“Maximizing survival of hatchery salmon is going to be critical to keep the industry afloat over the next several years”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (MPG) -- Officials with the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) adopted 2021 Management Alternatives for Public Review, that could allow some salmon fishing this year while protecting a low number of salmon.  Restrictions being considered include cutting both commercial and sport ocean salmon fishing drastically. Commercial and sport fishermen and women are likely looking at getting half of a normal season. 
 
The low number of salmon is primarily traced to unbalanced water practices that regularly divert too much of the water needed by salmon. About 80 percent of the water used in California goes to agriculture with literally trillions of gallons going to grow almonds and other nuts in the western San Joaquin Valley, an area considered a desert.  In the middle of the last drought from 2012 to 2016, as salmon numbers were decimated, 340,000 acres of new almond orchards were added in California. Almonds require a gallon of water to produce a single nut. California’s salmon runs still haven’t recovered from the losses suffered in that drought.
 
Officials forecast there are only about 271,000 adult Sacramento Valley salmon now in the ocean off the West Coast which is far below the 500,000 needed to support a half way decent ocean salmon season.  In the month ahead, the PFMC will decide how much time and area will be closed to sport and commercial ocean salmon fishing in 2021.  The restrictions being considered are the most draconian since the closure of all salmon fishing in 2008 and 2009, which was a historic first.  That closure followed three record setting years of water diversions from the Delta.
 
Many salmon related jobs and businesses, as well as those in the hospitality industry that typically serve a sector of the sport fishery, will be seriously harmed in 2021. 
 
“Following a poor commercial crab season, the coming paltry salmon season has us worried about how we’re going to pay the bills and support our families. The local fleets that supply salmon to our markets and restaurants are in very real danger of permanent collapse,” said Sarah Bates who fishes from San Francisco and is a GSSA board member.  
 
The chronic over-diversion of Central Valley rivers means that hatcheries are increasingly becoming the only place in the Central Valley with conditions needed to keep salmon alive.  The vast majority of the salmon caught in the ocean in 2020 were reared in hatcheries which can keep water temperatures under 56 degrees, the lethal threshold.  The eggs of naturally spawning salmon are wiped out when reservoir releases are cut back and rivers shrink or when the cold water needed to keep salmon alive is diverted for agriculture.  
 
Although it won’t help for this season, GSSA calls on the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to move SF Bay hatchery releases west from the current release sites near Vallejo to sites closer to the Golden Gate Bridge.  This could increase survival of existing hatchery salmon by 200 to 300 percent.  
 
“CDFW is fully aware they can double survival of hatchery salmon by simply moving the current release points near Vallejo a few miles west.  Considering the dire situation we’re in, the time to do this is now,” said PCFFA Executive Director and GSSA board member Mike Conroy.  “Maximizing survival of hatchery salmon is going to be critical to keep the industry afloat over the next several years.” 
 
In the last big drought of 2012 through 2016 many of the naturally spawned salmon were wiped out throughout the Sacramento Basin.  Since then, water managers have not allowed the conditions necessary to recover them.  The State Water Resources Control Board made an attempt to rectify this in 2018 starting with an order to the major diverters of rivers in the San Joaquin Valley to reduce diversions. Then governor-elect Gavin Newsom halted implementation and allowed the major water districts to instead engage in negotiations which has produced a stalemate, allowing business as usual. 
 
“If the governor would allow the State Water Resources Control Board to balance Central Valley water use, it would go a long way towards helping the salmon industry avoid the type of catastrophe staring us in the face now,” said GSSA president John McManus.  “California could rebuild its salmon runs and the tens of thousands of jobs in the salmon industry.”
 
“GSSA and our allies are in court trying to win a more balanced water policy that stops the environmental decimation taking place.  We hope the new administration in the White House takes heed of our situation and reverses the damaging water diversion policies of the Trump administration before our salmon are gone,” said Dick Pool, GSSA Secretary.
 
The low predicted number of Klamath River salmon will also limit fishing from Pigeon Point to the Oregon/Washington border.  Even if Klamath stocks were abundant, this season would still be limited by the low number of Sacramento Basin salmon. 
 
“To people who fish salmon, it looks like our jobs and our voice don’t count as much as those who choose to grow almonds and pistachios in the desert of the western San Joaquin Valley,” said GSSA director and co-owner of Reel Magic Sportfishing Mike Aughney.