Posted: Thursday, December 29, 2011 10:00 AM
Coho count jumps in Scott River
Trust pays water rights holders to leave water for fish
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
ETNA, Calif. -- A state survey has shown imperiled coho salmon populations in the Scott River in far Northern California may be making a comeback.
At least 340 adult coho were documented as of Dec. 8 at a state Department of Fish and Game-operated video weir -- a significant increase from the 62 fish counted when this brood year last returned three years ago, noted the Scott River Water Trust.
The numbers indicate "an increase in adult coho abundance," Yreka, Calif.-based DFG fisheries biologist Morgan Knechtle said in a statement. He could not be reached last week for comment.
"There's been over a 20-year effort here to deal with the entire Scott River subbasin ... and we're hoping this is a representation of the combined efforts of everybody," said Sari Sommarstrom, the Scott River Water Trust's executive director.
The trust pays water rights holders to leave some of their water in-stream to improve flows for salmon and steelhead.
The fish count is an encouraging development amid high-pitched conflicts over the health of the Scott and Shasta rivers in Siskiyou County. Landowners have been at odds with the DFG over permits required for water diversions from the two rivers, which are key tributaries of the Klamath River.
Separately, the Environmental Law Foundation and other groups are suing the State Water Resources Control Board and Siskiyou County over well irrigation they say is depleting water for salmon in the Scott.
Scott Valley landowners have been taking numerous water-saving measures, such as replacing old wells with new ones in more strategic places and installing wheel and pivot irrigation devices. The efforts appear to be paying off, Sommarstrom said.
"I do feel that the numbers are showing that ... the Scott River is one of the best coho streams left in California," she said.
"If you look at the numbers for coho adult returns since 2007, the Scott is at the top of naturally returning coho, yet the reputation the Scott River has is that the Scott is the poster child for everything that is wrong with coho," she said. "I just think that is the wrong story to tell about the Scott. The fish are not ready to go extinct in the Scott."
Coho salmon in the Klamath River basin were listed federally as threatened in 1995 and were listed under the state Endangered Species Act in 2005. Sommarstrom said she doesn't expect this winter's positive numbers to end all the conflicts over the fish, but they're a start.
"It's a huge issue and it won't go away quickly and readily," she said. "Just one positive turnup of coho numbers are not going to make it go away. But I really wanted ... for people to be aware that the Scott is on a positive upswing."
Online
Scott River Water Trust: www.scottwatertrust.org
Comments made about this article
Posted By: Felice Pace On: 12/29/2011
Title: Proverb: Beware of those blowing thier own horn
With all due respect to the good folks quoted in this article, it is unlikely that "restoration efforts" in the Scott Valley had much to do with the unexpectedly not-as-bad-as-expected return of adult Coho this year. That's because the vast majority of those taxpayer funded restoration efforts have benefited landowners...not fish.
The key factor in this year's returns were how many juvenile Coho made it to the ocean in 2008.
On the way from Scott River Basin spawning grounds to the ocean young Coho face the gauntlet of streams dewatered by irrigation (illegal activity the Scott Water Trust pays some irrigators not to do), high water temperatures and diseases made epidemic by the thousands of pounds of cattle manure delivered to the Klamath River from Scott, Shasta and Upper Klamath ranches that refuse to keep their bovines out of the streams.
The key factor in how many young Coho got to the ocean in 2008 was not restoration or Water Trust leases but rather the late season snowpack and the impact that snowpack had on flows, water temps and disease during the spring 2008 juvenile Coho migration to the Pacific.
The unfortunate thing - not mentioned in the feel-good press release on which this story was based - is that Scott Valley irrigators are illegally diverting brimming full ditches of water right now and thereby denying this year's 340 adult returning Coho access to their native spawning ground on the very creeks where the Water Trust leased water in 2008 to keep young Coho from being stranded and killed.
We don't need to spend taxpayer funds to put water back in streams; we need the State of California to crack down on lawless stream diverters who are dewatering our streams!
This good news on Scott Coho is a gift of Mother Nature and the fact that our national forest watersheds are recovering as a result of 15 years of the Aquatic Conservation Strategy (Northwest Forest Plan). Humans are always trying to take credit for the gifts of Mother Nature. I guess that is just human nature.