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Ottawa pledges $284 million to expand protections for fish habitats

Ottawa pledges $284 million to expand protections for fish habitats

WATCH ABOVE: The federal government has pledged to “restore lost protections” for fish habitats that were lost under the Harper government with a $284-million commitment

The federal government will spend $284 million over the next five years to enforce new laws protecting habitat wherever fish are present, Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc says.

A number of amendments to the Fisheries Act were introduced in the House of Commons Tuesday morning to expand the reach of a prohibition against anything that alters or impacts fish habitat to all waters where fish exist.

Changes to the act in 2012 meant the protections were enforced only for fish listed in provincial registries as being part of commercial, recreational or Indigenous fisheries.

Officials with Fisheries and Oceans Canada said in Ottawa today the 2012 changes resulted in a lot of confusion about exactly what projects would require a federal government assessment, because it wasn’t always clear which fish needed protecting and which didn’t.

The government intends to produce regulations that will spell out exactly which projects will require a federal assessment and ministerial permit to proceed and which will not. The department is consulting on those regulations now.

As well, any reviews done will be captured in a public registry so the public can see the results of every review, something that is not required now.

The act also will require the minister to take into account Indigenous knowledge and expertise when it is provided and all decisions must take into account the possible impacts on Indigenous rights. However that knowledge will be protected from being revealed publicly or even to a project’s proponents without explicit permission from the Indigenous community or people who provided it.

The $284 million will be allocated to help implement and enforce the new law, including hiring new fisheries officers to enforce the act and educate people about it, however officials say there are no details yet about how many will be hired and when.

The legislation also will make it illegal to capture whales, dolphins and porpoises in Canadian waters for the purpose of keeping them in captivity. Officials say existing permits for such activities will be honoured, but in the future only animals captured because they are in distress, injured or in need of care can be held in captivity in Canada.

The amendments to the Fisheries Act are part of a package of government changes to the federal environmental assessment process and fulfills a mandate item issued to LeBlanc when he became the minister.

The bill will be followed later this week by another one that will overhaul the National Energy Board, as well as revise the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

Martin Olszynski, a University of Calgary law professor who worked as a lawyer for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans between 2007 and 2013, said the 2012 changes made to the Fisheries Act differentiated between fish that matter and fish that don

“More substantively, it signalled to a lot of people in Canada that suddenly this prohibition didn’t matter,” Olszynski said. “So you had what was already a very under-regulated issue which impacts fish and fish habitat mostly as a result of resource development becoming that much less supervised.”

He said after the act was introduced the number of projects referred to Fisheries and Oceans Canada for assessment was cut in half. Officials expect the number of referrals and project reviews will go back up, but they said it’s too early to say how many more assessments will be done.

There have been between 80 and 400 reviews in recent years. Lots more habitat news at fishiding.com

The government has been studying these changes since 2016, with online consultations, meetings with Indigenous communities and governments and a study by the House of Commons fisheries committee.

Insufficient fish habitat protection threatens Alaska’s valuable fisheries

The overreach of executive power

  Klas Stolpe | Juneau Empire

Posted: January 9, 2014 – 12:07am
By LISA WEISSLER
FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

The public interest is no longer being served by Alaska’s natural resources permitting system. When it comes to state resource development decisions, too little voice is given to Alaskans, project reviews are fragmented, local and tribal governments are sidelined, and too much power is concentrated in the executive branch, particularly the Department of Natural Resources.

Resource development projects often involve multiple activities, such as road and facility construction, water use, and material extraction. Each activity requires permits from different divisions within each resource agency. Since permitters act on their permitting authority separately, project reviews are piecemeal, and only public comments related to each individual activity are considered. There is no opportunity to analyze a project as a whole. DNR coordinates large project reviews such as large-scale mining, but this is done mostly as a service to applicants who pay for the privilege. More habitat articles at fishiding.com

Under the Alaska Coastal Management Program, local governments played a significant role in working with the state and federal government on the best way to resolve conflicts between competing resource uses and local values. But with the termination of the program in 2011, local governments are now accorded no more deference in development decisions than the general public.

