The Record Searchlight
By Damon Arthur
August 22, 2012

Fisheries officials said they have not seen any effect on salmon in Battle Creek spawning downstream of the Ponderosa Fire.

A record number of spring-run Chinook Salmon swam up Battle Creek this year and one of the largest runs of fall-run salmon in many years is making its way up the Sacramento River toward the creek now.

So far, fisheries biologists have not received any reports of fish being affected by the Ponderosa Fire six miles upstream near Manton, said Curtis Milliron, a fisheries program manager with the California Department of Fish and Game in Redding.

The fire has burned across the stream, incinerating trees and other vegetation along the banks.

Mary Marshall, manager of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Battle Creek Restoration Project, said that if there were to be any damage to the creek or its tributaries from erosion, it likely wouldn’t happen until later in the year.

After the fire is out, DFG officials will do an assessment to see if any work needs to be done to repair damage from the Ponderosa Fire and prevent erosion of soil into the creek, said Steven Baumgartner, a DFG environmental scientist.

More than 700 spring-run salmon swam up the creek this year, said Mike Berry, a DFG environmental scientist.

Last year a little more than 100 salmon swam upstream past the Coleman Fish Hatchery weir, Berry said. The previous high was 291 in 2007.

Thousands of fish annually return from the ocean and swim up Battle Creek to spawn. But those are fall-run Chinook and most of them are headed for Coleman Fish Hatchery, where they were born and released into the wild. DFG officials are predicting 819,000 fall-run salmon to migrate up the Sacramento River this year.

Unlike the fall run, the number of spring-run salmon returning to streams in the north state is so small spring-run salmon are considered an endangered species.

In the summer of 2010 the Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies began removing barriers on the creek above the fish hatchery to entice more fish to spawn upstream of Coleman.

Berry said the goal is to eventually have 2,500 spring-run and winter-run salmon spawning upstream of the fish hatchery.

The spring run was hurt in 1910 after the first hydroelectric plant was built on the creek. That plant was built to provide electri-city to the now closed Iron Mountain Mine, Berry said.

In 2010, 100 hundred years later, work began on a $130 million project to remove five Pacific Gas and Electric Co. dams on the creek. So far, one dam has been removed and fish screens and ladders have been built around three others, said Trang Nguyen, Battle Creek technical specialist for the bureau.

Fish screens keep fish from going into canals off the creek. Fish ladders enable the fish to swim around dams and weirs on the stream, Nguyen said.

The work on the creek continues during the Ponderosa Fire because the creek restoration area is about six miles downstream from the fire, said Lynette Wirth, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Reclamation.

The amount of power generated from facilities along the creek and its tributaries will drop by about one-third, said Paul Moreno, a PG&E spokesman.

The utility is not being reimbursed for the loss of revenue from the drop in power production, he said. “It’s part of our environmental stewardship commitment,” he said.

Work on the creek, and agreements with PG&E to increase the amount of water flowing downstream, has also enticed more trout and steelhead into the upper reaches of the creek.

The amount of water coming in from four tributaries increased from about three cubic-feet per second to 35 cfs to 50 cfs, he said.

The number of trout in Battle Creek has increased from a few hundred fish per mile to a few thousand, Berry said.

“The trout numbers have really rebounded,” he said.

Getting the winter-run to spawn in Battle Creek could be more difficult, Berry said. Only about 1,000 winter-run Chinook returned to the Sacramento River this year and those were spawning upstream of the Cypress Avenue bridge.

Original source