains, Folsom’s water level has risen 28.5 feet and the reservoir is now holding 246,497 acre feet of water.
“The lake continues to slowly rise,” Karl Swanberg, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Sacramento, said in an interview. “While this current storm isn’t dropping a lot of rain on Folsom, we’re getting runoff from the Sierra from past storms and some snow melt.”

The Central Sierra snow pack is at 107 percent of average and the American River, which feeds into Folsom, travels through these mountains.

That said, Swanberg adds the lake is still only at 25 percent capacity. “It’s kind of a good news, bad news situation,” he said. “The lake has risen 28.5 feet in the past month. However it’s still at 51 percent of average for this time of year.”

More at SFGate.com >>>

Boating, Fish, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Folsom Lake rises 12+ feet in 2 days

The wet weather this week in northern California left many Christmas travelers worried, and water experts smiling. Folsom Lake has gone up nearly 13 feet in just two days.

According to measurements from the California Bureau of Reclamation, the lake, which serves as a water source for many Sacramento-area neighborhoods, rose 12.6 feet.

There is similar good news from the Department of Water Resources, whose graph shows a sharp spike from this week’s storm. According to their measurements, Folsom Lake’s storage went from 16 percent of capacity on Monday to 19 percent capacity Wednesday.

More at ABC10.com >>>

Events, Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Salmon Move Into Nimbus Hatchery

Nimbus Fish Hatchery workers have counted a total of 2,765 fall-run Chinook salmon, including 789 jacks and jills (two-year-old fish), at the facility since the salmon ladder opened Monday, Nov. 2

Considering the low flows of 500 cfs, this return is surprisingly good. Last year at this time the hatchery staff had counted approximately 2950 salmon, including 350 adults.

The other good news is that the water temperature on the river has cooled down 5 to 7 degrees over one week.

“The water temperature has gone down to 55 to 57 degrees, depending on which gauge you go by,” said Gary Novak, hatchery manager. “That’s phenomenal; last year the water temperature didn’t cool down to this temperature until the middle of November.”

The hatchery has spawned salmon three times to date. Novak noted that many of the fish at the facility are still “green,” not ready for spawning yet.

The 300,000 juvenile steelhead that will be released into the river system next February have also returned to the hatchery, after spending the summer at the Feather River Fish Hatchery in Oroville, due to high water temperatures at Nimbus.

A record low number of Central Valley steelhead, listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, returned to the American River in January, February and March of 2015 and December of 2014. Only 143 adult steelhead returned to Nimbus Fish Hatchery during this time. In good years, the hatchery has trapped between 2000 and 4000 adult steelhead.

More at IndyBay.org >>>

Boating, Fish, History, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Folsom Lake Water Level Shrinks To New Historic Low

The water level of Folsom Lake has dipped to a new historic low.

On Sunday the lake level was measured at 140,410 acre feet. The previous record was set in November 1977 when the lake decreased to 140,600 acre feet.

Recent rain has provided a little help, but there’s still a long way to go.

“We may have a very wet winter, but if we don’t have dramatic snowfall and so forth we’ve got to still be conscious we’re still living through this drought,” he Rep. Ami Bera during a recent tour of the lake.

As has been long discussed, Bera says the state must find better ways to store water and he’s pushing the proposed Sites Reservoir, a potential water storage option west of Colusa. The planned reservoir would hold twice the water of Folsom Lake.

More at CBSLocal.com >>>

Bike Trail, Events, Fish, safety, Water, Wildlife

American River Parkway Cleanup Saturday In Sacramento

A clean-up is planned Saturday along a stretch of the American River Parkway in Sacramento.

The goal is to reduce potential pollution in the region’s two major rivers.

The American River Parkway Foundation is coordinating the clean-up of trash and other debris near the Northgate Blvd. area.

The foundation says some of the material is left by visitors and illegal campers. There’s also a bridge over the river nearby that gets a lot of foot traffic.

From food wrappers and cigarette butts, to large pieces of plywood and discarded barbecues, the trash can end up in the American River, and eventually downstream in the Sacramento River when river levels rise.

More at CapRadio.org >>>

Events, Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Fish Ladder Opens On American River

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is releasing water from the bottom of Folsom Lake in an effort to get the river temperature below 60 degrees.

