Understanding Government

King salmon

While Washington, D.C. was solving another self-created crisis, real American solutions were emerging in the other Washington.   As William Yardley writes in the New York Times, massive dams that have prevented salmon from migrating upstream on the Elwha River are to be physically removed, allowing salmon to move naturally to their spawning grounds.  Experts predict that “392,000 fish will fill 70 miles of habitat now blocked by the dams, matching the predam peak. Chinook here once grew as big as 100 pounds, and experts say they should reach that size again.”  (more…)

Chinook salmon

California’s vanishing salmon are suddenly bouncing back. After four years of declining populations that have worried scientists, bankrupted fisherman and launched desperate conservation measures, a near record year is predicted for Chinook or King salmon, prompting regulators to prepare plans for opening the Pacific for the first real commercial and recreational salmon fishing season since 2007.

The federal Pacific Fishery Management Council released three conceptual options for the coming season yesterday, reports Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle. All three options allow for much more fishing than last year, predicated on estimates derived from the number of two-year-old salmon, known as ‘jacks,’ that returned to spawn a year ago. (more…)

Genetically modified salmon, designed to grow faster with the injection of growth hormone genes from another species, is likely to win approval for human consumption from the federal Food and Drug Administration this coming weekend, reports Susanne Rust of CaliforniaWatch.

The panel will also determine what, if any consumer labeling will be required for the creature. If the non-debate over adding radiation to ground beef is any indication, consumers will be left in the dark. (more…)

The National Marine Fisheries Service was ordered to go back to the drawing board by a federal judge in California, the latest inconclusive skirmish over fish habitat in an important tributary to the Sacramento River, Denny Walsh of the Sacramento Bee reported Monday.

The battle is over the fate of two dams on Northern California’s Yuba River, which were constructed to prevent remnants of mountains blasted away by hydraulic mining during the gold rush from fouling waterways downstream.  According to the agency, populations of endangered salmon, steelhead and sturgeon are all stable in the river, facts certified in a required ‘biological opinion.’ However, environmental groups convinced the judge that the agency’s opinion was rife with contradictions and flaws that the agency was well aware of. (more…)

Farming interests triumphed over environmentalists and federal officials in round 6742 of the California water wars as a federal judge eased pumping restrictions Tuesday in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, sending more river water to farms and leaving less for endangered fish. At least for the next three weeks. (more…)