Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture

Alright. The joint committee on fisheries and agriculture is gonna come together in thirty seconds. Thirty seconds.

Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to be able to be here today. There are caucus meetings that are currently happening even as we speak.

We're gonna have members joining us in just a few moments representing both the state senate and the State Assembly. We're grateful for their participation. At that time, we will turn it over to our vice Chair to be able to offer some opening remarks as well. The joint committee on fisheries and aquaculture is officially coming to order and we're grateful for your participation here today. Welcome to the 51st annual Zeke Grader Fisheries Forum.

It's the state of the state of California's commercial fishery and the environment. The California legislature is welcoming the public here in the capital as well as watching online and we appreciate each and every one of you for joining us. I think that we can all agree commercial and recreational fishing is an economic driver, especially, in rural ports throughout the state of California.

California's commercial fishery, its raw value is worth just about $220,000,000 But when you add in the resell, processors, sports fishing, and ancillary industries, that total economic impact exceeds about 1,000,000,000 too. And especially for rural communities, this is a huge economic driver.

In addition, there is a sacred bond, in particular with salmon, with many Northern California Native American tribes. There are sacred ties to this species. Salmon has traditionally been an essential staple of diets and culture, and with running rivers, representing renewal in many Native American cultures. But I think that we can be candid. Being a commercial fisherman on the West Coast has not been easy over these past several years.

Historic droughts, climate impacts, dams, wildfires, all have advanced significant challenges. Climate change continues to reshape our oceans, our rivers, and our coastlines. Federal uncertainty has made long term planning more difficult. All the while, all those who depend on healthy fisheries continue to navigate an increasingly unpredictable future. That said, California has always been been about innovation, and that's where we're at today.

We've never shied away from hard work or difficult conversations, and we continue to innovate even when challenges are thrown at us. Here in the Golden State, we continue to invest in climate resilience, billions of dollars in climate resilience and habitat restoration, science based management and partnerships that recognize the importance of local expertise and tribal leadership. We know that protecting our fisheries isn't just about preserving species. It's about protecting livelihoods and food security, cultural traditions, and the environment, all who define who we are as Californians.

And that is exactly what today's hearing is all about and why it's so important.

We designed today's forum with that in mind, and we're gonna begin with our annual state of the fishery hearing, direct hearing directly from our secretary of natural resources. He does a phenomenal job on behalf of the 40,000,000 Californians. His name is Wade Crowfoot. We then will hear from doctor Craig Schuman from California Department of Fish and Wildlife about the current condition of California's fisheries and the state's priorities moving forward.

We'll then move in and explore one of the most hopeful and important stories in fisheries restoration that we've seen in The United States Of America in decades as we discuss bringing the Klamath back to life, the Klamath River back to life while also examining the continued challenges facing salmon throughout California's rivers and watersheds.

We'll then turn our attention to the outlook for the 2026, 2027 Dungeness crab season. It's a top tier fishery. We're gonna be discussing both the opportunities and the challenges ahead for one of California's most valuable and candidly oldest, commercial fisheries. And then after that, we're gonna hear from leading scientists about the potential of the Super El Nino and what that could mean for California's marine life, fisheries, and coastal communities, and how we can be better prepared after this hearing.

Finally, we're gonna receive updates from some of California's advisory committees and programs whose work is absolutely critical about long term fisheries management and ocean stewardship right here on the West Coast.

We're gonna wanna hear from folks who are in person for PEPPOL testimony. What we'll do at the end of this forum is before we adjourn, we're gonna wanna be able to turn it over to those who are here in person for any public testimony.

I wanna take a moment to say thank you so much, and Nicole Winger, who is, to my left, who has taken over as her role as consultant for for the committee and I want to say thank you so much, Miss Winger for all of your hard work and coordination getting us to hear. Quick housekeeping, items for today. Look, I know this is not gonna be a problem but here in the California legislature we don't disrupt hearings.

And if you'd like to disrupt, you can do so out in the hall and we'll have to have sergeants escort you out. And that also goes for those who are online. We we have a few panelists who are gonna be participating via Zoom, and we're just gonna ask our panelists to be able to keep those, monitors and those computers, muted when you are not speaking. And it's gonna help with that feedback as we all live the dream on Zoom. Am I right?

And we ask that every time you wanna be recognized, just use the raise a hand feature and we will recognize you. And I wanna say thank you, to our, technical crew who is delivering on the technology today. Alright. So ladies and gentlemen, let's dive in. We are really grateful that secretary Wade Crowfoot is here.

He is secretary of California Natural Resources, leads the agency, and along with doctor Craig Schuman, he's a long time leader and expert here on behalf of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. And I wanna say thank you, doctor Schuman. He has, put up with us a lot, over the years and I'm really grateful for his leadership as well. And and I, will turn it over to Mister secretary and just say, what I greatly appreciate about secretary Crowfoot, when there is a challenge, he shows up.

He doesn't do it, via phone.

He doesn't do it on Zoom. He shows up on the ground and doesn't shy away from the tough issues. I'm grateful for that, your commitment to service to the people of this state. Mister secretary, the floor is yours to be able to give us the overview of the fishery and the environment on behalf of the natural resource agency. The floor is yours.

Well, thank you so much, Senator, for both letting me kick it off here today and your constancy over all of these years holding this annual hearing in the name of Zeke Grader to ensure that we continue to focus on this sector. We are a big dynamic state, and sometimes priorities like this can get overlooked if there's not if there aren't leaders that are requiring that we do that. I've been reflective recently as we come to the end of, the Newsom administration.

It was eight years ago where I attended my first Zeke Grader's forum in the crabfeed, the night before. And I confess, it was both intimidating and pretty energizing to be in that room and and to learn these issues.

So I'll just take a little bit of time to to kick things off and really strike two themes. The first being perseverance, the second being progress. We have navigated together through some really challenging times. Over the last eight years, three of those have been the driest period in California state history.

We have experienced a record breaking three years of closure of the commercial salmon fishing season, and all manners of impacts on the on the men and women that make their their lives fishing in California, as well as tribal governments who are driving the way forward, and really all of us who care about the environment.

And we we're here for the same reason, because our fisheries are about jobs, they're about tribal sovereignty, They're about our culture, our identity, our economy, recreation. And so I wanna I wanna, you know, start us off by saying this is a moment where we can reflect on some good news. And that is, of course, the opening of the commercial season for the first time in in four years.

I think we recognize that, one, it's a limited opening, and we'll hear more about that, but it's good news. You know, salmon populations, which are traditionally really spiky, responded well to, you know, successive years of wet, of wet conditions.

We also hope and like to think that some of the work that we've been doing collectively together, is helping in that recovery. But it matters greatly to us that, commercial, fishing can happen this year as as well as as recreational fishing. I think it's also worth pointing out that another note of optimism is salmon and steelhead are showing up in water bodies where they haven't been for decades and decades.

I had a chance to learn about the Alameda Creek restoration, in the Bay Area, where Cal Trout, led a restoration project with the support of PG and E to bring back steelhead and salmon in in that stream for the first time since the 1950s. Over 2,000 fish in Putah Creek, not too far from Sacramento.

Again and again, they're you know, the work that's happening on the ground with so many partners is is delivering restoration and recovery. But we're also clear eyed on these challenges, and these challenges are getting greater. You've pointed this out. A changing climate means, more challenging conditions for our fisheries, and particularly our salmon fisheries. Those species that rely on cold water.

We have more variable river flows. The drier periods are drier and longer. We have been experiencing catastrophic wildfire across our state in the West, which has major impacts on the watershed and water quality that impacts the survival of these fish. And then warmer oceans and the marine heat wave that we have recently experienced that we'll hear more about in the panel.

And then to be candid, ongoing pressures around how do we balance the water that's flowing through our rivers for the environment and our fishing sector and 40,000,000 Californians and the cities and towns and other parts of our economy.

It has been challenging. And we are experiencing greater pressure as other watersheds that we rely on, including the Colorado River Basin, are in is really an unprecedented 20 year drought. And I'm in the middle of of those, negotiations as well. So we have both these climatic, pressures, and then we have the pressures of, a big dynamic growing state. But within that, we've we've been able to generate a lot of progress.

So I wanna spend the the remainder of my time just highlighting some of that progress. So over two years ago, we decided to bring all the actions that Craig and Fish and Wildlife and other partners were were making progress on together in what we call the salmon strategy. It's really a a strategy for, restoring and protecting our aquatic ecosystems. And there there are five core priorities. Remove barriers and modernize infrastructure, restore habitat, protect and restore flows, modernize hatcheries, and bring in technology and innovative management.

And so when we when we established this salmon strategy, we set forward some key actions that we needed to to to get done this this, this administration. It's one thing to set long term goals, and that's important, but holding ourselves accountable for action. So in each of those five areas, we've made real real progress. We have released an update to our strumming strategy each year, and it's a little bit numeric, but we're really excited of 71 action items.

49% of those, almost half, are fully completed with the rest underway.

So starting with barrier barrier removal, obviously, the Klamath leads the way. Thanks to, our tribal leaders, some of whom are here today to talk about their experience. It shows what's possible. Agencies like mine for decades, told tribal leaders that it was an impossible project, and it got done, and it's inspired the world. The largest river restoration in American history.

And we see how fisheries respond, when we take big dramatic actions like that. So we'll let, our our panelists, talk more about that. But it's worth noting that our our Department of Fish and Wildlife, thanks to your investments, has invested over $24,000,000 in habitat restoration to complement dam removal, which is which is having an active, role in the in the recovery of the fisheries. It's also worth noting that local and state partners haven't stopped there.

We hear a lot about the Klamath, but they've over, in the last couple of years alone, over 10 other projects, albeit smaller projects to remove barriers and restore, spawning and rearing habitat in other tributaries across California with another six underway.

So we need to continue to focus on removing outmoded infrastructure and restoring that habitat. As it relates to other habitat improvements, big progress. I'll note that just North of Sacramento last winter was the first time the so called big notch project actually went into operation, bringing Juvenile Salmon onto the flood plain, ultimately connecting with, the the, the Yolo Basin, and that bypass.

It is the largest flood plain salmon rearing habitat project in in California history, and it's going to be followed very closely by the Tisdale Weir Rehab and Fish Passage Project. We know that it's about removing barriers that bisect habitat, but we also know it's about helping fish, get out of these, these channelized rivers, particularly salmon and migratory species, so that they can actually get on the historic flood plains.

It's also about improving habitat in our ocean. We were really proud to support the tribal leaders that drove forward on the Federal Chumash National Marine Sanctuary, which president Biden designated. That is the first national marine sanctuary, proposed and led by tribal leaders, but it also has a a management plan that centers on improving biodiversity. So we see that as actually having real, beneficial, impact. So removing barriers, expanding habitat, restoring habitat, improving flows.

I think everybody agrees that that restoring, fisheries, particularly fishery fish that depend on, our freshwater includes restoring flows. And so, leaders that you'll hear from today, really drove the way in in protecting flows for the salmon on the Scott and Shasta Rivers. And you all know as legislators under AB 2263, the water resources control board is implementing minimum stream flow for the the recovery of of salmon on those on those tributaries to the Klamath.

Really important precedent that we're excited to, advance across the state. I think it's also worth noting, huge potential milestone later this year when the state water board adopts the update to the Bay Delta plan, literally decades in the making.

A critical piece of that is improving and restoring flows in the San Joaquin and the Sacramento systems and through the Delta. And we know fish recovery and fisheries recovery is yes, it's about barrier removal and habitat, but it's also about restoring flows.

We have about 60 seconds.