Insufficient fish habitat protection threatens Alaska’s valuable fisheries. The Department of Fish and Game has just two laws specific to fish habitat, one that prevents obstructions in fish-bearing streams and one requiring Fish and Game approval prior to work in salmon streams. The defunct coastal program addressed other important fish habitat outside streambeds, including estuaries, offshore areas and tideflats. Now, fish habitat protection is mostly within DNR’s discretion as part of their land use permit.

Fish and Game is in the process of changing its special area management plans so that rather than prohibiting certain activities in special areas, the department will have discretion to permit activities without public notice. They also intend on putting multiple plans into a single review packet for public comment once a year, limiting the amount of public engagement on local issues.

Recently passed legislation allows DNR to hold a public notice and comment period only once every 10 years for oil and gas exploration or development in multi-million acre areas. People will be required to comment without knowing the when, where, how, or what kind of exploration or development might occur in or near their community.

The courts are the last check on overreaching executive power. But that’s under threat as well. Gov. Sean Parnell recently brought a lawsuit against respected statesman Vic Fischer and former First Lady Bella Hammond for their public interest challenge of Pebble mine activities.

And things could get worse. House Bill 77, currently pending before the Legislature, will concentrate even more power in the DNR commissioner and further fragment project reviews. It will also make it harder to appeal DNR decisions in court.

Then there’s Administrative Order 266, recently issued by the governor to establish regulatory “efficiency” guidelines. This may result in resource agencies loosening regulatory requirements, such as public notice, to reduce costs for developers.

We need our legislators to act as a check on this overreach of executive power. They should stop or substantially change HB 77, and pass legislation enforcing an Alaska Supreme Court ruling that DNR has a constitutional duty to analyze and give public notice on cumulative impacts of oil and gas projects. The Legislature should also conduct oversight hearings on resource agency regulation changes proposed under Administrative Order 266.

Other ideas to protect the public interest in permitting decisions include:

1. Providing for coordinated project reviews that give the public and local governments the opportunity to analyze projects as a whole.

2. Giving local governments deference on issues of local concern.

3. Increasing statutory fish habitat protection.

Residents can act as well. Tell your legislators you want this administration’s power grab stopped, and help elect a governor who values Alaskans and local and tribal governments as partners in the development of this great state. Contact your legislator, vote, and make your voice heard.

• Lisa Weissler is an attorney with expertise in natural resource law and over 20 years experience with the State of Alaska. She has worked thirteen sessions for the Alaska state legislature; served as an assistance attorney general specializing in oil, gas and mining law and coastal management; and as a special assistance for the Department of Natural Resources and a project analyst for the Alaska coastal management program. She was the policy director for the coastal management program initiative and is currently providing natural resource law and policy consulting services.

More Money For The Fish and their Habitat

Fish habitat improvement funds released

01/22/13 — The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and local partners today announced $2 million in financial assistance to help landowners take additional steps to boost local salmonid and other aquatic-species populations in several north coast counties.The funding will be divided amongst five Northern California watersheds located in Humboldt, Mendocino and Sonoma counties: the Lower Eel, South Fork Eel, Big-Navarro-Garcia, Gualala-Salmon and Russian River watersheds. Dozens of unique habitat models at fishiding.com

“This has long been a priority for us at NRCS,” said James Gore, assistant chief. “I know how important it is for local landowners and other stakeholders to support these fish and restore them back to record numbers. The steps we are taking today will go a long way to accomplishing this.”

A number of partners met today for the announcement and to tour a sample restoration site in Camp Meeker, Calif. An old fish barrier dam had been removed, a new pedestrian bridge was constructed, and rock wiers for fish migration were installed along with other stream and habitat restoration efforts. These types of practices and more will be available to landowners through this new financial investment.

