Pictures of SARSAS Volunteers Working on Auburn Ravine

Wine Tasting for SARSAS at Courthouse Coffee, 1425 Lincoln Way, Auburn, Friday, February 13, 6-8pm

Press Release: For Immediate Release
Benefit Wine Tasting for SARSAS
Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead Inc.
Friday, February 13, 2009, 6-8 P. M.

Courthouse Coffee
1425 Lincoln Way, Auburn, CA 95603

Donation $10.00
No need to RSVP – Please just show up!

Live Music and Redwood Creek wines
Plus Artist Nelva Richardson of www.paintingwithwine.com

For more information please contact
SARSAS via Jack Sanchez at 530-888-0281 or jlsanchez39@gmail.com

Courthouse Coffee via owner Linda Lareau 530-889-1373 or
linda@courthouse-coffee.com

Additional information about SARSAS www.sarsas.org

SARSAS is an independent, registered nonprofit, non-governmental organization, whose
goal is to work collaboratively and cooperatively to modify the twelve man-made barriers on
the Auburn Ravine, making them passable for fishes.

This undertaking will take much time, effort, coordination and money, but it will have a
permanent, lasting effect on the quality of the lives of those in this area and on the
participants who will achieve something unique. We have an opportunity to create
something no other town in California has: an anadromous fish run with salmon spawning in
the center of the city.
SARSAS (Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead) Inc.

Mission Statement: to return salmon and steelhead to the entire length of
the Auburn Ravine

Jack L. Sanchez Volunteer Coordinator P.O. Box 4269 Auburn, CA 95604 530-888-0281
www.sarsas.org

SARSAS Update, January 21, 2009

Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead (SARSAS, INC.)
Update for January 21, 2009
Jack L. Sanchez
SARSAS, Inc., Volunteer Coordinator

Much progress is being made to achieve the goal of returning salmon and steelhead to the entire length of the Auburn Ravine. Starting at the west end near the mouth of the AR, South Sutter Water Agency , with General Manager Brad Arnold, providing a tour for SARSAS members of his three diversion dams – the Coppin, Davis, and Tom Glenn –, which showed all three flashboard dams are in compliance with anadromous fish passage. Flashboards are removed during the Chinook Salmon Run October to January of each year. The AR flows through these three diversion dams and then into the Eastside Canal, which in turn flows into the 4 mile long Cross Canal that empties into the Sacramento River at the town of Verona.

Moving upstream the next man-made barrier is the Lincoln Ranch Duck Club Diversion Dam, which is also in compliance with anadromous fish passage. The next two dams moving upstream are the Aitken Ranch and Moore Dams, which are passable for fishes but still need to be fully compliant. The Nelson Lane Diversion Dam is fully passable for anadromous fishes. Five of the lower seven man-made barriers are completely suitable for fish passage during the Fall Chinook Salmon Run.

Farther upstream the next two man-made barriers are the Lincoln Gaging Station and the Hemphill Dam. The LGS is located one half mile west of the Highway 65 Bridge on the AR. The HD is located approximately one mile upstream from the Highway 193 Bridge. Both of these barriers are owned and operated by the Nevada Irrigation District (NID). Funding and design are currently completed and work is underway to retrofit both barriers for fish passage with the work projected to be completed this summer. Ron Nelson, NID General Manager, has indicated that as soon as work on these two dams is completed, his attention will be focused on retrofitting the last remaining, and biggest dam on the Auburn Ravine, the Gold Hill Dam.

This summer fishes will be able to reach the Gold Hill Diversion Dam in Newcastle and when it is retrofitted, fish will have free, unobstructed passage to the Wise Powerhouse, one mile west of Auburn.

SARSAS, Inc., working with many state and national agencies, community governmental agencies and water districts, has made much progress but much remains to be done. The last phase of getting fish to Auburn is the restoration of stream bed and banks, fish habitat and riparian improvement, and water augmentation to the mile stretch of the AR between Wise Powerhouse and the city of Auburn.

SARSAS, Inc., is now a fully documented 501C3, public benefit non-profit corporation. SARSAS, Inc., is an all volunteer organization so all funds and in kind donations go to its goal of getting anadromous fishes to Auburn. It is totally free of administrative costs.

The next SARSAS benefit is the Wine Tasting and Music at Courthouse Coffee, 1425 Lincoln Way, in Auburn on Friday, February 13, 2009. Hours are 6-8 pm with a $10 donation. Call 530 888 0281. RSVP is unnecessary; just come to the event.