Great. And then critical to the commercial fishing sector is improving our hatcheries. And so we're really, excited to, highlight the, the modernization of the San Joaquin salmon conservation research facility and Fall Creek hatchery, and the feasibility studies on modernizing two more, hatcheries. And the last piece is technology and innovation, and it includes bringing, salmon, above, dams in the North Yuba River and, implementing a new tagging system, in through the Department of Fish and Wildlife, to better understand, how our fish hatchery, fish are faring.

So overall, I would say, you know, we have major challenges ahead as our environment continues to change, and we have this tenuous balance as our state continues to grow.

But I do think we need to be, continue to be held accountable for making progress in these five areas. Thank you so much for the opportunity to kick things off.

Mister Secretary, we're grateful you're here. We'll have a few questions in just a moment, but really appreciate it. We're now gonna turn the floor over to doctor Schuman. It's really great to see you, doctor. Floor is yours, sir.

Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair McGuire. I'm Craig Schuman, marine region manager with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and I'm honored to present the state of the fishery on behalf of our solar our new director, Meghan Hertel.

Director Hertel expresses her regrets for not being here today and ask that I share her appreciation for your work and the work of the committee and to reiterate her and the department's commitment to working collaboratively with elected officials, tribes, industry, NGOs, and all parties interested in the marine environment.

As we typically do, I'll share some highlights from this past year and some priorities for the future. I'd also like to point folks to our annual by the numbers report. This is a report we started putting together about ten or so years ago to summarize all of our work. And before I start, I just wanna acknowledge and thank you, Senator McGuire, for your many years of service to the state and to this committee. We've been doing this a long time together.

You have been a tireless champion for California's fisheries, fishermen, and fishing communities, and your leadership will be deeply missed. Moving into the state of the fisheries, so calendar year 2025, California commercial fisheries landed about 217,000,000 pounds of fish, worth about $212,000,000 This is a 30% increase by weight over the ten year average and a 15% increase by value. Those are non adjusted values over the ten year average.

This is driven primarily by market squid of a 174,000,000 pounds worth $83,000,000 and Dungeness crab coming in second with 8,800,000 pounds worth 44,200,000 And this was about half a million pounds more than were landed the prior year, but about $6,500,000 less than the value of the prior year. So just to show how those market fluctuations can really impact the value of the fishery.

Our ground fish combined for about 13,000,000 pounds worth $19,000,000 and then rounding out the top four is California spiny lobster about a million pounds worth $12,000,000. This was the second highest landing in PAMs in the past ten years, but it was the third lowest ex vessel value over that same time frame. And this was due to a very steep drop in the price per pound of lobster at about $12 per pound.

The ten year average, it ranged between $15 to $20 per pound with a high of $24 per pound in the 2021 season. This low price is likely due to tariffs and increased competition in the Chinese market as most of our lobster gets exported to that region. We are currently working with the fleet and the California Fish and Game Commission on options to bolster our domestic market.

On the recreational side, our commercial recreational fishery survey collected data from almost 80,000 angler trips, estimating about one point time 1,900,000 recreational fishing trips, catching about 7,200,000 fish. And finally, our statewide MPA network was recognized as the international gold standard for marine conservation by being awarded the IUCN's green list status.

At the same time, the Fish and Game Commission is evaluating petitions from tribes and stakeholders proposing changes to the network, and we expect that we'll be wrapping up this phase of it by the end of this year. I'm gonna spend a few more minutes talking about salmon. It's gonna be the highlight for the day, but it's just so important.

Thanks to the work of secretary Crowfoot, the work of the, salmon strategy for hotter, drier future, and really those three years of really good rain. We have a commercial salmon season again, and I just cannot overstate how important that is to our fishing communities. We have inland recreational ocean salmon for the first time in three years of closure on the main stem Sacramento and Klamath Rivers. And we have increased recreational ocean salmon opportunities.

I was fortunate enough to spend some time down in Morro Bay during one of the openers.

And just amazing to see what a salmon season will bring to a local community. The ports are bustling. And and it's not just the launch ramps. It's you get back from the launch ramp, you get back from a day of fishing, you spend the night at the hotel, you go to a restaurant, you're spending money, you're going to the coffee shop in the morning. All of these things combined really bring back the fabric of our our small coastal ports and communities.

New this year, the department has implemented in season management for both the commercial and recreational salmon fisheries, fulfilling a key management objective in the salmon strategy. This is to keep harvest within our seasonal and area based harvest limits. Last week, in season action was needed to close the fishery in the Klamath Management Zone, and the season in the Fort Bragg Management Area was shortened in response to higher than anticipated recreational catch rates.

We continue to catch track catch rates very closely and encourage anglers to check our website before they go fishing and make sure we haven't taken any in season action. The department has continued to implement and pilot a portfolio of hatchery release strategies, including trucking fish to the bay and ocean for direct nighttime releases and net pen acclimated releases, as well as early unfed fry releases.

The added flexibility of having different release strategies allows the department to avoid releasing fish into the river when conditions are poor, dramatically improving survival. These alternative release strategies, particularly early fly releases, are made possible by funding from Prop four, and this is for the implementation of parentage based tagging or PBT. This is a noninvasive genetic tagging method that samples hatchery broodstock DNA to assign age and origin to offspring.

The department has made significant progress on implementation of PBT monitoring, including collection of tissue samples for genetic analysis from all inland sectors in the Sacramento River Basin, including at hatcheries, on spawning grounds, and in the inland salmon fishery. And we've begun pilot PBT tissue collection monitoring in ocean commercial and recreational fisheries and in the San Joaquin River Basin.

Looking ahead, what do we expect? So this last year was the first year of authorized pop up gear in our Dungeness crab fishery. We'll probably hear a little bit more about that coming up. 20 vessels landed about 151,000 pounds of crab worth $1,200,000. We expect to see continued expansion in both the crab fishery and other fixed gear fisheries as appropriate and relevant to those specific fisheries in an attempt to minimize entanglement risk and maximize fishing opportunities.

We continue to have a laser sharp focus on kelp loss on recovery.

This is especially important with the current warm water we are experiencing and the potential impacts from El Nino that you'll hear about later. We are beginning to finalize the kelp restoration and management plan to guide restoration and management efforts and anticipate presenting the draft management framework to the Fish and Game Commission marine resources committee in November, at which point it will then undergo peer review. Domoic acid. So this is something we didn't talk about at our early hearings.

This is something new that we now talk about every year.

We are if trends hold, we are expecting a a bad year for domoic acid. Just this last Friday, acting director Termini, at the recommendation of the California Department of Public Health and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, lifted the closure for northern anchovy and Pacific sardine in the Monterey Bay Area, and at the same time, enacted a closure for the recreational razor clam fishery in the Del Norte County. As you know, we've been battling that closure in Humboldt County region.

That recreational fishery has been closed since May 2024 despite repeated testing with us and the health agencies to try to get that fish reopened. Finally, I wanna end on groundfish.

So groundfish are the the bread and butter, the backbone of our commercial fish, kind of the unsung heroes. They don't get a lot of credit. Last year, we talked about quillback rockfish and the good news that allowed us to significantly expand fishing opportunities in Central And Northern California. This year, we expect the National Marine Fisheries Service to declare yelloweye rockfish rebuilt. So not only is this 50 years ahead of schedule, this is after 20 years of precautionary and economically impactful management to avoid yellow eye rockfish.

We expect 2027 will bring new fishing opportunities, including a brief one month window where retention of yellow eye at low levels will be allowed for both commercial and recreational sectors. Similarly, in 2027, we also expect there will be a one month opportunity to retain cow cod at low levels. This has been a stock that has been completely off limit for over 25 years that people have not been in.

So we've got commercial fishermen that were not alive when rockfish were able when the cow cod rockfish were able to be retained. This is going back I was thinking, this is going back to the Y2K days when when we thought the world was gonna come to an end because our computers thought it was gonna be 1900, not 2000.

These last two examples give me hope and exemplify that when we work together to implement sound fisheries management, we can maintain sustainable stocks and bring back those that have been depleted. And in doing so, support the hardworking men and women in our commercial and recreational fishing industries. Thank you.

Thank you so much, doctor. Appreciate you. Appreciate you, secretary. I wanna welcome, our vice Chair, to the hearing along with the Assembly member. Thank you so much, Senator vice Chair. I'm gonna turn it over to you for any opening remarks, and we'll open it up for questions. Vice chair.

Okay. Thank you so much, Mister Chair. Before I get into my remarks, I just wanna start by recognizing the legacy of the Chair. You know, you have been very thoughtful, passionate leader. Oh, come on.

Take it. For the state fisheries and hatcheries and Aqua culture sector. So I'm sure we can expect nothing less of you on future endeavors. So thank you so much for your leadership. It's important to your district, but it's also important to the state of California.

So thank you so much. And I'll be brief before we get to Crowfoot. So, let me just, say, as Chair of the Assembly of Water, Parks, and Wildlife, you know, we're certainly very in tune and keenly aware of, the foundation of every ecosystem is gonna be water and every community, every economy. We rely on healthy rivers, lakes, and oceans every day often without thinking much about it because they're sort of buried. Right?

And, I think that the work of this committee, but also the folks that are here that that have dedicated their time and energies, to this topic, and it is complex, is is nothing short of, heroic and and tremendously important to the state of California. So, without further ado, I recognize that we are really striving to improve fishery health and that reminds us of water quality, climate change, resource management, things like that that directly affect life, not only above the surface but below the surface.

And, so I'm just delighted to be here and, I hear from all of you quite regularly and I look forward to, you know, just working together. We're we'll get somewhere. But, when we're relying on mother nature and and her different ways now with climate change, the struggles are real and extremely challenging.

So thank you for having me and I look forward to more hearing.

Thank you so much, Senator Vice Chair. Grateful for your leadership truly, in your long legacy. It is wonderful to see you. Thank you so much. What we'd like to go to do, I know I have a couple questions, but I'd like to go to see if there's any questions from the committee for the secretary.

And doctor. Real quick, Mister secretary and doctor, if you could just comment on the Sacramento. I think that's that's we're gonna celebrate the Klamath and I wanna say thank you, particularly to the Karuk, to the Iraq, for their incredible work. We'll hear from both chairs in just a moment. But the Sacramento has just been one of the bigger challenges. Right?

Hot water, historic construction, artificial impediments that are man made impediments that are in the river and for the Tribes, low stream flows. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think that's been one of the biggest issues when it comes to salmon restoration in the state, please.

Yeah. I'll start at a high level and turn turn it over to doctor Schuman. Appreciate your focus on this. You know, for the salmon fishery, the Sacramento is the most important river in California. That much is clear.

It's the second largest river system as a salmon fishery on the West Coast next to the Columbia. The Klamath used to be the third. So while we can do great things for other rivers, particularly coastal rivers and streams where temperatures are remaining pretty cold and will remain pretty cold, the salmon fishery is greatly impacted by what happens to the species on the Sacramento. Big challenge, obviously, with climate change, warming temperatures, and variable flows as we pointed out with with, with climate change.

There's no there's there's clear correlation.

There's no doubt that, you know, the driest three years in the state's history, 2021, '22 resulted in the closures of '23, '24, and '25 because of the three year salmon life cycle. But we also know that the sam that the Sacramento is the largest river volumetrically, for the state's water supply. And therein lies this really challenging balance. How do we balance, the water for, you know, communities in the economy and fisheries?

I'll note that at the end of 2022, the end of that driest three year period, we had almost 6,000,000 Californians underwater rationing.

And we were actively planning for 20,000,000 to be underwater rationing had not those, you know, nine to 17 atmospheric rivers materialized just a month later. At the same time, that we knew that the salmon fishery was going to be under existential crisis as a result of that dry period. So we're in a really challenging balance balancing I don't wanna say a balancing act, but but constantly a balancing position.

