California Coho Salmon are listed as federally protected,
and are critically endangered. Image: Richard JamesThe Russian River is my family river. When my children tip over the canoe, or launch off a rope swing and plop into the quiet green waters, it will hold more religious significance for me than any other baptism ever could. That is how important that place is to my family and me. We love The River.

As we would with any loved one, we care about its health and well being. Over the years we have witnessed wanton pollution from purposeful and "accidental" sewage spills, there has been gravel mining, seemingly unchecked agri-business dumping pesticides and sucking wells dry, and more than anything, precious water has been continuously pumped out and diverted to quench the thirst of the ever-growing populations of Sonoma and Marin Counties. Each one of these factors has taken some of the life and wildness out of the Russian River. And there comes a point when the natural world and The River does not have anything left to give.

Still there is the hope that nature is resilient. One of the best indicators of environmental health on the Russian River would be the return of the native salmon. While producing our story on these magnificent fish we had the privilege to witness the incredibly dedicated conservation fishery biologists at the Don Clausen Fish Hatchery at Lake Sonoma. Seeing them work gave me a lot of hope. These men and women literally hold the future of the coho salmon in their hands. Each egg is tenderly cared for– each little growing fish is carefully identified, numbered and individually tagged before being gently released into the wild. It is an enormous, time-consuming and laborious task. But without them, the critically endangered coho salmon have little or no realistic chance of returning to the Russian River.

Sadly, it seems that much of their work may have gone for naught. In early April 2009, for just one night's frost protection, the wineries of the Russian River valley went against a request by the National Marine Fisheries Service and turned open their taps, taking so much water out of the Russian River watershed that the water-table dramatically dropped resulting in a massive coho salmon die-off. It's another heartbreaking blow to an already perilous situation. The wineries were told specifically about the consequences of their actions last year at a special meeting held by the State Water Resources Control Board. Yet to protect a small percentage of an already glutted crop, the wineries knowingly risked dooming an entire species to extinction.

For more information see:

Quick drop in water level kills coho | The Press Democrat | Santa Rosa, CA
04/04/09
Frost protection measures to save crops stranded fish in Russian River tributary

Coho killed after water diverted to protect crops | SF Chronicle
04/04/09
Endangered coho salmon killed after a sudden drop in the water level…

I have always advocated for The Russian River and its small communities and businesses. I recommend it as the perfect getaway for friends looking for a weekend exploration. Hiking, canoeing, wine-tasting or exploring–The River is the place. In turn I have also regularly recommended and sought out Russian River wines. But I doubt I'll be recommending anything from this year's vintage. I have a feeling the 2009 Russian River wines are going to leave a very bitter taste.

Watch the California's Lost Salmon television story online.

I hadn't been working at The Bay Institute long when our then Executive Director dropped a packet of information on my desk and asked me to draft a letter. The topic? Urinals.

An hour later, I'd written (if I may say) an eloquent letter in support of updating California's plumbing code to ease the way for water- saving fixtures in men's restrooms.

Just another day in the life of working at a water organization–and another reminder of how our home and office plumbing impacts the "plumbing" of our larger watershed: By saving water, we're also helping to save the ecosystems at the other end of our taps.

Be a leak detective

Leaking irrigation systems and running toilets are big water wasters. That innocuous little drip you haven't gotten around to fixing? Check out the WaterWiser Drip Calculator to see how those little drips add up. Learn how to monitor your household water use so you can find and repair leaks. One method: Turn off all taps inside and out. Record your meter reading, then check back an hour or two later. If the reading has changed, you may have a leak.

Fix your fixtures

Replace old toilets and clothes washers-the biggest water users in your home-with new water efficient versions. Install low flow showerheads and aerators on faucets, and top your hose with an automatic shut-off nozzle. Check with your water district: They may offer rebates-or even free supplies-to help you make these changes.

Go native!

Replace conventional lawns and other thirsty plants with native species, which are more drought tolerant, resist pests, and provide great habitat. Use mulch to keep moisture in and weeds down. Water in the early morning or in the evening, when less is lost to evaporation, and avoid overwatering. If you use an automated irrigation system, install a rain shutoff device or soil moisture sensor.

