Our purpose is to raise public awareness and encourage public participation in the ongoing efforts to save our rivers and the fish that depend on them. The Klamath and the Delta are not the only California waterways where fish populations have dramatically declined due to mismanagement and abuse. There are many other examples. Here are just a few.

To read about the river of interest, click on the link to the river or scroll down the page:

• American
• Eel
• San Joaquin
• Trinity
• Tuolumne
• Yuba

The American River runs of salmon and steelhead were nearly destroyed by the federal Bureau of Reclamation when they dammed the river for flood control purposes and began exporting water to Central Valley agricultural businesses. Fish kills on the delta and Klamath River are famous but few people know about fish kills on the American. In 2001, 87,600 Chinook salmon, 67% of the run, died before they could spawn. 35,400 died in 2002 and 58,600 died in 2003. River advocates and fishery biologists blame these fish kills on bad water management by the Bureau and on lack of flow and water temperature standards on the American. In 2005, after years of intense political pressure, agreements were reached between the Bureau and state and federal fishery agencies to raise minimum flows on the river so that salmon, steelhead, and other fish could survive. The Bureau, contrary to these agreements, continues to lower flows during critical spawning and rearing periods. This practice has devastated natural reproduction on the river below Folsom Dam. The only viable runs of fish remaining on the lower American River are from the mitigation hatchery. Production problems, lack of sufficient funding and other constraints have lead to the failure of the hatchery to fully mitigate for the impact caused by the dam. We must continue our efforts to ensure the Bureau lives up to their mitigation obligations and that includes protecting the spawning and rearing of wild fish in the river. For more information go to: http://www.sarariverwatch.org/

The Eel River once supported salmon and steelhead runs that exceeded a half million fish. Water diversions at the Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project (PVP) and destructive land use practices have nearly annihilated these runs and driven them to the brink of extinction. Now, the Eel’s Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, and steelhead populations are all listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. The PVP operates two antiquated dams and a diversion tunnel. These have significantly altered the natural flow regime of the river and have siphoned off enormous amounts of its water into the Russian River. The dams block hundreds of miles of prime salmon spawning and rearing habitat. The dams and diversions cause reduced flows which warm and slacken the water and contribute to growth of toxic algae. Such conditions can kill migratory fish. These fish need adequate flows of clean, cold water to survive. Reduced flows degrade and limit critical habitat, degrade water quality, impede upstream and downstream migration, and inhibit flushing of sediment from spawning gravels. Reduced flows also provide competitive advantages to the Sacramento pikeminnow, a non-native species which displaces and preys upon juvenile salmon and steelhead. The PVP has done enormous damage to the Eel River’s salmon and steelhead populations. The National Marine Fisheries Service has written that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should study the feasibility and develop a schedule for decommissioning and removing the project. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has written that decommissioning the project and eliminating the out-of-basin diversion would have the greatest benefit, of all potential alternatives, to the Eel River’s salmon and steelhead populations. We believe the ongoing diversions are a rip-off of the Eel River’s water and that the PVP should be decommissioned as soon as possible. The two dams should be removed and the diversions stopped to allow the Eel River’s salmon and steelhead populations to survive and recover. For more information, go to http://www.eelriver.org/

The San Joaquin River once supported one of the largest spring-runs of Chinook salmon on the Pacific Coast. For over fifty years, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation has used Friant Dam to divert almost all the San Joaquin's natural flow for irrigation. The reduced flows have dried much of the river and have concentrated agricultural runoff from farms contaminated with pesticides and other toxic chemicals. These effects have destroyed the once legendary salmon runs and have polluted the water in the Bay-Delta estuary. A lawsuit was filed in 1988 by a coalition of environmental and fishery groups. In 2004, after 16 years of litigation, a federal judge ruled the operation of Friant Dam illegal. Judge Lawrence Karlton of the U.S. District Court in Sacramento ruled that the Bureau and other federal agencies failed to adequately assess the impacts of water contracts on endangered salmon and other threatened fish and wildlife, and found that the government’s conduct had been “arbitrary and capricious". This ruling lead to a settlement which includes a plan to restore salmon and steelhead to the river. In 2007, the House Natural Resources Committee voted to restore the river and bring back the salmon. If the bill passes the House and Senate in 2008 then it could become law. Disputes remain and passage is NOT a done deal. We must not lose the battle to save the San Joaquin! For more information, go to http://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/sanjoaquin.asp

Restoration of the Trinity River is in progress. Legislation allowing construction of Trinity dam passed in the 1950s with the support of tribes and local residents because they were promised that fish and wildlife wouldn't be impacted by the project. After the dam was completed in 1963, the federal government broke its promise and diverted up to 90 percent of the Trinity's annual flow to the Central Valley, resulting in a dramatic decline in salmon and steelhead populations. The Trinity River restoration was the culmination of years of lobbying by the Yurok and Hoopa tribes, fisheries groups and environmental organizations to reverse decades of habitat destruction and water diversions by the federal government. Fishery and environmental groups helped Congressman George Miller and then US Senator Bill Bradley pass the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA). This act compelled the restoration of the Trinity by substantially reducing diversions from the river into the Central Valley for water export and making restoration of the Trinity a goal. The restoration program is under way and the river's fisheries are improving. However, it is critical for anglers to remain vigilant given the Bureau of Reclamation’s history of trying to export more of the Trinities flows to agricultural interests in the Central Valley. For more information, go to http://www.trrp.net/RestorationProgram/index.htm

The Tuolumne River is under great stress with nearly 60 percent of its water diverted for urban and agricultural uses. Chinook salmon, steelhead, and other wildlife that depend on the river have dramatically declined in the face of drastically reduced flows. Now, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) has proposed diverting an additional 25 million gallons of water per day from the Tuolumne River. This will severely degrade the river's fisheries and cause economic harm to Sierra communities. We believe the SFPUC has failed to properly identify and address all of the impacts of taking more water from the Tuolumne and that it has not given adequate attention to local water supplies nor to alternatives such as desalinization, advanced treatment processes, water conservation or recycling. In a letter to SFPUC, the California Department of Fish and Game wrote that fish populations there have declined severely and advised against increasing water diversions from a river-system which currently lacks sufficient flow to sustain anadromous fisheries. The letter goes on to say, “… we believe the proposed project has the potential to cause anadromous fish populations to drop below self-sustaining levels.” We must not let water resource mismanagement continue to destroy the Tuolumne’s fisheries and drive its salmon and steelhead populations to extinction. For more information, go to http://www.tuolumne.org

The Yuba River still supports runs of wild Chinook salmon and steelhead trout. Once too numerous to count, these populations are now dangerously low. The spring salmon run is just a few hundred fish. Steelhead runs are also depleted. Both the spring-run salmon and steelhead are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Habitat destruction has been caused by dams, water diversions, clear cutting, agricultural pesticide use, and gravel mining. These fish now spawn only in the lower Yuba. Englebright Dam blocks their access to hundreds of miles of prime spawning grounds in the upper watershed. A dozen miles downstream, inadequate fish ladders at Daguerre Point Dam impede the salmon run. Inadequately screened water diversions at this dam trap and kill thousands of fish. However, there is hope. Efforts are under way to improve conditions in the lower river, and to restore wild salmon and steelhead in the upper river. For more information, go to http://www.yubariver.org/