I will say I am optimistic that the water board's update of its Bay Delta plan, will bring improvement. The it issued its draft earlier this year.

It is slated to issue its, its final update later this year. And at least the draft calls for, improved flows, as well as, habitat commitments or commitments to construct a lot of habitat. We know that the Sacramento needs more flow and more off channel habitat. And that needs to be the commitment of this administration while we're here, which is a short time, but then for the next administration as well.

Thank you so much, Mister secretary. Please, doctor.

Yes. I think to to highlight the importance of the different release strategies and the value of the hatcheries to help us weather those storms of, you know, we can't predict mother nature as the vice Chair said and, I often often say mother nature bats last. And so we're we're at her whim.

And so because of the delicate life cycle of salmon and all of the balancing that needs to be done, looking at a combination of hatcheries, release strategies, making sure our hatcheries are funded and are operating efficiently, restoration projects where we can, removing barriers so, salmon can get to that cold, clear water wherever they can. You know, those are all the things that we'll be working on.

If you wanna talk a little bit about, federal, you know, where the state is is, much different than where, the Federal Government is currently at. And that's gonna continue to pose real significant challenges as we move forward, particularly on environmental and climate policy. Where are those rollbacks that you're concerned about as we move forward, in the coming few years that are keeping you up at night?

Well, I'll start by saying the Federal Government's announcement that it will is seeking to reinterpret the federal endangered species act, to suggest that the destruction of an endangered species habitat isn't harm, is highly problematic, and it's of concern. And that there are federally listed species that are, of course, really critical to fisheries. Thanks to the legislature and the governor's foresight, there is under state law.

Our Department of Fish and Wildlife is assessing the degradation of the loss of protection at the federal level and how it can how we can potentially backstop those protections. So I'd say, one, the attack on the federal endangered species act is is challenging and problematic.

Two is the lack of understanding of our of our federal leadership in Washington DC that we need our rivers to connect to the ocean, both for our environment, but also to protect water quality, and, that gets to our cities. I do wanna suggest I do wanna say and share that there have been good on the ground partnerships, with the folks who are and and I'll say before I say that, I'll say the gutting of the federal agencies is another big challenge.

I mean, we're seeing our federal agencies lose, you know, over a third of their workforce in in 18 to 24 months. And that impacts that impacts management. But then I will say the folks that have stuck on, you know, the federal, career civil servants that are doing this work have remained, you know, partners.

So huge challenges from this federal administration, but we we're we're clear eyed about them.

And a couple other thoughts. The Coastal Zone Management Act is something that we're actively tracking as well and the and the importance of consistency determination from through some of our sister agencies with federal rules, outside of of state waters, and then the federal funding. So, you know, we finally got the announcement of the 2024 was it the 2024 salmon disaster money? Yeah. It was a year late.

We've got it. We've got $21,300,000 of federal funding now. We're still waiting for the grant to arrive, at which point we can then start building the spend plan and get that money out to the affected fishermen from the 2024 season. And we're still waiting on the 2025 disaster. So there's a number of federal funding streams that have been slowed or delayed or held up that are really important to the work we do.

I appreciate you bringing up the Assembly's answer. That has been absolutely critical. And if you think we're still waiting on FEMA grants from 2015, right? I mean, it's just it is so incredibly challenging. I'm also just saying, I'm gonna turn over to the vice Chair, is there are I'm preaching to the choir here.

There are some natural federal natural resource agencies, departments that don't have enough staff to be able to process those grant funds. I mean, it's just there are some areas that have been so gutted, that they're not able, as we've heard from NGOs, even able to get the money out, let alone in a timely basis. Right? So, we're in real trouble, and appreciate that. I'm gonna turn it over, to madam vice Chair.

Just a quick question. As we're, you know, I'm hearing these stories about enforcement, marine of marine protected areas, and, we got a long coastline, certainly, but I've seen the recent news about wildlife officers, making arrests for abalone and, spiny lobster poaching and illegal suction dredging. And I'm just curious, if you could talk to us a little bit more about the enforcement capacity and, whether you're exploring any new strategies or technologies that would help us cover this rather large area.

Thank thank you for the question, madam vice Chair. So I was, coordinating with our enforcement office this morning, getting some of their statistics. And so our marine enforcement districts, so those are the folks that patrol the marine waters, Those have, they have 50 officers for the entire 1,100 mile coastline. Seven patrol boats, two large patrol skiffs. They are supplemented by coastal officers.

It's not enough. I think we could always use more, but they do a great job with what they have. They do have, some supplemental funding from the ocean protection council that helps with specific enforcement of MPAs, and over time to support MPAs, especially during during higher period times. And there's also some federal funding to the joint enforcement agreement with NOAA office of law enforcement to focus on federal ground fish, highly migratory species, and the marine mammal protection act.

Some of the technologies they're employing, there was a recent case where they used a plane and a high-tech camera.

All I got out with them was a high-tech camera. They wouldn't tell me what kind of camera it was to catch a commercial poacher in an MPA. And so leveraging technology to keep the bad guys honest and not penalize the 99 percent of commercial and recreational anglers that are trying to do the right thing. There's M2 shore based radar they use for MPA enforcement. And then we also have vessel based electronic monitoring equipment, in all of our Dungeness crab fleet right now.

And this is really important for the use of pop up gear to make sure, again, those few bad actors aren't deploying pop up gear in marine protected areas because we really need to protect those areas. The other piece I just wanna highlight for everyone is CalTIP and the value of 40,000,000 Californians having our eyes on the water. Right? We've only got 50 marine officers. We got 40,000,000 Californians that can call into CalTIP.

And that's where a lot of those, those tips come from that that ultimately result in someone getting caught.

Well, here's to getting the information before you come. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any additional questions? Yeah, please. Assemblymember.

And I apologize, coming in a few minutes late. I'm not sure if the secretary already talked about this a little bit. But can you talk a little bit about, the Federal Bureau of reclamation's plan to release water, from Lake Shasta and the way that that might impact some of our, output?

Yeah. So this is, this is part of the dynamic on the Sacramento River, of course, because, these salmon need cold water, and there's a cold water pool in, behind the Shasta Dam in Lake Shasta. So it's a again, it's a constant challenge and a bit of a balancing act for reclamation around, when they will release, and how much they will release.

I can tell you that while I'm not the expert or in these conversations, our Department of Fish and Wildlife and the State Water Resources Control Board, figures into those discussions for the protection of particularly endangered species. And, as I understand it, this year, these conversations, you know, despite what we what we read about coming from Washington DC, the Bureau of Reclamation has been transparent with our state agencies about what what it will do.

If there is a need for more transparency with our fishing sector or for that matter, the agricultural sector that often has different opinions, we're glad to help provide that. Moving forward, that cold water management is absolutely essential to not only the survival of the salmon species, but the recovery.

Thank you so much, Mister assemblymember. Mister secretary, thank you. Doctor, thank you so much. And again, Mister secretary, amazing work. Well but truly, very grateful for you.

And what I have deep respect for is you take some of the stinkiest, thorniest issues head on, truly. And that is what we need in public service. Someone who's gonna build trust even in a very contentious atmosphere and grind on it until you're able to get a solution. And I'm really grateful for that. And it is a rare quality.

And thank you so much.

Well, thank you. I'm not gonna let you have the last word though, which is, you know, this as your colleague said, this this forum has maintained accountability. I was speaking from the executive branch because we have to come before you, and frankly, the fishing sector every year and talk about tough issues, and and report on our progress, and talk through challenges.

So your steadfastness with actually holding this and I know how hard all your schedules are, but year after year after year, it's a whole it's attrition I hope, moves forward.

No. Thank you so much, Mister Secretary. Those quarterly crap meetings,

The dividends.

There we go. Good time. There we go. Hey, but I am really grateful for the two of you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now gonna be transitioning to our second panel. From the climate to the feather, we're gonna be talking about the same as successes and struggles. We're gonna now invite our representatives who are gonna be here.

We wanna say thank you so much to Chairman James from the Yurok Tribe, if you could please come forward. Thank you. We're gonna hear from Chairman Atterberry from the Karuk Tribe who will be joining us virtually here along with Doctor. Craig Tucker. Doctor.

Tucker, if you could please come forward. We're gonna get started with Crystal Robinson, who will be giving us an overview of the Klamath story from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. We're gonna take a quick 60 second pause, get everybody queued up, and we'll be right back with you. Sixty second pause.

Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have part of the panel who will be virtual, part of the panel will be here in person. I wanna do a quick mic check making sure that Miss Robinson, is hearing us loud and clear. She's the Mid Klamath Watershed Program Supervisor for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Miss Robinson, wanna make sure that you're you're hearing us loud and clear.

Smooth as silk, ladies and gentlemen.

Alright, we're gonna ask.

Looks like I was needed.

Oh, there we go. No, you're good. You're good. Miss Robinson, welcome to the hearing.

You are now live at the 51st Annual Zeke Grader Fisheries Forum. So let's just talk about quick run of show on how we're gonna do this. And we also need to have John McManus please come forward. My gosh, Mister McManus please come on up to the table. Senior Policy Director for the Golden State Salmon Association.

The way we're gonna do this is that we're gonna be talking about salmon successes and struggles. We're gonna be kicking off with an overview, from Miss Robinson, then we're gonna turn it over to Joseph James, the Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. I wanna say thank you so much, Mister Chair, for your incredible work and to the council as well. We're then gonna turn it over to Chair Atterbery, who will be giving some opening remarks. We're really grateful that the Chair is gonna be with us.

He's gonna be on virtually. He'll then turn it over to Doctor Tucker, the Natural Resource Policy Consultant for the Karuk tribe. And then we're gonna be hearing from the legendary John McManus, Senior Policy Director from the Golden State Salmon Association and really grateful for his incredible work over these many, many decades.

So without further ado though, let's kick it off with Crystal Robinson. She's gonna give us a 30,000 foot view on the amazing work, the largest river restoration in American history on the Klamath Watershed.

Miss Robinson, the floor is yours. You have five minutes.

Alright. Thank you. My name is Crystal Robinson, Senior Environmental Scientist for California Department of Fish and Wildlife. And I'll be presenting today on the plan of dam removal, restoration, and a fishery population since volitional passage was restored in October 2024, and this project was identified in detail in the Governor's salmon strategy. I wanted to start first with an abbreviated timeline from of the background of how we got here.

So in September 2002, the Lower Klamath River experienced a large fish kill. It was estimated 60,000 adult salmon mortalities due to a combination of environmental factors. This event really kicked off discussions and advocacy on how to best mitigate future fish kills in Klamath. Water quality impacts were identified as a lead cause, and so the push to dam removal was accelerated by the expiration of Pacific Core's 50 year license for operation.

Water users, tribes, advocacy groups, and Pacific Core through a multiyear restoration negotiation process came up with the Climate Basin Restoration Act and hydroelectric settlement agreement.

The agreement was later amended and laid the groundwork for dam decommissioning. The definite decommissioning plan was released by FERC in 2020, and in 2021, they improved Pacific Forest license to the states to transfer to the States of Oregon and California, as well as the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, which was an entity formed to take on ownership and liability through dam removal.

Environmental analyses were performed in 2022, and later that year, FERC issued the license surrender order at 16 management plans, which are guiding post dam operations today. Following funding obtained by the two states and Pacific Corps, CAPCO two was decommissioned the following summer of '23, and drawdown for the remaining three dams occurred the following January with complete barrier removal on 10/02/2024.

Fish were documented just eight days later in historic habitats of California and fourteen days later in Oregon. Provided here is a map for context to where these dams were located in the basin along with some images of the dams removed.

