Good Morning. I want to thank the Salmonid Restoration Federation for the honor of addressing this the 19th annual conference. In speaking to you today I am following in the rather famous footsteps of previous keynote speakers from Congressman George Miller, to the late author Marc Reisner, to one of fish restoration's best friends - Bill Kier. So this is a true honor.
Your work, our work, in saving salmon is terribly important. Restoring salmon is, after all, about more than just fish. It's about food, and jobs, and cultures, and communities. Our effort, our success in bringing these fish and what they mean back, says much about us and says much about our society. So I truly appreciate the invitation and opportunity to discuss with you this most noble endeavor.
Let me also thank all of you for coming to Chico for this conference. Chico, you may remember, was once known for being home to the number two party school in the nation - second only to the cheeseheads at the University of Wisconsin. Perhaps I am dating myself, but what little I remember of the 1960's Chico State was Animal House. Chico, too was known, thanks to Herb Caen, as the Velveeta capitol of the world. In recent years, however, Chico has lost that old cheesiness.
The university is a serious place now and this city is becoming the center for much of the salmon restoration efforts on the Upper Sacramento tributaries. This area is central to some real opportunities for reopening streams to salmon, in places such as Butte and Battle creeks. It is also home to many of the spring-salmon recovery efforts. It is an appropriate venue for this restoration conference.
When I was invited by the Federation to be here today, they asked me to talk about the fishermen's perspective on restoration efforts. I will try to do that. Mostly, however, I want to reflect on where salmon and steelhead restoration is at this stage of its life, and the crisis I think is now facing our efforts to restore watersheds, to recover these magnificent fish and rebuild our fishing communities.
In California, I am convinced that the reason we still have salmon populations is that long ago commercial and sport fishermen stopped fighting over the fish. Instead of fighting, they began working - working together with agency biologists in an effort to reverse the wanton destruction of salmon in California in coastal watersheds and in the rivers of the Central Valley.
Indeed, this year marks the 45th anniversary of the founding of Salmon Unlimited where it all began, where modern salmon restoration got started along the Pacific Coast. It was in December 1956, following the closure of the century-old salmon net fishery on the Bay and Delta, that the remaining fishing groups realized that their fisheries would be next unless they did something to save the fish. They got together that December 45 years ago with a handful of dedicated agency biologists and committed to rebuild California's salmon runs.
The odds they were facing were staggering. The State Water Rights Board had declared that the preservation of salmon populations in California was "not in the public interest of the state." Water flowing to the sea was seen as wasted. State administrations and the Legislature sought to irrigate the arid San Joaquin Valley with water from the Sacramento and north coast rivers. So-called "surplus" water from the north - the north would get flood control from dams in return - would be sent south to fill the pools of a burgeoning population in the Los Angeles basin thus allowing California to pass New York and giving us bragging rights as "numba one." Remember, too, the peripheral canal around the Delta was thought of as a salmon enhancement tool back then.
Sure you can say salmon populations did continue to decline. Look, after all, at all the salmon stocks presently listed. Consider the absence of coho and steelhead in many streams, or the abysmal shape of chinook in the dewatered Eel River. But also remember those were very different times. There was no Endangered Species Act, there was no Clean Water Act. There was not even a Magnuson Act to protect against overfishing by foreign fleets. We were still spraying DDT and children were taught to get under their desks in case of a nuclear attack. Make no mistake, had those commercial and sport fishing representatives, along with biologists such as the late John Pelnar, under the rubric of Salmon Unlimited, not been there, salmon would be extinct today in California.
They began making the public aware of salmon. They began clamoring for changes in land use and water regulations. They began working to get funding for salmon restoration and what was being called back then "enhancement." In later years as salmon protection efforts began moving from hatcheries to watersheds, it was Salmon Unlimited and its spin-offs that supported the early work of fishermen such as Nat Bingham and Scott Downie putting in hatch boxes and cleaning out streams.
Salmon restoration did not begin with the federal funds, it did not begin with Bosco-Keene or Governor Jerry Brown's renewable resource investment programs, rather it came about because of this great coalition between commercial and sport fishermen and a few dedicated agency scientists.
