"Only Connect".

Please check our website at www.sarsas.org

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SARSAS IS TRYING TO DO WITH ONE STREAM, THE AUBURN RAVINE, WHAT MUST BE DONE TO ALL STREAMS AND RIVERS ON THE ENTIRE WEST COAST AND THAT IS TO MAKE THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE RAVINE NAVIGABLE FOR ANADROMOUS FISHES.

THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF SALMON IS DIRECTLY LINKED TO THAT OF PEOPLE. IF WE IMPROVE THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF SALMON, WE IMPROVE THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF MANKIND AND THEREFORE OURSELVES.

SALMON ARE AS RESILIENT AND ADAPTIVE AS HUMANS; WHEN THEY CAN NO LONGER ADAPT, NEITHER CAN MANKIND. THEY NEED OUR HELP ... NOW.

DONATIONS MAY BE MAILED TO SARSAS,

PO BOX 4269,

AUBURN, CA95604 OR BY USING PAYPAL ON OUR WEBSITE WWW.SARSAS.ORG

JACK AND VALERIE SANCHEZ,

VOLUNTEER SARSAS COORDINATORS

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"THE RIVER WAS CUT BY THE WORLD'S GREAT FLOOD AND FLOWS OVER ROCKS FROM THE BASEMENT OF TIME. ON SOME OF THE ROCKS ARE TIMELESS RAINDROPS, AND UNDER THE ROCKS ARE THE WORDS AND SOME OF THE WORDS ARE THEIRS. I AM HAUNTED BY WATER."

--NORMAN MACLEAN, "A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT"

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"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."

- Samuel Adams

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SARSAS Monthly Meetings Hosted by Placer County Supervisor Robert Weygandt are hosted the fourth Monday of each month at 10 a.m. at the Domes, 175 Fulweiler in Auburn. Meetings are open to the public; meetings are ONE HOUR in length.

Next meeting is Monday, September 28, 2009 at 10 a.m at the Domes, 175 FULWEILER AVENUE, AUBURN,CA95603.

October meeting is Monday, October 26, November mee ting is Monday, November 23.

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"Salmon at the Heart of Nature"

Placer Nature Center’s 4th Friday Lecture - September 25, 2009

Get tickets Now! Season Passes available!

Sweeping changes are coming for endangered populations of winter and spring run Salmon. Dams built decades ago without fish ladders and creating still waters that block access to hundreds of miles of historic spawning grounds must be adapted to ensure species survival under a ruling by the National Marine Fisheries Service. At the State level – Governor Schwarzenegger signed legislation banning dredge mining in California rivers. Have these rulings come too late? Is the situation for Salmon so dire that we’ve passed the tipping point?

We’ll find out on Friday, September 25th at Placer Nature Center’s 4th Friday Lecture Series. The 5th season of the popular Lecture series makes a splashing opening with Dr. Tim Horner, Internationally recognized expert on the salmon species, fish ecology and habitat issues. While Dr. Horner will discuss broader issues of fish populations globally, he will concentrate his comments on our local fisheries and the American River.

“Best news of all.” According to Leslie Warren, Executive Director of Placer Nature Center, “is that two of Auburn’s finest restaurants are creating special meals for 4th Friday Lecture goers and 20% of the meal proceeds will be donated to Placer Nature Center to support environmental learning projects.” “Dine at 5:00 PM at Tsuda’s or Latitudes – enjoying a special themed menu and delight in science learning at 7:00 P.M.! What a great night out! It is an easy walk between the restaurants and our venue at 1212 High Street too,” Warren said.

“It is kind of ironic that our restaurants cannot serve local wild salmon because our species are so depleted. We’ll see what creative menu is offered even as we bemoan the disappearance of our favorite entre!”

“Salmon have long been considered a key indicator species. It is almost as if the salmon swims at the heart of the web of life on earth. Orca whales’ survival, maintenance of nutrient rich soils in the northwest, sustaining Native American and Inuit culture – the salmon is critical to these and so much more,” Warren explained. “We are so very pleased to kick off our Lecture series with such an esteemed scientist and educator!”

The American river has changed significantly in the past 150 years, and salmon and steelhead populations have decreased and whole seasonal runs have disappeared. This decrease could be related to ocean conditions, global warming, commercial or recreational fishing, delta water demands, mining, sediment input, water diversions, water quality, dams and water releases, water temperature, hatchery practices or habitat reduction. All of these issues will be reviewed to help put the problem in context for the American River, and identify the stressors that are responsible for the population decline.

Tickets are available securely on line at www.placernaturecenter.org, by calling 530-878-6053 or at the following businesses Tsuda’s Café, Latitudes Restaurant and Newcastle Produce. Tickets are $10 general, $8 for members and $5 for full time students. Season tickets are only $55 for the general public and $45 for members – making one Lecture in the 6 Lecture Series FREE!

About the Speaker:

Dr. Tim Horner graduated from The Ohio State University in 1992, and joined the Geology Department at CSU Sacramento in Fall 1993. He specializes in groundwater/surface water interaction, and teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in sedimentology, field geology and hydrogeology.

He received the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Distinguished Teaching Award in 2008. Much of Tim's time is devoted to habitat assessment and in-stream monitoring work on local rivers, with special emphasis on salmon and steelhead spawning gravels.

Tim and his students are frequent partners on local stream restoration projects, and have collected information about the health and habitat suitability of the American River system. CSUS faculty and students have helped to characterize the physical conditions that are ideal for salmon and steelhead spawning. This set of physical conditions can then be used as a target to guide restoration projects. Several restoration projects have addressed the problem by creating more habitat or restoring degraded parts of the river.

Leslie Warren

Executive Director, Placer Nature Center

Leslie@placernaturecenter.org

Placer Nature Center

530-878-6053

www.placernaturecenter.org

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The SARSAS PLAN FOR SAVING SALMON IN CALIFORNIA AND IN THE PACIFIC MARINE FISHERY:

the Urgency of Saving the Salmon WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM GOVERNMENT AND CALIFORNIANS!

Jack L.Sanchez

Volunteer Coordinator/President/Founder

530 888 0281/jlsanchez39@gmail.com

The people of California are overwhelmingly frustrated because they have justifiably lost confidence in government and large corporations because they are self-serving at the expense of the people, the environment, other living things and the planet. We must now rely almost exclusively upon individuals and group initiative in order to take charge of our own destiny. What does this dilemma mean for the people of California? What it means really is a New Manifest Destiny for Californians. Therefore let’s focus on one piece of the big puzzle: the restoration of salmon in California.