Built between 1903 and 1962, they produced about a 163 megawatts. The overall goal was accessed over 400 miles of an address habitat and a return to a more natural hydrological regime for the river, thereby improving conditions for fish.

Miss Anderson, this is McGuire. For some reason, your slides are not advancing. So you may have to click on those, if you wanna just show that map real quick. I apologize by interrupting.

Oops. One second here. Yep. Are you able to see that?

We don't see the the map up. It's all good. Why don't you continue, Miss Anderson? It's no worries. Why don't you just continue and wanna make sure that you're able to get your presentation in.

Okay. Are you able to see these images? These are images of the Copco Dam Demolition and restored fish passage?

No, unfortunately. But why don't you continue, Miss Anderson, and continue with the presentation, please? Okay.

I also have images of the Copco Dam 1 Demolition and the map free flowing river as well as Iron Gate Dam Demolition and the Coffer Dam Final breach and the restored channel. There we go.

So as passage was restored, the reservoir footprint was barren and lots of sediment was exposed and water was slowly draining off the floodplains. The reservoir sediment that remained was thick, and so there was some creative adaptations needed to allow for immediate work.

Revegetation was the top priority with the newly exposed soils and so seed bed preparation of reservoir footprints began, hand in aerial seeding of native species along with channel configurations to support complexity and stability.

Sensor Creek in Oregon also underwent large wood installation projects to provide immediate habitat for fish. As adult salmon began occupying former habitats right away, fish monitoring was also critical. I'm not sure if you can see this, but these are images from around the former reservoir footprint following the spring of 2025 showing really great revegetation.

I've also provided images of the reservoir before, during drawdown, and after revegetation really showing the dramatic change that has occurred there. Fisheries monitoring is a collaborative effort in the basin with a lot of ground to cover.

And the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, along with consultants are conducting habitat and fisheries monitoring required under the FERC permits. Two state plans were developed to outline monitoring of adult and Juvenile Salmon to meet the requirements of the Magnuson Stevens Act.

These plans are very similar in monitoring strategy, but deviate from one another in the aspect of reintroduction. The California plan relies on passive volitional reintroduction while Oregon has taken on an active role in reintroduction of spring around Chinook salmon to the upper basin.

This map depicts the storiction of salmon distribution and black stars and current distribution and white stars, and you can see the majority of historic habitat is now occupied within two years post dam removal.

The department's fall recapture, originally built in 1919, was modernized and rebuilt post dam removal to continue Pacific course mitigation and loss of habitat as well as to mitigate the impacts of dam removal for eight years.

We're supplementing the wild population with reduced production goals as fish reestablished. We've been seeing low returns to the hatchery as adult salmon are repopulating historic habitats at a more accelerated rate than expected.

For context, in 2025, 13,008 adult Chinook migrated past the former Iron Gate Dam, and 1,245 of those fish returned to Fall Creek Hatchery, so about 10%. We'll continue to produce what we can at the hatchery based on those returns.

Another goal of dam removal was to provide recreation opportunities, and I've provided on the left a photo of the Wagner Canyon, a class four rapid now accessible to boaters. We've also improved four created four recreation sites with boat launches. And another photo, I'm not sure if you can see this, but it's a photo of a cultural heritage trail kiosks, which has excellent views of the restored habitat and a hiking trail.

Pacific Corps was the owner of the land beneath the reservoir footprints, the locations of the power plants, and iron gate hatchery, and these are known collectively as parcel b lands consisting of 7,000 acres. 2,800 of these acres have been signed over the Shasta Indian Nation and the final disposition of the remaining acreage is still being vetted by the California Natural Resources Agency and CDFW.

Additional parcels outside the project footprint owned by Pacific Corp are known as Parcel A. And these lands were recently purchased in December by the California Indigenous Land Trust, a Native American Conservation Based Group focusing on restoration. This was a 10,000 acre purchase.

We have about 60 seconds.

So I've provide provided a slide here today, show many of the collaborators that have contributed to to dam removal and performing demolition, restoration, and monitoring. And a special thanks to our tribal park partners who have so diligently persevered from the beginning of this project.

I also wanna give photo credit to some of the images if you're able to see those today. And we'll continue to work collaboratively in learning the new system. There's still much to do regarding restoration and adaptation, adaptive management, as well as tracking salmon production in new habitats.

And that's it. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Miss Robinson. We're really grateful as Miss Robinson with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on that overview of the Klamath Dam removal. We're now gonna hear about some tribal perspectives. We're gonna first hear from Chairman James. Chairman James is with the Yurok Tribe.

Mister Chair, I said this to you privately and I say it to you publicly. You have had the backbone to be able to push this forward. And it has not been easy, and there has been a lot of challenges along the way. And you, the council, along with the Karuk Tribe has stuck to it and stuck to your guns and continue to push this forward. And what we're seeing now is unprecedented across this nation and throughout North America.

I wanna say thank you for your leadership. This is truly part of your legacy, your tribal council's legacy. The floor is yours. You have five minutes to give us perspective from on the ground.

Thank you, Senator, and thank the committee for for the invasion and for this time. As you mentioned, it's been a long road, but a good road, and we still got a lot of work yet to do, healing the basin. First of all, I wanted to talk about, you know, what the salmon means to us. It is our identity. It is Xerox way of life.

It's our culture. It's our spirituality. It is our food source from that mindset. You know, we will continue to do what we need to do to restore and bring back the Klamath Basin. As mentioned earlier, very proud and honored all of us are.

And I mean, all of us is in this room, the state, our partners, our brothers up the river, Karuk Tribe in their membership, our cultural practitioners, and all our NGOs. The list goes on. Having his our world historical feat of removing four dams on along the Klamath River. I also wanna give a acknowledgement to the late Troy Fletcher, who was key in all of this. So again, yesterday, we honored him.

But again, I wanted to bring his name up forward. He was a big part of the network and the partnership with everybody here. As mentioned, you know, we're seeing salmon. We're seeing steelhead .Swimming, post upstream from dam removal, where we're storing our land restoration efforts. Again, it's a big part of healing, and we believe in that.

We don't just believe in it. We live and we work it. And again, it's been an honor and privilege to to move forward in healing the basin. A lot of work, it has to be done. It we talked a little bit earlier about the commercial fishing.

We're seeing that right there at home as we speak. I visit the campgrounds. The people, the joy, the excitement, the domino effect of the economy, the jobs, the guides, the tribal fishermen. It is critical and vital for real communities, to have a fishing season. You can feel it.

And it is joy. We're having youth. We're having teenagers be part of being guides, interpretive in stories. The kids, I wanted to you know, we all know this already, but I was just there last week. And again, it's I carry that feeling with me as we continue to move forward.

But again, as a Danner rule was the first phase. Now we continue that effort and that leadership with yourself and the committee in restoration. We need to continue to move forward with the state, advocate and protect our river, our streams, our endangered species from the Federal Government to build that voice and that advocate.

Some of the hurdles and struggles, you know, we mentioned is a wildfires, climate change, lack of funding to continue that restoration effort. But the Yurok tribe is committed and we're here for the long haul to provide a healthy system for the Klamath Basin.

And Chairman of the committee will continue to do our part on behalf of the people for the Klamath Basin. Thank you.

Mister Chair, it's an honor that you're here today. Thank you so much. We're gonna open up for questions in just a few moments. Starting with the Vice Chair, we wanna say thank you to Senator Cortese for also joining us here today. We're now gonna turn it over to chairman Atterbery, from the Karuk Tribe who's gonna be joining us virtually.

Mister Chair, we see you. Wanna do a quick mic check. Can you hear us loud and clear?

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes, Sir. You're coming in loud and clear. We'll turn it over to you, then we'll turn it over to Doctor Craig Tucker. Mister Chair, it is an honor to have you with us today. Mister Chair, the floor is yours.

You're welcome. Thank you. So, Senator McGuire, I just wanted to thank you for the invite and thank you for all your colleagues and all your staff and for again, the 51st annual of this fisheries forum. It's it's it's amazing. And also, I'd be amiss if I didn't mention Secretary Crowfoot and all the work that he's done.

He's been there for the tribe, the people along the Klamath River, my brothers and sisters, Yurok Tribe down south of us, and you are correct. He seems to be in more places at one time. He was there with we had a large gathering for a damn removal celebration. Other places, I look over my shoulder, and he's there. It's amazing how he can be in three places at once, but he seems to do it well.

So thank you, secretary. I'm a fourth generation family member that have grew up along the Klamath River, And we've fish has been a staple food for the cook a healthy food for all the people here. And you know, the decline of the of the fish was devastating. Back in the day, I can I can remember somebody asking my dad if he caught any fish, and his response was I went fishing, didn't I? There was that many fish in the river.

He tells stories about there was times when it looked like he'd walk across the river on tops of the fish. There was that many fish in the river. Tourists could come from around. We'd stop and what they called rolling on the river. We would stop and watch the salmon roll as they continued their their journey.

So it was the dam removal was huge. It was freed up 400 miles of spawning grounds and the fishing, this had immediately went back, home to those areas above the dam. And but there's another chapter to this book and that's the all the cold water tributaries, the Scott, the Shasta, Salmon Rivers, Trinity Rivers, all the creeks and streams that flow into the Klamath River. They're all cold water refuges for the fish.

And we need to find a way to work together in an effort to combine tribal ecological knowledge with modern science, with all the people who depend on the water out there.

And Senator McGuire, you mentioned it early on, that long term solutions have to be looked at. We need to look into ways that we can see if we have enough water for the fish and the farms and recreation. And there needs to be some long term solutions because if we think that we have an endless supply of water, we're merely being foolish. So we want to be able to, I think we're, we've done some amazing things.

And with all the help of our federal state people, our tribes working together, applying the knowledge that we that the tribes have and have used for centuries along with modern science will get us there.

So with that being said, I would it's an honor to introduce to you Doctor Craig Tucker. Craig's made dam removal project. It's been life's work for him and environmentally to his life work has been part in part healing the river, and dam removal was part of that. So there's still some more work to be done, but we're grateful to have Craig on our team. And again, Craig, your Senator, if you wanna introduce Craig and

Thank you so much.

Make his presentation. I appreciate you all.

Mister Chair, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for sticking to it and for never letting go of this. Really grateful to you. We're now gonna introduce Doctor Craig Tucker as the Chair said, made it his last work. We're gonna see these dams come down.

Mister Tucker, from where you started to where we're at today, who would have thought? And, incredible work, Sir. We'll turn it over to you, to be able to give some additional expertise and we're gonna turn over to Mister McManus to wrap up the panel on an overview view for salmon. Doctor Tucker.

Well, thank you very much. It's it's an absolute honor and a pleasure to be here. I've been at it a long time and when my hair was thicker and darker, I got to work alongside Zeke Grader. Yeah. And you ask, you know, who would have thought we would be here?

Well, Zeke was one of the few people who thought we'd be here. Yeah. And a lot of people thought we were crazy. I just wanna go over I don't wanna rehash things, that others have said or will say, but I will say the this whole effort, Remove Klamath Dams, I think it's an example of remarkable engineering. It's an example of good science.

It's an example of good policy. It's really an example of teamwork. As the tribes really spearheaded this effort and got this campaign going, it really was the partnerships we started making along the way. And that was with commercial salmon fishermen who weren't native.

It was with conservation organizations. It was also in the State of California. So Governor Schwarzenegger, Governor Brown, and Governor Newsom was a very close partner to the tribes throughout this thing. And you, Senator, have been too. You've been one of the people we could always count on you, whether it's whatever policy we're advocating for or a bill we're running to improve conditions on the climate or fish.

