Category Archives: Salmon

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 >>>

Fish, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

More than 200,000 trout die at American River Hatchery

More than 200,000 rainbow trout suffocated in a matter of minutes Tuesday at the American River Hatchery near Rancho Cordova due to an unexpected release of gunk from Folsom Dam that clogged water intakes.

The unexpected die-off could mean anglers have a tougher time finding fish to catch next year, since the 4-inch Eagle Lake subspecies of rainbow trout were to be released when they grew larger, said Bill Cox, hatchery system manager at the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which also operates the adjacent Nimbus Hatchery for salmon.

State hatchery managers already were struggling amid a disease outbreak and California’s historic four-year drought to keep enough fish in lakes and rivers to satisfy their legal obligations to supply fish for the state’s nearly 2 million recreational anglers.

“We already had less inventory than we wanted for this hatchery,” Cox said. “Now, if we lose those fish, that’s a big hit. Now, we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”

Cox said the die-off at the American River Hatchery occurred without warning Tuesday afternoon. He said he’s not exactly sure what happened, but he knows that the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages Folsom Dam, “changed to a pipe they hadn’t use in several years” as part of a dredging operation.

“And when they did that, a slug of stuff … came down and came into the hatchery,” he said.

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

Mormon Island ruins re-emerge from shrinking Folsom Lake

The ruins of a California town built during the California Gold Rush have re-emerged above the water at Folsom Lake.

The stone walls and foundations that made up part of the town of Mormon Island were visible on Monday.

Mark White, of Sacramento, hiked to the site near Brown’s Ravine and used his camera to capture some of the most striking images so far of the California drought.

“You don’t get to see this very often. Thank God!” White said.
Scattered among the ruins are rusty nails, pieces of pottery and other artifacts that belonged to the 2,500 people who lived in the Mormon Island in the mid-1850s.

“Some of the pottery we found you could tell was like a vase or like a clay pot, just be the shape of it,” said Janet Dyer, of Citrus Heights.
Signs warn visitors not to disturb the site and not to take anything.

However, Dyer said she noticed that a license plate she had seen at the site the last time the water was this low was missing.
“Hopefully, it’s in a history museum somewhere and not on somebody’s shelf,” she said.

The surface of the lake was at 364 feet above level on Monday.
That is 7 feet above last year’s low point of 357 feet and 17 feet higher than the all-time record low of 347 set in 1977.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Bike Trail, Boating, Events, Fish, History, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

PRESERVE THE PARKWAY

Saturday, September 19, is the date for the annual “Great American River Clean Up.”  During the hours of 9 a.m. to noon, please consider donating some time to help clean the American River Parkway.

The American River Parkway Foundation sponsors the annual event as one way to maintain the natural habitat that comprises this 23 mile stretch along the American River.

Volunteers can register online and many students use the event as a way to earn community service credits for school.  Staging sites where you can check-in include Alumni Grove at CSUS, Ancil Hoffman Park, and William Pond Park.   More information can be obtained online at the American River Parkway Foundation website. 

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

Flows cut at Folsom Lake to conserve Sacramento water supply

Federal officials plan to make a significant cut to flows from Folsom Lake, which is a primary water source for Sacramento suburbs, as water levels at the reservoir near historic lows.

The Sacramento Bee reports (http://bit.ly/1O4XUGy ) the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will cut flows out of Folsom Lake in half by the end of the week.

As of Monday, the lake held about 20 percent of its capacity at 196,000 acre-feet of water. Reclamation officials have pledged not to let Folsom Lake drop below 120,000 acre-feet.

More at ktvn.com >>>

Fire, Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

More than 10,000 acres in Sierra Nevada protected in deal that aims to boost water supply, reduce fires

More than 10,000 acres of scenic meadows, forests and trout streams in the Sierra Nevada 10 miles west of Lake Tahoe have been preserved in a deal in which environmentalists hope to prove that thinning out overgrown forests can increase California’s water supply.

The Northern Sierra Partnership, an environmental group based in Palo Alto and founded by longtime Silicon Valley leaders Jim and Becky Morgan, joined with the Nature Conservancy and the American River Conservancy to buy the land for $10.1 million from Simorg West Forests, a timber company based in Atlanta.

The deal, which closed Aug. 5, preserves a landscape south of Interstate 80 in Placer County adjacent to Granite Chief Wilderness in the Tahoe National Forest. The land contains more than 20 miles of blue ribbon trout streams.

Home to black bears, mountain lions, deer, songbirds and other wildlife, the remote property also includes the headwaters of two of California’s popular whitewater rafting rivers, the North and Middle forks of the American River.

“There are forests and meadows, and granite outcroppings,” said David Edelson, Sierra Nevada director for the Nature Conservancy. “There are terrific views looking down the American River watershed and toward the Granite Chief Wilderness.”

For years, loggers turned the property’s evergreen forests into wooden crates for Central Valley fruits and vegetables. Now the environmental groups plan to remove old logging roads and restore the landscape.

But more significant, the purchase could change how California, now suffering through the fourth year of a historic drought, manages its Sierra Nevada forests in ways that might provide more water to cities, farms and the environment.

 Many Sierra Nevada forests, including the ponderosa pine, white fir and Jeffrey pine forests on this property, burned roughly every 10 years in lightning-sparked fires before California became a state in 1850. Those natural fires thinned out dead trees and brush.

But starting roughly 100 years ago, the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies began putting out the fires, often to protect communities that had sprung up through the mountains. As a result, the forests grew thicker. Now, across millions of acres of the Sierra, around Lake Tahoe and in other parts of the West, some evergreen forests have five times or more trees per acre as they would naturally.

The trees are small, spindly and often prone to disease and beetles.

UC Merced and UC Berkeley scientists have done research indicating that if these forests are thinned it could increase the amount of water flowing from the Sierra Nevada into streams, rivers, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay.

“We’re trying to keep the trees in check so the forest is in a more sustainable condition,” said Roger Bales, a UC Merced engineering professor who directs the university’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute. “One of the benefits is that you get more water.”

The Sierra Nevada provides 40 percent or more of California’s water supply through snow and rain.

More at MercuryNews.com >>>