Laura Drath with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife says that’s the temperature needed for fall-run chinook to spawn.

“We have water running down the ladder from the hatchery to the river,” she says. “And when the salmon feel that current their instinct is to swim up river. So, they’ll jump up the steps of the ladder, make their way up the ladder from the river to the hatchery where we can  take bring them inside and start spawning them and collecting those eggs.”

The Nimbus Hatchery on the American River will open its fish ladder Monday morning for spawning salmon.

Drath says it’s too early to say how many salmon will return to spawn.

More at CapRadio.org >>>

Boating, Fish, History, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Folsom Lake hits lowest depths in 20-plus years

Even as Sacramento waits for the soaking El Niño forecast to hit this fall, Folsom Lake continues to lose water and will almost certainly fall Thursday to its lowest level in more than 20 years, government data show.

Folsom Lake provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands of residents in the Sacramento region. Releases from the federal reservoir also serve as a bulwark against Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta saltwater intrusion, and are critical to maintaining the delicate ecosystem of the lower American River.

Folsom Lake became the face of California’s drought early last year when aerial photos of its moonscape lake bed were broadcast nationwide. At its lowest point last year, the lake level was the same as what the reservoir contained Wednesday. By Thursday, the reservoir is expected to fall to levels last seen in 1992, at the tail end of a five-year drought. And by month’s end, the depth likely will approach levels not seen since the great drought of 1977.

Area water officials said they are concerned about the dwindling supply but expressed relief that lake depths are not even lower. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the reservoir, initially warned that the lake could fall to 120,000 acre-feet by the end of September.

“The situation has been so rough,” said bureau spokesman Shane Hunt. “We are doing everything we can to make sure we maintain water supplies to homes.”

Still, he added, “We are better than a worst-case scenario.”

More at SacBee.com>>>
Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Drought could make salmon fishing conditions even worse

They also said they don’t think there were more than just a few fish in the water.

October is typically the most active time of year for salmon fishing, but that activity has slowed to a trickle because of the ongoing drought — and it could be about to get worse.

The Bureau of Reclamation last week reduced water flows into the river in an effort to store what little water remains at Folsom Lake. Less water typically means warmer water, and anglers say it has gotten too warm for the fish.

“We’ve been up and down the river, all the spots that we fish, they’re so low, you can’t even fish them,” said Rodney Durrett, who had his fishing line in the water at Sailor Bar Park. “We’re talking like, 6 inches of water, where we should have 2 feet of water. I mean, it’s kind of sad.”

The flow was reduced from 800 cubic feet per second to 700 in late September, then ultimately to 600 on Oct. 1, said Shane Hunt, a spokesman for the bureau, and, it might be reduced even further, Hunt said.

He said the agency is keeping a close eye on water temperature changes.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Boating, Fish, Rafting, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Emergency drought measures move forward at Folsom Lake

Plastic pipes that will go over Folsom Dam and connect to pump barges were rolled out Thursday as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation continues to work on a temporary emergency floating pump system.

The floating pump system will be used if water levels at Folsom Lake drop below the city’s regular intake. The bureau said this system is an insurance policy.

The barges would pump water through 10 18-inch diameter pipes, each a quarter of a mile long, to a pipeline that provides water to the city of Folsom. The barges, which were built on site, will be rolled out within the week.

More at KCRA.com 

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Cooling Systems At American River Hatchery Providing Adequate Temperatures For Fish Kill Survivors

eagle_lake_trout_california_department_of_fish_and_wildlife
California Department of Fish and Wildlife / Courtesy

After the death of 155,000 fingerlings of the Eagle Lake Trout species this week, three of the four cooling units required to keep baby trout alive at the American River Fish Hatchery are working again.

The units shut down when sediment from a Bureau of Reclamation pipe at Lake Natoma clogged the hatchery’s filtration system Tuesday.

Andrew Hughan with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife says the system is working well enough to keep the surviving 40,000 alive.

“Both of the chilling plants are back up on line and one of the water circulation plants is back up on line. The water is running  consistently at 65 degrees from a high of 71, which is pretty dramatic for fish. We are hoping to have the second heat exchange plant back up and we’re trying to get the water down to 55.”

Hughan says the department will re-stock lakes and rivers in California with this species of trout, but in smaller numbers than previously planned.

More at CapRadio.org >>>