We could always count on you. And we really do appreciate that. Just a couple of things I would. I don't know if I'm

is it so a shared victory. But I think the response to the river is the thing that we didn't anticipate. I mean, it was literally days after we reached Iron Gate Dam and fish started passing that point in the river. 10,000 over 10,000 salmon swam past that point that first fall. It just really is blown everybody's doors off.

So we've seen there's number of fish but the things I just really want to emphasize is a measure of success isn't just the number of fish, it's these life history strategies of fish. So we don't want just a lot of fall Chinook. We want fall Chinook. We want spring Chinook. We want summer steelhead. We want winter steelhead.

We want Juvenile Salmon that immigrated out of the system, months after being born. We want Juvenile Salmon that hang around for a year or two. You have to have this diversity of life strategies to know that you'll have these fish around for generations and for hundreds and thousands of years to come. And to have that, you have to have diverse habitats.

So that's what this restoration work is really about. This map shows the area in orange is where fish were confined to with dams in place and the areas in blue is this over 400 miles of streams that this fish can access. And this year, we did see spring Chinook salmon above Upper Klamath Lake for the first time in over a century.

So it's going marvelously well. And we took reservoirs that looked like this that turned toxic green every summer. And we drain them and they looked very unattractive after draining them. But it was literally months before they looked like this. And so if you haven't gone up to Siskiyou County in April and May and seen the footprint of these reservoirs, seen the lupins and poppies bloom, strongly encourage you.

It's really amazing. And the thing out just, leave you is this diversity of habitats, this diversity of fish is really what we have to have to weather a warming client climate. If we wanna see wild fish in the era of global warming, we have to take care of these cold water places, diverse habitats in our watersheds and diverse fisheries.

And as I part, I'll just say, What's next? So, we should pat ourselves in the bag for what we've accomplished, but we should also roll up our sleeves for what to do next.

So, Scott and the Shasta are watersheds in the Klamath Basin that are below where the dams were. Most of our wild Chinook salmon are born in the Shasta River Basin. Most of our wild coho salmon are born in the Scott River Basin. AB 263, which you were a huge help with Assembly member, has required the State of California through the Water Board to set minimum flows for these streams.

Making sure those flows are not just a bare belly scraping minimum for fish to eke out a living, but our flows that are robust and allow fish to recover, so that we have a harvestable surplus of fish in the future and will be key as we go through that process.

We'll take all the help we can get dealing with the federal administration. Currently, the federal administration is reworking the biological opinion that controls the Klamath Irrigation Project up in Oregon. They've made no secret about the fact they would like to have that irrigation project do what they will with the water. We need help keeping water in stream for the Klamath. I'll stop there and I really appreciate the opportunity.

Thanks so much. Doctor, we're gonna come back to you in just a moment, and we'll open it up for questions. We're now gonna turn it over to John McManus of the Golden State Salmon Association who's gonna give us an overview of the toughest challenges for salmon across the state. We've heard this significant milestone, not just for California but for the nation.

So McManus, if you wanna talk about some of the challenges that we're seeing for salmon across the state.

Is my mic louder?

I just if you hit the little button right in front. There you go. You should be good to go.

Check test. There you go. Good afternoon folks. I'm John McManus. I'm the Senior Policy Director for the Golden State Salmon Association.

Some of you I know, some of you I don't. Assemblyman Rogers, thank you very much for AB 263, incredible precedent. You're probably aware that spring run salmon in the Sacramento Valley are listed as threatened. If we had minimum in stream flows on a couple of creeks, Mill Creek and Deer Creek, we might move a long way towards helping those fish. So thanks for that precedent.

Assemblywoman Pappan, I'm actually a native of San Francisco and I grew up with your dad's face and name plastered on every telephone pole and wall. We've never met but the family has a great name. Are my slides queued up here?

They should be there. Correct?

I am not seeing them on the laptop here.

Alright. Give us a let's just pause here for a second, 60 seconds, and we'll get it queued up.

I think we're just getting them carried out. There we go. We're close.

And then what we'll do is if we have future, we'll just get those queued up ahead of time, please. Thank you so much. Please take it away.

Well, I need to go back to the top and have full screen, I think. We're almost there. Okay. Maybe I can manually take this back. There we are.

Golden State Salmon, we have members both recreational, commercial, and businesses related. You've heard already today about the incredible economic shot in the arm we get from having a salmon season. We're seeing a little bit and we wanna see a little bit more, of course. I actually wanna talk for a minute about the Feather River system. And the reason why is because this is entirely under the control of the state of California.

You're looking at a picture of Oroville Dam there. We got a problem on the Feather. Even though it was once a huge provider of salmon, right now, natural production is gone. And the hatchery is keeping those once mighty salmon stocks and the feather from completely disappearing. What's the problem?

Actually, I'm not sure where I'm supposed to point this thing out. It's, sea shasta. Some of you know about sea shasta from the Klamath River. It's a nasty parasite that kills salmon. It has a strange life history.

I'll speak about that for a moment, but suffice it to say, when Juvenile Salmon are born in the Feather River, they gotta swim through basically a cloud of sea shasta particles. They all get infected and they die, basically, is what it boils down to. How do we know? Because we've got rotary screw traps in the river downstream that are sampling these fish. They take them out.

Many of them are already infected. Some that are not obviously infected or have been taken into captivity, reared for a few months, they develop the disease and they're gone. I'm not sure about the sizing on these slides. It actually was fine. But anyway, state sources say that 83 up to 83% of the fish natural fish and the feather are being lost to this.

And interestingly, it's a problem that we're finding below dams. What's happening is the adult fish come back, hatchery fish. The hatchery will take in what it needs for its eggs to get its production. The rest of them spawn and die out in front of the hatchery and a pile of carcasses stack up. The parasite gets into the carcasses of the adults.

This is kinda gross. It's like zombies. Explodes out, creates that bubble curtain image that I showed, a wall of parasitic particles in the wall and it gets into the juveniles. And it's the the the adults can actually survive it and spawn. It's the juveniles that can't.

They get it and they never make it to the ocean. So What do we do about it? The disease is acting a little bit differently in the feather than it does in the chlamath. There's a couple of distinctions there. I don't want to get into the weeds here.

But suffice it to say, when all those adults spawned out carcasses stack up, the parasite gets in, the parasite blows out of them. There's a little window of opportunity where we could open Oroville Dam, we think, release a little bit of water and blow that stuff downstream before the juvenile fish get infected. We don't know. There's studies that are underway right now hoping to prove this. And you know the DWR is not gonna willingly open the dam unless they've got good proof.

I don't blame them. So the ask here I might have summed this up. No. The feathers worth doing it. It's it's worth fixing.

It's a state river and it's one of the last places in California where natural salmon productivity could be greatly restored with relatively, with relative ease. Studies are underway. We need to support the funding for more of that studies. There's already a bunch of knowledge within CDFW and DWR about this. You may not have heard about it yet.

There's quite a repository of information there. We just need a little bit more. There's currently study proposals into the department under their fisheries restoration grant program to move the ball. We've spoken with the director about it, but if there's anything that, the committee could do, that would be greatly appreciated. The other problem there is hot water in the, and and you know this.

We've I've been in front of this committee before talking about this. I just wanna flag that DWR did lead some studies to find out what the solution would be, and they found out what the solution was. It's hard to see on this but you can see a little box that says conceptual canal around the Thermolito After Bay. So that pipe doesn't exist yet. But if it were built at the tune of about $40,000,000, I'm guessing, not that much money.

It would capture relatively cold water up there at the bottom of the Thermolito 4 Bay, move it down to the Feather River, and we'd restore 15 miles of spawning habitat, which is hard to find these days. So, DWR says, no, we can't do that until we get the FERC license. Right? We've been waiting since 2007. That's when the fifty year FERC license expired on Oroville Dam.

Since 2007, we've been waiting. The truth is, DWR could start building that canal tomorrow if they wanted to. I don't wanna repeat myself but I wanna underscore that point. They could. So our ask is support current studies proposed and underway in the Feather to determine how to defeat Sea Shasta and get DWR to move on fixing the hot water issue in the Feather River.

Before I blow all my time, I wanna shift over to a question you raised, Senator, with secretary Crowfoot. Under a Trump executive order, the Bureau of Reclamation is releasing too much of Shasta's cold water right now, repeating the catastrophic salmon kill this fall like those that occurred in 2015 and 2022. Basically, when water temperatures exceed 54 and a half degrees, salmon eggs that are incubated die. They can't handle the heat.

We're probably gonna see temperatures in the upper sack on the spawning beds approach 60 this fall.

That's similar to what we saw back in 2015 and 2022. Because of the sizing of the slide, it's a little hard for me here. But I just wanna point out that the state water board sent a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation a few months ago basically telling them that their temperature management plan for this summer's releases out of Shasta was no bueno. Wasn't gonna do it. And I put in some language here.

I can only read part of it given these circumstances. This is from DWR's author. I'm sorry, state water board state water board. I cannot approve the final temperature management plan as currently written. I am objecting to the final temperature management plan as per the language in water rights order 90 dash five, which is what you can't see there.

That's law. That's law. This goes on and puts a finer point on what the state water board said to the bureau. But basically, I think you all know that the bureau decided to ignore it. They basically said we're not gonna do anything different.

And you brought this question up with the secretary. And our question in the salmon community is why isn't the state enforcing the law? The state water board, I would think, would be in a position to bring a lawsuit. You may be aware there are some non profits that did bring a lawsuit and, we have not gotten release. Relief is the word I'm looking for.

So we're asking this committee tell the state counterparts, your state counterparts to enforce existing water law while we still can. We still have all of August ahead of us. And at a minimum, get the State Department of Fish and wildlife to at least document the destruction that's gonna happen this fall. We did something similar back around 2014, 2015, I wanna say, during that drought. And that documentation was done and approved very useful.

Many entities don't wanna see the destruction documented. But it it in terms of holding people account going forward, it's gonna be important. And I think that's all I've got. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Mr. McManus. I'm grateful for your advocacy. I wanna open it up for questions, comments, please. Mr. Rogers.

Thank you, Chair. So first of all, I wanted to start with just just a thank you to Dr. Tucker and the Yurok Tribe, which has become basically an annual trip down the Klamath. And we were able to do that during the the legislative break to go and see the progress that's being made around Irongate. And it really is incredible to see how quickly that landscape is is recovering.

I think my favorite part was seeing the beaver lodges, which separate from the discussion about the salmon starts to tell you more about how healthy the watershed is.

And so just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to see that, and to the Chair as well. It really has been incredible. But you mentioned a couple of times sort of tangentially about seeing the first spring run come back. Could you talk a little bit about what the actual significance of that is? You mentioned broadly diversification, but specifically the spring run, why that is so encouraging.

So spring run salmon are possibly was the biggest run of salmon on the Klamath River prior to the era of dam building. What spring run do is they come in in the spring like it sounds, but because the water's bigger in the spring, there's more water in the river, they can actually traverse rapids to get higher up in the watersheds traverse later in the year when the water drops. So this gives salmon an opportunity.

By having these two seasonal runs, it gives salmon an opportunity to take advantage of the entire watershed and not just parts of it. So with dam building, the spring run Chinook were really constrained to the lower end of the basin and there's not a lot of that habitat where they can get into the system because they have to hang out in the river all summer while they sexually mature.

So if they can't find a cold place to hang out, they're not gonna make it. And so there's not many of these cold places below the dam. So getting spring chinook back into the upper basin, there's a lot of cold water springs up there above Upper Klamath Lake. It just gives us a lot of hope that we are gonna bring back this run of, salmon that's, you know, very little fishing for it anymore.

There's it's kinda supported by, Trinity River Hatchery does run, does produces spring run Chinook.

But it just really gives me a lot of optimism for the future that we're gonna see this robust run of salmon come back on the Klamath.

