Article from Daily Kos.
Dan Bacher
MON APR 21, 2014 AT 09:50 AM PDT
(Sacramento) The Bureau of Reclamation will release “fish pulse” flows, designed to get juvenile salmon downriver to the ocean, from Nimbus Dam from April 21 through April 25.
The increased flows were made at the request of the state and federal fish agencies, according to Randi Field, Bureau spokesman.
The flows will increase from 500 to 1500 cfs on April 21. Then on April 24, the Bureau will begin ramping down the releases.
The flows will go down from 1500 to 1300 cfs on April 24 and from 1300 cfs to 800 cfs on April 25.
These flows should not only help prod juvenile salmon and steelhead downriver on their migration to the ocean, but should draw more American shad into the river. Shad are already showing at the mouth of the American at Discovery Park – and these increased flows can only help the fishing.
The low flows of 500 cfs in the American River over past several months are the result of the egregious mismanagement of Folsom Dam by the Bureau of Reclamation in 2013, a record drought year.
The Bureau drained Folsom Lake to its lowest level since the dam was built, 17 percent, to fill the Kern Water Bank and Southern California reservoirs and to supply water to corporate agribusiness interests irrigating toxic, drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in 2013.
The Save the American River Association, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Save Our Streams Council and the Public Trust Alliance this month filed a complaint urging the State Water Resources Control Board to amend the Bureau’s spermits to require colder and faster river flows from the Nimbus and Folsom Dams in order to protect Chinook salmon and steelhead.
“We’ve got to have a guaranteed higher flow, and there have to be modifications to Folsom Dam that will allow them to tap the coldest (water) pool in the reservoir,” Stephen Green, president of Save the American River Association, told the Sacramento Bee. “When temperatures are high and flows are low, we know that fish are being killed, and it’s not just this year. It’s been going on for decades.” (http://www.sacbee.com/…)