Eligible practices include stream habitat improvements, wetland wildlife habitat management and other complementary conservation methods. The funding will be made available to landowners through the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program – a federal cost-share program, through the Farm Bill, to help landowners implement on-farm conservation practices.

“This is a great opportunity for local landowners to enhance the riparian corridors which pass through their properties within the Russian River Watershed. The efforts made by the Natural Resource Conservation Service and the local Resource Conservation Districts are validated by the many successful projects implemented in our watersheds,” said Joe Pozzi, Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District manager.

Today’s announcement is part of a larger effort to restore salmonid and other aquatic species back to abundant and sustainable levels along the Pacific Northwest.

For additional information, eligible producers in these counties are encouraged to contact their local NRCS Service Center. Service center locations and more information on the programs can be found at ca.nrcs.usda.gov.

Ausable River Restoration Project reaches completion

KEENE VALLEY – At last. The Rivermede Project – officially known as the East Branch Ausable River Restoration Project at Rivermede – is essentially done.

For a long time, this half-mile stretch of river in Keene Valley was growing broader and shallower, filling with sediment and gravel as its banks eroded and fell in, eating the land of Rivermede Farm at a rate of several feet a year and losing habitat for fish, amphibians and reptiles.

Beginning in July, 2012, large trees were dug out of the ground nearby and imbedded in the riverbank, root wads facing into the stream as fish habitat, the trunks buried side by side to stabilize the bank.

Photo/Martha Allen/Lake Placid News

Carl Schwartz, of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, leads a tour of the recently completed Rivermede riverbank stabilization and restoration project on the east branch of the Ausable River in Keene Valley Thursday, Aug. 16.

“Fish, llittle minnows and bigger fish, appeared immediately, as soon as the habitat was restored,” said Corrie Miller, director of the Ausable River Association.

At the toe of the bank, underwater, where they will not decay, logs are buried, covered with a layer of woody debris and fill, live cuttings, and then a sod mat of jute or similar material, for the cuttings to grow through. This constitutes a bench, which deflects water currents, preventing scouring of the bank.

As plant life grows, it will stabilize the bank further. Every boulder, natural as it looks, was scientifically placed to maneuver the current just so, preventing scouring of the bank and moving the water, and sediment, in a way that benefits the river and its environs.

Riverbank stabilization experts used to think it was all about water dynamics.

“Now we know it’s also about sediment being moved and deposited,” Miller said.

Flood plain room is allowed for seasonal overflow of water and sediment; floods cannot be prevented, nor can they be contained or controlled with straight channeling.

“We want to make it look as if we were never here,” Schwartz said.

Miller said that willow shoots were planted to stabilize the bank, and started sprouting leaves right away. Willows root easily and quickly along a riverbank. More plantings will be made next spring, she said.

According to Braico and Schwartz, this design has a better chance of holding than older, less natural methods. Everyone concerned seemed to be crossing fingers that another major weather event will not take place before this restoration settles in and takes hold.

Thursday, Aug. 16, two days after completion, tours were held at the site to explain what had been done to restore natural riparian (riverbank) equilibrium. About 80 people attended the tours.

Rob Hastings, Rivermede farmer, who has contributed time and money to the effort over the years, was present. He expressed his happiness that the project is done and that the river looks so beautiful, as well as his hope that it will hold.

Instruction was given by John Braico of Trout Unlimited and Carl Schwartz of F&W. Corrie Miller, Director of the Ausable River Association, Tonnie Sauca, standing in for David Reckahn of Essex County Soil and Water Conservation District, and Martha Naley, of F&W, were also helpful in explaining the project and the science behind it to participants.

The Keene Town Board, represented by Councilman Paul Martin, presented Braico with a plaque in recognition of his years of service and extensive volunteer work on this project.

Former Keene Supervisor Tom Both, who presided over the early planning days of the “Rivermede Project,” praised Braico at the August town board meeting, stating that Braico has “devoted thousands of hours to this project over 15 years.”

In 1998, Trout Unlimited began initial studies of the problem.

