FWA STARTS YEAR 1 MONITORING

Summer 2009

Since 1996, Family Water Alliance, Inc. (FWA) has been supporting efforts in salmon recovery and actively protecting our fishery resources through their Sacramento River Small Diversion Fish Screen Program. FWA has led a long-term proactive program to assist farmers with the screening of agricultural diversions to not only protect the fisheries, but to also protect their water rights and right to farm through the development of the screen program.

Because construction and installation of fish screens competes for limited grant monies with other fish conservation dollars, and the little quantative data available to prove that diversions take fish, FWA and their program partners have included a fish entrainment monitoring as part of the Sacramento Valley/Delta Fish Screen Program.

The purpose is to collect data on fish entrainment by river diverters during two irrigation seasons. This will help us gather data to address whether small diversions in fact “take” fish, and if continuation of funding and screening of smaller diversions is needed. It is our hope that we can in fact collect enough data to either give small diverters a waiver to pump, or continue current efforts to screen the small diversions.

Three sites were chosen for year one of the program: Sutter Mutual Water Company State Bend Pumping Plant, Sycamore Mutual Water Company Site 2, and River Garden Farms Site 2.

Sites were chosen because of several important factors, such as the voluntary participation of landowners, environmental considerations and permitting ease, engineering ease, total cubic-feet per-second (cfs), river location and ability to monitor the pump outfall.. All required and necessary state and federal permits are obtained on behalf of the landowner before monitoring begins, by FWA and our program partners.

David Vogel, senior biologist, Natural Resources Scientists, Inc. (NRS), will be performing the monitoring. NRS is an environmental sciences consulting firm specializing in scientific investigations and resolution of complex resource issues associated with water project development. Dave has extensive experience in his field and will sample each diversion once daily, seven days a week during the pumping season at each site.

Each landowner is also guaranteed a fish screen after the monitoring of the diversion, thus protecting the landowner and their water rights. Intake Screens, Inc. (ISI) will be designing, constructing and installing the site specific, self-cleaning, retractable fish screen system. MBK Engineers, Inc. will provide independent engineering oversight, review, and approvals for each screen system throughout the program.

FWA, along with the AFSP Technical Team and program partners, will be selecting sites for Year 2 of the program within the next few months. Anyone that is interested in participating in the program should contact FWA as soon as possible to be included in the site selection process.

It is extremely important to find a viable solution to screening of diversions in the Sacramento Valley and the Delta region for not only the fishery resources, but agricultural diversions as well.

If you are interested participating in the fish screen program, please contact the Sacramento Valley Fish Screen Program at (530) 438-2026, or submit a letter of interest to P.O. Box 365, Maxwell, CA 95955.