When salmon can no longer survive on this planet, can

humanity be far behind?

But a solution is possible. Yes, the people of California, volunteering together can save salmon and steelhead. People must ask themselves whether or not salmon and steelhead have any time left on the planet without the help of the people.

The Golden Age of Salmon and Steelhead is likely long past, but the people working together can ensure at least their continued existence. California salmon were thought to be extinct as early as 1865 as a result of sediment that choked the streams from hydraulic mining and clear cut logging. The salmon of California are now once again in danger for many reasons:

global warming, pollution, poisons, man-made drugs,

lack of fish passage and an overall degradation of spawning

beds.

Part of the solution is not to argue for years but to open up California streams as soon as possible for salmon spawning. The SARSAS Plan (see www.sarsas.org), formulated for the Auburn Ravine, is the simplest way to save salmon and should be implemented on all streams within our state immediately. If every stream were to have a volunteer group working to do what SARSAS is doing with the Auburn Ravine, that is, to return salmon and steelhead to its entire length and secure fish passage, adequate water and spawning beds, then salmon can once again thrive in significant numbers.

The line from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it,

they will come” can be paraphrased and applied to all

salmon: “If you clear it, they will come.” SARSAS and other volunteer groups with the assistance of the governor, legislators and the federal Water Czar can encourage and help other groups do with other streams what SARSAS is accomplishing with the Auburn Ravine.

Will the governor and the legislators help? SARSAS

urges the Governor’s staff, both houses of California government and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as well as his water Czar, David Hayes, to help. The governor and legislators can provide incentives to encourage other organizations to take ownership of particular streams and make them suitable for salmon passage. They could help streamline the 501c3 process and perhaps add small incentives to volunteer groups once they have a strong strategic plan in place. Salmon are at considerable risk and the governor and legislators have the ability to connect each group to the right agencies in a quick and efficient manner to fast track volunteer groups’ efforts toward salmon restoration.

The SARSAS Plan for the Auburn Ravine can serve as a model for other organizations to work on other streams. It is a simple but effective plan easily adaptable by any group. Additionally, some SARSAS board members are available to assist other groups in implementing the SARSAS plan. Imagine the impact of a thousand salmon in the Auburn Ravine and then multiply that by several hundred streams or perhaps all 738 streams that enter the San Joaquin, Sacramento and American River watersheds. Salmon and steelhead numbers certainly will and can thrive in this environment. If only three percent of the smolt return to each of these streams, the

result will be tremendous. “Clear it (stream) and they will come.”

PART II

When SARSAS became an all-volunteer 501c3, public benefit corporation with officers and a nine-person Board of Directors, it was able to more seriously work on the Auburn Ravine to identify the barriers to salmon and work collaboratively to retrofit them. SARSAS then set about creating a working network of state, local and federal agencies, county supervisors, city councilmen, other non-governmental organizations, landowners and individuals, all meeting once a month under the auspices of Placer County Supervisor Robert Weygandt. The group works collaboratively, cooperatively, to reach its goals as smoothly and as quickly as possible. Additionally, SARSAS recently acquired the volunteer services of a grant writer and is now applying for funding.

Is the task completed? Of course not, but, in a short period of time with many individuals and groups on board, SARSAS will reach its goals, missions and ultimately, the restoration of salmon and steelhead at a very low cost. Are there problems with the SARSAS Plan? Perhaps, and if there are, they are very minor. Is this explanation an over-simplification of a very complex problem? Not at all. Even if the SARSAS Plan is partially successful, salmon and steelhead will have one more river to spawn within, and new life will abound. An alternate plan to truck salmon above and around dams is feasible and SARSAS wholeheartedly supports it, but it is very expensive. Our plan costs thousands of dollars, the alternative, billions of dollars. Both can help the salmon, but at what cost in

time and real dollars?

What can you do to assist SARSAS? First and foremost, you can contact the governor, legislators, federal

officials and local entities and ask them to grasp and support the SARSAS Plan. Then, please contact Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Water Czar David Hayes and ask them to work with SARSAS.

Let them know that the SARSAS Plan will provide successful outcomes for salmon and steelhead and, if adopted for a significant number of streams in central and northern California, the plan can

assist in the restoration of the Pacific commercial fishery.

Wouldn’t that be a wonderful outcome … being both a benefit to mankind and to the fish at the same time? Since many tributaries to the

Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers are blocked by minor diversion

dams, salmon cannot currently spawn in numbers large enough

to prevent a decrease in their number.

Using the SARSAS Plan as a model for saving salmon in the Auburn Ravine may be enough to begin the restoration of the Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery and put thousands of unemployed fisherman back into their boats, free sport fisherman to follow their passion and help Californians feel good about themselves because they did something to help themselves, their children, and the fishes

SARSAS needs your help, political will and public support to finish its work on the Auburn Ravine and to provide assistance to others who may wish to develop their streams.

Please contact us at www.sarsas.org. Volunteers, concentrating and uniting their efforts, can work quickly enough to revive our salmon population toward health and well being.

In the final analysis, “all things merge into one and a river runs through it. We are ALL HAUNTED BY WATER”(and the salmon in it). The SARSAS Plan allows people to do something about the destiny of salmon, and thereby do something about their own destinies.

Again, when salmon can’t make it in our world, neither can

people.

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Dr. Stacy Li’s Sac-Joaquin Delta Plan Prepared for SARSAS

September 13, 2009

Aquatic Systems Research

National Marine Fisheries Service - retired

I provide the following list of components that should be included in any Delta water solution:

1) Outflow to San Francisco Bay has been reduced by 50% of historical levels. Not only should Delta outflow not be reduced any further, it should be increased. This is a key design control consideration.

2) The design functions of the two rivers should be switched. The original fundamental design of the CVP (Central Valley Project) was to use San Joaquin River as water supply and the Sacramento River for water quality. The Sacramento River should be used as water supply because it is more than three times more abundant than the San Joaquin River. The Sacramento River should also provide flows to resist salt intrusion into the Delta, add to Delta outflow and be used to dilute pesticide and fertilizer residues in the agriculture return water in the San Joaquin River. I can’t think of another way to get water from the Sacramento River to the California Aqueduct other than a Peripheral Canal.