The Army Corps of Engineers became involved with the project in 2005, then finally withdrew in 2012 because the town could not come up with sufficient funding for the Army Corps plan. That same month, Trout Unlimited approached U.s. Fish & Wildlife Service, asking to partner with them to do a different version of the stalled 15-year project within a modest budget.

Between July 14 and August 14, 2012, inside 23 work days, under the direction of US Fish & Wildlife Service and Trout Unlimited, Ward logging LLC, under Michael Ward, harvested and staged whole trees, logs and boulders from the Rivermede area and performed active construction. Seeding and mulching was done by TU, F&W and Essex County Soil and Water Conservation District.

There is no riprap at this site. All materials are from the neighborhood, following a healthy, natural river model. According to Trout Unlimited information, extreme floods are increasing in frequency, and methods including dredging, straightening, laterally confining, vertically entrenching and overwidening stream beds are unstable and can cause destruction to roads, bridges and buildings in major floods.

As an example, containment of the Ausable’s East Branch at its present width of 176′ would entail dredging to 19.4,’ according to TU statistics.

With unpredictable weather patterns that have been bringing frequent “100-year storms,” probably everyone in town is, like Rob Hastings of Rivermede, thankful and at the same time hoping it will work.

Funding for the project was provided primarily by The Adirondack Chapter of trout Unlimited, U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Essex County. Additional financial support was provided by Trout Unlimited of Tri Lakes, Lake Champlain and New York City, as well as Rivermede Farm, the town of Keene and the Ausable River Association.MARTHA ALLEN , Lake Placid News

See the dozens of unique habitat models at fishiding.com

Fish habitat crusader awarded Churchill Fellowship

 Craig Copeland - working to save our fish habitat. Image NSW DPI

Craig Copeland – working to save our fish habitat. Image NSW DPI

CRAIG Copeland, Manager of the Conservation Action Unit within the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has been awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship to investigate the motivation of recreational fishers in the US, UK and Ireland to restore fish habitat.

“Craig, who is based at Wollongbar, is highly regarded throughout Australia for his work in aquatic habitat rehabilitation,” said NSW DPI Director General Richard Sheldrake.

“He has led the pioneering unit responsible for fish habitat rehabilitation in NSW which has resulted in massive improvements to fish habitat and fish populations through initiatives such as fishway construction, weir removals, fish-friendly road crossings, floodgate management, riparian revegetation and river resnagging programs.”

Copeland’s work in educating and engaging the broader recreational fishing community on habitat issues is proving successful with some of the larger recreational fishing groups through the establishment of the Fish Habitat Network program.

Dr Sheldrake said the Fellowship will provide an opportunity for Mr Copeland to travel to countries in the Northern Hemisphere where recreational fishing groups and individual fishers are the principal players in restoring fish habitat. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

“By interviewing fishers in these countries, Craig will get to understand their motivations and capacities – and bring back expertise aimed at increasing the capability of Australian recreational fishers to support and improve their fishery.

“The lessons learned will be immediately transferred to recreational fishers and habitat managers here in NSW.”
Copeland said the sustainability of recreational fishing and the capacity of the sector to grow are dependent on healthy fish stocks.

“Over three million people fish recreationally each year making it one of the most significant outdoor activities undertaken by Australians,” he said.

“There is great scope to significantly increase the proportion of recreational fishers in NSW who contribute time, funding and effort to rehabilitate fish habitat and, as a result, increase fish populations.”

Copeland plans to undertake his Fellowship trip in early 2013 and will report back to the
recreational fishing community later in the year.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, which was established after the death of Sir Winston
Churchill in accordance with his final wishes, has now funded more than 3,700 Fellowships for Australians. http://www.fishingworld.com.au/news/fish-habitat-crusader-awarded-churchill-fellowship

Do your kids like to fish and be outdoors?

Have you started making summer plans yet? Well, if you have a youngster who is into fishing and all things outdoors, there is a great opportunity available.

