Butte Creek Spring Salmon Run: The Central Valley Exception
By Dan Bacher
There is one lonely creek, Butte
Creek, located in a deep canyon outside of Chico where salmon have been doing
relatively well, compared to the Sacramento River’s collapsing winter and fall
runs of salmon.
The Butte Creek spring run Chinook
salmon population was singled out in the court-ordered Biological Opinion,
released by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service on June 4, as the most
viable wild salmon population left in the Central Valley. The opinion states
that the creek's salmon population is at “low risk of extinction.”
Spawning Kings on Butte Creek
The average run in the creek over
the last 15 years has been about 10,000 fish, according to Allen Harthorn,
executive director of the Friends of Butte Creek. Last year's run topped out at
11,136, including approximately 1100 fish that died before spawning. Right now
anglers and scientists are estimating a run less than 5000 for the first time in
nine years.
The relatively healthy spring run
on Butte Creek is not saying much for a species where California by itself
supported more than a dozen salmon canneries, many generations of commercial
salmon fishing families, and untold numbers of sportfishing enthusiasts,
according to Harthorn.
“That is not enough to recover the
species,” said Harthorn. “And putting all your eggs in one basket is not a good
management plan for the salmon species and the ecosystems that depend on them.”
UC Davis studies on Butte Creek
have shown that the interaction of salmon is an integral part of the whole
functioning water catchment basin or watershed.
“When salmon are gone, the bears
suffer, the eagles suffer, the ring-tailed cats and mountain lions suffer, right
down to the dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes,” emphasized Harthorn. “The
whole food web changes.”
In response to the Biological
Opinion, Harthorn concluded, “It is long overdue that we need to protect and
restore these species. The laws are in place, but we need to rigorously enforce
them.”
Similar ecosystem collapses have
occurred in Europe and the Atlantic Coast of North America due to lax
enforcement of the law.
“We can do better at managing our
water and the species that keep the water healthy,” Harthorn added. “Water with
no fish is not healthy for anyone. Some people will just have to figure out how
to use it more efficiently. Butte Creek is a great recovery story, but the real
story will be how we apply those restoration techniques to the rest of the
system, that’s the challenge!”
The comparatively healthy run on
Butte Creek contrasts with the decline of Sacramento River winter run Chinook
salmon and the unprecedented collapse of the river's fall Chinook run in 2007
and 2008.
A record low return of 66,264 adult
fall chinooks on the Sacramento River in 2008 led to the closure of salmon
fishing off the coast of California and Oregon for the first time in 150 years
in 2008. The commercial and recreational fishing seasons are again closed off
California this year, with the exception of a 10 day recreational ocean fishing
season off the northern California coast in late August and early September.
Only 122,196 fish are expected to
return to the Sacramento River this year. The Sacramento run, the driver of West
Coast salmon fisheries and the most robust run south of the Columbia River until
recently, numbered nearly 800,000 fish only seven years ago.
“Timing is probably the main reason
for the relative health of the Butte Creek salmon run,” said Harthorn. “The
cross-channel gates connecting the Sacramento River with the Mokelumne River
system are supposed to be closed when spring run are migrating.”
This results in less spring run
salmon going down the Mokelumne into the San Joaquin River, where the fish are
sucked up by reverse flows into the federal and state pumps of the South Delta.
Thousands and thousands of salmon, Delta smelt and other fish are killed every
year by the pumps that supply massive water exports to corporate agribusiness
and southern California.
Harthorn also noted that the health
and resilience of the Butte Creek spring run probably has a lot to do with the
extensive creek habitat throughout the valley.
“Most diversions are now screened
on Butte Creek,” explained Harthorn, whose group has led the battle to restore
the watershed. “They also have the shortest run in the river of all the upper
Sacramento watersheds.
The biological opinion stated that
the current Central Valley Project and State Water Project pumping operations
should be changed to increase the long-term survival of winter and spring-run
Chinook salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales
(orcas). The whales rely on Chinook salmon for food.
However, Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein and agribusiness are instead
campaigning to increase water exports to the Westlands Water District and
southern California by building a peripheral canal and more dams. The
construction of the canal and more dams is expected to only exacerbate the
decline of Central Valley salmon, green sturgeon, Delta smelt and the southern
resident population of killer whales.
The biological opinion doesn't take
a position pro or con regarding the peripheral canal, but says"careful planning"
would have to be taken to "avoid jeopardy" to endangered and threatened species
and said the opinion would have to be reinitiated if the canal is ever
authorized for construction.
"Finally, we note that the project
agencies are currently developing and evaluating a plan to construct a diversion
on the Sacramento River and a canal around the Delta, in the BDCP planning
effort," the opinion states. "Such a reconfiguration of the water conveyance
system would take careful planning to avoid jeopardizing Sacramento River and
north Delta species, as well as several years of environmental review and
permitting, and would trigger a re-initiation of this Opinion."
Dan Bacher is a featured writer for The Fish Sniffer and other publications.
He is also a Board Member of the Upper American River Foundation.