3) San Joaquin River should be switched from water supply to being used primarily to resist salt intrusion into the Delta. None of this water should be used as water export. If this action is adopted, there will be no flow reversals in either the Sacramento River or the San Joaquin River. Sacramento River salmonids would be unaffected because the river’s momentum and inertia would prevent flow reversals by pumping. San Joaquin salmon and steelhead smolt would finally be able to find their way to the ocean and returning adults would finally be able to find their natal streams. The San Joaquin Delta would become more of a backwater habitat as it was historically. That would benefit Delta smelt and longfin smelt. Water residence time in the Delta would also be longer, allowing plankton communities to develop that would benefit threadfin shad and young-of-the-year striped bass populations. Finally, importation of 1 million tons of salt into the San Joaquin Valley would stop by not exporting San Joaquin River water.

4) The Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River do not mix downstream of Sherman Island because of differences in many physical and water quality parameters. Therefore, through Delta water conveyance is impossible. The SWP (State Water Project) assumes through Delta conveyance. Refurbishing the present water export facilities would be a big waste of money because not only are they extremely susceptible to levee failure, but water supply capacity of the San Joaquin River is near exhaustion.

5) Present fish protection and fish salvage facilities are woefully inadequate. The present fish louvers do not work. Fish screens are needed because they are state of the art.

6) More dams are not needed at this time. Besides flows from the proposed Temperance Flat Dam would not flow north to the Delta to restore Delta health, but be exported at Friant Dam and sent south to Kern County via the Friant-Kern Canal.

7) Remember that California is a major world economy, estimates ranging from 4th to 9th largest in the world. This important world economy is dependent upon a secure water supply. Without it there will be severe economic disruptions. This is would be a consequence if political inertia continues.

8) Remember that two-thirds of the California population depends upon CVP/SWP water. If the water system fails, it will cause a negative economic ripple throughout the world. So even if you live in a California community not dependent upon CVP/SWP water, you will be adversely affected. The world will be affected.

9) Remember that the California population is still growing at a rate of about 1 million new residents a year. The State water system must account for this increase.

10) Water Rights in California need to be revised. State Water Resources Control Board has identified about 300 million acre-feet per annum of authorized consumptive water rights of different types (pre-1914, appropriative, riparian, federal reserve and pueblo). California receives only about 73 million acre-feet of runoff each year.

11) The new water system must not only function to provide water supply, improve habitat and ecological conditions, control salt intrusion, and account for climate change, it must also be compatible and integrated within the state’s flood control system.

12) Let us justify repair of Delta levees based upon public safety concerns rather than defending the state's water supply. There are 1100 miles of Delta Levee. There are 5280 feet in a mile. Current levee construction is running around $8,000/foot. Operations and maintenance budgets for levees should be 3% of the initial construction cost each year. Levees are not assets. They are liabilities.

13) Those who use the water system must pay for its use. They are the ones that should provide the revenue stream for construction, and operations and maintenance costs. No more freeloaders!

A warning: Now is the time for action. We can’t wait for the system to fail or to build something that doesn’t work. The time needed to recover from those mistakes will be too long to avoid worldwide depression caused by lack of water availability in California. Now is the time for decision based upon physics, biology, hydrology, ecology and plans that benefit the entire state not just parts of it.

A final aside: Since the vast majority of water used as water supply originates from the San Joaquin River, Southern California has not stolen water from Northern California. If they have been stealing water, they have been stealing it from themselves. The vast majority of Sacramento River water ends up in the Pacific Ocean.

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SARSAS Article in Placer Sentinel

A New Manifest Destiny for Californians

When Salmon Can No Longer Survive on This

Planet, Can Humanity Be Far Behind?

by Jack L. Sanchez

The people of California, volunteering together, can save

salmon and steelhead. People mustask themselves whether or not salmon and steelhead have any time left on the planet without the help of the people.The Golden Age of Salmon and Steelhead is likely long past, but people working together can ensure at least their continued existence. California salmon were thought to be extinct as early as1865 as a result of sediment that choked the streams from hydraulic mining and clear-cut logging. The

salmon of California are now once again in danger for many

reasons: global warming, pollution, poisons, man-made drugs, lack of fish passage and an overall degradation

of spawning beds.

Part of the solution is not to argue for years but to open up

California streams as soon as possible for salmon spawning. The SARSAS Plan (see www.sarsas.org), formulated for the Auburn Ravine, is the simplest

way to save salmon and should be implemented on all streams within our state immediately. If every stream were to have a volunteer group working to do what SARSAS is doing with the Auburn Ravine, (that is, to return salmon and steelhead to its entire length and secure fish passage,

adequate water and spawning beds) then salmon could once again thrive in significant numbers. The line from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come,” can be paraphrased and applied to all salmon: “If you clear

it, they will come.”

SARSAS urges the Governor’s staff, both houses of California government and Interior Secretary

Ken Salazar as well as his water Czar, David Hayes, to help. The governor and legislators can provide incentives to encourage other organizations to take ownership of particular streams and make them suitable for salmon

passage. They could help streamline the 501c3 process and perhaps add small incentives to volunteer groups once they have a strong strategic plan in place. Salmon are at considerable risk, and the governor and legislators have the

ability to connect each group to the right agencies in a quick and efficient manner to fast track volunteer groups’ efforts towardsalmon restoration.

The SARSAS Plan for the Auburn Ravine can serve as a

model for other organizations to work on other streams. It is a simple but effective plan easily adaptable by any group. Additionally, SARSAS board members are available to assist other groups in implementing the SARSAS plan.

Imagine the impact of a thousand salmon in the Auburn Ravine and then multiply that by several hundred streams or perhaps all 738 streams that enter the San Joaquin,

Sacramento and American River watersheds. Salmon and steelhead numbers certainly can and will thrive in this environment. If only three percent of the smolt return

to each of these streams, the result will be tremendous.

“Clear it(stream) and they will come.”In a short period of time withmany individuals and groups on

board, SARSAS will reach its goals,missions and ultimately, the restoration of salmon and steelhead at a very low cost. Even if theSARSAS Plan is partially successful, salmon and steelhead will have one more river to spawn within,

and new life will abound.

