Written exclusively for Maven’s Notebook by hydrologist Robert Shibatani The past week has seen unprecedented weather across southern California, the Bay Area, and portions of the Sierra Nevada.  While the storms have not matched the strength and immediate destruction of the New Year’s Atmospheric River, they have nevertheless resulted in record-breaking snow conditions throughout much of southern California and the Sierra...
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San Francisco -- Fishery managers, in a presentation given to the salmon industry in Oregon on February 27, estimate there are only 169,800 Sacrament Basin fall run salmon in the ocean now. This is likely too few to allow much, if any, fishing in 2023.  The same information will be delivered to the California salmon industry on March 1. Normally fishery...
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Sorry I missed last week’s publications as I had a medical problem and was not able to type. The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) with the Trinity Management Council (TMC) have agreed to the augmentation of a Winter Flow for the Trinity River that began February 15th and will end March14th. These releases are supposed to emulate winter snow melt. Trinity Lake’s water source...
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Dear Salmon supporter, The governor has taken direct aim at our salmon and we need to let him know he needs to change course.  In a harsh blow to salmon recovery efforts, Governor Gavin Newsom has bowed to the will of factory farm operators in the Central Valley and invited his water managers to waive state law aimed at protecting salmon and other species,...
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The Pacific Fishery Management Council released its “Review of 2022 Ocean Salmon Fisheries” report last week and the news wasn’t good. Based on an ocean abundance of 200,100 Klamath River fall Chinook thought to be swimming in the ocean last fall, forecasters predicted roughly 66,759 adults would return to the river. Unfortunately, the run fell a little shorter than the...
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If you're covering news today of the federal Bureau of Reclamation announcing they'll deliver 100% water allocations to many of its big ag water contractors, consider this statement from GSSA president John McManus:   "Recently the state announced 100% water deliveries to some of its big ag water contractors and today the federal government announced many of their big ag water contractors will get...
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