The New Jersey School of Conservation in Sussex County will be the host site for a Coldwater Conservation School offered by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife and the N.J. State Council of Trout Unlimited. The School will be held June 28 to July 1 and is open to kids ages 11 through 14 at the time of the program.

This is an interesting experience that combines fun and learning. The goal of the school is to foster knowledge and appreciation of trout and the cold-water habitats on which they depend, basically helping kids understand what role they can play in conserving the habitat.

Division of Fish and Wildlife biologists and instructors from Trout Unlimited will teach sessions about stream ecology, fish habitat, fish biology and identification, aquatic insect identification, fly-tying, fly-casting and stream restoration. There will be evening programs where students will learn about reptiles and New Jersey’s black bears.

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

The cost of the Coldwater Conservation School is $200, which includes food, lodging and equipment for four days and three nights.

Applications are due no later than April 1. Students accepted into the school will be notified by the end of April. The school was very successful last year with more than 30 applicants, so the folks running the show urge you to get the application in as soon as possible.

If interested, you can find more information and an application at state.nj.us/dep/fgw/pdf/2012/conservation_school_application.pdf, or call Jessica Griglak at 908-637-4125 or email at Jessica.grigla@dep.state.nj.us.

TALKING TURKEY: The Pequest Trout Hatchery and Natural Resource Education Center will host a turkey hunting seminar at 1 p.m. March 10. Learn about the state restoration program and how to hunt this prized game bird.

The New Jersey Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation will host a turkey call clinic immediately following the seminar. Registration is not required for the seminar or clinic.

FOR THE BIRDS: Here’s something different, courtesy of the Pequest Trout Hatchery and Natural Resource Education Center. Friday is the 15th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, taking place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Bird watchers of all ages are asked to come and count birds to create a real-time snapshot of the bird population. Participants can pick up a tally sheet of bird species potentially seen there at this time of year.

Plan to count birds for at least 15 minutes, but you can go longer if you wish. Count the greatest number of each species that you see together at one time. Count in as many places at Pequest as you choose, and keep a separate checklist for each location.

When finished, submit your results to the staff member at the front desk.

Your data will be entered.For more information, log on to birdsource.org/gbbc/whycount.html.

By MARK J. CZERWINSKI

Grant is being prepared to improve fish habitat.

City has more plans to rock river

More improvements of the fish habitat in the Arkansas River could be on the horizon.

    Pueblo and Trout Unlimited are preparing an application to Colorado Parks and Wildlife for a Fishing is Fun grant to do further work on the Arkansas River through Pueblo.
    “What’s driving it is the higher quality fishing on that reach of river,” said Scott Hobson, assistant city manager for community investment. “We are seeing more fly fishermen in the winter months when streams in other parts of the state are inaccessible.”
    The city wants to add boulder clusters in the Arkansas River from the Juniper Bridge just below Pueblo Dam to Dutch Clark stadium. Agreements reached among water users in 2004 provided greater assurance of flows in winter months by curtailing exchanges when river levels are low.
    A new project, which could cost up to $300,000, would make improvements to the banks, add J-hook jetties and revegetate some areas. Improvements on the previous work and other features would be added.
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.
     The features allow fish to survive and feed during a variety of conditions along the river.
     “The state grant would be $200,000, but we’re still deciding on whether to break up the project in a couple of parts,” Hobson said.
    The rest of the money would come from fines collected by the state and a small amount from Trout Unlimited.
   The grant is expected to be submitted in March.
    The first part of the restoration of the river was done in 2005-06 as part of the Arkansas River Legacy Project, a long-term effort to improve the river.