An alternate plan of trucking salmon above and around dams is feasible, and SARSAS wholeheartedly supports it, but it is very expensive. Our plan costs thousands of dollars, the alternative, billions of dollars. Both can help the salmon, but at what cost in time and real dollars?

Want to help? Contact the governor, legislators, federal

officials and local entities and ask them to grasp and support the SARSAS Plan. Then, contact Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Water Czar David Hayes and ask them to work with SARSAS. Let them know that the

SARSAS Plan will provide successful outcomes for salmon

and steelhead and, if adopted for a significant number of

streams in central and northern California, the plan can assist in the restoration of the Pacific commercial fishery

Since many tributaries to the Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers are blocked by minor diversion dams, salmon

cannot currently spawn in numbers large enough to prevent

a decrease in their number. Using the SARSAS Plan as a

model for saving salmon in the Auburn Ravine may be enough to begin the restoration of the Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery and put thousands of unemployed fisherman

back into their boats, free sport fisherman to follow their

passion and help Californians feel good about themselves because they did something to help themselves, their children, and the fishes. Volunteers, concentrating and

uniting their efforts, can workquickly enough to revive our

salmon population toward healthand well-being. SARSAS needs your help, political will and public support to finish its work on the Auburn Ravine and to provide assistance to others who may wish to develop their streams.

In the final analysis, “All things merge into one and a river runs through it. We are all haunted by

water” (and the salmon in it). The SARSAS Plan allows people to do something about the destiny of salmon, and thereby do something about their own destinies. Again,when salmon can’t make it in our

world, neither can people.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The SARSAS Plan for Saving Salmon

in California and in the Pacific Marine Fishery

Effective: July 11, 2009

by

Jack L. Sanchez,

Volunteer Coordinator/President/Founder

501C3 EIN 80-0291680

Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead (SARSAS)

www.sarsas.org

P. O. Box 4269

Auburn, CA 95604

530 888 0281

Yes, the people of California, volunteering together, can save the salmon. The people must spearhead the saving of the salmon because time is critical. The salmon has little time left on the planet without the help of the people.

Salmon expert Peter B Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, University of California Davis, in

“Multiple Causes of Central Valley Chinook Salmon Decline,” Mar 31, 2008, wrote,

Ever since Euro-Americans arrived in the Central Valley, Chinook salmon populations have been in decline. Historic populations probably averaged 1.5-2.0 million (or more) adult fish per year. The high populations resulted from four distinct runs of Chinook salmon (fall, late-fall, winter, and spring runs) taking advantage of the diverse and productive freshwater habitats created by the cold rivers flowing from the Sierra Nevada. When the juveniles moved seaward, they found abundant food and good growing conditions in the wide valley floodplains and complex San Francisco Estuary, including the Delta. The sleek salmon smolt then reached the ocean, where the southward flowing, cold, California Current and coastal upwelling together created one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world, full of the small shrimp and fish that salmon require to grow rapidly to large size. In the past, salmon populations no doubt varied as droughts reduced stream habitats and as the ocean varied in its productivity, but it is highly unlikely the numbers ever even approached the low numbers we are seeing now.

This Golden Age of Salmon is long past but the people can insure at least their continued existence. California salmon were thought to be extinct as early as1865 because of the sediment that choked off the streams from hydraulic mining and strip logging. Salmon are miraculously resilient and they survived. The salmon of California are now once again nearing extinction for many reasons: global warming, pollution, upwelling of ocean currents, lack of fish passage and spawning areas. The main fix we can do quickly is not to argue about the root cause but to quickly open California streams as soon as possible for salmon spawning. Whatever the reasons, a clear, simple plan is necessary to save them. The SARSAS Plan, formulated for the Auburn Ravine, is the simplest way to save salmon from certain extinction and should be implemented on all streams in California immediately. What is the SARSAS Plan?

If every stream in California has a volunteer group working to do what SARSAS is doing with the Auburn Ravine, that is, to return salmon and steelhead to its entire length and secure fish passage, adequate water and spawning grounds, then salmon will not go extinct. The line from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you built it, they will come” can be paraphrased to be applied to anadromous fish:: “If you clear it, they will come”; that is, SARSAS with the cooperation of Governor Schwarzenegger or a federal Salmon Czar (see Sacbee editorial, “We Might need Salmon Czar, Too,” July 8 09) can encourage other groups to do with other streams, what SARSAS (www.sarsas.org) is doing with the Auburn Ravine. By providing fish passage on all the tributaries to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, salmon will have many spawning grounds currently denied them.

Will the Governor help? SARSAS is urging his staff and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and his Water Czar David Hayes to help. President Obama must appoint a Salmon Czar to keep the salmon from going extinct. Only the Governor with his sweeping influence over California agencies and the Obama Administration can coordinate this program and create an incentive program to encourage other organizations to take ownership of particular streams and retrofit them completely for salmon passage so that citizens become the instruments of the salmon salvation. Salmon are moving closer to extinct while we do nothing. Acting now is imperative. Only the Governor can fast track the California 501C3 process, necessary for fundraising, and connect each group to the right agencies quickly and efficiently.

An All-Volunteer Oversight Group (A-VOG) for each stream needs to have a lead person who can be connected directly to all California environmental agencies but especially with DFG, CVWQCB, DWR, and EPA. Each group must have an active Special Agent from NOAA, a federal agency, to provide access to problem areas on each stream over which only the federal government has jurisdiction. The Governor and citizens of California working together with NOAA will save the salmon. Most of the work of saving the salmon will be performed by volunteers, but they must have the coordination from the Governor to network with California government agencies to provide advice and services.

Let’s look at the SARSAS Plan for the Auburn Ravine that can serve as a model for other organizations to work on other streams. To start with, the Auburn Ravine has thirteen diversion dams on its length. SARSAS has put ten flashboard diversion dam in compliance with fish passage, two NID dams are currently being retrofitted, which leaves one dam, the Gold Hill Dam to be retrofitted. When this dam is completed, 32 of the 33 miles will be open to salmon. If we can get 2,500 egg-laying female salmon (Butte Creek near Chico had 6,000 Spring Run salmon in 2008) into this Ravine, each laying up to 8,000 eggs, the Auburn Ravine will contribute up to 20,000,000 (2,500 times 8,000) fry just in one stream, the Auburn Ravine.