I believe you mentioned that they have a different fat content also.

Well, I I'll Chairman James can probably tell us better than I can, but I can even a white boy can tell you that spring run Chinook tastes a lot tastes better than fall run Chinook.

A 100%. It has some cultural aspects to what I was told as as well. So I appreciate that. I do remember there was a hatchery that I think was a state owned hatchery at one point that was by Irongate. And can you talk a little bit about that and how we might best be able to maximize efforts with it?

So, Irongate Hatchery was built to mitigate the impacts of Irongate Dam when it was built in 1962. With the removal of Irongate, the hatchery was also removed. But what we negotiated, through the course of the dam removal agreement was to dust off an older hatchery that was upstream of Irongate. So there was a hatchery built called Fall Creek Hatchery that was mitigation for when Copco Dam, I guess, was built upstream, many years prior. So we sort of dusted off Fall Creek Hatchery.

PacifiCorps has operated and funded that hatchery for eight years after dam removal with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife operating the hatchery. It hasn't been without its problems and challenges. We, this year, we suffered actually a mortality event when hatchery fish were released to the Klamath River. They were infected with the sea chest of the same parasite that you just heard about. The good news is wild fish seem to beat it out of the system before the infection rates got high.

So I think there's things that we need to do to improve hatchery operations on the Klamath. I think the timing of when we release fish is going to be very important. And I think California I think on the Klamath, we're a little behind the Central Valley and the San Joaquin in terms of the expertise of how hatcheries down there are operated.

And so I think we would really like to see California Department of Fish and Wildlife bring some of those experts from the Central Valley in the San Joaquin up to the Klamath and and help us do a better job operating Fall Creek Hatchery.

And then, Mr. McManus, you mentioned specifically Mill Creek, Deer Creek. What are the barriers that you have seen or that you think exist to a broader discussion about in stream flows on salmon tributaries?

If I can just address those that you mentioned. I actually don't know the details. I am told that CDFW has drawn up draft minimum in stream flow requirements for those critical spring run creeks. As far as I know, they just need a political person to say go. Where the rubber meets the road on the politics is beyond my pay grade.

But we look to your leadership to delve into this further and hopefully deliver us something akin over on those waterways.

Great. And then my last question, and then I'll turn it over. Is you mentioned that FERC has not issued the license yet on the feather. What is your understanding is the hold up and how can the state help to move that forward?

So here's a strange thing with FERC relicensing. It turns out if FERC doesn't relicense your dam, you can get a one year renewal and then another one year and a one year and a one year and it goes on. We've had some in the Northwest that have been operating on thirty one year renewals or more. Why and how that matters or why that happens? I'm not exactly sure.

My understanding was they might have been close to getting their license before what happened in 2017. That's when they got the big deluge and the emergency spillway blew out and it set back relicensing efforts. Gotcha. FERC is a hard to see through entity. So I don't really know how they operate or when we're ever gonna see a license.

But my point here is that we can do some incredible fixes on the feather right now. You know, just downstream across the river from the Thermalito outlet is, what's called Unit D of the Oroville Wildlife Area. It was a big stack of gravel left over from, gold mining. And the plan was to level all that stuff out and lower it and turn it into flood plain. And that is in the settlement agreement.

And DWR said, oh, we can't do that. We can't do that until we get the fifty year license. And we, Senator McGuire, you were part of this. We brought this up many moons ago with this hearing. And lo and behold, DWR found it somehow within themselves to go over there and regrade that stuff and turn it into good flood plain habitat, which it is today.

So they initially claimed they couldn't do it. They did it. We hold there's no reason they couldn't fix this hot water problem tomorrow.

And then, final question if I may, just for Chairman James. There's an entire chapter of the salmon strategy that's related to partnerships. It's specifically building better relationships with tribal governments. You've obviously been in this for a long time. Where are there still gaps that we can help facilitate in some of those partnerships that that might exist?

You mentioned partnerships before I answer your question. It is key to everything. For us, it's it's the model. Right? We still got a long ways yet to go.

Gaps, continued research, continued funding for restoration. Again, DAMR rule from our eyes is is a big step, but it is step one As Craig mentioned, the Shasta, Scott, the work that you provide for those in stream flows, wanna hear she Shasta. We went through that. Again, that help, that accuracy, we declared a state of emergency. We reached on for the state for support.

We reached out to the BOR, etcetera. Again, those continued partnerships and collaborations are key, and and we still need that moving forward to expand. Again, restoration, conservation, the refuge for the salmon. That's that's the next phase. And we still got a lot of work to do.

Exciting work because it's happening in real time. We're healing the basin and the fish are telling us the story with the recovery of them. So yeah. Thank you.

And it's part and parcel the water and the fish and the the culture. And do you wanna just mention really fast the good work that you all are working on on make sure that indigenous water rights are recognized by agencies as well as it's working through the state legislature?

Yeah. We, you know, we our our Yurok tribe has a senior water rights on on the Lower Klamath. And again, whenever you you're working with tribes, invest in tribes, invest in in Yurok, invest in our partners. We all know who our stakeholders are in the in the Klamath Basin. They've done great work and they're continuing to do great work on behalf of the basin for all of us.

Again, again, as a as a as a tribe that has senior water rights, again, we're it's our inherent right. It's our livelihood, as I mentioned. It's our culture. It's our identity, who we are and we love it.

Yeah. Anything to add, Mister Tucker? Fast before I turn

it over? Well, we're we're filling legislation currently, AB 2218, the indigenous water rights bill. Really appreciate Miss Pappan's contribution to helping us get that out of committee. It's around the Senate side now. We think that we'll you know, the state of California has done a really good job taking gubernatorial executive orders directed at agencies to develop tribal consultation policies, but it does lack a statutory backstop.

And so this bill would provide that statutory backstop and kind of give us the confidence that these consultation policies and these relationships will, you know, persevere long into the future. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Assam Liber. Any additional questions? I have one question and then any additional questions from committee. On the biological opinion rollback or the rewrite, the BS, whatever you wanna call it, of the Trump administration, if I could be so candid. Look, they are rewriting their own rules.

And Mister Chair, as we discussed, has guided the entire flipping agreement up until this day. I am not an attorney, but I find it very difficult that they're gonna succeed on rewriting the rules that were originally set as guided this entire process. And I think challenging this is a top priority for both Yurok and the Karuk. Mister Chair? And if you wanna call it BS, you're more than welcome, Mister Chair.

I call a number of things.

Here we go.

You know, but again, as as you mentioned, Senator, protecting our our our life whereas our senior water rights, our way of life, that's what we do. We roll up our sleeves, lace them up, and on behalf of the the river, the basin, anything that's going to impact or harm us and when I say us, our salmon, our river, it's all of us. Again, so regarding, we won a major court case, regarding, the ESA. It's fact. There's no alternative facts.

I mean, they're literally rewriting the rules, though. Right? I mean, please.

Yeah. You know, like, I mean, well, we do what we do behind the scenes. I know you want that. But again, we're gonna do everything in our power, and it's nothing new to us, whether it's litigation to protect our rights, our species, the river, the basin, everything we can. Craig?

Well, I give the Yurok Tribe a lot of credit. The big win in the night circuit a couple weeks ago that really pushed back on the attempt of the federal administration to really rewrite the way the endangered species act will apply to the Klamath Irrigation Project. And so we recently the feds convened a meeting just a couple weeks ago to kick off, once again rewriting the biological opinion that governs how the Klamath Irrigation Project operates.

It's really important the state of California be there beside the tribes in that process. You've got regional staff in the room.

They're doing a great job, but we'd certainly like to see deputy directors and attorneys from from the governor's office in that room as well, because I think it's gonna be a Klamath in the next couple of years.

Yeah. And we have that as a follow-up. And then along along with Mister McManus, I think the frustration is this, is that everyone marched together Yeah. On a set of rules and regs. And then, understand that we have a change administration, but this is a complete rollback On an agreement that everyone came to the table on and signed it.

It. It'll be great when we have a congressman in the region who can help provide some congressional oversight to that. We really are looking forward to that. Good times.

So I think that the the bottom line is that I think the state needs to be party to this. Yeah. And what you had just said, Doctor and Mr. Chair, we have to have skin in this game. Right? We're all there to be able to get this across the finish line.

We have to be there to be able to defend it. And the dams aren't coming back. But what can happen is complete rewrite and revision to water rights, right, which is at stake, which will harm long term ecosystem that everyone has fought so hard to get to. So I just wanna say thank you. And there are two follow ups that we'll have from this panel.

Number 1 on this specific issue that we'll follow-up on. And the second is Mr. McManus will follow-up and and set up a meeting to to get a talk further. So I really appreciate your work on that as well.

Thank you very much. To echo Craig, it'll be great when there's a congressman who will help rebuild the Klamath and the Sacramento.

Oh, hey. There we go. Todd. Thank you. Alright.

On that note, thank you so much to our panel. Very, very grateful. Thank you, Madam, Vice Chair, very much. Alright. We are now gonna be moving on to our third panel.

Break out the bibs and the butter because we are gonna be doing the twenty twenty six, twenty seven dangerous crab season outlook. And we're gonna welcome our panel. First and foremost, we're gonna have Joanna Grable please come forward to California Department of Fish and Wildlife. We're then gonna hear, virtually, from the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, Lisa Damaros. She's gonna be with us.

We wanna welcome Dick Gogg, who is here today, Legendary commercial fisherman out of Bodega Bay who came back from Oregon to be with us today, was out in the water. We also wanna say thank you so much to Peyton Moore, the Ninja Conservancy, who will be given the perspective as well. We're gonna welcome each up. Let's take a thirty second pause as, folks, come forward. We'll be right back with you.

Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna start out with an overview on the '26-'27 Dungeness Crab Season. Top tier fishery, for the North Coast in particular from Joanna Grable from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife oversees this for the department. You have five minutes. We welcome you and the floor is yours.

Okay. There we go. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mister Chair. Oh, madam vice Chair is gone but other committee members.

I am Joanna Grable. I am the Program Manager within the Marine Region. And my program focuses on management of invertebrate fisheries, including the Dungeness crab fishery. So I am here today to provide an outlook, for the upcoming commercial crab season. Since 2020, we've been managing the Commercial Dungeness Crab Fishery under the Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program called RAMP.

The opening of the crab fishery as we know is dynamic and involves four facets that impact how and when the fishery will open. These are whales, domoic acid, meat quality and fleet dynamics. We've also referred to them as the four horsemen of the crab apocalypse. So today, I'll be doing a quick overview of the horsemen and their impact on our upcoming season.

So starting with whales, the migration that we saw this fall was pretty typical with animals arriving in the areas. As as expected, our spring migration pattern was a little less predictable. Whale observations were patchy, and it was likely driven to due to patchy prey distribution.

Large groups of humpback whales were not seen until mid April in our central management area. Oceanographic conditions were anomalous as well during the spring months and coastal sea surface temperatures were among the warmest, for that time of the year.

Staff anticipate that whale migration patterns may be altered this upcoming season due to elevated coastal sea surface temperatures and reduced upwelling, which could all alter prey distributions.

The entanglement evaluation score under ramp for the commercial fishery is currently at 2.25. Historically, we have seen some entanglement cited during the fall months, so that score could change. And per our ramp regulations, if the score reaches three, the fishery would automatically be delayed until January 1.

So given the number of entanglements to date, historical migration patterns and the uncertainty created by the oceanographic conditions, the department will likely take a conservative approach when opening the fishery this season. Management actions could include a season delay and or reductions in the amount of gear depending upon the level of entanglement risk.