Tax Exempt # for SARSAS, Inc., is 80-229168. Donations and volunteer pledges of skills, equipment and time may be sent to:

SARSAS, Inc.
PO Box 4269
Auburn, Ca 95602
Upon receipt SARSAS, Inc., will provide the donor the necessary tax deductible document.

SARSAS Update October 9, 2008

Subject: SARSAS Update
Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008, 8:00 PM
Hello SARSAS Supporters,

Sarsas is now a 501C3, non-profit, tax exempt organization so those of you who have volunteered to donate money may do so. We received our status from the California Secretary of State and must file with the IRS to obtain our tax exempt number to give to donors for their ability to deduct their donations to SARSAS.

We have a very knowledgeable SARSAS Steering Committee in place and are working in several areas to get anadromous fishes into the entire length of the Auburn Ravine. To update yourself on SARSAS, you can check out our Blog:
http://www.auburnjournal.com/detail.html?sub_id=83086.

We have a monthly SARSAS meeting (fourth Monday of each month) with Placer County Supervisor Robert Weygandt in which we meet with representatives of Placer Legacy, PG&E, Placer County Water Agency, Nevada Irrigation District, CABY, Auburn City Council, CaDFG, and other interested parties to keep our focus on getting salmon back into the Auburn Ravine. The most recent CaDFG fish count indicates the Auburn Ravine averages 7,000 trout per mile, making in one of the richest fisheries in California.

Last week I toured Butte Creek near Chico to view the most successful creek restoration project in the state. Six thousand spring run salmon were spawning, and I thought I was standing on the banks of a creek in Alaska such as Ketchikan Creek, watching the females using their tails to dig holes in the gravel to lay their eggs with the male fertilizing them. This creek is a foreshadowing of what the Auburn Ravine will be.

We are working with the Dry Creek Conservancy to coordinate a fish count on the Ravine sometime in December 2008.

Auburn Ravine has twelve man-made barriers blocking the salmon and steelhead from reaching Auburn, in whose Auburn School Park Preserve we hope the salmon will ultimately be able to spawn, in the center of Auburn, Ca. Four of the barriers are major barriers: the Lincoln Gaging Station, located a mile downstream from the city of Lincoln; the Hemphill Dam, two miles upstream from Lincoln, the Lincoln Ranch Duck Club Dam, a mile above Locust Rd several miles downstream from Lincoln; and the Gold Hill Diversion Dam, one mile upstream from Gold Hill Road.

Here is the good news. Placer Legacy working with CABY and NID has funded and are doing the design work to retrofit the Lincoln Gaging Station and the Hemphill Dam, making them both passable for salmon and steelhead, probably within a year.
We just learned this week that the CaDFG working with NOAA were able to get the Lincoln Ranch Duck Club Dam completely removed, opening up another ten mile reach of the Auburn Ravine. Removal of this barrier is our Big News. The next barrier to be addressed will be the Gold Hill Diversion Dam.

Once salmon reach the Wise Powerhouse one mile downstream from Auburn, the real work begins because this reach needs additional water and major habitat restoration.

All things are possible. First, comes the dream, then the strategy.

Thanks for all your support and interest.

Jack L. Sanchez SARSAS (Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead)
Volunteer Coordinator
3675 Larkin Lane, Auburn, CA 95602 530-888-0281

Another SARSAS Blog

http://www.auburnjournal.com/detail.html?sub_id=83086
Copy and paste into google.

SARSAS ACTION PLAN

SARSAS (Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead)
Action Plan

Mission Statement: to return salmon and steelhead to the entire length of the Auburn Ravine

Organization: SARSAS is an independent, nonprofit, non-governmental organization, whose goal is to work collaboratively and cooperatively to modify the twelve man-made barriers on the Auburn Ravine and the six or more beaver dams, making them passable for fishes.

Vision: This undertaking will take much time, effort, coordination and money, but it will have a permanent, lasting effect on the quality of the lives of those in this area and on the participants who will achieve something unique. We have an opportunity to create something no other town in California has: an anadromous fish run with salmon spawning in the center of the city.

