Salmon and Trees: Drought Beyond the Cities

Another aspect of the California drought that is getting particular attention on the North Coast as well as further up the Northwest is the effect on salmon.  Combined with other factors, the low flow in rivers and the hot ocean near shore are endangering salmon runs.  Die-offs in Washington state have already happened, and a repeat of the massive die-off in the lower Klamath in 2002 is feared here.

Local tribes are agitating for the release of more water to cool down the rivers and streams where the salmon are now going to spawn.  Humboldt member of Congress Jared Huffman wrote to the Dept. of Interior urging such releases.

Coincidentally, on August 30 HSU is hosting a staged reading of a 2006 play created here that concerns the effects of that 2002 salmon die-off.  Salmon Is Everything is also the title of a book that includes the play's text and essays about the issues and the process of creating the play, particularly the relationship with tribal communities.   It will be the 2015-16 HSU Book of the Year. The play places particular emphasis on the cultural impact of salmon, a connection maintained by indigenous communities for thousands of years.

More broadly, the drought is creating crisis conditions for wildlife throughout California, and if the drought continues a new study warns that things could get really bad:

A new report by the Public Policy Institute of California non-profit think-tank paints that distressing picture of California for the next two years if the state’s driest four years on record stretches further into the future.

Written by water and watershed experts working at the policy center, at the University of California, Davis, and elsewhere, the report urges California to do more now to deal with what researchers project to be the biggest drought crises of 2016 and 2017 — crashing wildlife populations, raging wildfires and more and more poor rural communities running out of water entirely.

So far the emphasis has been on big cities and big agriculture, the report says.  But beyond these obvious economic and population centers, the drought threatens the basic ecological infrastructure, as well as people who live in small places within or closer to our forests and rivers.  And ocean, but that's another (sore) subject.

Forest fires continue, and another 3 firefighters lost their lives in Washington.  A National Geographic article describes how they are changing western forests. Another study finds our northern forests are particularly threatened by the climate crisis.

Meanwhile, the speculation over the super-El Nino continues, but nobody believes that even if it brings substantial rain to the state, that this will compensate for the drought, or even break its back.  Even as El Nino builds in strength, the countervailing "Blob" of warm coastal waters remains, and could offset greatly the expectation of even normal rains up here on the North Coast (and the Northwest generally.)  This could also mean the snows will not return to the high Sierras in sufficient quantity to add significantly to the urban water supplies south.