< PreviousDr. Joshua StrangeStillwater Sciences Senior Fish Biologist The rugged snow-capped mountains of the Salmon River provide the best chance of a long-term refuge for wild spring Chinook salmon in California in the face of global warming.(photo by Scott Harding)Spring Chinook salmon are the king of the kings. While typically smaller than their fall run cousins, Springers are the royalty of the salmon lineage; they are the first salmon to return after the lean winter months and go further up-stream into the headwaters than any other run. Their pattern of migrating far upstream in the spring, and then over-summering in deep cold pools before spawning in the fall, results in the need for abundant fat reserves to get them through this long fasting period. These abundant fat reserves give them their famously rich taste that everyone craves, from babies to bear cubs, and is the key adaptation that allows this unique life-history pattern.The other key to this pattern are the deep cold pools of the headwater streams that they migrate to, which allows them to conserve energy and stay healthy through the summer months. Historically, such places were abundantly available in the upper reaches of major tributaries to the Klamath and Sacramento rivers, but a combination of dam building, diversions, and the filling of pools with sediment from mining, logging, and roads have left only a few areas that can support Springers in California. In addition, only a few dams have the proper type of cold water releases to support spring-run Chinook salmon, such as on the Trinity and Feather rivers, but these runs are significantly comprised by hatchery domestication and interbreeding with fall-run Chinook salmon. That leaves only a select few rivers and creeks with wild spring Chinook runs - the Salmon and South Fork Trinity rivers in the Klamath Basin, and primarily Deer, Mill, and Butte creeks in the Sacramento basin.But what will happen to these critically important cold water reaches in these few remaining spring Chinook salmon streams as climate change accelerates into the future? One study examined this question for Butte Creek, and despite using a wide-variety of plausible climatic scenarios, they consistently found the same result: namely water temperatures become too hot for over-summering spring Chinook by the end of the century. Understanding if temperatures will remain tolerable in the other California spring Chinook streams is uncertain, but two things are certain: 1) water temperatures will increase with global warming, and Climate Change Refugees: Spring Chinook of the Salmon River102) the Salmon River offers the best opportunity to help ensure a long–term refuge for wild spring Chinook salmon in all of California.The Salmon River can be the best long-term refuge for wild spring Chinook in California because it offers a unique combination of public land ownership, undeveloped wild land, high elevation mountains, minimal influence from stray hatchery fish, and a community that is actively committed to restoration. While this river has all of these valuable attributes, and much work has been done, there is still significant restoration work to do to make sure it can be a long term climate refuge for spring Chinook. Springers in the Salmon River, by Michael BravoLiDAR-based inundation map of a site on the upper South Fork Salmon River showing historic mining scars and floodplain areas that are too high above the current channel (warm colors) to benefit salmon.(from Stillwater Sciences)Ultimately the goal is to implement as much of this restoration as soon as possible to help counteract the effects of global warming and ensure a long-term refuge for wild spring Chinook salmon in California, while substantially increasing the number of returning adult spawners in the process. The wild Springers of the Salmon River are not only a treasure for us here in the Klamath-Trinity region, but for the entire golden state, and will likely be the source of spring Chinook to recolonize the upper Klamath Basin once removal of the four hydroelectric dams on the mainstem Klamath is complete. Long live the kings!A recent study examined potential restoration actions to counteract climate change and found reconnecting floodplains to the stream channel to be one of the most effective actions, in part because this allows for much more interaction of surface water with the underground water table, allowing it to cool and resurface as cold seeps and springs. Reconnecting floodplains also allows for a healthier community of riparian plants and trees, which provides cooling shade. Despite superficial appearances of being pristine, the Salmon River suffers from the legacy impacts of historic gold mining, both hydraulic and dredging, that left piles of bare cobbles and boulders on the floodplain and an