The Future of the California Salmon Industry

Tomorrow, a federal district court in Fresno will hear a request from water users south of the Delta for a temporary restraining order to block protections under the Endangered Species Act for threatened and endangered species that are harmed by water project operations in the Central Valley.  These species include winter-run Chinook salmon, spring-run Chinook salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, delta smelt and even orca (which feed on anadromous fish from the Bay-Delta system).  Although the fall-run Chinook salmon is not among these listed species, the fate of the fall-run – and the fate of California’s salmon fishery – may also hang in the balance.

The Central Valley fall-run is the backbone of the commercial and recreational salmon fishery in California and southern Oregon.  The protections in place under the current federal biological opinion for listed salmon species also protect the young fall run currently migrating through the Delta and out the Golden Gate, to rear in the ocean.  These protections are helping to give this fish – and the fishery – a fighting chance.

The California salmon fishery has been closed for two years now, because of the collapse of the Central Valley fall-run, and initial spawning counts suggest that the fishery may be closed for a third year.  Here’s a story on the subject just posted on NRDC’s OnEarth magazine web site. 

But salmon are protected by more than just the ESA.  State and federal laws require agencies to double salmon runs from their populations two decades ago.  But instead of doubling salmon, the combined pumping of the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project increased to record levels five years ago, helping to drive the fall-run population to record lows today.  The water projects appear to have forgotten their legal mandate to double salmon – and the fishing community is now paying the price.

These massive water projects aren’t the only thing affecting California’s salmon.  However, in the near-term, improved protections for salmon are the best hope for the survival of the species, and for the thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity that the fishery should support each year.