A broad coalition of recreational fishing organizations, fishing businesses and boat and tackle manufacturers, as well as representatives of the Klamath River Indian Tribes, officially kicked off the “Water for Fish” Campaign in a press conference held on February 15 at the Fred Hall Fishing Tackle, Boat and Travel Show at the Cow Palace.

Water for Fish, a grassroots effort to restore California’s besieged fisheries, is different from most past projects in that it looks at the “big picture” of why our fisheries are declining. Too many efforts to restore fisheries have been piecemeal – and the consequence is that one fishery is helped while another is hurt.

This campaign is based on the premise that you cannot separate the problems of ocean fisheries from those of our rivers and lakes and the fisheries of the Klamath River from those of the Sacramento River. What happens on the Klamath River impacts the ocean fishery on the Central Coast down to Morro Bay – and what happens on the Sacramento River impacts what occurs in the Klamath Management Zone.

Dick Pool, campaign coordinator and owner of the Concord, Calif. based tackle company, Pro-Troll,” explained the reason behind the campaign.

Dams, diversions and mismanagement are leading to a massive fisheries failure in California and we must take action now to save our fisheries,” said Pool. “Fish and fishermen are being left out of water policy decisions of the state and federal governments. This campaign gives anglers a way to be heard politically.”

The goal of the campaign is to get a minimum of 50,000 signatures on petitions or letters to a number of officials in Washington over the next several months.

Gordon Robertson, governmental affairs coordinator for the America Sportfishing Association, underlined the economic importance of sportfishing in the U.S. and California.

Recreational fishing contributes $116 billion to the national economy each year,” disclosed Robertson, “while California sportfishing contributes $12 billion per year to the state’s economy and supports 43,000 jobs.“

The 2.4 million anglers in the state also generate $456 million in state and federal taxes. Fishery closures and restrictions threaten to undermine this economic engine.

Clean water is important to a healthy fishery in California,” he emphasized. “If you want to fish, anglers will have to get active in the political process. It takes persistence and tenacity, but the days of sitting back and letting somebody else do the job are over.”

Chris Hall, the president of the 13,110 member Coastside Fishing Club, emphasized that “fighting the lawmakers for fish is not the answer.”

We need to mitigate the problem all together. We need to save the fish, save our economy and save our future, and the plans laid out by Water for Fish are a giant first step,” said Hall.

Hall recounted how Coastside Fishing Club, along with other groups including ASA and United Anglers, engaged in a successful battle last year to save the salmon season from being closed by the federal government.

As a club, we marched to Sacramento to the final PFMC meeting on the issue, chartering three buses and holding a rally with over a thousand in attendance at the Farallon Boat Facility. We then flooded the PFMC meeting to weigh in our public comments and outline our plan,” said Hall.

The water issues in California, primarily the Delta and Klamath, are having a tremendous increasingly devastating impact on our fisheries, according to Hall.

Although we recognize the need for water for agricultural use, our fishery needs to be given an equal consideration,” he said. “The mismanagement of the Klamath River is a blinding indication of the reality of this, leaving us with a parasitically infested river that threatened to shut down salmon fishing all together last year.”

John Beuttler, conservation director for the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and spokesman for the Allied Fishing Groups, spoke on the alarming food web decline in the Bay-Delta Estuary, the West Coast’s most important estuary.

Its food web and many of its fisheries are in, or near, a collapse that if not reversed soon will be terminal to key estuarine species such as striped bass, Delta Smelt, threadfin shad and critical runs of salmon and other species vital to the estuary’s ecology.”

Anglers are now the last line of defense for the estuary and its fishery resources,” added Beuttler. “We must hold our government responsible for a half century of broken promises they made to the public about protecting and restoring these fisheries.

Ron Reed, cultural biologist for the Karuk Tribe, said his tribe and other Klamath Basin Tribes have been hurt dramatically by the decline in Klamath River water quality and fisheries.

The Karuk, the second largest tribe in California with over 3000 members, caught only 200 salmon last year in our traditional dip net fishery last year,” said Reed. “This impacts not only our health, but our culture and way of life. The Karuk Tribe is in dire straits. We suffer from obesity, diabetes and hypertension three times the national average.”

However, he noted that it is not just the Karuk and other tribes that are impacted, but farmers, the commercial fishermen, recreational anglers and everybody affected economically by fish declines.

Now is the time for all of us, to come together,” said Reed. “We can’t solve the problem by single species management – we need to manage all of the species. If we don’t restore the Delta and the Klamath, we will not be able to save our fisheries. I’m very much proud and honored to be part of Water for Fish.”

Troy Fletcher, Yurok Tribal member and the tribe’s consultant on natural resource issues, emphasized the need to remove PacifiCorp’s Klamath River dams, now owned by billionaire Warren Buffett. He invited recreational anglers to go on a trip with the tribes and commercial fishermen to Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc. headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, this year to pressure the Warren Buffett-owned subsidiary to remove its dams.

If you don’t take down the dams and restore the Klamath, there won’t be thriving any salmon fisheries left. The good thing is that the Klamath River can be restored,” Fletcher concluded.

Gary Adams, president of the California Striped Bass Association, whose members collected thousands of signatures on Water for Fish petitions at the sports shows, noted that the current problems on the Delta are a result of the exclusion of fishermen and those most impacted by Delta diversions when the CalFed process unfolded beginning in 1994.

The Governor just appointed a “Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force” – and no anglers or people with a background in fisheries were on the panel, just like the Cal Fed “stakeholders” process largely excluded anglers, according to Adams.

Even more outrageous, Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman announced the appointment of a 41 member "Delta Vision Stakeholder Panel" with no representatives from recreational fishing groups or Indian Tribes! However, the panel is packed with agribusiness representatives. water contractors and political hacks, the people largely responsible for destroying the Delta. "This panel will represent Delta interests, provide assistance and make recommendations to a Blue Ribbon Task Force appointed by the Governor last week, on ideas and innovations that will lead to a sustainable Delta," according to the February 15 press release from the Governor's office.

The fishermen’s petition calls for specific actions such as the:

Removal of PacifiCorp’s four dams on the Klamath River and increased water flows.

A moratorium on any California Delta or Klamath water development project or water contract unless it can be proven it will have no negative impact on fisheries.

A moratorium on any increases in water exports from the Delta until the estuary’s fishery resources have been restored to self sustaining population levels including all species listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Full funding and compliance with the provisions of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act that requires the doubling of salmon, steelhead and striped bass populations.

A freeze on any Federal government funding which would divert, allocate or increase any water diversions or construction of facilities which would allow these activities until all impacted fish runs show increases for at least five years in a row.

We hope to receive increasing help from recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes, conservation groups and others to spread the word about our campaign. The petition and letter count now totals 9,004, with the Fred Hall Cow Palace Show generating 2,179 signed and certified Water for Fish petitions. Volunteers from the California Striped Bass Association and Coastside Fishing Club gathered the signatures.

The coalition includes over 60 companies and fishing organizations including the American Sportfishing Association, California Striped Bass Association, Coastside Fishing Club, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Federation of Fly Fishers, PCFFA, Pro-Troll and the Fish Sniffer. For more information see http://www.water4fish.org/