The SARSAS plan for saving anadromous fishes

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The SARSAS Plan for Saving Anadromous Fishes in the Pacific Fishery


Jack L. Sanchez

Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead (SARSAS)

www.sarsas.org


A plethora of reasons have been put forth explaining why the salmon on the Pacific Coast are nearing extinction. Whatever the reasons, a clear simple plan is necessary to save them. The SARSAS Plan for the Auburn Ravine Plan is the simplest way to save the fish and should be implemented on all streams in California. What is the SARSAS Plan?


SARSAS believes if every stream in California has a volunteer group working to do with it what SARSAS is doing with the Auburn Ravine, then salmon will not go extinct. The line from Field of Dreams, “If you built it, they will come” can be applied to anadromous fish with a slight twist: “If you clear it, they will come”; that is, if the Governor and SARSAS can encourage other groups to do with other streams, what SARSAS is doing with the Auburn Ravine, to provide fish passage on all the tributaries to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, the anadromous fishes will have many spawning grounds currently denied them. The Governor should create an incentive program to encourage other organizations to take ownership of particular streams and retrofit them completely to create fish passage so citizens become the instruments of the salmon salvation. The Governor and citizens of California working together CAN save the salmon.


Let’s look at the SARSAS Plan for the Auburn Ravine. If we can get 2,500 egg laying female Chinooks ( Butte Creek near Chico had 6,000 in 2008-9) into this 33 mile long Ravine, each laying up to 8,000 eggs, the Auburn Ravine will contribute up to (2,500 times 8,000) 20,000,000 fry to the salmon fishery on the Pacific Coast. If only 3 percent of those salmon return to the Auburn Ravine after maturing in the Pacific, that is 600,000 Chinook salmon, which is 10 times the total number of salmon (66, 237) that returned to the entire Sacramento River this year(2008). Remember that the Auburn Ravine is just one stream in California.


SARSAS became a 501c3, public benefit corporation with officers and a nine person Board of Directors and began work on the Auburn Ravine by identifying all thirteen man-made barriers. SARSAS then set about creating a network of state and federal governmental agencies, county supervisors, city councilmen, other NGO’s, landowners and individuals, all meeting once a month under the auspices of Placer County Supervisor Robert Weygandt. The group worked collaboratively, cooperatively, to reach its respective goals as smoothly and as quickly as possible. Having all principals at the same table working in a non-confrontational atmosphere facilitated accomplishing much in a short time.


Working with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Special Agent, SARSAS contacted all owners of diversion dams on the AR. Many owners simply needed to be reminded of their specific water rights and of not observing those rights was harmful to fishes. All ten flashboard dams with the cooperation of the landowners were quickly brought into compliance to make them passable for fish. The remaining three dams were owned by a water agency, Nevada Irrigation District (NID). Working with Placer Legacy, NID was able to fund and construct a fish ladder and a fish channel to create fish passage over the Lincoln Gaging Station and the Hemphill Dams by the end of summer 2009. The remaining dam is the Gold Hill Diversion Dam, which will be confronted after the other two dams are retrofitted. When the GHDD is retrofitted for fish passage, 32 of the 33 miles length of the Auburn Ravine will be passage for fish and much of it opened to spawning.


Is the task completed? Far from it, but the tasks completed to date will allow anadromous fishes to spawn in most of the AR.


The Auburn Ravine is one stream. If there are 600 tributaries running into California’s two great rivers, then 600 times 600,000 is 360,000,000 spawned fishes. If only 3 percent or 1,080,000 of that number return to spawn, the salmon crisis is no longer a crisis and salmon are no longer going extinct. If more than that number returns to spawn, then salmon will be with us for a long time.


Are there problems with the SARSAS Plan? Definitely? Will the Schwarzenegger Administration provide the leadership and support to coordinate the activities needed? Will enough volunteer groups take charge of each of the many tributaries? Will the Plan be implemented in time before the salmon go extinct? There are many other problems, but it is a plan with a possible successful outcome for anadromous fishes. It is a plan, a simple inexpensive plan that may go a long way toward alleviating the salmon march to extinction.


By rescuing one stream, the Auburn Ravine, the people of California may be rescuing the entire Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery and providing food for the endangered orca population that usually lives in the Puget Sound region but has come to within one hundred miles of SF looking for salmon, their only food. This orca pod, which currently numbers 84, must reach 125 animals in order to survive.


Where else do salmon have an opportunity to spawn since most tributaries to the Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers are blocked by diversion dams? Using the model for saving salmon in the Auburn Ravine may be enough to save the entire Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery and put thousands of unemployed fishermen back into their boats, free sports fisherman to follow their passion, and help Californians feel good about themselves because they did something to help themselves, the fishes and nature.



Keywords
Community, salmon, steelhead, fishing, restoration, stream, river, conservation, fishery, SARSAS, Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead

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