Chinook Salmon Population at Record Lows

The Sacramento San Joaquin Delta is the source of drinking water for an estimated 22 million people in California, and it serves as the main water source for Central Valley’s agricultural fields. It is also home to the West Coasts largest salmon run. The recent low return of spawning salmon has put fishing and environmental interests at odds with the state and federal government. Zeke Grader president of the North Coast Fishing Alliance, received a memo from the Pacific Fisheries management Council last week detailing low salmon populations in the central valley.

“The memo said that we’ve got a crisis with our central valley salmon stock. The number was 90 thousand returning spawners. Keep in mind we’ve had virtually no fishing on these stocks for the last few years because of constraints. So we should have been looking at numbers much higher. In fact a few years ago we had returning stocks of 800 thousand instead of 90 thousand.”

The memo also states 2000 baby salmon returned to the San Joaquin Delta this year compared to a healthy average of 40 thousand salmon, and an all time low of 10 thousand salmon.


The state Department of Fish and Game estimates they release 32 million salmon into the delta annually. The salmon migrate to the pacific coast line, where fisherman lay their nets. Ben Platt, a fisherman in Fort Bragg, says they’re not seeing those numbers along the coast.

“We’re not catching these fish and the data shows that. The fish just weren’t there to catch the last couple years, so we saw this coming. Salmon that is reared in the Central Valley System has to run the gauntlet. There’s huge farms- big agribusiness, developments, and cities, highways and the water diversions are getting worse every year.”

In 2005 water diversions from the Sacramento San Joaquin delta, hit a record high at 6.4 million acre square feet of water. But, State and federal agencies suggest climate change may be causing the salmon decline. Harry Morse spokesperson f the Department of Fish and Game declined a recorded phone interview but said their scientists are considering all options, including climate change, changing ocean conditions, lowering krill populations and water diversion.

Salmon aren’t the only fish to hit all time lows in the Sacramento San Joaquin delta. Environmentalists say the delta smelt are on the verge of collapse too. In fact a coalition of fishing and environmental groups sued the Secretary of Interior, the California Department of Water Resources, state water contractors and water companies to enact protections for the smelt and salmon. Barry Nelson with the Natural Resources Defense council, a plaintiff in the suit, says declining fish populations in the delta are due to water diversions for agriculture and development interests.

“The central valley has two of largest water projects on the planet. The federal central valley project and the sate water project. Together-those projects have an enormous impact on salmon. They cause huge problems in the delta for salmon, they interfere with passage for salmon migrating up and down the rivers, there are temperature problems. We release water out of dams on a schedule to meet the demands of farmers and cities.”

Nelson estimates last year customers extracted 7 million acre square feet of water from the Delta, the largest extraction to date. According to the Delta Vision plan, a map for future water use from the San Joaquin Delta, an additional 4 million square feet of water will be diverted this year. The lawsuit is challenging that plan. Again Nelson. 20 seconds.

“There’s a master plan that governs the operations of the central valley project and state water project. We think that plan doesn’t meet legal requirements under the endangered species act. And a number of independent reviews have confirmed that-confirmed that the agency’s didn’t use the best science in writing that plan and bypassed their own biologists frankly for political reasons.”

Fisherman say history is repeating itself. They point to the 2002 salmon die off in the Klamath River, where 80 thousand salmon perished. They say the Bush Administration ignored scientific data, then increased water diversions to Oregon farmers, in order to gain the republican vote in the senate. That move also killed the west coasts fishing economy. Last October the House Natural Resources Committee held a congressional hearing into the matter. Grader says a similar situation is occurring in California with water from the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta.

“The Bush administration and perhaps even the Schwarzenegger administration are trying to grease the way for large housing developers, home builders, building these large tracks, as well as agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley trying to deliver them water. And again it’s at the expense of the fish but not just the fish, its’really at the expense of our coastal economies.”


The power of water politics carried into the Bush Administrations appointment of industry representatives to oversee water issues. Jason Peltier worked for the Central Valley Water Project Association, before he moved into the Department of Interior as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. Nelson says Peltier represents central valley’s farming interests.

“The lead lobbyist for the central valley project water contractors-for these agricultural interests in the central valley-a man named Jason Peltier- was hired from the central valley agribusiness. He went and worked for the bush administration essentially running the nations water policy for 6 years. Then when he left the bush administration he came back to California, and he works for the largest most powerful water district in the state. That’s the Westland’s water district in the Central Valley. That’s the water district that has been leading the charge for many years to weaken environmental protections in the central valley and protections for the Trinity River as well. And squeeze more water out of those systems. More subsidized water to grow subsidized crops off of the delta.”

Last year a federal judge ruled in favor of the NRDC’s suit to save the delta smelt, ordering enhanced protections for the fish. They’re waiting for a judge’s ruling on the salmon. That could limit water diversions from the Sacramento San Joaquin delta. Meanwhile, fishermen say if diversions continue they may have no salmon season at all. For fisherman like Platt that’s an 80% loss of income.