If only three percent of those salmon return to the Auburn Ravine after maturing in the Pacific, that is 600,000 salmon, which is almost 10 times the total number of salmon (66, 237) that returned to the entire Sacramento River this year (2008) with fewer than 12,000 salmon making it to Coleman National Fish Hatchery near Anderson on the Sacramento River. Remember that the Auburn Ravine is just one stream in California; there are over 738 tributary to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.

When SARSAS became an All-volunteer, 501c3, public benefit corporation with officers and a nine-person Board of Directors, it was able to more seriously work on the Auburn Ravine by identifying all thirteen man-made barriers and working to retrofit them. SARSAS then set about creating a network of state and federal governmental agencies, county supervisors, city councilmen, other NGO’s, landowners and individuals, all meeting once a month under the auspices of Placer County Supervisor Robert Weygandt. The group worked collaboratively, cooperatively, to reach its respective goals as smoothly and as quickly as possible. SARSAS recently acquired the volunteer services of a grant writer and is now applying for much needed funding. Having all principals at the same table monthly working in a non-confrontational atmosphere facilitated accomplishing much in a short time. Much progress has been made but much yet needs to be done.

Working with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Special Agent, SARSAS contacted all private owners of diversion dams on the AR. Many owners simply needed to be reminded of their specific water rights and by not observing those rights doing harm to fishes. Education was and is key. All ten flashboard dams with the cooperation of the landowners were quickly brought into compliance to make them passable for fish. The remaining three dams are owned by a water agency, Nevada Irrigation District (NID). Working with Placer Legacy, NID was able to fund and begin constructing a fish ladder and a fish channel to create fish passage over the Lincoln Gaging Station and the Hemphill Dam scheduled to be completed by the end of summer 2009.

The remaining dam is the Gold Hill Diversion Dam, which will be addressed after the other two dams are retrofitted. When the GHDD is retrofitted for fish passage, 32 of the 33 miles length of the Auburn Ravine will be ready for fish passage and much of it opened to spawning.

Is the task completed? Far from it, but the tasks completed to date will allow anadromous fishes to spawn in most of the Auburn Ravine.

The Auburn Ravine is but one stream. Gene Davis’ pesticide studies for CVWQCB Natural Streams and Aquatic Life Within the Central Valley Project Area Pesticide Basin Plan Amendment, 2007, shows a total of 738 identified creeks and possibly over 750 run into California’s two great rivers so 738 times 20,000,000 (2,500 females laying 8,000 eggs each), the potential number of salmon returning to the ocean is 14,760,000,000,000 spawned fishes. If only 3 percent, the standard for most salmon runs, of this total number survive in the ocean to return to spawn in California streams, then 44,280,000 salmon will return to spawn in California streams, up from 66,000 in 2008, and the salmon crisis is no longer a crisis and salmon will no longer be going extinct. If more than that number returns to spawn, then salmon will be with us for a long time. The numbers of salmon spawning will be influenced by whether the stream is above or below a dam on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.

Are there problems with the SARSAS Plan? Definitely? Is this explanation a possible over-simplification of a very complex problem? Probably. Even if the SARSAS Plan is only partially successful, salmon will still survive. The federal government’s plan to get fish above the great dams to spawn is excellent and high tech but rather slow; the SARSAS Plan is quick, low tech and inexpensive and designed to complement not replace the federal plan.

Will Governor Schwarzenegger provide the leadership and support to coordinate the activities needed? Will the Obama administration step up? Will enough volunteer groups take charge of each of the 738 plus creeks to restore salmon? Will the SARSAS Plan be implemented in time to prevent the salmon from going extinct? The SARSAS Plan has a possible successful outcome for anadromous fishes that will cost only thousands not billions of dollars. The SARSAS Plan is a simple inexpensive plan that may go a long way toward alleviating the salmon march to extinction especially when it is effected in conjunction with the federal NOAA plan.

But even without the Governor’s, the SARSAS Plan can be implemented by the people of California working collaboratively, but not as quickly, and but perhaps quickly enough to save one of the most magnificent creatures in the entire animal kingdom, Chinook Salmon. To hasten the process, please write a letter/email urging the Governor to support the SARSAS Plan.

By rescuing one stream, the Auburn Ravine, the people of California may be rescuing the entire Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery and, in addition, providing food for the endangered orca population that usually lives in the Puget Sound region but has come to within one hundred miles of San Francisco looking for salmon, their only food. This orca pod, which currently numbers 84, must reach 125 animals in order to survive.

Since most tributaries to the Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers are blocked by diversion dams for irrigation, the salmon cannot currently spawn in numbers large enough to prevent extinction. Using the SARSAS Plan as a model for saving salmon in the Auburn Ravine MAY be enough to save the entire Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery and put thousands of unemployed fishermen back into their boats, free sports fisherman to follow their passion, and help Californians feel good about themselves because they did something to help themselves, the fishes and nature and for their children.

SARSAS needs help, political will and public support to finish our work on the Auburn Ravine so please contact us at www.sarsas.org. Only volunteers, focusing together, can work quickly enough to revive our salmon population to health and well-being. If salmon are saved by the people of California working cooperatively, not only will the gift to our fellowmen be significant, but the gift to our children will be of historic magnitude and nothing less than heroic. “Finally, all things merge into one and a river runs through it. I am haunted by water (with salmon in it).”

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This story is taken from Sacbee / Our Region / Environment

"Restoring fisheries above Folsom, Shasta dams faces high hurdles'

mweiser@sacbee.com

Published Monday, Jun. 22, 2009

The American River once hosted thousands of steelhead migrating upstream from the ocean in three separate runs. Today it's down to just two runs of a few hundred fish.

The Sacramento was the only river in western North America with four salmon runs. They numbered in the millions – so numerous that American Indians and settlers could catch a salmon dinner with their bare hands. Now one run is gone, and two are endangered. The fourth could join them soon.

Restoring a fragment of that spectacle to the Central Valley is the goal of rules proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The service wants, among other things, restoration of winter- and spring-run salmon above Shasta Dam on the Sacramento River, and steelhead above Folsom Dam on the American River.

Combined, the fish transit order is considered the biggest of its kind in U.S. history.

Making it happen presents huge financial and engineering challenges. Costs could exceed $1 billion at a minimum – more than 10 times the original construction cost of both dams.

