In last week’s column, I mentioned that the final
draft of the Recovery Strategy for California Coho Salmon, including the Shasta-Scott
Pilot Program (SSPP,) are now out for review. The SSPP is the layer of voluntary
strategies beyond the prohibition against killing of listed coho and incidental take
permitting process. A public meeting to present the plan will be held at the Miners Inn Convention Center in Yreka on November 19 from 6-9 p.m.
You can access a copy of the plan online through http://www.dfg.ca.gov/nafwb/src/coho.html
The Pilot Program or SSPP
strategies were developed under eight categories:
Water
Management: Develop and fund a
voluntary Dry Year Water Plan; confirm water use rights with diverters; install headgates
and measuring devices on watermastered streams and seek voluntary installation on others;
verify compliance with adjudication through watermaster or other methods; investigate
strategies such as ramped and pulse flows or irrigation rotation; investigate dedication
of unused diversion rights or voluntary acquisition of rights for instream use (without affecting the water rights of
others); complete water balance studies to learn how water behaves in the river; conduct a
local instream flow study to determine exactly where, when and how much flow is needed for
coho rearing life stages; conduct a study of groundwater and its relationship to surface
flows; recommend County establish groundwater management plans.
- Water Augmentation: Support development of a
Water Trust to buy or lease water to increase instream flow; create an endowment to
provide funding; encourage the tapering off of water use for irrigation starting each
September; develop surface water storage
and conjunctive groundwater use; investigate efficient ways to recharge groundwater;
investigate conveying water from the Klamath to the Shasta.
- Habitat Management (Scott Valley): Identify needs of rearing coho;
identify existing rearing habitat and improve by adding complexity, stabilizing banks in a
fish-friendly way and planting native vegetation in riparian areas; evaluate the use of
beaver ponds; identify temperature barriers and investigate ways to eliminate them;
identify areas where main channel can be reconnected to floodplains and sloughs without
negative impacts on the community; take a look at the Callahan dredger tailings; identify
fish passage barriers, including low flows and private road crossings; identify needs of
spawning coho; protect spawning habitat and improve gravels.
Water Use
Efficiency: Where beneficial to coho - provide alternative stockwater systems; promote ditch repair, cleaning, lining and piping;
evaluate irrigation systems efficiency and upgrade if beneficial; minimize and manage
tailwater – (reclaiming if legally permissible); investigate cropping changes, niche
marketing of “salmon safe” labeling and value added products; hold workshops in water use efficiency.
- Protection: Screen diversions in known and
potential coho range; maintain screens; protect riparian zones by fencing and grazing
management; evaluate fish rescue and relocation program; develop alternatives to gravel
push-up dams and flash board dams; recommend County develop agricultural land use policies
addressing coho needs.
- Assessment and
Monitoring: Inventory and assess ag roads and vegetation coverage; monitor their
effects on habitat; assess water quality and quantity; inventory and map surface water
diversions; assess effects of flood control levees; inventory, assess and monitor
effectiveness of water conservation, instream habitat and riparian projects, changes in
land use; conduct groundwater monitoring; conduct fish counts; assess and monitor
macro-invertebrates.
- Education and Outreach: Conduct outreach to
landowners, realtors, legislators and the public through handbooks,
newsletters, a website, demonstration projects, tours and special events; educate about
water conservation, habitat restoration, available programs and funding, Best Management
Practices, riparian easements, riparian lease programs, coho salmon life history, and
native plant species.
Administration and Implementation: Success of
the program depends upon the willingness of agriculturalists to voluntarily participate,
funding, and the successful development of the separate programmatic incidental take
permit.
Some specific areas where I
have concerns are:
- Conjunctive use
– who owns the groundwater after it is mixed with saved water paid for by public or
other funds?
- Basin groundwater
management plans “protecting the resource for all users, including fish.” Groundwater is currently owned by the overlying
landowners, not other users or fish.
- Recommendations
that the County develop “agricultural land use policies addressing coho recovery
actions, ideas and protections.” I am totally against using County police powers, (zoning and other
ordinances,) to implement and enforce the recovery strategy.
- Promoting the use
of permanent riparian conservation easements. I do not like the sale of permanent
conservation easements to the government or various land trusts. However, I do support the
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) riparian lease program currently offered by the
U.S.D.A. Farm Service Agency http://www.fsa.usda.gov/dafp/cepd/crpinfo.htm
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