David Bitts W.F.

“Zeke”
President Grader, Jr.
Larry Collins Executive Director
Vice-President Glen H. Spain
Tom Hart Northwest Regional
Secretary Director
Marlyse Battistella Vivian Helliwell
Treasurer Watershed
In Memoriam: Conservation
Nathaniel S. Bingham Director
Harold C. Christensen Duncan MacLean
Salmon Advisor

PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION

of FISHERMEN’S ASSOCIATIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 27, 2010

Contact:
Zeke Grader, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (415) 606-5140
Dick Pool, Water 4 Fish, (925) 963-6350
Larry Collins, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (415) 585-5711

Fishermen Fear Delta Pump Ruling May Decimate Fall Salmon Run
Fall-Run Chinook Are the Mainstay of California’s Salmon Fishery

San Francisco -- West Coast fishermen, shut out of fishing for the past two years
altogether and granted a 2010 fishery so tiny that most will simply sit it out, fear that a
Tuesday night ruling by Fresno-based judge Oliver Wanger could be a serious disaster
for the Sacramento River’s fall-run chinook (‘king’) salmon resource.

Sacramento River fall run chinook are the backbone of California’s 150-year-old salmon
fishery and a large contributor to Oregon and Washington ocean fisheries as well. Strong
runs of Sacramento River fall-run chinooks returned to the Central Valley earlier in this
decade – 768,000 adult fish up to 50 pounds each found their way back to Valley streams
in 2002. By 2009 that number had crashed to 39,530 fish, driven down in large part by
heavy increases in State Water Project pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river
Delta.

While the Sacramento River’s spring-run chinook juvenile fish have nearly finished their
migration through the Delta, the fall-run salmon and endangered species act-listed
steelhead will be migrating downstream through most of June, as will those hatchery
salmon released upstream.

The California Department of Water Resources is already ramping up its Delta pumping,
taking quick advantage of Wanger’s ruling, from 1,500 cubic feet per second to nearly
6,000 cubic feet per second.
Dick Pool, a Bay Area sports-fishing advocate, is concerned that this high level of
pumping from the Delta will not only suck baby salmon into the pumps but will trap
thousands of others trying to reach San Francisco Bay in the central Delta where their
chances of survival are slim. Pool describes the risks: "There is no cover, little food
and there are many predators in the central Delta channels.” Studies show that most
young salmon never make it to the pumping plant. “Most of them fall to predators or
perish before they make it to the State Water Project pumps” says Pool.

Under the Endangered Species Act, Wanger is only required to consider the impacts of
increased pumping on the critically low winter- and spring-run chinook salmon and
steelhead, a close chinook salmon relative.

Fishing families and communities along a thousand miles of coast have been hard hit by
the closure of the West Coast salmon fishery. “Salmon were about 60% of my income,”
said Larry Collins, a San Francisco-based fisherman Collins has also seen a dramatic
decline in fish in San Francisco Bay. “The herring fishery collapsed, and everything else
is way down – likely due to the over-pumping in the Delta.”

The collapse of the salmon runs and the declining health of the Bay fisheries impacts
everyone from fish brokers to Bay Area restaurants unable to serve local salmon to
residents and tourists.

One 2009 study indicated that California’s salmon fishing shutdown has cost the region
23,000 jobs and $1.4 billion in annual income. The study found that full recovery of
California's salmon fisheries would create 94,000 new jobs and provide $5.6 billion
annual economic gain.

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