By CHRIS WOODKA

Reconnecting Habitat on Wyoming’s Salt River

Salt River Diversion Dam
This diversion dam on Wyoming’s Salt River seems pretty low, but it was blocking
access to vital spawning habitat for some trout and other native fish.
 
photo courtesy Trout Unlimited

Across the West, many rivers and watersheds are fragmented by old diversion dams and other irrigation infrastructure. That’s a big problem for trout, which need access to the full range of river habitat in order to thrive. For Trout Unlimited, upgrading these obsolete or inefficient irrigation systems offers a tremendous opportunity to restore rivers. With the help of Orvis funding, TU recently completed an exciting “reconnection” project on the Salt River in west-central Wyoming that should boost both the fish habitat and the fishing.  See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

The Salt River is home to native Yellowstone cutthroat trout, as well as wild rainbows and browns. But they faced a big obstacle: an aging, solitary diversion dam imposed a two-foot-high vertical barrier to fish movement. While adult fish could likely clear the hurdle most of the year, smaller trout and other native species weren’t able to move upstream.

Salt River Fish Ladder
The new fish ladder (in foreground) is a low-tech, low-maintenance solution that
will open some 21 miles of habitat to spawning fish.
 
photo courtesy Trout Unlimited

TU’s Jim Gregory, working with Wyoming Game and Fish and the Eastside Canal Company, saw a golden opportunity to retrofit the structure with a fish ladder and open up some 21 miles of mainstem river habitat. This fall, TU and its partners—including the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust and the U.S. Forest Service—constructed a rock-ramp type fish ladder on the southern side of the diversion structure that provides a low-velocity, low-gradient passageway using a design that is simple, stable, and low-maintenance. The completed ladder allows all native fish species to clear the diversion hurdle and access upstream tributaries—such as Willow Creek, Stump Creek, and Crow Creek—which provide critical spawning and rearing habitatfor native fish.

Sometimes, as on the Salt River, removing a single barrier can dramatically improve miles of habitat for fish. TU is working on dozens of these infrastructure upgrade projects that offer some of the best opportunities to restore rivers for wildlife. As far as we know, no one is making any new rivers, but this might be the next best thing.

For more information on the Orvis/TU Culvert Fund, visit the Orvis Commitment page.

Randy Scholfield is the Director of Communications/Western Water Project for Trout Unlimited. 

Project aims to show crops, marshland can coexist for fish habitat and flood control

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

A flock of birds flies over the Yolo Bypass near Woodland, where conservationists hope to restore ancient floodplains.

Woodland, Yolo County —

Five acres of mud and rice stubble doesn’t look much like fish habitat, but the rectangular patch of summertime cropland is in the process of being converted to a teeming marsh filled with young salmon.

The conversion to wetland of the rice paddy at Knaggs Ranch, north of Woodland next to the Yolo Bypass, is an experiment that conservationists hope will eventually lead to the restoration of ancient floodplains all along the Sacramento and San Joaquin River corridors.

The small piece of soon-to-be-flooded cropland is an attempt to combine agriculture with habitat restoration, flood prevention with the creation of more floodplain.

“There is a real push to just build levees higher and bigger rather than really taking into account ecosystem functions,” said Jacob Katz, a biologist with the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. “We are hoping to say, ‘Look, this is how you do it. You can protect against flooding this way, too.’ ”

Breaching levees

The experiment, which involves the breaching of levees protecting the lower 5 acres of a 1,700-acre rice farm, is one example of the kind of innovation that conservationists hope will be inspired by California’s first ever attempt to create a systemwide plan to manage floods.

The $4.9 billion FloodSAFE initiative, which was created by the Central Valley Flood Protection Act in 2006, involves an ambitious program to increase public safety, promote long-term economic stability and improve environmental stewardship in the areas that have historically flooded during winter rains.

The state Department of Water Resources will issue a draft of its flood protection plan on Dec. 30, to be followed by a public comment period and hearings. The Central Valley Flood Protection Board, a panel of experts appointed by the Legislature, will have until July 1, 2012, to adopt the plan.

Salmon and rice

The document will set guidelines for flood protection and funding along the Sacramento River and around the Yolo Bypass, which was built almost a century ago as a relief valve for Sacramento River flood water. The specific programs will be developed by local and regional governments and communities.

The Knaggs Ranch study is being conducted by UC Davis, the state Department of Water Resources and rice paddy owner John Brennan, with support from Cal Trout and Trout Unlimited.

