Redwood Reader

93. Salmon
It is a pretty good year for the coho locally. The larger numbers at sea have translated into more fish in the streams, and the fish are taking advantage of miles of reopened spawning habitat coming available as a result of the regional culvert plan. It is important to see results from the efforts of so many people. John Driscoll of the Eureka Times-Standard writes about this success.
On January 6 I asked Ray Lingel of the Mattole Salmon Group how the Mattole spawning season was progressing. He responded: “It’s been a rough year for the fish, but all in all they are coming through pretty well. We don’t have a handle on the Chinook run this year...seems most of them spawned in the mainstem due to the dry Nov and Dec, but if things stay relatively dry they may be fine. There is definitely a decent run, but how it compares to other years, or what the total number of spawners is, remains a mystery. It looks to be another banner year for coho tho, the second in a row. The headwaters are full of them. Not that we compare to Freshwater creek, but the numbers are really exciting so far. Both the Chinook and coho runs are continuing, tho the Chinook are tapering off. Steelies are starting. Everything is a bit late due to the river mouth opening early, then closing again til Dec 9”.
Critical habitat rule changes are under discussion for several runs of salmonids. NOAA will hold a public hearing on Jan. 13, at the North Coast Inn, 4975 Valley West Blvd., Arcata from 6:30 to 9:30. A link to the rule itself and for a variety of ways to comment can be found in the article body below, from the Eureka Reported, January 4, 2005.
The results of the culvert program should be as good as they appear to be and stay that way for quite a while Other fixes in the restoration of natural cycles will take longer. Reopening habitat is simpler than restoring it. Glomalin study should guide critical habitat issues, as it is the heart of the watersheds health, while still allowing select cutting in many areas, and shows the general condition of the regions natural water storage, a sure index of stream health. While it is known to many that dry streams may return after conifers have become established, the three dimensional aspect of water storage has not been well documented. Watersheds are categorized as damaged or impaired by a percentage of surface area paved or roofed. But most other land uses decrease the ability of fungi to condition soil to absorb and hold precipitation, and the watersheds capacity is reduced especially in the dry season.

