by Henry Miller, Statesman Journal
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The article includes a quote from Coalition member Northwest Steelheaders:

Groups such as the Northwest Steelheaders are taking a proactive approach to long-term solutions for dealing with problems such as warming water, said Rees, of the Association of Northwest Steelheaders.

“Part of our initiative to address that is working with the Board of Forestry on improving riparian areas on the private forest lands,” he said. “And we’re certainly working with state and federal (agencies) trying to get some additional designations on federal lands in the North Coast area.

“It’s all about building resilience, and the only way to do that is to improve freshwater habitat.”

Full Text of Article:

The drought and persistent hot weather across the West have some anglers putting their gear away and governments from California to British Columbia closing or restricting fishing in an effort to protect stressed fish.

“I just had a guy from the Eugene chapter who said they just put the boat away. So they’re kind of folding it up,” said Bob Rees, the executive director of the Association of Northwest Steelheaders. “Typically they just enjoy being out on the water in June and July.

“They’re just choosing conservation first and looking forward to ocean and estuary fishing down on the coast.”

And the Oregon Council of Trout Unlimited has notified its members that if the water is above a certain temperature, they should not be fishing, said Tom Wolf, the executive director.

“Wild-fish people, we tend to be sensitive to that,” Wolf said. “I’ve seen a lot of blogs out there for anglers who are really concerned and they’re already voluntarily not fishing when the water’s too warm. And they’re asking for the agencies to do something, too.”

The situation is dire in some areas.

And warmer temperatures were blamed for a bacterial outbreak that killed about 45 sockeye salmon at the mouth of the Deschutes the first week of July.

Oregon, as with Washington, has released some salmon early from state hatcheries and has closed or restricted fishing on some rivers in the face of falling flows and rising water temperatures.

Sections of the Umpqua River in southwest Oregon where tributaries enter the river creating what are known as thermal refuges are off-limits to fishing for salmon and steelhead.

And low, warm water in northeastern Oregon has closed the Chinook season on the Grande Ronde River, with the Imnaha and Wallowa rivers to follow July 13.

Trout Unlimited submitted a letter to that effect Thursday, July 9, to Fish and Wildlife.

“It should be, and it should be part of the statewide response to this drought,” said Bill Bakke, the founder and director of science and conservation for the Native Fish Society.

“Canada made that decision,” he said about a July 4 shutdown of fishing on southern Vancouver Island and adjacent islands off southern British Columbia. “We’re seeing things like what’s happening up in Canada where this whole low-water drought problem up there, they’re taking action on that.”

Bruce McIntosh, the deputy chief of fisheries for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the agency needs flexibility to deal with changing circumstances.

“We don’t have a formal policy. And I don’t imagine adopting one,” he said. “We’re a little more organic about it.

“We do have a suite of strategies and actions in place to deal with drought, and it’s everything from conserving water to closing fisheries.”

He cited rule changes such as the closure of sections of the Umpqua to reduce stress on salmon as an example.

“We have seen some issues that have raised conservation concerns,” McIntosh said. “We are sort of monitoring those things, and where there is a conservation concern we will take action.”

Among the other strategies the department is considering is an approach similar to what Montana has in place, a 2 p.m. to midnight fishing prohibition for some of its iconic trout rivers such as the Lower Madison and Big Hole.

“So everything’s on the table,” McIntosh said. “We’re going to take all the actions that we need to or can to protect these fish. That’s everything from pushing them out of our hatcheries to closing fisheries and, frankly, opening fisheries where lakes are going to go dry and those kind of things.”

And there is another looming threat for salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish, he added.

“It’s unfortunate right now that we’re also in an El Nino period where not only are freshwater conditions a challenge, but the marine environment looks like it’s also going to be a challenge for the next year or so,” McIntosh said about phenomenon in which warm ocean currents push into the West Coast.

Compounding the problem for fish in the Willamette River drainage, the drought has left valley reservoirs that were drawn down for the primary mission of flood control in anticipation of winter and spring rains and melting snowpack are well below normal.

“That’s the fundamental problem for us. Our Willamette Valley reservoirs are almost entirely rain-filled, and we can’t measure the rain until it’s on the ground,” said Scott Clemans, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Portland District. “And we can’t predict how much rain we’re going to get until it’s almost halfway across the Pacific and coming our way.

“And that’s why we had such a ghastly time trying to predict what our reservoir elevations were going to be this spring because until it rained, we really couldn’t tell you. And, well, it turned out it just didn’t rain, period.”

Clemans said one calculation was that for the reservoirs to be where they should be at this time of year, it would have taken 25 more inches of rain than the state received.

The good news is that even with the current situation, the network of dams the corps operates should be able to fulfill its water mandates for fish, municipal uses and agriculture, he said.

Groups such as the Northwest Steelheaders are taking a proactive approach to long-term solutions for dealing with problems such as warming water, said Rees, of the Association of Northwest Steelheaders.

“Part of our initiative to address that is working with the Board of Forestry on improving riparian areas on the private forest lands,” he said. “And we’re certainly working with state and federal (agencies) trying to get some additional designations on federal lands in the North Coast area.

“It’s all about building resilience, and the only way to do that is to improve freshwater habitat.”

The 800-pound gorilla in the room is whether with global climate change the erratic gyrations in annual weather patterns are the new normal.

“The problem that we really face is that almost all of these studies do agree on one thing, and that is during our spring refill season, the chance of flooding is going to be more wildly variable than it has been in the past,” Clemans said. “In other words, there may be many more years like this year when we see little rain and snow, and then there will be many years when we see a lot more rain, probably not as much snow.”

“I think you can see in the governor’s drought proclamation that most of us view this as Mother Nature’s warning shot to Oregon,” McIntosh added. “And it may not so be the new norm, but we’re more likely to see the extremes as the climate transitions.

“And we have to get out in front of these things and how we can help the species that we manage through that transition.”

hemiller@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6725 or follow on Twitter @henrymillersj and at Facebook.com/hmillersj