Starting next month, millions of young California salmon could be migrating to the ocean in tanker trucks instead of swimming downstream in the Sacramento River.

On Monday, state and federal wildlife officials announced a plan to move hatchery-raised salmon by truck in the event the state’s ongoing drought makes the Sacramento River and its tributaries inhospitable for the fish. They fear the rivers could become too shallow and warm to sustain salmon trying to migrate to sea on their own.

Shrunken habitat could deplete food supply for the young fish, and make them easier prey for predators. It also would make the water warmer, which can be lethal to salmon.

“The conditions may be so poor as to produce unacceptable levels of mortality for the out-migrating juveniles,” said Bob Clarke, fisheries program supervisor at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Clarke’s agency operates Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River near Red Bluff. It is the largest salmon hatchery in the state, producing about 12 million fall-run Chinook salmon. The hatchery was built to atone for habitat losses caused by construction of Shasta Dam.

Coleman hatchery salmon are usually released into Battle Creek in April and May. Fishery experts prefer to release young fish into rivers so they imprint on the location as “home” and are better able to migrate back from the ocean for spawning three to four years later.

Fall-run Chinook salmon from the Sacramento River and its tributaries compose the bulk of the wild-caught salmon available in California markets and restaurants, and also feed a lucrative sport-fishing industry. In total, these fish represent a multibillion-dollar slice of the state’s economy each year.

California is experiencing one of its driest winters on record. Despite the recent storms, the Sierra snowpack that the state relies on to replenish its reservoirs remains depleted. Without an unusually wet March – and the long-term forecast calls for predominantly dry weather – officials fear rivers may be so diminished in April and May that young salmon will not survive their migration to the ocean.

They are also concerned that water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta during a low-water year could slaughter many of these young salmon, which measure about 6 inches long. Water pumped out of the Delta by state and federal agencies serves 25 million people from Napa to San Diego.

The trucking plan, devised by the state and federal fisheries agencies, includes a series of triggers, based on river and water supply conditions, that would launch a massive operation to haul the salmon in tanker trucks on a nearly three-hour drive from Red Bluff to San Pablo Bay near Vallejo. There, the salmon would be released into floating net pens to acclimate to new salinity and temperature conditions, then set free to swim for the ocean.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is adopting similar plans for its hatcheries on the Feather, American and Mokelumne rivers. Each produces several million young salmon every year.

More at ModBee.com >>>

The American River is flowing higher through Sacramento today, part of a federal effort to help young salmon at risk during the drought.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation doubled water releases from Nimbus Dam from 500 cubic feet per second to 1,000 cfs. The increase began Wednesday night and is expected to reach 1,000 cfs before returning to 500 cfs just before midnight today.

Biologists call the release a “pulse flow.” It is intended to help some of the wild-spawned fall-run chinook salmon eggs that became dewatered in their gravel nests, or redds, when Reclamation reduced flows in January. That action was taken to conserve water stored in Folsom Reservoir for Sacramento-area communities.

It turns out that not all of those stranded salmon eggs perished as the river shrank. Tom Gohring, executive director of the Sacramento Water Forum, said many were able to survive on the small amounts of water and oxygen that remained within the gravel and hatched into “alevins,” a kind of embryo life stage. The pulse flow is intended to wash those alevins into the river so they can transform into fry, the first finned stage of salmon life.

More at SacBee.com >>>

California’s Department of Water Resources said Thursday its latest survey shows the Sierra Nevada snowpack is still well below normal — which is bad news for the drought-stricken state.

The survey was done as the first of two back-to-back Pacific storms lightly blanketed the Sierra with fresh snow.

The department said manual and electronic readings show the snowpack’s statewide water content at 24 percent of average for the date.

“It’s just a reflection of the fact that what storms do come through are fairly modest,” snow survey chief Frank Gehrke said. “And then the blocking high-pressure ridge sets back in almost as soon as they’ve left the state.”

The northern and central Sierra snowpack provides about a third of California’s water supply.

More snow is expected from the week’s second and more powerful storm, which is expected to arrive late Thursday and last into Saturday.

Gehrke said such storms are still far from enough to end the drought.

“We’d need 15 or 20 of them — and that’s just not in the cards,” he said.

Rainwater streamed across the parking lot and down the boat ramp at Folsom Lake on Thursday afternoon.

The lake level has risen by more than 6 inches in the past 48 hours, but the reservoir remains about 70 percent empty.

More at KCRA.com >>>

California has banned all fishing on a section of the American River near Folsom to help protect fish populations.

The concern is there is not enough water for them to migrate and spawn.

The emergency regulations went into effect this week, complete with signs up-and-down the river.

Some fishermen said they saw the signs and turned around, but not everyone is playing by the rules.

“We were actually next to a couple,” American River visitor Janel Halteh said.  “We actually saw them. There was a big fish that they had caught.”

More at NBCSanDiego.com >>>

Federico Barajas is keeping a close eye on water levels on Folsom Lake.

“We continue to hope for the best, but plan for the worst under the circumstances and the drought we are in today,” he said.

That’s why the man who oversees water deliveries at Folsom Dam is keeping a close eye on Folsom Lake. It provides water for Folsom, Roseville and Granite Bay.

“That is a very critical water supply delivery that we have, given that the cities surrounding this facility rely upon that water,” he said.

If the lake level, which is at historic lows, drops close to the intake valve at 320 feet, water from the lake can’t get into the tubes to be pumped to people who need it.

Before the last big rain earlier this month, Folsom Lake got as low as 355 feet, getting dangerously close to the 320-foot level of the intake, where the intake would suck air instead of water.

More at CBSLocal.com >>>

Right now, Folsom Lake’s water levels are at historic lows because of a third consecutive dry winter. But federal officials say in the future, when we get way too much rain and snow, the reservoir won’t be able to hold all the water. That’s why the dam needs to be raised by 3.5 feet.

Specifically, the plan calls for raising all of the dykes, the Mormon Island Auxiliary Dam and the right and left wings of the main dam. It’s a long term project and construction wouldn’t start for another two years.

In a separate project, Folsom Dam is getting new flood-control gates designed to release water quicker during a flood. The steel gates were built in Oregon and are scheduled to arrive later this month.

The meeting on the dam raise project will be held Wednesday from 5 to 7 PM at the Folsom Community Center.

From CapRadio.org >>>

Folsom Lake continues to rise as creeks and rivers flowing into the reservoir surge with runoff after days of rainfall.