The plan is to trap the floodwater over the next month and, on Feb. 1, introduce 10,000 to 20,000 juvenile chinook salmon captured from the Feather River. Marshland habitat, including native grasses, is being restored inside the 5-acre plot.

Biologists will study the fish, waterfowl and nutrients in the water to determine the health of the wetland and to see how well the rice straw breaks down. One concern, Katz said, is that too much rotting rice straw could suck the oxygen out of the water and kill the fish.

Testing the waters

The researchers want to determine the right biological mix and, in collaboration with the owner, expand the off-season wetlands project to cover the entire 1,700 acres.

The hope, assuming all goes well, is that access points would eventually be designed so that migrating salmon in the Sacramento River could enter restored floodplains throughout the 59,000 acres of agricultural land in the Yolo Bypass and elsewhere along the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

It is important because the delta, built to funnel water through the 1,300-square-mile confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, is the heart of California’s vast water network. The system of levees, dams, channels and pumps funnels snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada to 25 million people in the Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California.

The network was designed not just to provide drinking water, but also to prevent the kind of epic flooding that once occurred regularly in the Central Valley. Flooding was so bad in the winter of 1861-62 that the entire Central Valley became a vast lake.

Flooded rice farms

The Yolo Bypass was approved in 1917 as an outlet for floodwaters every couple of years when the Sacramento River overtops what is known as the Fremont Weir. The land beneath the bypass, which is reserved for agriculture during the summer, becomes an inland sea during heavy flooding.

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

Migratory waterfowl regularly visit the flooded rice farms and a small area of restored wetlands called the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area. Sometimes juvenile salmon spill over the weir into the bypass, but the area is not designed for fish, which often become trapped, when the water subsides, and die in evaporating pools.

Staggering fish migration

It is one of many reasons fisheries biologists believe California’s once vast population of chinook salmon has been declining despite an enormous yearly infusion of hatchery-raised fish. Only about 5 percent of the original Sacramento floodplains still exist, Katz said.

The creation of a statewide flood management plan is an opportunity to restore the floodplains where migrating fish historically rested, foraged for food and fattened up before returning to the river, Katz said. It would also stagger the migration over the course of the winter and spring season.

“Floodplains are important for foraging fish and for creating a more diverse portfolio of life histories,” Katz said. “By taking away floodplains and channeling them into rivers, we have taken that diversity away.”

The original idea behind the FloodSAFE initiative was to shore up the system of levees in the delta, which have failed 166 times over the past 100 years. The danger of flooding is now worse than ever, according to experts, who point out that the sea level is rising and land in the Central Valley is subsiding.

The state’s flood management plan, which could cost as much as $16 billion to fully implement, is expected to include a major expansion of the Yolo Bypass.

“By expanding the bypass we open the door for increased ecosystem restoration while getting the dual benefit of reducing flood risk,” said Michael Mierzwa, the supervising engineer and flood policy adviser for the Department of Water Resources. “The caveat that I put on that is that it is going to take decades to implement.”

Commitment in spotlight

The level of commitment to ecosystem restoration is the major concern among many environmentalists. Many local community leaders are vehemently opposed to converting farmland into wetlands. One big reason, Mierzwa said, is because both the agricultural land and the product grown on it are taxable. When you take a rice farm out of production, he said, you reduce the tax revenues which are, in turn, used to maintain the flood system.

The Knaggs Ranch experiment, Katz said, is designed to show how floodplain and habitat restoration can be accomplished without taking agricultural land out of production.

“We’re really talking about a paradigm shift in the way we push water around the landscape,” Katz said. “It’s going to be much cheaper to invest in a system that incorporates floodplain restoration now than it will be in the future. It will be better for ducks, better for fish and better for farms.”

E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

 Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/25/MNDK1MEG6S.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1hxOgl0e2

 Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/25/MNDK1MEG6S.DTL#ixzz1hxOTvmlR
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