"It's pretty substantial, the amount of work that's required," said Mike Chotkowski, regional environmental officer at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dams. "We still haven't even determined whether it's feasible."

The fisheries service says that without restoring access upstream, it's likely the three fish species will go extinct. Climate change means it will be harder to maintain cold-water habitat below the dams, so they must have access to better habitat.

"The fish are at that jeopardy point where it's important for us to take immediate steps," said Howard Brown, Sacramento River basin chief for the fisheries service.

The rules proposed this month, called a biological opinion, were developed in response to a lawsuit brought by environmental groups. Federal Judge Oliver Wanger agreed with their claim that prior rules, which had no fish passage requirement, did not prevent extinction.

The ruling raised anxiety among California water managers. Thirty agencies sued last week, alleging that the fisheries service didn't follow procedure in adopting the rules.

Other experts argue there are cheaper ways to rescue the salmon populations.

Among them is the volunteer group Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead. It has worked quietly over the past year to remove small obstructions on Auburn Ravine, a little-known tributary of the Sacramento River.

The natural ravine flows with spring water and sewage treatment outflows starting in Auburn.

Accounts as recent as the 1960s show that the ravine once hosted robust fish runs, said John Rabe, a member of the group's board.

Four adult salmon were observed in the ravine last winter. The group expects hundreds next winter and plans a salmon festival in Lincoln to welcome them back.

Rabe said 600 small creeks between Modesto and Redding also could be restored – at far less cost than fixing the big dams.

"Don't waste time and money on the dams. Spend it on the creeks," he said. "That would open literally thousands of miles of spawning, which would make a huge, huge difference."

"We really are not trying to replace the big idea of retrofitting all the dams on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, we want to supplement that effort. We, on the other hand, can do for thousands of dollars, what the Big Idea can do for billions of dollars so we want to replicate the SARSAS model with the SARSAS Plan which we are present to the Governor's office in the near future," said SARSAS founder and President Jack Sanchez "Let's focus on the creeks where the salmon spawn and improve fish passage and spawning areas. If we clear the streams for fish passage and provide the water, they will come. ".

The federal rules don't specify how salmon and steelhead should be moved around the dams. Instead they require studies, starting in December, to find the best solution that can be in place by 2020.

By March 2012, water agencies must begin moving fish around the dams on a trial basis. This will probably be done by loading fish into trucks.

Experts say moving fish around Folsom and Shasta dams is a job as big as the dams themselves. Shasta, completed in 1945, stands 602 feet high. Folsom was finished in 1956 and soars to 340 feet tall.

They were built without any means to pass fish upstream, and each has a smaller dam downstream to regulate flows: Nimbus on the American, Keswick on the Sacramento.

Distance and elevation required to move fish upstream may eliminate the option of a traditional fish ladder at both dams, said Alex Haro, a research ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey fish laboratory in Turners Falls, Mass.

Fish might not be able to cover the distances up and around the dams in a single day. As night falls, if fish are partway up a ladder, their instinct is to stop and rest, so they give up and turn around.

An alternative is a fish lift – essentially an elevator to raise fish straight up the face of the dam in a container. But like a fish ladder, it has limitations. One is that the fish then are released in a stagnant reservoir, without flows to guide them to spawning habitat.

Because of this, trucking and hauling fish could become the permanent solution.

In short, salmon and steelhead blocked from their historic habitat for decades instead could be driven home like commuters on a bus.

Fishery managers typically don't like truck-and-haul operations because fish survival in the past has been poor: Roughly half of the fish sometimes die from stress, oxygen loss or high temperatures.

But Kozmo Bates, a fish passage expert in Olympia, Wash., said survival is typically better than 90 percent in modern trap-and-haul operations.

"There's a certain protocol that makes it safe for the fish," he said. "I can't say it's 100 percent, but in new, contemporary facilities I've rarely heard of any problems with the fish, and when there are problems they get fixed quickly."

Sounds easy, but it is wrong to assume trucking fish is a cheap fix, experts said.

One reason: The collection facility at the base of the dam is essentially the same whether it serves a fish ladder or a trucking operation.

The fish must be directed from the river below the dam into a confined space. It's against their nature to do that, so they must be tricked with precise flows and temperatures, and a perfectly designed containment space.

This comes with a cost to water supplies. Dam operators must give up 3 percent to 5 percent of the water stored in the reservoir to create flows for fish passage through the containment structure, Haro said.

Also, juvenile fish have to be moved back below the dam after they've spawned. This requires a different collection system above the dam, one that ensures young salmon or steelhead don't get lost in the massive reservoir or eaten by predators such as bass.

One example of a modern downstream passage structure was built at Baker Lake in Washington state in 2008. It consists of nets spanning the reservoir near the dam, which direct fish into channels, and then mobile tanks mounted on floating barges.

Tanks are hoisted onto trucks, which deliver fish to ponds below the dam, where they acclimate to downstream conditions for a day or two before being released.

Bates estimates both upstream and downstream passage for truck-and-haul systems could cost $500 million each for Shasta and Folsom.

That's conservative, because each lake may need multiple downstream collection facilities, since each has multiple tributaries feeding the lake that may hold spawning fish.

"You have high dams, you've got predators in the reservoirs, you've got reservoirs that fluctuate greatly, and you have big rivers, too," Bates said. "You have four things there, and each one quadruples whatever price you start with."

The new rules, however, do provide something of an escape clause.

If a panel of water agencies and fish experts decides fish passage around the dams isn't feasible, salmon and steelhead must be restored elsewhere. That would turn the focus back to the Central Valley's many neglected creeks.

That's what John Rabe and the Auburn Ravine group are working on – a solution he said is "more realistic and a lot less expensive."

Call The Bee's Matt Weiser,

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REASONS WHY SARSAS MUST MEET WITH GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

1) SARSAS has a simple plan that can drastically increase the returning Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River and help alleviate the current Salmon Crisis and put thousands of fishing boats back in the water and increase the fishing season for sportsmen and do something positive to save the Pacific Marine Fishery;

2) SARSAS needs the leadership of the Governor who is the only person in state government who can coordinate the needed changes to realize its plan because leadership is needed in many agencies including DFG, Central Valley Water Quality Control Board and the California Environmental Protection Agency;

3) SARSAS is doing with the Auburn Ravine what must be done with all streams in California and only the Governor can provide the visibility and leadership needed to broadcast the plan statewide;

4) SARSAS must have the Governor’s assistance to implement its plan before salmon become extinct in California rivers; only the Governor is powerful enough to insure that our plan can and will save California salmon.