I would be remiss also if I did not mention that this year also marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of "An Environmental Tragedy." That 1971 report was to the first in a series issued by the California Advisory Committee on Salmon & Steelhead Trout to the California Legislature documenting the causes of salmon declines and making recommendations for changes to restore the fish. As most of you, of course, know now the Advisory Committee did succeed in getting some early legislation passed, but most importantly its 1988 report "Restoring the Balance" set out what is now state and federal policy for doubling California's salmon and steelhead populations.
What all this history means I guess is - depending on where you mark the beginning of salmon restoration - that it is either at mid-life or can no longer be trusted. Since many of those active in Salmon Unlimited were successful in persuading Assemblywoman Pauline Davis to carry the initial enabling legislation creating the Advisory Committee back in 1969, I would submit our modern restoration history begins, therefore, with Salmon Unlimited. Indeed, some of those active in Salmon Unlimited and the Advisory Committee were also instrumental in the formation of PCFFA 25 years ago.
My purpose here, however, is not just to pay homage to the early pioneers in salmon restoration, but to reflect on where the restoration movement is now, at middle-age.
And, let's be clear, I'm not here to give advice on dealing with your mid-life crisis, i.e., whether to trade in the pick-up for a roadster and run-off with that lithe, young 23-year old assistant you just hired because of his or her "sterling qualifications." I'll leave it for each of you to personally deal with your own mid-life crisis - whether it persists now or is one you have to look forward to.
No, the mid-life crisis I want to talk about is that which now threatens to undo so much of what has been accomplished in salmon restoration. It is the crisis that threatens all of what we care about, from the early efforts of commercial and sport fishing representatives and Salmon Unlimited, to what all of you have been engaged in during the last twenty, last ten or just last year.
At the risk of digressing, I'm reminded of those mid-life crisis-based ketchup commercials that Garrison Keillor does on National Public Radio's "Prairie Home Companion." You know, the ones that start with the whiney woman saying to the guy with the dead-flat voice "I don't know, Harry, there's something missing from our marriage these days". Then they go on to agree that they're lacking the zest, the passion, that they knew in their earlier days and it cuts to the announcer who assures us that ketchup will put zing back into their mid-life marriage.
I wish it were that easy for the mid-life crisis that I feel descending on California's 45-year struggle to bring back our salmon - that a dollop of ketchup a day would bring back the passion. Unfortunately it's not that easy.
In some ways the fight might even be harder these days. There seem to be devils both within and without. Let me talk for a minute about the external forces that threaten to drag us down. Then I've really got to talk a bit about the devils within.
First, consider the devil outside. California has been struggling with growth for as long as any of us can remember. It's only gotten worse during the salmon restoration decades. It's been barely 30 years ago since we were trumpeting about passing New York in population size. Today we are two New Yorks. Who's trumpeting now, huh? The planners tell us a population the size of Chicago is going to be plunked into the Los Angeles basin within the next 30 years.
At some point the freeways will jam solid, the taps will run dry, the lights will go out, and people will start flocking to Montana or Alabama. In the meantime we salmon restorationists are going to have to renew the fight to keep water in the streams. Always a problem when the planners were crying for more water for irrigation and cities, the water thing just got nastier with the power squeeze.
California's current energy "crisis" is part contrived, much of it self-inflicted and all of it foreseeable. For some in the restoration community, however, the energy crisis is about a cash crunch. That is, with the state spending all of its surplus, all of its reserves to buy energy, where are the additional bucks from the General Fund for restoration programs coming from? The potential shortage of restoration dollars, however, is not what concerns me about the energy devil. No, the energy devil is far more insidious.
What is now happening is that the State is trying to squeeze every last bit of power out of every dam with hydro generation capabilities. What this means is that plans for removing old dams to reopen salmon habitat will probably be shelved. But what the State Administration is doing does not mean we give up on taking out the antiquated, the marginal, the obsolete. It's just going to be a lot more difficult now. Thank God, the effort is already in place for removal of many of the dams on Battle Creek.
It's not just dam removal that will be harder because of the energy devil, but also protecting fish in-stream were dams remain. Last month Governor Davis issued his Executive Order D-22-01, to expedite energy development by easing environmental regulations, meaning, among other things, less protection for fish.
