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CSPA and Others Groups Comment on Salmon and Steelhead Recovery Plan
by Chris Shutes, CSPA FERC Projects Director
February 1, 2010 -- CSPA and six other conservation and fishing groups filed comments last Friday on the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Public Draft Recovery Plan for Central Valley steelhead and spring-run and winter-run Chinook salmon.
The comments set forth a general policy position:
“Our organizations believe that volitional passage past Central Valley rim dams (and elsewhere) should be established wherever it is feasible. However, we believe that trap and haul options will be necessary in many cases to avoid extinction.”
Promised for many years, the plan now needs to be completed and published in final form. The absence of a plan has long frustrated CSPA and others seeking to restore Central Valley salmon and steelhead, since other regulatory entities have routinely dismissed as speculative our calls for getting fish upstream of Central Valley rim dams.
The Draft Recovery Plan states that salmon and steelhead in the Central Valley cannot be recovered until at least two populations of each species is at low risk of extinction in the diverse areas of the Central Valley.
The signatories are greatly supportive of NMFS in it recovery planning efforts. Many of the comments address recommendations for specific improvements to the plan. The comments suggest that NMFS should include a comprehensive economic analysis of the loss of Central Valley salmonid fisheries. The document filed also includes more intensive analysis of recovery opportunities on the Merced River, and proposes that NMFS consider seven study plans developed for the Merced watershed.
In addition to CSPA, the comments were filed by the Merced River Conservation Committee, Trout Unlimited, Friends of the River, Golden West Women Flyfishers, American Rivers, and American Whitewater.