excess of this large substrate in the channel, effectively armoring the channel and preventing it from properly interacting with the floodplain areas in-between all the bedrock gorges. This has led to a reduction in the amount of suitable spawning habitat, reduced the amount of shallow and sheltered areas that young fry salmon can use after hatching, and increased temperatures. The Salmon River Restoration Council, in collaboration with the Karuk Tribe, US Forest Service, CA Fish & Wildlife, US Fish & Wildlife Service and its technical consultants and funders, is leading an effort to ensure that the Salmon River will be a long-term refuge for spring Chinook in the face of global warming. A large scale planning effort to restore floodplains and develop ways to revegetate bare mine tailing piles has started using state-of-the-science laser radar (LiDAR) based mapping of the river corridor. This gives a detailed view of the land surface without any vegetation and allows for the development of accurate maps of water inundation levels during critical river flow levels such as spring snowmelt and the average annual flood. These products in turn allow for all of the mining impacts to be plainly visible and for existing and potential floodplain areas to be identified. This analysis has revealed that in the Salmon River, many floodplain surfaces are now too high to be inundated frequently enough (as in every year as opposed to every 5 years or more) to provide meaningful benefits to salmon and the river channel. This effort will help identify and prioritize the floodplain areas that need treatment and develop specific restoration designs that will benefit multiple life-stages of spring Chinook salmon as well as coho and steelhead. In addition, pilot tests will be conducted to determine the best options for cost-effectively recontouring and revegetating mine tailing piles that are out of the floodplain and on bedrock terraces but still contribute to increasing water temperatures by baking in the sun and raising air temperatures along the river corridor. Spring Chinook illustration, by Alan Crockett11Josh SmithWatershed and Fisheries Restoration Program Manager for the Watershed Research & Training Center in HayforkThe South Fork Trinity River (left) has the only remaining wild spring Chinook run in the Klamath outside the Salmon River. The South Fork’s history of extensive resource extraction has taken a severe toll on water quality and fish habitat, and its population of wild spring Chinook hangs on the brink of extinction. The Watershed Center is partnering with the Yurok Tribe, Humboldt State University, the US Forest Service, and CA Department of Fish and Wildlife to learn more about the dwindling spring Chinook population. Our four priorities in this initiative include facilitating basic monitoring in the South Fork Trinity River (SFTR), Hayfork Creek and their tributaries, a Limiting Factors Analysis for spring-run Chinook, a genetics study, and educating local communities of the King salmon’s precarious status.South Fork Trinity River Spring Chinook Salmon12Trinity County Drought Impacts 2014JuneJulySeptemberThe story of the SFTR is somewhat common in the Pacific Northwest - a tale of resource extraction and environmental degradation, however it is unique in that it has true potential for recovery and sustainability. The southernmost tributary to the Klamath River is larger than most people imagine, at 980 square miles the watershed is larger than the Salmon, Scott, or Shasta Rivers in area and it contains more than 90 miles of available anadromous waters along its mainstem alone. It currently holds the unfortunate distinction of being the longest undammed river remaining in California and its elevation ranges from 7,800 feet in the Yolla Bolly Wilderness to less than 400 feet at the confluence with the mainstem of the Trinity River. The watershed’s western boundary is North America’s longest continuous ridge, the peculiarly uniform, linear and uninterrupted South Fork Mountain. Some of the region’s straightest roads follow this ridgeline and early travel routes were established long before the roads were paved. The Humboldt Trail was probably the simplest and easiest route for Native American Tribes to travel between the north coast and the central valley. The area has been occupied by Nor El Muk Wintu, Chimariko, Tsnungwe, Hupa, Chilula, and Whilkut tribes; each tucked into folds of the mountains. As the gold rush took hold of the Klamath Mountains this watershed was scoured but few rich veins were found. The middle reaches of Hayfork Creek, the river’s largest tributary, saw several phases of gold mining but not enough to cause much damage until the dredge mines were developed in the 1920’s. Some of the miners stayed despite the lack of gold and settled areas sparsely, turning