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California coastal herring fishery to close

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By Matt Weiser

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mweiser@sacbee.com

Published: Saturday, Jun. 27, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 3A

The commercial herring fishery on the California coast will be closed for the first time in history in response to historically low population numbers.

The state Fish and Game Commission took emergency action Thursday to close the fishery, which is now under way and would normally continue until November.

The closure is expected to take effect in about 10 days, said Fish and Game Deputy Director Sonke Mastrup.

The commercial herring fishery inside San Francisco Bay, which occurs during winter, is also likely to be closed when the commission meets in September.

Environmental groups and the fishing industry both supported the closure, saying urgent action is needed.

Herring are a vital link in the bay and coastal food chain because they are prey for birds, mammals and larger fish.

"It's clear that the population is in extremely grave condition," said Santi Roberts, California project manager for the environmental group Oceana.

Fish and Game reported earlier this year that the bay herring population is at its lowest in 30 years – after a third straight year of declines.

It's not clear what has depressed the population. But the species has declined historically during drought.

Herring migrate from the ocean into the freshwater mixing zone of San Francisco Bay where they require low-salinity conditions to spawn.

This year, the herring population spawned near Point San Pablo, the farthest into the bay they have reached since 1976.

Early evidence also suggests pollution from the Cosco Busan oil spill in November 2007 may have harmed spawning that year, depressing the population that remains today.

"It's kind of like a perfect storm of issues, and everyone has looked at the circumstances and agreed we need to do something out of the ordinary to deal with it," said Mastrup.

A representative of the herring industry told the commission Thursday that the industry is not unanimous, but a majority supports the season closures.

California herring are a small fishery, but one of the last commercial species in San Francisco Bay.

The small fish are caught primarily for export to Japan. The state estimates direct economic impact from the closure at less than $1 million.

Numerous other bay and ocean fish species also are depressed, including salmon, smelt, sturgeon and bass.

It's unknown if the declines are related.

Commercial salmon fishing in California already has been closed for the second year in a row.

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Call The Bee's Matt Weiser, (916) 321-1264.

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SARSAS, INC

VOLUNTEER QUESTIONNAIRE

Please copy, fill out and email it as an attachment to jlsanchez39@gmail.com and a SARSAS member will contact you. In order to assist SARSAS achieve its goal of returning Salmon and Steelhead to the Auburn Ravine, would you be so kind as to tell us about yourself.

Name: ________________________________________________________________________

Address: ______________________________________________________________________

Phone: ____________________, Cell ____________________, Fax ____________________

Email Address: _________________________________________________________________

Where do you work?: ____________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

What is your background?: _______________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What interests you in SARSAS?: __________________________________________________

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How can you see yourself contributing to our goal?: ___________________________________

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What specifically would you like to do?: ____________________________________________

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Do you have friends who might help you achieve your individual goal and the SARSAS goal?:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What is your personal passion and how can you connect it to SARSAS?: ___________________

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Do you know anyone who is willing to donate money for the SARSAS Senior Project to be awarded in 2010 to the Project that best facilitates the achievements of the SARSAS goal?:

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Do you know contractors, engineers, designers, writers, fish biologists, teachers, politicians, doctors, lawyers or other local business people/individuals who would be willing to help us directly with pledges of expertise, in-kind certificates, or monetary contributions?

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What other information would you like to provide?: ________________________________________________________

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Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead (SARSAS, INC.)

Update for January 16, 2009

Jack L. Sanchez

SARSAS, Inc., Volunteer Coordinator

Much progress is being made to achieve the goal of returning salmon and steelhead to the entire length of the Auburn Ravine. Starting at the west end near the mouth of the AR, South Sutter Water Agency , with General Manager Brad Arnold, providing a tour for SARSAS members of his three diversion dams – the Coppin, Davis, and Tom Glenn –, which showed all three flashboard dams are in compliance with anadromous fish passage. Flashboards are removed during the Chinook Salmon Run October to January of each year. The AR flows through these three diversion dams and then into the Eastside Canal, which in turn flows into the 4 mile long Cross Canal that empties into the Sacramento River at the town of Verona.

Moving upstream the next man-made barrier is the Lincoln Ranch Duck Club Diversion Dam, which is also in compliance with anadromous fish passage. The next two dams moving upstream are the Aitken Ranch and Moore Dams, which are passable for fishes but still need to be fully compliant. The Nelson Lane Diversion Dam is fully passable for anadromous fishes. Five of the lower seven man-made barriers are completely suitable for fish passage during the Fall Chinook Salmon Run.

Farther upstream the next two man-made barriers are the Lincoln Gaging Station and the Hemphill Dam. The LGS is located one half mile west of the Highway 65 Bridge on the AR. The HD is located approximately one mile upstream from the Highway 193 Bridge. Both of these barriers are owned and operated by the Nevada Irrigation District (NID). Funding and design are currently completed and work is underway to retrofit both barriers for fish passage with the work projected to be completed this summer. Ron Nelson, NID General Manager, has indicated that as soon as work on these two dams is completed, his attention will be focused on retrofitting the last remaining, and biggest dam on the Auburn Ravine, the Gold Hill Dam.

This summer fishes will be able to reach the Gold Hill Diversion Dam in Newcastle and when it is retrofitted, fish will have free, unobstructed passage to the Wise Powerhouse, one mile west of Auburn.

SARSAS, Inc., working with many state and national agencies, community governmental agencies and water districts, has made much progress but much remains to be done. The last phase of getting fish to Auburn is the restoration of stream bed and banks, fish habitat and riparian improvement, and water augmentation to the mile stretch of the AR between Wise Powerhouse and the city of Auburn.

SARSAS, Inc., is now a fully documented 501C3, public benefit non-profit corporation. SARSAS, Inc., is an all volunteer organization so all funds and in kind donations go to its goal of getting anadromous fishes to Auburn. It is totally free of administrative costs.

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DFG Hosts Meeting Regarding the Outlook for CA Salmon

The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) is hosting the annual meeting on California salmon populations and the "outlook" for 2009 ocean and river fisheries on March 3rd from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sonoma County Water Agency building located at 404 Aviation Boulevard in Santa Rosa.

