Penny Crane/USWFS

Coho salmon turn red in their spawning stage.

The endangered coho salmon, which has slowly been making a comeback, faces another threat, this time from low flows in the Russian River.

Bob Norberg of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat has been reporting on the plight of the coho.

A major difficulty brought by reduced rain is the fish are still in the Russian River’s main stem rather than in the tributaries where they are usually spawning by now.

As a result, the Sonoma County Water Agency is distributing 20,000 cards with pictures and identifying characteristics at places where fishing licenses are purchased, in addition to the 20,000 printed two years ago.

“We kept hearing from people that there were coho in the river and we were hearing that the anglers would not be able to tell the difference and they would keep the coho,” said Ann DuBay, water agency spokeswoman.

NOAA

This map shows the rivers in central California where endangered coho salmon live.

Coho are native to the Russian River. Biologists say the Russian River coho are genetically distinct from coho found in other California rivers. For the past ten years an Army Corps of Engineers conservation program has worked to breed wild fish and release them into the river to spawn. Slowly the coho populations have grown, but the recent dry weather is an unwelcome setback to their fragile gains.

Patrick McCully/Flickr

Demonstrators rally in 2006 for the removal of dams on the Klamath RIver.

Today at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar weighed in on three major water projects in the state and called on Californians to “stand firm” and defend the “hard-gained agreements and settlements” built in past decades.

“Never before have water agreements that provide safety and certainty for Westerners been so at risk,” said Salazar, referring to debates over the future of the San Joaquin River, the California Bay Delta, and the Klamath River.

Salazar argued that the state, and the country, should not back away from the 2006 San Joaquin River Restoration Program settlement, which, he said enabled the river to run from its headwaters to the ocean this year for the first time in half a century. He lobbied for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, calling it a “comprehensive approach that includes new habitat for endangered fish species, coordinated measures to attack toxics that are fouling delta waters, and improvements to the state’s water infrastructure.”

Salazar said he will be ruling on the proposal to remove four dams along the Klamath River in March of next year.  In recent years both fish populations and agricultural interests have suffered from drought along the oversubscribed river.  In 2009, negotiators representing a wide array of interests agreed on a settlement that would remove four hydroelectric dams by 2020 as part of an agreement to restore historic salmon runs while keeping irrigation for the region’s farmers.

Salazar said Monday that the cost of removing the dams would be $290 million, far less than the $450 million originally estimated. He offered a preview of the impacts of the dam removals and river restoration, according to the DOI’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which is due to be released Thursday. The report includes the following findings, he said:

• Loss of hydroelectric power
• Loss of 50 power generation management jobs
• Loss of some recreational opportunities
• Decrease in some nearby property values
• Addition of 4,600 jobs to the regional economy over 15 years, including 1,500 during dam removal
• Increased water reliability to boost farm income and add between 70 and 695 agriculture jobs annually
• Improved conditions for salmon fishermen, creating 400 jobs

Salazar said that California and the West are facing a critical time for decisions about the region’s water supply.  Both population growth and climate change will add stress to an already stressed system, he said.

“Climate change is happening,” he said. “We can’t ignore this reality. It does no good to blame the scientists or to bury our heads in the sand.”

Release of the report followed by one day Terry Root’s keynote presentation at the California Climate Change Conference, in which the Stanford researcher warned of a catastrophic loss of trout habitat in California, due in part to climate change.