Get creative

Rinse vegetables in a bowl of water rather than under a running tap, then reuse the rinse water for watering houseplants. Keep a pitcher in the refrigerator rather than waiting for tap water to get cold enough to drink. Hold a jug under the faucet while waiting for your shower to warm up, or even bring a bucket in the shower with you to capture some of the water for watering plants. And don't forget the easy and obvious: turn off the tap when brushing teeth, shaving, or washing dishes; run the dish- and clothes- washers only when full; trim a few minutes from your shower.

Speak up!

You don't need to write your legislator about urinals (though feel free), but do speak up in favor of conservation and environmental protection and restoration. Call or write your elected officials to let them know what's important to you, or pen a letter to the editor of the newspaper you read. When a water-saving couple in Sacramento was cited for letting their lawn die, there was a public outcry. In response, the city not only changed its mind about fining the couple, but also acknowledged city codes may need a drought-friendly update. You can also make your voice heard at the ballot box: Check out www.ecovote.org.

Befriend your watershed

Just as it can be hard to make the link between the neatly packaged food at the grocery and the farms it came from, we don't normally connect the dots between the water that magically comes out of our taps and the watersheds we live in. Millions of Bay Area residents rely on water not just from their local watersheds but also from the Delta and Sierra Nevada. Know where your water comes from and help protect those sources. And don't forget to get out and get to know the Bay and its tributaries: walking our river banks and shorelines, helping clean up your local creek, kayaking, rafting, sailing, birding, and swimming are just a few ways to interact with your watershed and can be great ways to teach kids the value of protecting our natural resources.

For more water saving ideas, visit www.watersavinghero.com, www.h2ouse.org, and www.bay.org/SimpleThingsYouCanDo.pdf — or share your ideas below. Also don't miss my earlier post on what you can do to help the bay.

Talk about a wild ride.

Every year, millions of fish make a strange and harrowing detour through the Skinner Fish Facility, part of the State Water Project's facilities in the Delta.

In my last post, I wrote about my visit to the Banks Pumping Plant, whose giant pumps slurp water from the Delta to help quench California's thirst. As the volumes of water are sucked up, both resident and migrating fish come along for the ride. The Skinner Facility, in operation since 1968, was built to protect fish from being killed at the pumps–an effort that sadly is not as successful as one would hope (more on that below).

I was amazed to learn there is a whole art and science to fish screens, which range from physical barriers–called positive barriers–like perforated plates or wire mesh, to behavioral barriers like sound, light, or other stimuli aimed at keeping fish away. Well-designed screens minimize both entrainment (fish being pulled into the pump or diversion) and impingement (fish being trapped or injured against the screen itself due to water velocity).

Both physical and behavioral barriers are used at the Skinner Facility. Fish being pulled toward the pumps first encounter a trash rack that diverts many bigger fish, along with floating debris. Next, fish encounter a large, v-shaped array of metal louvers. The louvers create turbulence that functions as a behavioral signal, encouraging the fish to swim away into bypass pipes that function, as our tour guide put it, like "a big vacuum system."

From the bypass pipes fish travel to another set of louvers and pipes, concentrating them into a smaller volume of water, and then into holding tanks in a nearby warehouse. Giant, suspended cone-shaped buckets are used to periodically sample the fish, which are identified, counted, and measured. Some 90 species turn up in the facility, including Chinook salmon, steelhead, white sturgeon, and delta smelt. (I asked our guide if delta smelt really do smell like cucumbers. He confirmed it. In fact, when a school of smelt comes through–an event that has become rare–the warehouse smells "like a salad.") When enough fish have been collected, they are loaded into trucks and driven back to the Delta.

Here's the rub. Many fish caught in the pull of the pumps are lost to predation before even reaching the screening facility. Then, the facility does not effectively screen fish smaller than about 1.5 inches, meaning that littler, less powerful species and juveniles are still vulnerable to the pumps. For the fish that make it to the holding tanks, the process is such a trauma–with big and little fish squashed together in the tanks, buckets, and trucks–it's no surprise there are casualties; in fact, the delicate delta smelt often do not survive. And even for fish that make it through the entire process and out the other end, there's a final, fatal hurdle: the trunks routinely dump salvaged fish at the same locations, where more predators have learned to cluster for a free lunch.

Scientists agree that the loss of fish at the huge state pumps–and other pumps and intake pipes throughout the Delta–is a major contributor to plummeting populations. How much water we use makes a difference: The higher the export rates, the more fish are entrained. There also is broad consensus that more state-of-the-art fish screening facilities are needed. That could come with a hefty price tag. But with our fish disappearing, can we afford not to invest in their survival?