The 2009 Salmon Information Meeting marks the beginning of a two-month long management process used to establish salmon seasons. A list of additional meetings for the season-setting process will be available at the meeting or can be found on DFGs Web site.

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SARSAS (Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead) Inc.

Mission Statement: to return salmon and steelhead to the entire length of

the Auburn Ravine

Jack L. Sanchez Volunteer Coordinator P.O. Box 4269 Auburn, CA 95604 530-888-0281

www.sarsas.org

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SARSAS (Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead)ACTION PLAN

Mission Statement: to return salmon and steelhead to the entire length of the Auburn Ravine

Organization: SARSAS is an independent, nonprofit, non-governmental organization, whose goal is to work collaboratively and cooperatively to modify the twelve man-made barriers on the Auburn Ravine and the six or more beaver dams, making them passable for fishes.

Vision: This undertaking will take much time, effort, coordination and money, but it will have a permanent, lasting effect on the quality of the lives of those in this area and on the participants who will achieve something unique. We have an opportunity to create something no other town in California has: an anadromous fish run with salmon spawning in the center of the city.

Collaborative Technique: SARSAS is working with volunteers, students, local businesses, government agencies and other Non-Government Organizations and donations of money, time and in-kind services to achieve its goal of returning salmon and steelhead to the Auburn Ravine with them ultimately spawning in Auburn School Park Preserve in the center of Auburn. SARSAS is currently working with several individuals and agencies to realize its goal.

Locally, we are working with Placer County Supervisor Robert Weygandt and Loren Clark and Edmund Sullivan from Placer Legacy and the California Department of Fish and Game, NOAA, PG&E, NID, South Sutter Water Agency,PCWA, Auburn City Council and Lincoln Open Spaces Committee.

We have been given stream access by property owners along the AR for volunteers to do fish studies. Placer Legacy is working with Nevada Irrigation District to modify the Hemphill Dam below Gold Hill and the Lincoln Gaging Station, with funding and design in place with a target date of Summer of 2009 to have both dams retrofitted for fish passage. Ron Nelson, NID General Manager, plans to continue working with SARSAS to modify other dams and gaging stations. Granite Bay Fly Casters places fish tanks in schools for student involvement.

Operations: SARSAS plans to accept donations of cash and work and professional expertise and to work outside the usual channels of large financial grants. SARSAS has the ability to accept grant money as well as apply for grants through such non- profits as CABY (COSUMNES, AMERICAN, BEAR AND YUBA) and AmericanRivers.org, which already have monies available for grants to work on several of the barriers describe in Auburn Ravine/Coon Creek Eco-System Resources Plan: http://www.placer.ca.gov/Departments/CommunityDevelopment/Planning/PlacerLegacy/WatershedPlanning/ARCCRestorPlan.aspx

Model: The greatest stream/fish restoration ever is Fossil Creek in Arizona. All facets of the community worked together. SARSAS intends to make the Restoration of the Auburn Ravine the model for the State of California. In California the prototype for stream restoration is Butte Creek, located between Chico and Paradise. This year of 6,000 spring run salmon returned and spawned in Butte Creek.

Philosophy: Actions achieve goals but actions are preceded by a dream: Robert F. Kennedy said, “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say ‘Why not?’" Together we can make SARSAS the model fish restoration IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND ENJOY ALL THE TRIUMPH AND THE ACCLAIM ATTENDANT THEREWITH.

All members of SARSAS are volunteers so all funds collected go to operations, management and projects.

Comments and questions as well as donations made out to SARSAS can be directed to:

SARSAS

PO Box 4269

Auburn, CA 95604

or call 530 888 0281 or email Jack at jlsanchez39@gmail.com.

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November 4, 2008

Hello SARSAS Supporters,

SARSAS is now a California 501C3, nonprofit corporation with tax exempt status for donations. That means if you donate to SARSAS we will sent you a receipt with our tax exempt number so you can claim your donation as a tax exemption of your tax filings.

Last Monday, we officially elected officers and created a Board of Directors so we are now an operating California corporation.

That means we need money to continue operations to get funding to continue retrofitting the twelve barriers on the Auburn Ravine and hire grant writers and design people for the fish ladder retrofitting.

We currently have no money so any donation would help until or if our operating grants materialize.

The SARSAS goal is to make all twelve barriers on the Auburn Ravine passage for anadromous fishes so steelhead can use the entire Ravine to spawn in and salmon can ultimately spawn in Auburn School Park Preserve in the center of Auburn, making Auburn the only town in California with salmon spawning in its center.

Of the twelve barriers, four are considered major barriers. Of these four major barriers one has been removed, two major barriers are currently being retrofitted and the last barrier will be addressed when the two being retrofitted are completely. We are making great progress toward our goal.

Please send your generous donations to help us achieve this once-thought-impossible goal. Send you donations to:

SARSAS

PO Box 4269

Auburn, Ca 95604

Thanks again for all your support,

Jack L. Sanchez

SARSAS Volunteer Coordinators

530 888 0281

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2009: CHANGE AND OPPORTUNITY FOR ENDANGERED SNAKE RIVER SALMON

Salmon Dear Friend of Wild Salmon:

We who love salmon and rivers can look with hope to 2009. The 2008 election brings significant change; so has the economic crisis; and so will federal court rulings anticipated early next year. These changes open a window for solutions after a decade of inaction. WE HOPE THAT YOU WILL MAKE A GENEROUS DONATION to Save Our wild Salmon and help us to seize this chance. CLICK ON THIS LINK TO MAKE AN ONLINE DONATION TODAY. We have great gifts at different giving levels: 2008 Youth Art Salmon Calendars, keychains,t-shirts, and cookbooks. All make very nice gifts for the holidays!

Donations are 100% tax-deductible: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=4820

THE ELECTION. The Bush Administration's salmon policy has been a disaster for fish and people. For ten years, the federal government has made little progress toward building a consensus on solutions that canserve citizens, our salmon, and our rivers. The Obama administration provides an opening for strong movement forward. In Oregon, Senator-elect Jeff Merkley said during his campaign that he will support lower Snake dam removal as part of a solutions package if the science shows it is necessary. In Idaho, Jim Risch replaces obstructionist Larry Craig; Senator-elect Risch has promised to bring together salmon stakeholders to find lasting solutions. New Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick has promised the same.