On 24 June 2015, CSPA submitted a detailed presentation to the State Water Board’s workshop on drought issues, Delta flows and the revised Temperature Management Plan for the upper Sacramento River. Under the proposed plan temperature criteria would be increased from 56F to 58F at Clear Creek near Redding.
The failure to maintain adequate temperatures last year during spawning, incubation, emergence and early fry development led to the loss of 95% of winter-run, 98% fall-run and virtually all of the spring-run Chinook salmon brood year. It appears that a similar debacle is likely to occur this year.
In a joint press released issued with Restore the Delta, CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings was quoted as saying, “Sacramento River water temperatures are already exceeding lethal levels and it’s beginning to look like this year will be a repeat of last years debacle that obliterated an entire brood year of Chinook salmon. Delta and longfin smelt are teetering on the precipice of extinction. And the State Water Board is again preparing to weaken legal water quality standards that are critical to the very existence of these species. It is both unreasonable, illegal and a moral sin to send species that thrived for millennia into extinction simply to provide millions of acre-feet of water to irrigate pasture, alfalfa and other low value crops in the desert.”