Opening doors to salmon: Remove barriers and they will come
By John Driscoll The Times-Standard
Sunday, January 09, 2005 -
Rosy-flanked coho salmon are seeding gravel in Lindsay Creek with the hope of years to come, and the path they now take to their honeymoon suite is easier than it’s been in 40 years.
Since the 1964 flood tore apart an earlier culvert that passed the creek under Murray Road, salmon and steelhead have struggled to get upstream. Again in 1998 it blew out during pounding El Niño rains, sending tons of sediment downstream to clog spawning areas.
The repair—like so many in the desperate rush to reconnect the devastated Humboldt County road system after the 1964 and 1955 deluges—didn’t have fish in mind. In many places since then, biologists have watched as salmon literally beat their heads against culverts in their instinctual push upstream.
Today, dozens of poorly designed, rusting culverts essentially close the door to salmon looking to get up streams they historically used. But replacing the bogus culvert like on Lindsay Creek, a Mad River tributary, with a giant pipe that follows the lay of the stream has now been repeated 40 times on county roads in Humboldt, Del Norte, Siskiyou, Trinity and Mendocino counties.
“Of everything you do, removing barriers is going to have the most immediate result,” said Mark Lancaster, program manager for the Five Counties Salmon Restoration Program. Some 98 miles of habitat have been opened, and in many cases salmon just couldn’t wait to take advantage. The projects are not just a boon to salmon, but a major overhaul of important county infrastructure, improving stream crossings so they can handle big water.
Taking the tally
Upstream from Murray Road about a half mile, the romantic ruckus was obvious last week. Tired, fungus-covered males did their best to brave the flow of the stream—only feet across there—while fresh males and females jostled to pass on genes.
The fish passed easily above the Murray Road crossing, then pushed under three new private bridges that once were culverts prone to blowing out.
On Monday, fisheries biologist Ross Taylor and geologist and videographer Thomas Dunklin crept along Lindsay Creek’s banks examining and photographing the fish. Taylor led an effort to inventory barriers to migrating fish for the five counties. On the counties’ roads alone, he identified 250 barriers, at least 100 of which slam the door to salmon. A California Coastal Conservancy survey went on to identify more than 3,300 known fish barriers, and 9,000 potential fish barriers, in the state. So far, the five counties, the state and the federal government have spent $10.9 million replacing 39 culverts. In many instances, the results have been nearly magical.
In tiny Humboldt Bay tributaries Morrison Gulch and Ryan Slough, and in Merrill Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River, fish immediately took advantage of newly opened creeks. In other places, notably in Mendocino County, little new action has been recorded. “Actually seeing fish upstream is kind of the icing on the cake,” Taylor said. This year, 10 projects are scheduled, including four in Humboldt County. It’s not going to be cheap; those projects will cost $2.3 million.
Most of the cost is born by the California Department of Fish and Game’s Fisheries Restoration Grant Program; the Coastal Conservancy; the National Wildlife Foundation and American Rivers. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries department provides consultation and recommendations.
The counties share a significant portion of the cost—Humboldt County in 2001 and 2002 spent $500,000. Lancaster pointed out that while that money comes out of the same budget as that which funds paving and striping, maintenance costs surrounding poorly designed culverts drop. “If you’re willing to pay for it, you can have your cake and eat it too,” said Terry Roelofs, a fisheries professor at Humboldt State University.
Nothing that wasn’t known
Seventy years ago, biologists for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Fisheries saw the writing on the wall.
In “A Biological Survey of Streams and Lakes in the Klamath and Shasta National Forests of California,” A.C. Taft and Leo Shapovalov wrote that in many areas, state and Forest Service crews had cut off fish habitat while building roads.
Especially problematic were culverts that had outfalls many feet above the creek bed downstream, they wrote. They advocated small bridges wherever possible, despite the expense.”It is certainly robbing Peter to pay Paul to put in low-cost but impassable culverts on the one hand and expend money for stream improvement on the other,” the pair wrote.
Over the years, the subject occasionally came up and piecemeal work was done to correct simple barriers. The issue cropped up in the 1970s, and biologists, hydrologists and engineers talked about it at length. But nobody, said hydrologist Mike Furniss, had an inventory of barriers, much less a larger view of the conundrum. “We were driving over these problems on the way to conferences to talk about recovering fish,” said Furniss, who is now with the research branch of the U.S. Forest Service in Corvallis, Ore. Finally, about five years ago, the inventory movement began and Furniss, along with hydrologist Mike Love and engineer Susan Firor, developed a software program called Fish X-ing, which did the hard math necessary to design culverts friendly to fish. That program, developed out of Humboldt County, is now used around the world. Funding also came to bear, in large part through then-state Sen. Mike Thompson’s SB 271, and through Propositions 12, 13 and 50 state parks and water bond measures.
While dams on productive salmon streams pose the same problem to fish as do culverts—often on a much larger scale—the panacea to small barriers is both cheaper and less divisive. “Fish passage improvement is like apple pie,” said Michael Bowen, a project director for the Coastal Conservancy. “Nobody stands in the middle of the stream saying, ‘You’re not improving fish passage here.’”
Likewise, the process of replacing fish-blocking culverts is simpler than regulating sediment from logging and land use, more instantly productive than doing work to improve habitat in streams, and easier to understand than how fish use estuaries. As spectacular as the results of the projects are, though, Furniss said replacing culverts is by no means the only means to recovery for ailing salmon populations. Dam removal, temperature problems, water quality, sediment and critical nutrients, provided in part through dead spawners—“You have to have fish to make fish,” Dunklin said—will all have to be addressed.
One key to a salmon future
The results on a number of Humboldt County streams are heartening, though. On Lindsay Creek, there have been chinook and coho salmon using the crest of nearly every riffle this year. On Mather Creek, enough salmon have been busily digging salmon redds, or egg nests, to have moved huge amounts of gravel added during the culvert replacement.
Still most staggering perhaps is Morrison Gulch, a tributary of Jacoby Creek. The winter after its fish blocking culvert was replaced, 2001 to 2002, more than 50 spawning-age salmon dug 39 redds. The following year saw 216 coho and 116 redds. The number dropped in 2003-2004, the year salmon born before the culvert was replaced returned. Then it rose again. This season’s surveys show 60 adult salmon and 57 redds so far. That’s a significant improvement, to say the least, from years just prior to the project when Taylor and biologist Tom Weseloh would net fish below the culvert and bring them upstream.
But recolonization, as its termed, is a long-term process affected by everything from ocean conditions to sediment. Still, Taylor said, freeing up the access should come first; then the other parameters can be addressed.
Tiny little Morrison Gulch in the 1970s was described by a biologist as a small, brushy, overgrown creek with no fisheries value. “That may have been the last time anyone looked at it,” Taylor said.

NOAA schedules four hearings about salmon
http://www.eurekareporter.com/Stories/fp-01040501.htm
Eureka Reporter
Jan 4, 2005
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service’s southwest region has scheduled four public hearings to gather input on its proposed designation of critical habitat for seven evolutionary significant units of Pacific salmon and steelhead in California.
On Dec. 10, NMFS proposed critical habitat designations for two ESUs of Chinook salmon and five ESUs of anadromous steelhead (including resident rainbow trout) in California that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
These public hearings have been scheduled to provide the public and other interested parties additional opportunity to comment on the proposed regulations by Feb. 8. Comments may be made directly to agency staff at the hearing or by a number of other methods listed at the end of this news release.
Public hearings will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the date and location noted below:
• Jan. 13, North Coast Inn, 4975 Valley West Blvd., Arcata
• Jan. 20, Radisson Hotel Sacramento, 500 Leisure Lane, Sacramento;
• Jan. 19, DoubleTree Hotel Sonoma Wine Country, One DoubleTree Drive, Rohnert Park; and
• Feb. 1, Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort, 633 East Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara.
Written comments on the proposed critical habitat designations must be received by Feb. 9. Community groups and residents may submit comments on the proposed critical habitat designations, identified by docket number (041123329I-4329-01) and RIN number (0649-AO04), by any of the following methods:
• E-mail: critical.habitat.swr@noaa.gov. Include docket number and RIN number in the subject line of the message.
• Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
• Agency Web site: http://ocio.nmfs.noaa.gov/ibrm-ssi/index.shtml. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
• Mail: Submit written comments and information to Assistant Regional Administrator, NMFS, Protected Resources Division, 501 W. Ocean Blvd., Suite 4200, Long Beach, Calif., 90802-4213. Groups and residents may hand-deliver written comments to the agency’s office during normal business hours at the address given above.
•Fax:(562)980-4027.
The proposed rule, maps and other materials related to the proposal can be found on the southwest region’s Web site at http://swr.nmfs.noaa.gov.