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California Drought: Protecting Salmon
NOAA Fisheries is responsible for the protection
and management of endangered salmon.
Working cooperatively with all water users
is vital to the survival of these species.
In the last few years California has experienced
some very dry conditions.
We don't have that delayed runoff
to keep water flowing in some of these
important tributary streams through the summer.
Now we've got this recurring event that's
happened two, three, four years in a row
now and it's made it very difficult.
The California salmon have gone through
many droughts in their life.
What's especially troubling about this drought
is these fish were already at low population levels.
They're already struggling under the
best of water years and now they're
faced with an unprecedented drought that's
going to really tax their ability to persist into the future.
In California, sacrifices are being made
by all water users and NOAA Fisheries
is working with partners to balance their
needs with those of endangered fish runs,
including the single remaining population
of Sacramento River winter-run Chinook,
Central Valley spring-run Chinook,
and Northern California/Southern Oregon Coho,
among other protected species.
The Central Valley Project and the
State Water Project supply drinking water
for over twenty five million people in southern
California and they help to sustain an
agricultural economy in California that's
worth about forty billion dollars a year.
Our role is to try to assist those project operators
in coming up with a way of operating that's consistent
and works with the needs of species.
Even in optimal water years,
these fish face many threats.
But the California drought presents significant
challenges for providing fish with
suitable water temperatures and adequate flows,
requiring flexibility, cooperation,
and innovation by all water users.
Any drop of water is going to be used
as many times over as possible for fish,
for water supply, for multiple needs.
It's not just about fish vs. farm vs.
drinking water supply.
It's trying to incorporate all those needs together.
The drought has opened new opportunities
for working with irrigators and landowners,
who are adapting their practices to limit water
use to protect fish from going extinct.
We actually take a percentage of ground out of
production cause we just don't have the water for it.
One of the things that we've tried to do the last
two years is manage our water supply and
how we divert it from the river to make the
system work efficiently that also benefits
different runs of salmon on the Sacramento River.
In the Scott River Valley,
ranchers have implemented more
efficient irrigation methods and taken action
to keep salmon from stranding.
We have another stream system that
empties into our ranch, the confluence of the
French Creek and the Scott River and
we've done a lot of work on French Creek.
I think it's one of the finest Coho
rearing streams in California.
We've done fish screen projects on French Creek.
We've piped the diversion in French Creek
and when the diversion gets low
we forebear it back to the stream.
Droughts a pretty remarkable thing.
It has radically altered our practices.
Our irrigation methodology has really evolved
through the years and what we've found is
efficient and effective aren't necessarily
the same thing.
So if you have a highly efficient irrigation system
you might be starving the riparian zone.
We've included flood irrigation.
That's reduced our irrigation time in that one
field by about seventy-five percent.
We have center controlled pivots which
are very scientific and allocate specific
amounts of water to very specific
regions of the pasture relative to its needs.
The drought has presented unprecedented
challenges and there is no ideal solution
to the state's water woes, but it's also
engaged partners to find meaningful
solutions like never before.
I think there's a balance that can be
struck that's within our grasp to both sustain
a viable economic community for agriculture
and also provide valuable important habitat for the salmon.
We can't go all the way across the street
and the government can't come across our street.
We've got to meet in the middle some place.
I know they've got regs and they've got to satisfy them.
We've got a livelihood to maintain
and I think working together and compromising
we can make it work.
NOAA Fisheries, ww.fisheries.noaa.gov
Thank you, Credits and Copyright two thousand and fifteen