This was followed by his office's apparent order of a reversal of the State Water Board's reluctant November, 2000 decision to finally do something about the inadequate fish flows in the Yuba River. The Administration wants to cut the flow improvements and put them on a five-year hold until they get their zillion new power plants in place.
Moreover, the energy devil has given cover for water diverters to now couch their insatiable water appetites under the umbrella of the "energy crisis." For example, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) - the "Gang that Couldn't Nuke Straight" - has joined Westlands Water District in attacking the Department of Interior's decision to return some water back into the Trinity River for salmon and steelhead. All in the name of the power crisis.
Look next for some water diverter to begin whining about energy when it comes to restoring some of the flows back to the Eel River. The restoration of these Eel flows, as you all should know, are essential to recovering coastal chinook populations in what was California's third largest salmon producing system.
If all of our work for the past 45 years aimed at removing obsolete dams, at fixing passage and flows at those dams that remain, and assuring there is adequate water in-stream is threatened now by an "environmentally friendly" state administration, consider the administration we now have in Washington. First the federal administration tried to blame California's energy problem on environmental regulations. Now, sensing the public is willing to consider alternative energy sources - which are proving practical and affordable - the President is offering a dollop of solar for drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That's probably how he's going to approach fish conservation as well. To can get a pedicure all we have to do is give his powerful friends our leg!
All of this is to say that restorationists cannot simply live in isolation in the back woods doing good things for salmon and their habitat. The forays into Sacramento and Washington have got to be more than just getting restoration funding. If we're going to protect the gains that have been made in bringing salmon back, if we're to continue making progress in restoring our salmon and steelhead, then restorationists have to be engaged in the energy debate. Someone remarked that California is not an island on the energy grid. The business of salmon restoration is also not an island in the debate on many of the issues affecting this region, particularly energy and water.
That engagement in the battle with the energy devil is two-fold. First we've got to make the case for salmon protection - our streams are not there simply to generate hydro power.
Second, to stifle the clamor for new hydro power, as well as allow us to continue removing dams that may have some old generating facilities, we must be part of the solution. We've got to support energy conservation and efficiency. And, we've got to support alternatives to hydro and fossil fuel and nuclear energy. We need fuel sources that will be friendly to our fish - in the rivers and in the ocean.
Of course, one of the easiest ways for this State to conserve energy is just to shut off the pumps shipping Delta water south. The state and federal Delta pumps and the pumping facilities to send water over the Tehachapis are, after all, the biggest energy users in the state. Which brings me to the other devil outside, or at least the other head of the devil, and that is water supply.
It was that old "biologist" Oscar Hammerstein who said it best, "fish gotta swim." And you can't have fish without water. While you might not know it looking from outside, California does not have enough water. That is, this state in normal and dry years, never mind drought conditions, does not have an adequate amount of water for urban uses, for agriculture, for fish and for the environment. As we have known since the 1976-77 drought - when there was not enough water for fish and the environment - California is short of this precious fluid.
Sure, since the 1976-77 drought some protections have been put in place, mostly because of the Endangered Species Act, to give more water to fish and the environment but not because of the beneficence of any agency, administration or water district. Yes, we have seen farmers and municipalities enact conservation measures to reduce waste and some of demand. But the fact is this state is expected to grow to 50 million people by 2020. Even with the most stringent conservation and water reuse measures, it will not fix the problem of a state that is short water now with 35 million people. The water next time will not only come out of the hide of fisheries and the environment, but agriculture as well.
With all due respect to our U.S. Senator and Valley Representatives, dams do not create new water, nor does mining deep aquifers. All dams do is reallocate the water that falls on the state and flows in its streams. They change river regimes, block passage, reduce stream flows and diminish fresh water inflows to bays and estuaries. And they lose water to evaporation. They don't create one drop of new water. Water that once flowed down streams to support fish and wildlife and into bays and estuaries to sustain marine critters such as herring, oysters and crabs ends up being evaporated or a carrier of waste materials. Whatever is left is treated with chlorine and discharged from sewage and stormwater outfalls into the sea.
