Oct 1, 2009 9:19 pm US/Pacific
Salmon Restoration For San Joaquin River Begins
FRESNO (CBS 5 / AP) ―
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The San Joaquin River.
AP
Cold water gushed from behind a central California dam Thursday to meet its old, dry riverbed, marking the first step in a federal plan to reawaken the state's second-largest river so salmon can flourish again.
The San Joaquin River, whose waters course from the Sierra Nevada to the Pacific Ocean, carried the continent's southernmost salmon run until the 1940s, when the government dammed it to nurture croplands below.
That captured snowmelt allowed the state's agricultural economy to thrive, but Friant Dam also dried up portions of the river downstream where salmon once spawned.
The surges of water released Thursday marked the beginning of a major restoration effort, the result of a decades-long legal tussle between environmentalists, farmers and the federal government.
"Having water flow down the San Joaquin is an important first milestone on the way to having a living river again," said Monty Schmitt, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed a lawsuit in 1988 stemming from the opening of Friant Dam.
After years of negotiations, all parties agreed to a legal settlement in 2006 to return water to two dry stretches of the river and bring back native Chinook salmon by 2012.
President Barack Obama signed a bill implementing the agreement in March, and on Thursday, the Bureau of Reclamation released the first test flows into the dry riverbed, where officials hope it will revive parts of the river that are now choked with weeds.
Over the coming months, scientists plan to monitor the flows' impact on the dry riverbed, surrounding croplands and potential spawning habitat for salmon.
"You will see more flow coming out of a few needle valves at the dam, and for the next several weeks you'll notice the river will slowly move downstream," said Jason Phillips, program manager for the bureau's restoration program.
"But it will take decades before you see a fully realized salmon population."
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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