Delta gates will close for 10 days to help Mokelumne salmon

The Golden Gate Salmon Association, Water for Fish and conservation groups won a big victory for the future of Central Valley chinook salmon populations with Thursday’s announcement of a 10-day closure of the Delta cross channel gates that connect the Sacramento and Mokelumne rivers.  

The Bureau will close the Cross Channel Gates on October 4, 2011 at approximately 10:00 am and will reopen the gates on October 14, 2011 at approximately 10:00 am for the Mokelumne River “salmon fish attraction experiment,” according to Thuy Washburn, Chief Operations Manager at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. 

“During this closure, the salmon will be able to find their way to the main stem Mokelumne River,” said Dick Pool, Secretary Treasurer of the Golden Gate Salmon Association (GGSA) and Administrator of Water for Fish. “The river and hatchery will almost assuredly reach capacity.” 

Pool said this closure will result in six million fall run salmon smolts being able to migrate from the hatchery to the ocean, as well as between 2,000 and 4,000 adult salmon spawning naturally in the river. 

“The problem this time of year is that the flow in the Mokelumne River below Woodbridge Dam is 80 cfs, while the flow of Sacramento River water through the cross channel gates is 3,000 cfs,” said Pool. “Drawn by the larger Sacramento flows, many of the chinooks stray into the Sacramento River system.” 

The fishermen have been asking for a 14-day closure for 3 years. “Last year the Bureau closed the gates for two days and the results were dramatic, with a big increase of salmon numbers moving into the mainstem Mokelumne,” said Pool. 

When the gates were closed last year, EBMUD ran pulse flows from Camanche Dam to attract the fish upriver. The combination of the gate closure and pulse flows was largely responsible for the increased return to the hatchery last fall. The hatchery received 334 males, 391 females and 823 jacks and jills, for a total of 1548 salmon in the fall of 2010, compared to only 235 fish in 2009. 

The Golden Gate Salmon Association thanked Don Glaser, Regional Director of the Mid Pacific Region of the Bureau, for arranging the closing of the gates in a September 29 letter. 

“As you know, things have been pretty tough for the salmon and the salmon industry in the last three years, wrote Pool, GGSA Vice President Zeke Grader, Chairman Roger Thomas and President Victor Gonella. “We have not had much to cheer about. We look at this as a very bright spot in the long road to rebuilding the salmon runs. There is almost nothing anyone could have done in the short range that would put more salmon in the ocean than this action.” 

The group also thanked Representative Grace Napolitano and Bureau Commissioner Mike Connor for their continuing interest and support of this project, as well as the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) for their leadership and the Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The National Marine Fisheries Service for their participation and support. 

Environmental group leaders also celebrated the news of the 10-day closure. “This is great news for the Mokelumne salmon,” said Katherine Evatt, President of the Foothill Conservancy. “When these gates are not closed, a number of the Mokelumne salmon end up in the Sacramento and American rivers.” 

“Reclamation recognizes the importance of this action and would like to acknowledge our appreciation of the Mokelumne River Partnership, a group who assisted Reclamation in making it happen,” said Sue Fry, Area Manager of Reclamation’s Bay Delta Office. 

Central Valley fall run salmon populations, the driver of West Coast fisheries, collapsed in 2008 and 2009, spurred by record water exports out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, declining water quality and poor ocean conditions. The fall population has recovered this year, allowing the first normal recreational and commercial salmon fishing seasons on the California coast this year since 2007, along with a normal recreational salmon fishing season on the Sacramento, Feather and American rivers. However, imperiled winter and spring run salmon populations continue to decline. 

A short new video from Bruce Tokars of Salmon Water Now shows the scene from a late summer afternoon at the Sausalito marina, with charter boats filled with happy, smiling fishermen coming home with limits of California king salmon. 

Watch it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Jge-lPLRI&hd=1 
Watch it on Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/29477079 

For more information about the campaign to restore salmon, go to the Golden Gate Salmon Association website, http://www.goldengatesalmonassociation.com, or the Water for Fish website, http://www.water4fish.org.