to ranching and homesteading. The Native American Tribes of the watershed were displaced, yet none of the tribes became federally recognized. The second natural resource rush came in the form of the Timber Rush. South Fork Mountain’s topography, climate, and geology make it one of the most highly productive timber zones in the inland Klamath Mountains. Dozers made this timber accessible and efficiently harvested and logging boomed. Mills were set up on any available flat ground The So. Fork Trinity River has great potential for fisheries recovery. Within the watershed 79% of the land is publicly owned and human population is limited by rugged terrain. Few roads access the river and it has the extra protection of Wild & Scenic designation. There are two Wilderness Areas and numerous Roadless Areas that offer even further land protections. Large projects in the Hayfork Valley such as a sewage treatment system and a wonderful off channel storage system for community water supply have been developed which have greatly reduced human’s impact on the stream. The Trinity County RCD and the USFS have been conducting road decommissioning within the SFTR watershed since the 1990’s and have been very successful in reducing sediment inputs to the basin’s water bodies and decreasing the potential for massive sediment producing events. All these factors contribute to the South Fork Trinity River’s vast potential as a wild salmonid stronghold, yet the keystone species in the watershed is about to vanish and simultaneously it remains one of the least funded watersheds in terms of fisheries restoration in the entire North State.13from Hyampom to the Yolla Bolly. The Hayfork Valley boasted 5-6 mills at its peak.The story of the South Fork Trinity River started getting much more interesting in the 1960’s. Bureaucratic scientists scoured the mountains trying to determine the best way to “utilize” the water resources. The rivers in this region also tell the story of development and extraction; perhaps this was the Blue Rush. They were looking hard when they surveyed the South Fork Trinity River for salmonids in preparation for building dams to tame it. Their estimates of spring Chinook populations in this single river in 1963 were around 10,000 and nearly 12,000 in 1964. These scientists were tagging more than 200 spring Chinook in individual holes during the surveys.These dam surveys were closely followed by the 1964 floods that ravaged the region. The flooding occurred due to a “pineapple express” atmospheric river of warm rain on top of a heavy snowpack. The doubled volume of water from snow and rain washed down mountainsides recently ravaged with bulldozers. Bulldozers had revolutionized logging practices and entrepreneurs were driving them straight up and down mountains, utilizing streams as roads and skidding lines and causing massive gullies. South Fork Mountain’s linear and uniform shape is derived from its fairly consistent geology.The underlying rocks make a significant change from older and sturdier metamorphic rocks like the Sawyers Bar complex in the eastern portions of the watershed (Hayfork), to extremely unstable Franciscan sea floor sediments that make up South Fork Mountain. The effect of the ‘64 flood on the recently denuded and scarred landscape of the mountain was catastrophic, described by many locals at the time as “Biblical”. The removed trees, the ‘dozer gullies, poorly built roads, and the unconsolidated underlying schist combined in an unprecedented unraveling of the mountain. A massive assemblage of landslides often greater than 100 acres let loose, gullies turned into chasms, roads disappeared, bridges and culverts were washed away, and all of that sediment from the hillsides was deposited in the river. Dozens of feet of aggradation occurred in valley bottoms, pools filled up, and spawning gravels were smothered in fine sediment. The fish populations disappeared overnight and haven’t returned to the same extent since. The average run size today on the South Fork Trinity River is a measly 200 spring Chinook, less than once was caught in an individual pool. In a strange twist of fate, the sediment pouring into the valley during the ‘64 flood frightened the government’s dam builders. The sheer devastation and the rate of sediment deposition in the locations where they had begun designing dams forced them to determine that the investment wasn’t worth their while. Thus the worst environmental disaster in the recorded history of the river was simultaneously the river’s savior; it stopped the building of the dam. The sediment that devastated the fish population in the short term may have kept it alive in the long run. Fast forward to today and we see a wild river that is relatively intact and still retains one of the last remaining populations of spring Chinook