Collaborative Technique: SARSAS is working with volunteers, students, local businesses, government agencies and other Non-Government Organizations and donations of money, time and in-kind services to achieve its goal of returning salmon and steelhead with them ultimately spawning in Auburn School Park Preserve in the center of Auburn. SARSAS is currently working with several individuals and agencies to realize its goal.
Locally, we are working with Placer County Supervisor Robert Weygandt and Loren Clark and Edmund Sullivan from Placer Legacy and the California Department of Fish and Game, Auburn City Council. We have been given stream access by property owners along the AR for volunteers to do fish studies. Placer Legacy is working with Nevada Irrigation District to modify the Hemphill Dam below Gold Hill. Ron Nelson, NID General Manager, plans to continue working with SARSAS to modify other dams and gaging stations. Granite Bay Fly Casters places fish tanks in schools.
SARSAS is committed to working collaboratively and cooperatively with all people and agencies to return the salmon and steelhead to the Auburn Ravine and to keep the water flowing for residential and commerical use.
Operations: SARSAS plans to accept donations of cash and work and professional expertise and to work outside the usual channels of large financial grants. SARSAS has the ability to accept grant money as well as apply for grants through such non- profits as CABY (COSUMNES, AMERICAN, BEAR AND YUBA) and AmericanRivers.org, which already have monies available for grants to work on several of the barriers describe in Auburn Ravine/Coon Creek Eco-System Resources Plan. (http://www.placer.ca.gov/Departments/CommunityDevelopment/Planning/PlacerLegacy/AuburnRavine.aspx).

Model: The greatest stream/fish restoration ever is Fossil Creek in Arizona. All facets of the community worked together. SARSAS intends to make the Restoration of the Auburn Ravine the model for the State of California.

Philosophy: Actions achieve goals but actions are preceded by a dream: Robert F. Kennedy said, “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say ‘Why not?’" Together we can make SARSAS the model fish restoration IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND ENJOY ALL THE TRIUMPH AND THE ACCLAIM ATTENDANT THEREWITH.

Comments and questions as well as donations made out to SARSAS can be directed to: Jack L. Sanchez, 3675 Larkin Lane, Auburn, CA 95602,530 888 0281,alcamus39@hotmail

Saving the Salmon One Stream at a Time

Re: A Fisherman’s View of the salmon crisis by Dave Bitts, April 28, 2008, SacBee

“And I only am escaped alone to tell thee,” says Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick, after averting another fishing crisis. Someone must have Ishmael's courage to see things straight on and speak truth to power.

David Bitts rightly says the pressure on all waterways in the Sacramento River drainage has been unrelenting and unabated. I know first hand the pressure on one stream on which I grew up, the Auburn Ravine, which has continued unabated for over sixty years. I want to use the Auburn Ravine to speak to the pressures that all our waterways are under and try to understand why the salmon are currently in such peril.

Mr. Bitts says rightly that “we have abused our rivers to the point that the fish are on the verge of vanishing”. The Auburn Ravine was polluted for years by the affluent of the city of Auburn, improperly treated, being dumped directly into the Ravine. Finally, the State of California fined the city and forced it to clean up itS affluent. The stench was so strong from the polluted Ravine that people living on it were forced to leave their homes. Water quality was improved when the State of California began fining Auburn for non-compliance with its water quality standards. Conditions improved but pollutions spills continue.

Then the Feds started to build the Auburn Dam on the American River near Auburn. A tunnel was drilled from the dam sight through the mountain to the Auburn Ravine in Ophir. The Ravine bed was bulldozed supposedly to improve water flow, destroying countless aquatic life forms and their habitat such as pond turtles, pacific lamprey eels, muskrats, sculpin and frogs to name only a fraction. The Chinook salmon were blocked long ago from coming up the Ravine to Auburn.
Noone seems to pinpoint a cause so many causes are listed. As Mr. Bitts states the main cause can all too neatly be attributed to ocean conditions that cannot be measured or controlled and no one or no one condition can be held accountable for the impending extinction so nothing logically can be done about it because no one agrees on the cause. Not knowing the cause is much too neat and too easy an attribution.

Salmon have evolved over eons to survive the vagaries of ocean conditions and have successfully done so. What salmon have not evolved to survive is the damming of their rivers, the diversion of the river water and the seasonal shutoffs of water flow by irrigation districts to maintain canals.

When streams are blocked and water is taken away from the creeks during the fall, when agricultural usage is lowest, that is specifically the time when Fall Run Chinook Salmon are coming up the stream to spawn, then the mystery of the impending salmon extinction is obvious and easily explainable: salmon are deprived of stream passage, water quality and, finally, of water, the world they live in.