View Larger Map

In honor of Earth Day, we wanted to take a big look at a chronic environmental issue in the Bay Area, tracing it from its origins to the contemporary strategies to solve it. Mercury was the obvious choice: It's been flowing into the Bay since before California joined the union, and it continues to trickle in from not just the old culprits, like gold and mercury mines, but a modern crop of industries, like refineries and cement kilns. Even little things – like a broken mercury thermometer dumped into the sink – are part of the problem.

The key fact here is how incredibly potent mercury can be: Just one little globule from an old thermometer can poison all the fish in a 45-acre lake, making them unsafe for humans to eat. Mercury pollution is hardly unique to the Bay Area; what makes us interesting is that local officials are making real strides in trying to clean it up. Over the next 17 years or so, we'll spend $2.6 billion dollars on the project. Even then, we won’t have a clean bay for 120 years.

For a lot of people, mercury pollution in the Bay is largely theoretical, since few stores sell fish caught in the Bay, and relatively few residents fish for their food. But some still do – including many recent immigrants from fishing-intensive cultures like Laos. We’ll look at how mercury affects the health of local fishermen next week.

This piece marks our first-ever audio slide show, and what a difference it makes! We also hope you'll check out the mercury map above, where you can see how many pounds of mercury come from each of the Bay Area’s five refineries, plus other mercury sources and the bay's popular fishing spots.

Watch the audio slide show of "Mercury in the Bay" online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Amy Standen is a Reporter for QUEST and Radio News at KQED-FM.

Raise your hand if you live in a watershed! Are all of your hands up? We all live in a watershed, an area of land that all water (from rain, snow and springs) flows across, under and through on its way into a common body of water, such as a creek, river, bay or ocean. The water may travel through city streets and into storm drains, over the surface of the ground and across farm fields, or suburban lawns, or it may seep into the soil and travel as groundwater. Along the way, water picks up and carries materials.

Everything we do impacts our watershed. Use of land and water from any part of the watershed, such as polluted run-off from farms, forests, ranches, and cities, eventually affects the health of the whole watershed – as well as the plants, animals and people within it.

A healthy watershed is important to everyone! Animals find food, water and shelter near creeks and waterways. Humans enjoy clean water and places to relax, swim and appreciate nature. One of the best ways to help your local watershed is to connect with it.

So, may I suggest a visit to that creek in your neighborhood for an old-fashioned, low-tech exploration? Bring binoculars, a nature journal, a creek creature identification sheet, and empty baby food jars. Bring some kids and all your senses.

At the creek, sit quietly and listen for the sound that is the nearest or the sound that is farthest away. Can you hear the creek running or the birds calling?

Notice the variety of habitats in the creek. Look for a place in the creek where there is a riffle: a shallow area where water breaks over rocks, promoting high oxygen levels. Invertebrates and the small fish that feed on them live here, in a pool: a deeper area with slower moving water. Pools provide a spawning, feeding and resting site for fish, or a run: a straight, fast moving, section of a creek between riffles that has a diverse mixture of aquatic life. Look for tracks and scat along the creek banks. Use the baby food jars to carefully capture aquatic life. Observe, sketch and release.

Smell the variety of plants and flowers now blooming in the riparian zone. Notice that the bushes, trees and roots are all home to various wildlife. Draw a guide to the plants and trees in one small area of the creek.

Blindfold a friend or sibling and carefully lead them to a tree near the creek. Allow them to touch it, then give them a spin and lead them away. Remove the blindfold and challenge them to find their tree using their eyes.

Find edibles along the creek, like wild onion, miner's lettuce or blackberry and taste wild food right off the vine.

Once connected, it is easy to care, and help keep our watersheds clean, in simple ways such as monitoring what you allow down the storm drains, refraining from flushing cat feces, or participating in a creek clean up. Please add your own ideas!

The Oakland Zoo has restored a section of the Arroyo Viejo Creek on the zoo grounds with support from City of Oakland, the California Coastal Conservancy, the California Department of Parks and Recreation, Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, and the City of Oakland Measure DD Bond. With six outdoor classrooms featuring educational signage and seating on logs, the creek will offer an exploration experience for all. Help us celebrate with a ribbon cutting ceremony at noon on Saturday, April 12, as part of the Oakland Zoo's Earth Day celebration.

See you down at the creek!

Amy Gotliffe is Conservation Manager at The Oakland Zoo.