Darrell Ticehurst/Fisheries Issues
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Salmon Summit April 1
Mar. 22 2010, 11:51 PM
Mar. 22 2010, 11:51 PM
Salmon Summit April 1
Congressmen Miller and Thompson representing two large districts near the Sacramento River delta are meeting with a number of anglers on April 1st at Fort Mason in San Francisco to discuss the delta and the water issues associated with a healthy run of salmon. Scheduled to speak are a number of affected parties including spokesmen for the party boats, commercial fishermen and tackle manufacturers and other economic segments that depend upon salmon for part of their livelihood. I'm going to talk about just how important it is to get the tens of thousands of private boaters and their friends back on the water, and just how important that is to our economy.
Congressmen Miller and Thompson representing two large districts near the Sacramento River delta are meeting with a number of anglers on April 1st at Fort Mason in San Francisco to discuss the delta and the water issues associated with a healthy run of salmon. Scheduled to speak are a number of affected parties including spokesmen for the party boats, commercial fishermen and tackle manufacturers and other economic segments that depend upon salmon for part of their livelihood. I'm going to talk about just how important it is to get the tens of thousands of private boaters and their friends back on the water, and just how important that is to our economy.
The summit comes about because of the strange set of lies and the pattern of obfuscation the water interests have been spouting about the delta. They have claimed “ocean conditions” are the real culprit in the disastrous decline of salmon in recent years. Nothing could be further from the truth and congress needs to be told the real story about why salmon are so hard hit by the increased delta pumping, and how it affects real jobs and real people. The papers and 60 minutes and Fox have talked about the poor Westlands farmers, but they have completely overlooked the huge economic impact of salmon and the 22,000 jobs that are dependent upon a salmon fishery.
So the simple facts are these: When ocean conditions have been bad we have still had good returns of salmon, when ocean conditions have been good we have had some bad returns of salmon—there is just no correlation between the ocean conditions and the salmon that return to the river. However, there is a very large correlation between increased pumping during the outmigration of salmon smolts and the return three years later for that year class of salmon—it is clearly a “river conditions” and a delta issue. Oh, and by the way, those Westlands water rights are called “junior rights” for a reason—they are only supposed to get water if there is any to spare, but they are now playing the PR card as if they are being screwed out of their rightful portion. Only in California water politics could this sort of nonsense ever get any headway.
Governor Schwarzenegger has not been the friend of anglers on this issue (or the MLPA issues) and his administration is clearly supporting the misrepresentations of the water issues. So we are going to have this summit and get the word out to everyone that the 100,000’s of anglers are the real economic engine, that they are dependent upon a healthy delta to support our salmon runs, and that the administration’s excuse of “ocean conditions” to dodge responsibility for the real problem of delta pumping is not going to fly. We need to get from political excuses to a sound scientific basis for managing the delta for the health of our salmon, and the recent National Academy of Sciences report requested by Senator Feinstein says that to be so in clear scientifically backed facts.
So come on out to the Summit on April 1 at 10AM at Fort Mason and cheer for your favorite cause. Hopefully we can get some attention on the real facts of the delta and we are looking for support.
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