CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 19, 2010 | By Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times
More water may be headed to the Southland and the San Joaquin Valley after a judge concluded Tuesday that a federal agency acted arbitrarily when it imposed pumping limits to protect migrating salmon and steelhead. The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger is the latest development in a tangle of legal challenges to restrictions based on the Endangered Species Act that are cutting water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, east of San Francisco. Wanger sharply criticized some of the scientific rationale for the pumping curbs, but stopped short of jettisoning them, saying he needed more information before deciding on a cure.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 30, 2010 | By Jill Leovy
They're nearly always pregnant, like the mythical tribbles of "Star Trek" fame. They pass through gullets of fish unfazed. And they could bring disaster to native bugs, frogs and steelhead restoration efforts in the Santa Monica Mountains. New Zealand mudsnails have taken over four watersheds in the Santa Monica Mountains and are spreading fast, expanding from the first confirmed sample in Medea Creek in Agoura Hills to nearly 30 other stream sites in four years. The invasive species, found in many waterways in the U.S. West, the Great Lakes and Canada, reproduces asexually, so "it just takes one to infest a water body," said Mark Abramson, a stream restoration expert for the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission.
NATIONAL
September 16, 2009 | Kim Murphy
Fisheries managers announced Tuesday that they would enhance but not significantly alter the government's current strategy for saving salmon from extinction in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest, drawing criticism from conservationists. The long-awaited review left intact key components of the George W. Bush administration's controversial 2008 "biological opinion," which concluded that salmon could be kept alive on the Columbia and Snake rivers without removing dams or significantly increasing water flows.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
October 28, 2008 | Associated Press
A federal judge on Monday upheld protections for wild steelhead trout in California rivers, rejecting an argument by forestry groups that the success of hatchery-raised steelhead has made the population sufficiently robust. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno disagreed. In his 168-page ruling, he said hatchery-raised fish are no substitute for wild steelhead. Steelhead are listed as either threatened or endangered in different parts of California. In a related claim, the judge also rejected a bid by Central Valley farmers to remove steelhead trout from the federal Endangered Species Act. The farmers pointed to an abundance of resident rainbow trout, steelhead that do not migrate to the ocean.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 10, 2008 | Tami Abdollah, Times Staff Writer
These days large swaths of the once-meandering Topanga Creek are dry and full of dirt and look like a Santa Monica Mountains hiking trail. The cause is a 1,000-foot-long berm that rises up to 30 feet high and disrupts the water's 10-mile path to the ocean. Beginning in the 1960s, residents fearful that heavy rains would swell the creek and flood their homes gradually began to pile on material to interrupt the water flow.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 12, 2008 | Eric Bailey
With federal regulators canceling this year's salmon fishing season off California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and asked the Bush administration to aid the embattled coastal industry. The governor issued a proclamation and dispatched a letter to President Bush asking help in obtaining federal disaster assistance. Meanwhile, he signed a bill by state Sen. Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) to fund $5.3 million in restoration projects for salmon and steelhead.