Some water in Delta to be diverted to help salmon
Central Valley Business Times
10/04/2011
The federal Bureau of Reclamation is closing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s Cross Channel Gates for ten days beginning Tuesday Oct. 4 during the peak migration for returning adult salmon to the Delta.
The gate closing is expected to help king salmon migrate to the Mokelumne River Hatchery.
“What this means is we’ll likely see tens of thousands of additional salmon in our coastal waters three years from now because of this action,” says Golden Gate Salmon Association Director Dick Pool. “The Bureau of Reclamation is allowing more natural flows through the Delta for this ten day period which will greatly help adult salmon find their way home to reproduce.”
The association says the Cross Channel Gates reroute Sacramento River water to the south Delta, which throws Mokelumne River salmon off their historic migration track. Because of this, there has been only limited successful salmon production from the Mokelumne in recent years, the association says.
Last year, closing the Cross Channel Gates for two days resulted in a large number of salmon successfully finding their way to the Mokelumne, it says.
Federal water managers purposely force cleaner Sacramento River water off its natural course and into the south Delta at this time of year to dilute polluted San Joaquin River water flowing into the Delta, the association says.
The proposal to allow a more natural flow pattern in the Delta was put forth earlier this year by East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), which owns the hatchery and the Pardee Reservoir on the upper part of the Mokelumne River. The proposal was also supported by California Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Last year EBMUD offered to release some of its water to dilute the polluted agricultural runoff in the San Joaquin River.
“Salmon fishermen and industries that rely on salmon have something to be very thankful for,” says GGSA president Victor Gonella. “We’ve got a long way to go to restore our rivers, the Delta and our salmon fishery to more natural conditions and abundant levels but this is a big step in the right direction.”
The Mokelumne River salmon hatchery, operated by the California Fish and Game Department, is the most modern hatchery in the state. It was built to mitigate for the loss of natural salmon spawning runs of the river. The hatchery trucks its juvenile salmon from the hatchery to a release site near Antioch, safely beyond the point where they would be sucked into Delta pumps near Tracy.