salmon in the Klamath Basin and in fact one of the last populations in all of California. The sediment from the ‘64 flood is still working its way through the system causing problems but there are many signs of natural recovery; the question is: will it be soon enough? Geneticists say that the population will enter an “extinction vortex” with “deleterious consequences of inbreeding” if the population stays below an effective population of 200 fish. Essentially, we are right now on the brink of watching this amazing species be extirpated.Things that YOU can do in the hot summer months to help fish access critical cool water refugia include:• If your water comes from a cold water tributary, cut back on your lawn watering, hydro-power use and water use in general during a drought. • Water-efficient gardening and landscaping techniques such as watering at night, utilizing timers to avoid over-watering and mulching and installing drip irrigation can significantly reduce your water use. • Make sure swimmers dams and water diversions don’t block fish access into creeks, or upstream.• If your creek mouth gets blocked off by rocks or sediment that prevent fish from getting through, spend some time moving rocks to create channels and step pools that allow fish access to the creek.• Return outflows from your micro-hydro system back to their source stream. Hydro systems use a tremendous amount of water, and by locating your hydro system near enough to the stream for water to return on its own, or by piping the water back to the stream, this water can provide your power while still supporting aquatic life.14If you have a creek on your property, even a small one, it is likely that fish will be trying to utilize it to stay alive during summer. Almost all of our creeks maintain cooler summer water temperatures than the river, which can exceed the lethal temperature threshold for fish during the heat of the summer by several degrees. The only way that fish can survive such temperatures is to escape for at least part of each day into cooler water. These posters are a small sample of the many that were made by river kids attending the 2015 Klamath Siskiyou Outdoor Camp. Steve AdamsBonnie BennettSam BerrySheri Campbell Mathew CavinEdward CollinsMichael CressJesse CullinLino DarlingKevin Dunbar James Goldy Steve GuntherJessica HanscomJim HardawayTom HotalingMike KerrickScott KingeryDanielle KlinkowKent KusterOrion MarleyMaria MullinsRick MetroWilliam MorrisSamuel MuciokiBeau QuintarJames StewertJoe StoltzJake SutterIrie SwiftMaggie Zee152015 Fuels Crew, Noxious Weed Crew, & Fisheries Crew employees SRRC Board Toz Soto, President Ben Beaver,Vice PresidentKathy McBroom, Secretary/Treasurer Petey Brucker Will Harling Creek Hanauer Jennifer Silveira Hawk White SRRC Staff, Program Leaders, and Project AssistantsJosh Saxon, Executive DirectorKaruna Greenberg, Restoration DirectorLyra Cressey, Associate DirectorKathy McBroom, Office ManagerSarah Hugdahl, Program Staff and OutreachTom Hotaling, Fisheries CoordinatorDaralyn Soto, Watershed Education CoordinatorScott Harding, Fire, Fuels & Forestry CoordinatorMelissa Van Scoyoc, Habitat Restoration & Noxious Weeds Coordinator Brenda Hurlimann, BookkeeperShannon Monroe, Program Assistant Steve Adams, Watershed Center MaintenanceOther funding for SRRC comes from: CA Department of Conservation, CA Department of Fish & Wildlife, CA Department of Food & Agriculture, Grants Clearinghouse, Firedoll Foundation, Ford Family Foundation, Karuk Tribe, Mid Klamath Watershed Council, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, National Forest Foundation, Patagonia Environmental Programs, Shasta Regional Community Foundation, Sidney Stern Memorial Trust, Strong Foundation, Trees Foundation, US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, & generous contributions from our membership. Printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper.Salmon River Restoration Councilwww.srrc.orgP.O. Box 1089 Sawyers Bar, CA 96027530-462-4665 info@srrc.orgThis institution is an equal opportunity provider. SRRC does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender expression, age, national origin, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations.Funding for this newsletter comes from Sustainable Northwest. NONPROFIT ORGPOSTAGE PAIDFORKS OF SALMON, CAPERMIT 1Address Service RequestedSalmon River Restoration Council25631 Sawyers Bar RDSawyers Bar, CA 96027Cover photos: Top - Main Stem Salmon River, photo by Scott HardingBottom - Salmon spawning in the Salmon River, photo by Janjaap DekkerThis page behind graph - Salmon holding, photo by Janjaap DekkerWater Temperatures in °F at the Mouth of the North and South Forks at Forks of Salmon June through September 2015North Fork at Forks South Fork at ForksAcute Stress Temp for SalmonidsNext >