You can bet in the next normal or dry year there will be clamor once again to take water from the fish and the environment to meet agricultural and urban demands. Even the CALFED Record of Decision - you remember CALFED that is supposed to fix the fish problems in the Bay and Delta and assure a dependable water supply - its Record of Decision will mean less freshwater for fish and the environment. True, we may get some pulse flows for salmon to get them downstream and through the Delta, but salmon still have to live in an estuary that will be getting less fresh water. Salmon, along with herring, oysters and crabs, will all be taking it in the shorts unless we can do a better job at agricultural and urban water conservation, and unless we can find some real new sources of water - such as desalinization.
Again, restorationists cannot hide out in their watersheds working in their streams. We have to engage this water shortage devil. We've got to be there demanding the water that rightfully belongs to the fish. Likewise we've got to be there with solutions. Those solutions, I suggest, are water conservation and reuse for the near term and, in the long-term, desalinization to supply coastal urban populations.
All the restoration work in the world won't help if there's no water. And if there's any less water to save the salmon we'll need genetic engineers, not stream hydrologists, because it will take genetic engineering - the same as has been used to grow salmon quicker and bigger - but this time to take the genes from a horse allowing the fish to grow legs and lungs, which is exactly what they'll need if we keep dewatering our rivers and streams.
Molly Thomas who was an Americorps Watershed's Steward in the Institute for Fisheries Resources' office a couple of years ago, remarked once that "fish don't swim in money." That is something we need to remember constantly as we work to restore salmon. The money in recent years for restoration has been easier and easier to come by. The water, however, and the regulatory reform of dams and land uses, has been far harder to get - which brings me to the devil within.
The concern I have here, and I think that of some in the fishing industry, is that the business of restoration not become soft in middle age and lose its passion. It's easy to go along with some agency or corporation willing to pony up the bucks for a project in return for our silence on weak regulations, or a bad timber harvest plan, or another draw on the water from the stream. After all, there is a crew to pay and there's your salary, and the house mortgage and the kid's tuition.
In short, restoration's mid-life crisis may well be the loss of passion, the willingness to just go along to get the bucks. But being settled, being comfortable, being complacent is not what salmon restoration is about. That is not what the commercial and sport fishermen and agency biologists were about when they formed Salmon Unlimited 45 years ago. That is not what the Citizen's Advisory Committee was about when they issued "An Environmental Tragedy" or "Restoring the Balance." They were passionate about saving these fish, about bringing them back. Comfort and security were not in their lexicon.
I worry now as restoration reaches mid-life that we not lose the passion for the salmon. I worry that we not become so concerned about the dollars that we overlook practices destroying habitat or projects taking more water from the streams. I worry that our silence could be bought.
I am not going to repeat Jesse Unruh's famous admonition to his fellow legislators about taking lunch and other perks from lobbyists. What is important here is that whatever money comes to the restoration community, we be clear that it is to do restoration work, it is not to buy our silence or still our passion. I don't care how much any agency or corporation lards on us in the way of restoration dollars, we should never shrink from suing them or testifying against them when they abuse the fish and their habitats. I think it was also Molly Thomas who said it best: "you can pay us, but you can't buy us." We should always be mindful of that.
So where are we at mid-life? We are faced with some of the biggest challenges ever to confront restoration in the form of the energy and water issues. These two devils will take every bit of labor, every bit of passion we can summon to overcome. At mid-life we cannot afford to be comfortable or complacent. The desire for restoration dollars can never, must never transcend our obligation, our responsibility to protect habitat and flows.
I don't know if what we need is a dollop of ketchup. And I can't tell you whether to buy the sports car and take off with that young aide. Just do what it takes to bring back the passion, to keep your soul. We are at this point in mid-life at a crisis stage. We could lose everything that you all and many before you worked for to save salmon and steelhead. We are also poised to do greater things, to restore these magnificent fish and everything they represent - from food, to cultures, to thriving communities. Greatness, however, is not going to come by being comfortable and complacent, it's only going to come from hard work and passion. So whether it's ketchup, a sports car, or a young honey, or whatever it takes, at this point in mid-life let's keep the passion in our love for salmon.
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