Moving on to domoic acid. This one's going to be a biggie this year. So staff are preparing for the potential impacts of a large domoic acid event given the prediction of a very strong El Nino this fall and into spring. Already this year, two humpback whale deaths in the Monterey Bay have been attributed, to a domoic acid bloom that occurred earlier in the spring.

If forecasts are correct, we could see something similar to what we saw back in the 2015 and 2016 season. During that time, we had extremely high levels of domoic acid that persisted for a long time. This caused the fishery to remain closed until late March in some areas and as late as mid to late May in others. This also resulted in a federal fishery disaster declaration.

So staff are planning to begin our domoic acid testing a little bit earlier this year, with the hopes of trying to get some early warning indication of where we think domoic acid is this year. Specifically, we wanna see if levels are as high as what we saw in 2015 and '16, which were upwards of 300 parts per million.

30 is the action level. So that was pretty drastic. Or are they more along the lines of what we've seen in recent years? So that will give us some indication of how long we think the fishery could potentially be delayed and what things may be looking at. And so with the passage of Senate Bill in October 2021, we now have the ability to eviscerate crab.

And evisceration is the process of removing the internal organs and it can allow for the safe consumption of crab when domoic acid levels in the meat, excuse me, in the viscera exceed the actionable levels. But the meat is is still safe to consume.

This is the guts.

This is, Yeah. So and obviously, the sale of whole life crop is preferable. Evisceration could allow for some opportunities for the fishery to open and hopefully avoiding a prolonged delay. We're focusing on meat quality. So this is routine testing that's conducted in our northern fishing districts to determine if crab has sufficient meat volume and firmness before opening the fisheries.

Last year, we were unable to do any of the testing in our northern areas because domoic acid was too high. And you have to clear domoic acid before you can do that testing. Given what we think we're facing with domoic acid, we don't really think that meat quality may be as important this year, but we will see.

And then finally, our fleet dynamics, the last horsemen. So our Dungeness crab fishing gear working group will have their annual meeting towards the end of late September.

And as part of that meeting, we will receive an update from our scientific advisors and we'll discuss the outlook for the upcoming season. So we'll likely do something very similar to what we're doing here so that we are able to, to meet these horsemen head on. So in closing, we expect this to be another adventurous and somewhat unpredictable opening for the crab fishery.

But thankfully, we do have some new tools in our toolbox, which we did not have back in the '15-'16 season, which will allow us to meet these challenges head on. Meanwhile, we will work closely with the fleet to maximize our fishing opportunities while minimizing entanglement risk. Thank you.

Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your work. This is not easy. Just be candid. And it just extends the challenge what we've seen with the fishery, right?

So very, very grateful for that. We're now gonna be turning over to give a perspective from the fleet. This is the Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, Lisa Dimrush. She comes from a long line of commercial fishermen and now leading them as well. I'm really grateful to Lisa for her work and her partnership always.

Madam Executive Director, you have five minutes. The floor is yours. Let's just do a quick mic check. You're hearing us loud and clear?

I hear you. Can you hear me?

You're coming in. It's the floor is yours. You have five minutes, and I'll give you a thirty second prompt.

Okay. Great. Thank you, Senator, Members of the committee, good afternoon. Sorry I can't be there in person.

I do want to say I appreciate Joanna introducing you to the four horsemen. Those are things that we deal with every year, and our fleet has the ultimate horsewoman, mother nature, to the equation there. When I talk to people about commercial fishing and especially when they learned my son fishes full time, I'm often asked, isn't that scary?

You know, leaving port and heading into a vast wild ocean to do one of the most dangerous jobs on earth or staying home while someone you love does it is not something most people relate to. However, for me, it's just a part of life.

And when I became Executive Director of PCFFA, the fishermen that I spoke for expanded from my family and home port of Half Moon Bay to the majority of California's commercial fishing fleet, including Dungeness Crab Fishermen responsible for more than 80% of crabs landed in California each year.

And while they are a diverse group, none of them operates from a place of fear. They know that operating scared creates a whole new set of problems. Commercial fishermen instead focus on preparation. If they aren't on the water, they're working towards being successful when they are.

They learn to trust their boats and equipment, their knowledge of the grounds, their instincts, their ability to adapt to whatever happens out there. Their lives depend on building this strong foundation before they ever cast off their lines. Unfortunately, the Dungeness crab fishery we operate under today has been built almost entirely on fear.

Ten years ago, that perfect storm of warm water, persistent domoic acid, and the department's lack of legal authority to stop thousands of traps from being deployed in the path of the spring whale, spring whale migration led to an unprecedented spike in entanglements. That anomaly year, together with a newly identified endangered species listed Central American humpback population, unlocked new fears and opened the door to activist NGO litigation against the department and resulting settlement that has fundamentally changed the fishery.

We now know the spike in entanglements was a onetime event. Whale populations have increased significantly, and interaction with fishing gear has decreased. But the damage has been done, and not just to the fleet, but to our communities and families too. We only need to look to San Francisco to see what can happen when commercial fisheries struggle and everything built around them begins to fail.

In our own homes, we experienced the loss of local Dungeness crab on our holiday tables and with it generations of family tradition. These losses are fundamentally changing in California. The lawsuit forced CDFW to create RAMP, and that does provide the authority to prevent a repeat of 2016 even with the latest projected El Nino.

And the preparation and knowledge gained over the last decade can now become the foundation for a better, more balanced approach. We have access to data and science that wasn't considered in the past to help us manage for actual co occurrence risk rather than the fear of the unknown. We have the tools in the toolbox.

During the recent federal take reduction team process for sablefish held this past April, we learned that the migratory season off the California coast is confirmed as April through November. And since RAMP was instituted in 2020, 95% of Dungeness crab has been harvested outside of that window between the months of December and March. We also know that not every whale interaction involves a Central American humpback whale or that it results in serious injury and mortality.

Nymph's proposed reclassification of the California Dungeness crab fishery from category one to category two recognizes this lowered risk, but our current system does not quite yet do that. Just two weeks ago, NOAA announced a successful disentanglement, which was a great outcome.

But under our current system, that surviving whale is still considered dead and endangered and, therefore, scored against the California commercial fleet as one third of our total annual score, which restricts our fishing. This is just one example of the impacts when operating under outdated fear based based assumptions rather than science.

But the commercial fleet has not simply complained, and we're not here to just complain that regulations are unfair. We've done our part to find solutions. PCFFA is proud to be working with the department, the Dungeons and Crabs Task Force, TNC, and others.

We've built the commercial fisherman's gear recovery network. We're working to expand vessel surveys coast wide, and we remain committed to making sure that the fleet's experience and knowledge is involved in all of the things that are coming towards our fisheries, some very exciting new science and technology to help fisheries managers better protect marine mammals while sustaining commercial fishing fleets and communities.

So I thank you for this time, and I want to take a moment to thank Senator McGuire directly. Thank you so much for never giving in to fear and for your steady work on behalf of the commercial fishing fleet over these many years and for carrying SB 1393 this session, as it moves forward important recommendations from the Dungeness crab task force and protects the legislative foundation of this fishery.

There will always be those that wanna keep us afraid, but it's time to trust the preparation of the last decade. It's time to stop managing this fishery from the fear created by one bad year and start managing it from everything that's been built since. The fleet, marine mammals, and our communities deserve nothing less.

So I appreciate your time, and thank you for having me virtually today.

Madam Exec Director, we are grateful for you, your leadership, and love working with you as I've said to you so many times. And you come with solutions and we work through some of the toughest challenges and really grateful. Chief Madam and Executive Director, thank you so much. We're gonna be opening up for questions in just a bit. But before we do, we're gonna hear from Dick Ogg and Peyton Moore.

Dick Ogg really is a legendary commercial fisherman out of Bodega Bay, has dedicated his life to commercial fishermen, and improving their livelihoods. Mister Ogg, you have five minutes. The floor is yours, and then we'll turn it over to Miss Moore from the Nature Conservancy. Mister Ogg.

I can't even turn on the microphone, you know. Okay. Well, I'm gonna read from this just to try to keep things straight and go quickly through this. And I wanna kinda give you an overview of what has happened, you know, this year. Basically, we always think we have the season in control once we get get going with this.

And inevitably, one of the horsemen fall off the saddle and, you know, things get all messed up and we that's exactly what happened this year. The market, although not included in the initial consideration, plays a very important role once the season date is set.

From Guadalajal South, zones 3 and 5 were clear to begin on January 5. After price negotiations and a bunch of nonsense that went on with the, you know, with the fleet, we basically started. We had fair production.

And the Northern Management Area kinda held back because well, they did have to hold back because there was domoic acid issues and the quality was still at question at that point. Typically, the fleet usually knows where the majority of the crabs are going to be. So the assumption was there was a high volume of crabs in the Northern Management Area, and many of the boats decided to wait and focus their efforts on the Northern Management Area as I said.

Zone 1 opened around the Crescent City area and the crabs either moved or weren't present in the volume that was expected. So not to say that they had a bad season, but just that there wasn't the anticipated level of the resources they expected.

The crazy thing was the same thing happened in Zone 2, which was the Eureka area, which it was again an area expected of high volume and it just wasn't the crab. So I'd like to kinda shift from there to data because for us as an industry, data drives our seasons, both for management and for business models that the fishermen need.

My personal issue is with predictive and speculative models that impact our opportunities. For instance, co occurrence. You know, the concept of vertical lines in whales in close proximity. At the beginning of the season, and I'm speaking primarily about the first two to three months, the most gear is in the water, and we have the least amount of entanglements.

In 2017, '18, '19, we had a 100% of our equipment in the water at that time, and we had one interaction in January 2019. Since that time and, you know, since November 2019, which traditionally marked the start of the central management area, that's no longer an option. We can't start on November 15 anymore.

And it seems clear to me that the collaborative effort has been successful because the whale population at this point is growing at a 5% to 8%, which equates to 50 to 80 whale, Juvenile Whales per thousand animals.

There is, at this point, roughly 7,000 animals that we're, you know, estimating. And that equates to 350 to 500 juvenile humpback whales. So that's a success. I mean, that really means that we're doing the right thing. And, you know, in that, the you know, the actual interaction that has occurred has never has not increased.

The confirmed Dungeons Crab entanglement in the, you know, has been remained relatively constant, if not somewhat declined in many instances. So nobody wants to entangle a wheel. I mean, nobody does. And we've worked hard to reduce that, you know, that potential for an interaction. The loss of our holiday market has been devastating all of us.

No crabs for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. And we're held captive by unrealistic thresholds. The growing population makes those thresholds even more difficult to attain. I believe we should live by data, not by assumption. And we can do this.

We understand that, you know, we have to understand that accidents will happen no matter how perfectly we plan. I wanna see us use more technology. I'd love to see funding for that technology. You know, vessel surveys, satellite imagery, drone surveys, acoustical studies. All of those are possibilities.

All of those are good potential answers. But one of the things I'd like to emphasize is that we need to look at the food source. Because I mean, watching the whales and understanding where the whales are is one thing, but you always know where the food is, that's where the animals are gonna go.

So can we use that as some kind of methodology to be able to understand where these animals might be moving, what we might have to do, you know, to mitigate any potential interaction. All these decisions affect the industry, our coastal communities, our seafood production, and their long term consequences.

The data that we use whether, you know, the data that we use to decide whether we allow are allowed to fish has be you know, it's critical and it must be accurate. It makes all the difference in the world, especially for the young fisherman trying to provide, you know, for himself and his family.

You have about sixty seconds.

Thank you. We don't have a steady daily income. So every day, every opportunity counts. Several lost days can make or break a season, and our yearly income could be determined by those lost days.

I wanna see this fishery become a place where younger generations want to be, a place where you can build a future and provide a sustainable resource for your family, your friends, and your community. Let's invest in data streams and kinda put litigation aside. And I believe we can do this through collaboration, you know.

