{"id":2238,"date":"2018-07-23T21:26:13","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T04:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/?p=2238"},"modified":"2018-07-23T21:26:13","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T04:26:13","slug":"more-on-sacramento-river-salmon-declines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/?p=2238","title":{"rendered":"More on Sacramento River Salmon Declines"},"content":{"rendered":"

With poor salmon runs from 2009 to 2011, Reclamation provided good conditions in the lower Sacramento River below Shasta Reservoir in spring-summers of 2010 to 2012 for fall-run and winter-run salmon. That effort contributed to recovery of fall-run salmon from the 2007-2009 drought in 2012-2014 (Figure 1). The sequence of below-normal, wet, and below-normal water years (2010-2012) provided sufficient water for good smolt survival, overcoming a significant deficit of adult spawners (eggs spawned). Poor conditions in the subsequent drought of 2013-2015 led to the latest fall-run collapse in 2016-2017.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

So did Reclamation provide good spring-summer conditions in the lower Sacramento River in below-normal, wet, below-normal water year sequence 2016-2018 to help recovery from the latest drought? No. As a result, we can now expect poor runs in 2019 and 2020 instead of a recovery.<\/p>\n

2010-2012<\/h1>\n

Reclamation made a concerted effort in 2010-2012 to meet water temperature objectives in the upper river near Red Bluff (Bend, Balls Ferry, and Red Bluff) and the lower river near Sacramento (Wilkins Slough, Verona). The 56\u00b0<\/span>F and 68\u00b0<\/span>F water temperature objectives for the upper and lower river, respectively, were regularly met (Figures 2-4) in spring and summer.<\/p>\n

2016-2018<\/h1>\n

In a less than concerted effort in 2016-2018, Reclamation has failed to meet the water temperature objectives more often and with greater discrepancies (Figures 5-7). More detail on the failure is provided in a recent post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Problem and Solution<\/h1>\n

The causal factor is simply lower flows in spring and summer 2016-2018 than 2010-2012 (Figure 8). Lower flows, higher water temperatures, and lower turbidities lead to poor salmon smolt survival (and low adult migrant survival and subsequent egg viability). A concerted effort to recover salmon would mean maintaining water temperature objectives with spring-summer flows in the lower river at Wilkins Slough in the 7000-8000 cfs range instead of the 5000-6000 cfs range (Figure 8). This may require a supplemental release from Shasta Reservoir as in 2012 (Figure 9), which amounted to nearly 200,000 acre-ft of storage release, so that storage ended at 2,600,000 acre-ft at the end of September. The target end-of-September storage in below-normal water year 2018 is 2,300,000 acre-ft. With water deliveries near 2 million acre-ft from the Sacramento River in 2012 and 2018, a \u201cconcerted effort\u201d involving 200 thousand acre-ft to maintain water temperature objectives prescribed in the water right permits seems reasonable. Whether it comes from Shasta storage or water contractor deliveries is a management\/permitting agency decision.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1. Long-term trend in upper Sacramento River fall-run salmon escapement. Red circle denotes recovery from low escapement from 2007-2009 drought.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 2. Water temperature in the upper (Red Bluff, Balls Ferry) and lower Sacramento River (Verona) in 2010. Top red line denotes objective for lower river (68\u00b0<\/span>F); bottom line denotes objective for upper river (56\u00b0<\/span>F). Red circle denotes excessive temperatures. In 2010, a below-normal water year following three years of drought had water temperatures near objectives.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 3. Water temperature in the upper (Red Bluff, Balls Ferry) and lower Sacramento River (Verona) in 2011. Top red line denotes objective for lower river (68\u00b0<\/span>F); bottom line denotes objective for upper river (56\u00b0<\/span>F). In 2011, a wet water year had water temperatures near objectives.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 4. Water temperature in the upper (Red Bluff, Balls Ferry) and lower Sacramento River (Verona) in 2012. Top red line denotes objective for lower river (68\u00b0<\/span>F); bottom line denotes objective for upper river (56\u00b0<\/span>F). Red circles denote excessive temperatures. In 2012, a below-normal water year following a wet year had water temperatures near objectives.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 5. Water temperature in the upper (Red Bluff, Bend, Balls Ferry) and lower Sacramento River (Wilkins Slough, Verona) in 2016. Top red line denotes objective for lower river (68\u00b0<\/span>F); bottom line denotes objective for upper river (56\u00b0<\/span>F). Red circles denote excessive temperatures. In 2016, a below-normal water year following three drought years had water temperatures exceeding objectives April through July.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 6. Water temperature in the upper (Red Bluff, Bend, Balls Ferry) and lower Sacramento River (Wilkins Slough, Verona) in 2017. Top red line denotes objective for lower river (68\u00b0<\/span>F); bottom line denotes objective for upper river (56\u00b0<\/span>F). Red circles denote excessive temperatures. In 2017, a wet water year had water temperatures exceeding objectives May through August.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 7. Water temperature in the upper (Red Bluff, Bend, Balls Ferry) and lower Sacramento River (Wilkins Slough, Verona) in 2018. Top red line denotes objective for lower river (68\u00b0<\/span>F); bottom line denotes objective for upper river (56\u00b0<\/span>F). Red circles denote excessive temperatures. In 2018, a below-normal water year following three drought years had water temperatures exceeding objectives April through June.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 8. Summer flow in the lower Sacramento River (Wilkins Slough) in 2010-2012 and 2016-2018.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Figure 9. Releases of water from Keswick Reservoir to the lower Sacramento River in 2012 compared to 54 year average.<\/p><\/div>\n

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  1. http:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/?p=2205<\/a> ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    With poor salmon runs from 2009 to 2011, Reclamation provided good conditions in the lower Sacramento River below Shasta Reservoir in spring-summers of 2010 to 2012 for fall-run and winter-run salmon. That effort contributed to recovery of fall-run salmon from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinook","category-water-quality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2253,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions\/2253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calsport.org\/fisheriesblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}