If salmon do not have water to spawn in, the salmon cycle is doomed. Not having adequate water when they need it is a death sentence for salmon. Blocking stream passage with barriers is another death sentence.
Everyone wants to help but no one individual or person is starting the process to help.

Man has put salmon on life support; man must now start supporting the life of salmon. Job is telling us to start now to save the salmon.

Save Auburn Ravine Salmon and Steelhead (SARSAS) is a good organization to contact alcamus39@hotmail.com to start helping the salmon on one small ravine in the Sacramento River Drainage. SARSAS’s goal is to provide a navigable passage for anadromous fishes on the entire fifty mile length of the Auburn Ravine so salmon may spawn in the center of Auburn.


SOURCES FOR ABOVE ARTICLE

View: Oregon, California salmon
LC
April 1, 2008
The (Eugene) Register-Guard, March 26, 2008
Times are hard for industries all across America, but they may be toughest for salmon fishermen on the Oregon and California coasts.

For three consecutive years, dismal salmon returns on the Klamath River have resulted in disastrous seasons for West Coast fishermen and the communities that rely on the business they create for small ports.

The coming year could be the worst of all — the first complete shutdown of both the commercial and sport seasons ever on the West Coast.

A closure order could come as early as this weekend, when the Pacific Fishery Management Council meets in Sacramento. The council is weighing three options, ranging from a bare-bones season to a total ban. Fishermen are expecting the worst and for good reason.

While the Klamath River runs have improved, returns on the Sacramento River have collapsed. Only 90,000 Chinook returned to spawn last year, a 90 percent decline from just five years ago.

Projections for 2008 are abysmal — so low that any fishing, even for scientific research, will require an emergency order from U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service.

That’s bad news on any river, but the Sacramento has by far the most important salmon run on the West Coast. By some estimates, the Sacramento supports 90 percent of the ocean fishery off the California coast and 50 percent off the Oregon and Washington coasts.

If the council announces a ban or even a repeat of the severe cutbacks ordered in 2006 the federal government must begin immediately the process of issuing the disaster declaration needed before Congress can approve emergency assistance for the fishing industry.

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington have asked Gutierrez to declare a fishery disaster, as have Sen. Ron Wyden and other members of Oregon’s congressional delegation.

The message should be clear to Gutierrez that there must be no repeat of the 2006 debacle in which the Bush administration took months to declare the salmon season a failure. As a result of that needless delay, some fishing families and businesses are just now getting some of the $60 million in aid that finally was authorized in the summer of 2007.

Gutierrez should pay a visit to ports in Oregon to get a firsthand feel for the extent of the problem. Without assistance, fishermen who barely have managed to hang on by turning to other species, such as tuna and crab, won’t be able to make it through another year.

With no income from salmon, they’ll be unable to cover boat mortgage payments and moorage fees. Businesses that rely on income from fishermen may fail, as will an Oregon Coast where the economy is built on a foundation of salmon.

It’s frustratingly unclear why the traditionally robust run of Sacramento Chinook has fallen to such perilously low levels. The most widely held theory is that a shift in ocean conditions has wiped out the salmon’s food supply.

But fish biologists rightly point out that a long chain of interlinked factors are also to blame, including overfishing, pollution, excessive water diversions to farms and cities, an overreliance on hatchery-produced fish, and, perhaps most importantly, the debilitating impact of dams. It’s revealing that the fishery management council plans to review 46 possible causes of the collapse of the Sacramento runs.

The solution to restoring runs on the Sacramento won’t be any less challenging than it is on the Klamath. It will require the combined effort of the fishing industry, farmers, Indian tribes, water-control agencies, utilities and environmentalists to rescue the Sacramento’s dwindling salmon runs.

But the first step must be to help the people who catch salmon for a living and the coastal communities where they live and work.
-- The Associated Press
Delaying Critical Habitat
The Bush Administration often asserts that critical habitat designations are being rushed, and that it quite
reasonably wants to delay them until after recovery plans are complete. Yet only 17% (=33) of the 195 critical
habitats it has been forced to designate occurred prior to a recovery plan. And in 25 of those 33 cases, it was
the Bush administration that was at fault for violating federal guidelines to issue recovery plans within three
years of listing. The Bush Administration is playing a cynical and deadly game by asking to delay critical
habitat until after recovery plans are complete, then refusing to complete the recovery plans.