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Salmon Symposium Draws Experts and Activists to the Yuba River: Three-Day Public Event Includes Field Tours, Workshops, Panel Discussions and the Presentation of a Calling Back The Salmon Resolution

Published on YubaNet.com- 6/30/08 South Yuba River Citizens League

NEVADA CITY, Calif. June 30, 2008 -- A council of indigenous leaders, ecologists, scientists, community activists, healers and elders will present a Calling Back the Salmon Resolution, closing the first of a three day event at the 3rd Annual Spring-Run Chinook Symposium, held for the first time in Nevada City.

The Salmonid Restoration Federation (SRF) and South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) are producing the event, which includes a full day Symposium on Thursday July 10th exploring the challenges and opportunities for recovering California's Spring-Run Chinook salmon - historically the most abundant salmon run in California and currently threatened with extinction. The symposium will be followed by field tours on Friday and Saturday, July 11-12 to provide first-hand investigations of important restoration projects and opportunities demonstrating how the Yuba River is central to the recovery of the San Francisco Bay Watershed's collapsing wild salmon populations.

As a feature of the "Salmon Social" that begins at 7:30pm on July 10th, the Calling Back the Salmon Committee will call for "the reintroduction of Wild Salmon into the upper Yuba River, as a cornerstone for the recovery of the ecology and spirit of our rivers," and call for several other actions by government and the people of "Salmon Nation." The presentation will be followed by a short film program from SYRCL's Wild & Scenic Film Festival.

Yuba Salmon Now! Wild Salmon Forever!

"There's no better place to restore native runs of Wild Salmon in California than the Yuba," states Jason Rainey, Executive Director for SYRCL. "We're building the scientific, legal and moral case - and the citizen capacity - for recovering California's wild salmon heritage - starting in the healing Yuba headwaters and flowing downstream through the Golden Gate."

The purpose of the symposium is to promote knowledge and advance strategies that most effectively protect and restore threatened spring-run Chinook populations of California.

"We have coordinated with salmon recovery scientists, and those who were active in the former Spring-run workgroup to produce this dynamic event.

We're thrilled to take the symposium to the Yuba and bring focus to recovering spring-run Chinook," states Dana Stolzman, Executive Director for SRF.

The symposium format will include presentations, panel discussions and workshops to address the historic range and life history diversity of Spring-run Chinook Salmon, status of Spring-run Chinook populations in California and current and potential actions for recovery, salmon and water resources of the Sierra-Nevada, and evaluating options for providing new habitat and for improving freshwater survival.

Presentations will include an overview of the ecology and biology of Spring-run Chinook, Spring-run recovery efforts in the Central Valley, Klamath Basin, and Sierra tributaries as well as presentations on the affects of climate change and habitat restoration techniques. Concurrent breakout sessions will focus on recovery through habitat enhancement and protection; prioritizing habitat restoration needs and addressing issues of water quality, water diversions, and incidental take.

Two days of field tours will highlight habitat enhancement, water conservation, and restoration opportunities afforded through the FERC relicensing process, including a Yuba River Float trip from Parks Bar to Daguerre Point Dam to investigate salmon habitat. Another tour will visit the Bear-Feather Floodplain Set-back Project, the largest levee setback project in California that incorporated salmon recovery objectives into the design concept. Participants will also learn about restoration opportunities through the hydropower relicensing process while touring facilities for relicensing on the South Yuba River.

Saturday's tours include Butte Creek in the Northern Central Valley, which contains the best existing habitat-and greatest populations - for Spring-run salmon. This tour will visit the PG&E facilities that were retrofitted to allow increased flows for salmon. Another field tour will include snorkeling investigations of the South Yuba River to understand temperature/trout relationships.

"We hope that this type of hands-on educational event will foster cooperation and be conducive to creating long-term solutions to balancing human water supply needs with instream flows required for salmonid recovery.," says Stolzman.

Bringing Spirit to a Scientific Symposium:

The Calling Back the Salmon Committee is based in the Yuba and Bear Watersheds and is responsible for the resurrection of an ancient Maidu Salmon Ceremony performed for the first time in over 150 years on the banks of the Yuba River in October 2006.

The Tsi Akim Maidu Tribe brought back the "Calling Back the Salmon Ceremony" with the support from the "Calling Back the Salmon Committee."

Tribal Chairman Don Ryberg said, "We've brought Indians and non-Indians together to prepare ourselves for the Calling Back the Salmon Ceremony.

When Indian and non-Indian come together the healing process starts the healing action. Just apology isn't enough, doing a project together is where the healing comes from so that we might call the salmon home. We want to share our story with a wider community and invite people to join us Thursday evening."

A "Calling Back the Salmon Ceremony" held in January of 2005 brought together community members, SYRCL leadership and Tsi-Akim Maidu. This ceremony prompted broad community participation, and the Tsi-Akim Maidu then began performing a ceremony now held annually at Bridgeport State Park on the South Yuba River. During this ceremony a sacred Fall-Run Chinook salmon is run by foot by Spirit runners who carry the sacred salmon from the lower Yuba River and around Englebright Dam. This dam is a federal dam built in 1941 that blocks migration to hundreds of miles of salmon habitat. The dam has never served its intended purpose of trapping hydraulic mining debris. On Thursday night (July 10) the Calling Back the Salmon Committee will present the resolution and invite the community to join the next ceremony on October 11th, as the welcoming event for our region's Indigenous Peoples Days weekend.

"Since our Salmon Town Hall meeting last October, this Symposium represents the best opportunity for local people to get informed about the salmon crisis and get connected to solutions. The following week we'll begin taking the message of saving wild salmon to a wider audience," states Jason Rainey of SYRCL. SYRCL's Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival On Tour will present a salmon-focused "Source to Sea" 2-day festival in San Francisco on July18th and 19th.

And Wild & Scenic will bring a wider range of films to World Fest in Grass Valley on July 18, 19, and 20th-including segments of the Thomas Dunklin film "Yuba Salmon Perspectives."#

http://yubanet.com/regional/Salmon-Symposium.php