Threatened salmon face another hot summer in the Trinity River

State, federal legislators seek drought preparations

February 24, 2022

Drought conditions don’t look like they’re going to let up this summer and that could leave the Trinity River’s already threatened fish species in hot water.

On Tuesday, North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman sent a letter to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton requesting that less water from Trinity Lake be sent to Central Valley farmers. The lake is currently storing 775,000 acre feet of water, which is just 25,000 acre feet above the amount of water needed to maintain cool temperatures in the Trinity River, and that’s before the irrigation season has even started.

“Without this cold water, juvenile salmonids in the Trinity River during spring and summer will suffer,” Huffman wrote, “and there will be no ability for BOR to augment lower Klamath River flows in the fall for adult Chinook salmon.”

Huffman asked that no water from the lake be diverted to the Central Valley Project through June and that the bureau make significant infrastructure improvements along with updating its biological assessments for water releases based on drought conditions.

“Conditions in the Trinity and Klamath river watershed are too dire to risk business as usual for the Central Valley Project,” Huffman wrote. “I ask that you quickly and carefully weigh all available options to preserve the Trinity River’s cold water and the fish and communities that depend on it.”

The Yurok Tribe is one of the communities that rely on the Trinity River and Yurok Vice Chair Frankie Myers said in a statement that the tribe strongly supports Huffman’s proposal. There need to be infrastructure investments that “allow the Trinity River Division to improve water temperatures for salmon and other imperiled species.”

“Since time immemorial, the Yurok people have relied on these salmon for sustenance and ceremony,” Myers said. “Today, the fish stocks are so low we are unable to harvest enough for our elders, let alone all of our families. If our salmon and our way of life are to survive climate change, we need these types of bold actions and we need them now.”

California is in the midst of a historic drought and conditions are expected to continue deteriorating as the climate crisis worsens. Climate scientists say avoiding disaster means updating infrastructure to meet 21st century realities like disappearing snowpack and periods of concentrated rain punctuating drawn-out dry spells.

Drought conditions predictably get worse in the summer, Heejun Chang, a professor at Portland State University whose research focuses on climate change and water management, told The Times-Standard. Not only is the demand for water higher then, but water also more readily evaporates as temperatures climb.

“You have less water available during summer when you need it the most,” Chang said. “That’s the main challenge that we are facing.”

Addressing this challenge will require looking at technological solutions, like improving infrastructure, alongside social and ecological ones, he said.

The technological solutions range from developing infrastructure to capture the precipitation during periods of concentrated rain in underground aquifers to using smart devices that can apply just the right amount of water to crops, Chang said.

While a regional approach is needed, Chang said it’s also important to take a place-based approach since localized conditions along a river may vary.

“Some parts of a stream might be more resilient than the other parts because there might be groundwater coming out there,” Chang said. “That’s why we need to look at the regional and local together to have a comprehensive picture to deal with water sustainability.”

Behavioral changes are also needed. Shifting from a meat-based to a plant-based diet would have a huge impact on water usage since animal agriculture is highly water-intensive, Chang said.

Some changes are already underway to address water infrastructure, said environmental consultant Craig Tucker. Removing the Klamath Dam would be the largest salmon restoration project in history.

A draft environmental impact statement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the dam removal is expected any day now, he said.

“Sometime this summer we expect the final permit from FERC to let the project move forward,” Tucker said. “So we expect dam removal activities to begin this year.”

Sonia Waraich can be reached at 707-441-0504.


By:  SONIA WARAICH
Source: Eureka Times-Standard