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The importance of the salmon fishery to the state should not 

 be surprising. The Sacramento-San Joaquin river system, after all, 

 is second only to the columbia-Snake system in the lower 48 states 

 in historic salmon production. Even today, the Sacramento, San 

 Joaquin and their tributaries — the Central Valley river system - 

 <- accounts for approximately 75% of the state's commercial and 

 recreational salmon harvest and an estimated 50% of Oregon's ocean 

 catch. As late as 1988, salmon was California's most valuable 

 fishery, accounting for millions of dollars to coastal economies 

 and thousands of jobs. And even though, king (chinook) salmon, 

 the mainstay of California and Oregon's salmon fishery, account for 

 only a small part of overall world salmon production, troll-caught 

 kings, which California has often led in the production of, have 

 historically been the most valuable of all the species of salmon 

 harvested. 



Without a doubt the single largest factor contributing to the 

 decline of California's salmon resource, and the jobs and economies 

 it has supported, has been the construction and operation of the 

 federal Central Valley Project. Shasta Dam on the Sacramento, 

 Friant Dam on the San Joaquin, Folsom Dam on the American and the 

 myriad of other federal dams on the tributaries have eliminated 

 thousands of miles of spawning and nursery habitat. The California 

 Advisory Committee on Salmon & Steelhead Trout reported that by the 

 1970 's the 6,000 miles of salmon spawning habitat in the Central 

 Valley had been reduced to less than 500 miles. 



TAKINGS 



Not only did Shasta, Friant, Folsom and the other dams 

 eliminate thousands of miles of Central Valley fish habitat, their 

 operations further worsened conditions in the rest of the system 

 that was not inundated by reservoirs. Flow from Friant was 

 eliminated, leaving a stretch of the San Joaquin for approximately 

 4 miles below the dam dry. This wiped out the San Joaquin spring- 

 run salmon which averaged some 115,000 spawners annually and helped 

 support the large Bay and Delta net fishery (accounting for a 

 harvest of 300,000 to 500,000 fish). There was not an Endangered 

 Species Act in the late 1940 's to save the San Joaquin spring-run, 

 they became extinct. Within 10 years of the completion of Friant 

 Dam the 100-year old Bay-Delta net fishery was gone and so were the 

 jobs and economies it supported in towns such as Pittsburg and 

 Antioch. Had it not been for the efforts of state Senator George 

 Miller, these fishermen would not even have been compensated for 

 their gear. 



On the Sacramento, plumbing of Shasta Dam to allow regulation 

 of the temperature of the flows released from the dam were rejected 

 as "too costly" and the "mitigation" facility — the Battle Creek 

 fish hatchery — was foisted by the project on the U.S. Fish 6 

 wildlife Service to operate out of the Service's budget (not from 

 project revenues) . Further, the project forced the hatchery to pay 



