Conservation Conversation

Conservation onversation

With Julie Ruth Haselden

PacifiCorp’s Iron Gate Dam on the Klamath River in Northern California

Klamath River Dam Removal News GPFF joined over 90 organizations, including tribal nations, in suppport of the removal of the disastrous Klamath dams. We sent a message to PacifCorp and Berkshire Hathaway to help struggling Klamath communities and protect future generations. The four dams blocking the Klamath River are obsolete “dead beat dams” and are scheduled for removal. We are eager for demolition to begin and for the return of migrating salmon and steelhead. The Klamath River snakes from southern Oregon through a rugged and remote part of Northern California to the Pacific Ocean. It is the second largest in California, and it is home to multiple tribes that have relied on its salmon runs for millennia. Those runs have dwindled significantly due to a variety of factors including climate change and the river’s four downstream dams.

Coastal cleanup September 19, 2020 This year the Coastal Cleanup will not be hosted by East Bay Regional Park District due to COVID-19 restrictions. This year GPFF will self-direct our work party on September 19. What does that mean? I will supply trash bags, litter grabbers and disposable gloves. We will have access to a dumpster! Volunteers will supply their own masks, closed-toed shoes, long pants and long-sleeve shirt, water and enthusiasm! We will meet at 10:30 near Tidewater (off Doolittle) and work for about two hours. Our project will be cleaning trash from East Creek Slough which typically collects trash from upstream before it is deposited into our bay. We will make a big difference! Please contact me if you are able to join our Conservation work party: jhaselden17@ comcast.net. I will provide more specific directions for parking and meeting next week. Hope to see you there! There will also be a “Clean the Shore From Your Own Front Door” program the park district is implementing along with the

Coastal Commission in place of the usual Coastal Cleanup Day. Here is a link to the EBRPD website info on it: https://www.ebparks.org/about/getinvolved/ volunteer/events.htm

Bay Trail Fishing Opportunities I have seen fly fishers and spin casters along the beautiful Bay Trail in Berkeley, Albany and Richmond. Several locations are easily accessible with no overhead hazards to snag your casting! One location is at the foot of Gilman St. where parking is available, and you can scope out a perfect location in either direction without a crowd of other fishers. I

have seen a fly fisher using a float tube in the bay between 880 and the Berkeley Marina’s Caesar Chavez Park (check tides – you will want a high tide here for a float tube). Lucretia Edwards Shoreline Park offers easy access for fly fishing and fantastic views. I saw this girl catch her third perch of the day at the Albany Bulb (she used pile worm bait). I’m sure success could be had with a pile worm fly!

FISH EGGS SURVIVE A TRIP TROUGH A DUCK Birds eating, then pooping eggs may spread “For fish eggs, getting gobbled by a duck kicks off a harrowing journey that includes a pummeling in the gizzard and an attack by stomach acids. But a few eggs can exit unscathed in a duck’s excrement, possibly helping to spread those fish, including invasive species, to different places, a study finds.

It’s been an ‘open question for centuries how these isolated water bodies can be populated by fish,’ says Patricia BurkhardtHolm, a fish biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland who was not involved with the new research. This study shows one way that water birds may disperse fish, she says. Bird’s feathers, feet and feces can spread hardy plant seeds and invertebrates. But researchers didn’t expect that soft fish eggs could survive being in a bird’s gut, says Orsolyn Vincze, an evolutionary biologist at the Centre for Ecological Research in Debrecce, Hungary. In the lab, Vincze and colleagues fed thousands of eggs from two invasive carp species to eight mallard ducks. About 0.2 percent of ingested eggs, 18 out of roughly 8,000, were intact after defecation, the team found. Some of those eggs contained wriggling embryos and a few eggs later hatched, the team reports in the July 7 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s not clear yet whether eggs survive in the way in the wild. Most of the viable eggs were pooped out within an hour of being eaten, while one took at least four hours to pass. Migratory ducks could travel dozens or possibly hundreds of kilometers before excreting those eggs, the scientists suggest. Though the surviving egg count is low, their numbers may add up, making bird poop

a possibly important vehicle for spreading shish. A single carp can release hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time, Vincze says. And there is a huge number of mallards and other water birds throughout the world that may gorge themselves on those eggs.”

FYI from Linda Friedman “In a medication guide for Percocet (no I’m not an addict!!!) I was horrified to see, printed in the guide: ‘After you stop taking Percocet, dispose of unused tablets by flushing them down the toilet.’

Yup, VERY disturbing on so many levels.

1. I would strongly request that everyone (hopefully) and our members explicitly, read every word of their medication guides. In my opinion, most people don’t. 2. Contact the FDA. I did, and someone actually called me back from the FDA. Yes, a governmental agency! The response was positive, asking me for the manufacturer, prescription number & such. 3. Contact your prescribing pharmacy.”

Linda asked me to share this with GPFF members. In any case, NEVER flush pharmaceuticals into our water system!

~ Julie The recent completion of groundwater sustainability plans for California’s most over-pumped basins was a major step toward bringing basins into long-term balance, as mandated by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). As these plans move through the state approval process, the next stage is implementation. We talked to Trevor Joseph—the first SGMA employee at the Department of Water Resources (DWR), and now a member of a groundwater sustainability agency in the Sacramento Valley—about next steps and possible pitfalls.

Read the rest of the interview here: https://www.ppic.org/blog/groundwatersustainability-moves-from-planning-toimplementation/?utm_source=rss&utm_ medium=rss&utm_campaign=groundwatersustainability-moves-from-planning-toimplementation?utm_source=ppic&utm_ medium=email&utm_campaign=blog_ subscriber