Salmon Loss Blamed on DFG Chief : Former Employee Says Warnings of Impending Troubles Were Ignored

While the winter-run king salmon in the upper Sacramento River dwindled to near extinction, Director Pete Bontadelli and the State Department of Fish and Game ignored evidence and warnings of the demise, a former DFG marine biologist says.

According to Dick Hallock, the annual spawning run was as high as 117,000 king, or chinook, salmon in 1969. Conservationists were alarmed when it dropped to 2,000 three years ago, but the DFG said it had stabilized--and acted only when it hit an estimated 550 this spring. That estimate has since been lowered to about 500.

The department recommended to the Fish and Game Commission last month that the sub-species be listed as threatened, thus restricting alterations in the fishery or its riparian area that could further deplete the fish population, such as construction projects or drawing off excessive water for irrigation or sale.

The commission went one step further and listed it as endangered , the last step before extinction.

Hallock, however, fears it may already be too late. He retired three years ago, after 42 years with the DFG, but is still active in other salmon conservation programs.

“I would hate to have to defend my job with what has happened here,” he said from Red Bluff in Northern California.

The winter-run salmon were dealt a double blow in the last two decades--first, by the construction of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam in 1966, then by the drought in 1977-78.

“It’s been a gradual decline since about ‘69,” Hallock said. “They put in the dam in ‘66, and three years later we started noticing the drop. It was delaying and blocking the upstream migration. They had a hard time finding the fish ladders.”

The fish seldom spawn below the dam, Hallock said, because “only one year in five is the temperature suitable for spawning downstream.”

The commission’s action followed an on-site inspection by Bob Bryant, the group’s president, and Harold C. Cribbs, the executive secretary. They also toured the nearby Coleman Federal Fish Hatchery, where a new program to artificially propagate the winter-run kings is having problems.

Hallock said: “They got a picture of what the run really was, which apparently they weren’t given before by the department.”

The department is supposed to keep the commission informed of resource developments so it may set proper policy for the department to follow. Hallock said that department personnel failed to tell the commission of two critical developments.

“Even though 2,000 fish came up last year, other data known in the department was that 34% of them were jack salmon, which weren’t going to produce anything,” Hallock said. “And last March (the department) knew the water was like 70 degrees. That didn’t come out at the commission meeting.”

A jack salmon is a 2-year-old male, generally considered to be too immature to participate in the spawning process. Also, during the incubation of salmon eggs, mortality starts when water temperatures top 57 degrees.

Hallock said Bontadelli also had failed to act on a report the DFG director commissioned and received a year ago from the Upper Sacramento Steelhead and Salmon Advisory Committee, of which Hallock is a member.

After the salmon were listed as endangered, Bontadelli was quoted in a DFG press release: “Now that the data warrants the recommendation of listing, the department has submitted it.”

Hallock and Dick May, president of the conservationist California Trout organization, suggested separately that Bontadelli and his predecessor, Jack Parnell, were subject to pressure from Gov. George Deukmejian, who appointed them, and that water users came first, fish second.

Bontadelli, who has been partially incapacitated with a back injury for several weeks, failed to respond to requests for comment. Instead, DFG Deputy Director Paul Jensen returned a call to The Times.

Jensen said the department had acted on “the collective opinion” of its own experts until the recent report.

“When that happened, we agreed, ‘OK, it’s time to list this thing.’ ” Jensen said. “I certainly would not agree that we deliberately withheld (information) or tried to mislead the Fish and Game Commission.”

The state DFG endangered listing lacks federal jurisdiction over the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates dams. However, the American Fishery Society is suing to have the winter-run salmon placed on the federal endangered list.

“And then we’ll get someplace,” Hallock said.

Meanwhile, the future of the winter-run kings remains in doubt.

Bob Baiocchi of the California Sports Fishing Protection Alliance said recently, “I think we are in real danger of losing the gene pool.”

Hallock said: “There isn’t any other source for them. It’s a distinct sub-species. The only place in the world they’re found is in the Sacramento River. There are no winter-run salmon anywhere (else)--a salmon that spawns in May or June.”

Of 42 adult winter-run kings placed in the new facility at the Coleman hatchery this year, only 15 survive.

“They’ve never been able to raise winter-run salmon in a hatchery,” Hallock said. “They haven’t got an egg yet.”

For anglers, the standard salmon two-fish limit applies to the winter-run kings because the average fisherman can’t distinguish them from the spring, fall and late-fall spawners, said Dick Painter, a DFG biologist at Red Bluff.

But with the run 90% past, only 14 have been caught this season, and Painter said, “We don’t expect any more.”

Hallock said the DFG may have been counting on a non-binding “10-point plan” joined by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the DFG and the Bureau of Reclamation three years ago to restore the fishery.

“It does have some of the elements that should be done, but it has no teeth in it,” Hallock said. “There’s no penalty for not (observing it).

“One of the 10 points is that Red Bluff Diversion Dam would be raised during a time the winter-run salmon are moving upstream to spawn. On the other hand, if they decide they need some water down in the canals or into the irrigation fields, they can stop it any time, and they’ve done that. They’ve never left the gates open the entire time that they had agreed to.”