And I also wanna say real quick, thank you, Senator McGuire. You're always there for us and it means the world to me to be able to have the opportunity to be here and Oh, I just, you know, looking forward to next time calling you Congressman McGuire.

Thank you, Mister Ogg. I'm very grateful and I've learned so much from you, Mister Ogg. And what I am always grateful, Dick is that he comes he's willing to participate. He has gone through the toughest times for the fleet. I don't think any of us would have predicted what the fleet has seen over the last ten years.

And there's someone who is in the middle of it every time. And that's Dick Ogg. And I'm really grateful for you, Sir, for your leadership in getting us through some of the toughest times.

We're now gonna hear from Payton Moore with the Nature Conservancy who has just been tremendous partner as we move forward and it's more I think that the term unprecedented is used all the time, right? But the Nature Conservancy has been through some of the most unprecedented times when it comes to the fleet.

What I appreciate about the Nature Conservancy is that you always have your view of wanting to be able to and always putting the environment first, but also practical of what can we do to ensure long term success for the fleet. And it has been an amazing partnership that the Conservancy has brought forward. And I just wanna say thank you. You have the floor.

You have five minutes.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair McGuire and members of the committee. We're very honored to be able to participate and speak today. So I'm here representing the Nature Conservancy, as Chair McGuire mentioned. And The Nature Conservancy is a science based organization that works worldwide to deliver conservation solutions that benefit both people and nature.

In California, we work closely with a diverse set of partners to advance sustainable fisheries that support both marine ecosystems and coastal communities. And since 2015, we have partnered with the Dungeness crab fleet and many others to reduce whale and sea turtle entanglement risk, while maintaining a viable and resilient fishery.

Through our work in the whale working group and the Dungeness crab task force, we have helped to shape adaptive climate ready management that strives to balance economic and environmental objectives. Through that work, we have learned something important.

Successful entanglement risk reduction is not driven by any single technology, regulation, or management action. It depends on having the right information, delivering that information effectively, turning it into management decisions that are transparent, timely, and trusted.

And so today, I wanna focus on three of our priorities for the next phase of California's leadership on this issue. First, we need to continue improving the information that supports entanglement risk. RAMPS success depends on timely and credible information that can inform management decisions. As ocean conditions become increasingly dynamic, as we've talked about a lot already today, no single monitoring approach can meet the full need across California's coastline.

We should continue building a complementary system that uses multiple scientifically defensible data sources and establishes pathways for evaluating and incorporating new information into management, including emerging whale detection technologies such as satellite based detection and drone surveys.

Second, we need to modernize the systems that connect that information to decision making. California has made significant progress in adaptive fisheries management, but many of the underlying data systems were not designed for the speed and complexity of today's challenges.

Improvements such as clear data standards, streamlined workflows, and better integration of information from multiple sources would strengthen ramp and provide a model for broader fisheries data modernization statewide.

Third, we need to keep expanding practical solutions that reduce risk on the water. California has already shown that collaborative approaches can deliver real conservation outcomes. Fishermen led whale monitoring and coordinated lost gear recovery all have a role to play in improving our ability to understand and respond to risk.

We are especially grateful for the Ocean Protection Council's support of the Commercial Fisherman's Gear Recovery Network, which Lisa mentioned, that we launched in partnership with PCFFA just this year, and is already helping to expand coordinated gear recovery efforts across the state in reducing entanglement risk.

This is a perfect example of the power of collaboration with industry to produce real outcomes. This if this effort of gear recovery is also a perfect example, of what is enabled by collaborative bodies such as the Dungeness Crab Task Force, which helps connect on the water experience to policy and ensures that stakeholder voices are shaping management decisions.

I wanna specifically thank Senator McGuire for your support on SB 1393, which advances several very important recommendations that have been developed by the Dungeness Crab Task Force and reflect years of collaborative work between fishermen, managers, scientists, and policy makers, so thank you for that stewardship.

These solutions also require durable funding support. Thanks to the leadership of the legislature and the overwhelming support of California voters, Proposition 4 provides a historic opportunity to invest in climate ready fisheries management in the State of California.

TNC is advocating for a $25,000,000 allocation to OPC this year to advance climate ready fisheries through data modernization, adaptive management, and practical solutions that support marine communities and fishing communities. Ultimately, our vision is straightforward.

We want to see a productive and resilient Dungeness crab fishery operating within a management system that can respond effectively to changing ocean conditions. We want decisions that are informed by the best available science, supported by modern information systems, and implemented through strong partnerships with fishing communities.

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate, and I would be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much, Miss Morris. Great to see you. I'm gonna turn it over, to the Assemblymember to see if there's any questions that you have. If we could talk a little bit about, domoic acid, I think Miss Grable, this has been ten years ago. It was an emerging issue.

Now, it's something that we live with each and every year. I wanna make sure that I'm hearing you right. And I know it's a bit of a crystal ball. I mean, there's we're gonna hear more about this in our next panel as well on Super El Nino. There's really little way to avoid what we are most likely gonna see in regards to these warm ocean temperatures.

Right? I mean, that's the bottom line of this.

Yeah. That thank you for the question, Senator. Yeah. That's exactly it. All we can do is work closely with our sister state health agencies and, you know, do what we can to put plans in place and work very closely with the fleet.

But it it's going to be what it's going to be.

Yeah. And I do think that, probably getting those quarterly crab meetings going again as we move into it. The more communication I think the better. Right? And trying to show trying to work a unified front on this because I think it's the potential for challenge is real.

Yeah. And I would note too that the domoic acid testing is conducted by the fleet on a voluntary basis. And so I do want to acknowledge that they are very important partners in this.

On presence of whales, the department with the assistance from the legislature and the Governor purchased additional aircraft to be able to monitor for whales. But again, much cheaper way to do that now is also drones. You wanna talk a little bit about that, what was just advanced as well about this more, and talk about what you think are those emerging technologies that can avoid that entanglement as we move forward.

Yeah. So the department does currently use aerial surveys that are conducted both by the department and then also in conjunction with with Coast Guard and other federal agencies. So we do use that to help with the conducting a Risk Assessment Mitigation Program.

In the space of entanglements and being able to identify entanglements, there's a lot of factors that we do need to have and to help inform that specifically, you know, the gear that's on the animal.

Is it the same animal we've seen before? So I think when we start talking about technologies, I think, there's a place for technologies in a couple different ways to help inform when migration starts, identifying individual animals in the case of an entanglement is sort of a different need.

But I think that we are definitely, willing and and open to evaluate any technology that is available to help inform RAMP.

Other states, can you just give us a glimpse of what other Western states are doing in regards to monitoring?

So the States of Oregon and Washington, do not have RAMP style programs. And I do know that the State of Oregon does conduct some surveys, but admittedly, I'm I don't have those details. So I'd be happy to provide those later if needed.

I'd like to quickly go to Ms. Miss Damrosch, on the upcoming season. Miss Damrosch, talk about where crappers are at throughout the North Coast, Central Coast feeling as we go into this season and challenges ahead? Please, Miss Damrosch.

Well, I mean, I think that we are, as always, and as Dick so eloquently stated, waiting to see which horsemen are doing which things and you know, trying to be prepared for anything and everything because it seems that whenever we think we know what's gonna happen, it it's going to be different. We do expect it to be a potentially tough domoic acid year, what that means, where that is, how that affects things. We still just don't know.

I think, you know, as I sort of shared in my remarks, I think the fleet is growing tired of overly precautionary management and restrictions and looking to try and expand access based on the things that we share with the increased population and the decreased entanglements. So I think there's some hope that if we can stay below the number 3, where we are at 2.25 right now, that there may be opportunities to fish before the new year this year.

That's something we're going to, I think, all hope for and we always do. And it's just gonna depend on how the conditions play out. We really don't know.

Yeah. I know.

Unfortunately.

100%, I know it's gonna be a lot of collaboration as we move forward. Mister Ogg, any follow-up on that?

Turn this off. Just hit the button.

I did. I did get

Alright. There we go.

I'm proud of myself. Yeah. You know quite honestly, you know, Lisa is absolutely correct. I mean, we just don't know. And I, you know, I hesitate to talk too much about the domoic acid issues because in a lot of ways along our shoreline, we're not seeing that warm water.

And we've seen a lot of variation. We've seen a lot of changes. We've seen fluctuations from, you know, 48 degrees to 56 degrees. We've seen current flows that are different. We've seen, we've seen hundreds of octopus.

We never see octopus in our pots that much, but we had octopus all the way up and down the coastline. So I mean, there are many, many things that are occurring that we don't really have any way to put our finger on it. Domoic acid, we don't even know for sure how it you know, how how it's getting transferred into the crabs. We know that they're eating the clams. We know and we know that the algae is dropping to the bottom.

Potentially, that's how it's happening. And you know, I've done the testing for our area for quite a few years. And there are very specific hot spots. And we expect that. And there are other areas where we typically don't see anything at all.

So I mean, we just don't know. We're very apprehensive and we're hoping that the animals move on. We get an opportunity to move in and you know, be productive and we can get the season started and everything is okay. But it's an El Nino.

100%. Yeah. And what Mister Ogg said, I think that the critical nature of hitting the holidays, right? And Rob Ross is here who has been representing the fleet for decades and just grateful for his work as well. And talking about the importance of getting crab on the dinner table, for the holidays.

That's been of of deep importance for the fleet. Right? And that's where you make your money. Just be honest about it. Right?

Yeah. And missing that entire season has been a real challenge for fishermen.

It, it is. And and you know, it's really it's difficult for us to, it's difficult for us to have crew on the boat waiting to be able to go and we don't know if we can go. And we continue to have to wait and continue to have to wait. And the crew members and the captains are prepared to do whatever we're going to do and we can't make a living, you know.

It just doesn't work. It's you know, there's I really feel like we have ways to mitigate and work with this to be able to try and get product on the table with traditional equipment because, you know, if we look at the data again, I have to say this over and over again.

When the most gear is in the water, we have the least known entanglements, the least obvious, you know, the ones that you would expect that co occurrence to really cause a problem, but it isn't showing itself. So are we able to operate efficiently with animals in the area? I think we can. So

Thanks so much, Mister Ogg. Miss Grable, Miss Damrosch, Mister Ogg, Miss Moore, thank you very much for the work. Thank you for being here today, and for this critical panel on the outlook for the '26-'27 Dungeness Crab Season, and we're really grateful for you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

We're now gonna be, moving on to our fourth panel of the day and that's talking about the Super El Nino. We've heard folks talk about the warm waters, the impact that it's gonna have on crab season, but it's also gonna have great impact on marine mammals as well. And we're going to, try to separate all the hype to the fact in what we're gonna see for California fisheries and coastal ecosystems.

We're gonna start with Doctor Julia Coates if, the good doctor can come forward from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Then we're gonna hear from Doctor Anderson from Scripps in UC San Diego. She will be virtual. We're always grateful anytime Doctor Anderson can join us.

Then we're gonna hear from Doctor Boehm from the Marine Mammal Center in the Bay Area. And he is gonna have, a very specific focus on mammals and the impact that we've seen. And I'm just gonna be candid. Going into a season like what we are potentially gonna see this year, it could be ugly, and he'll be able to give color to that.

But first, let's start with Doctor Coates. Separating fact from fiction on the Super El Nino, the floor is yours. You have five minutes, then we'll turn it over to Doctor Anderson, and then to Doctor. Bohm.

We are a well educated panel here. Let me tell you. My goodness. But Doctor, it's wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for being here.

The floor is yours on the Super El Nino.

Is that all is that all? Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. So my name is Julia Coats. I'm a Quantitative Fishery Scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Marine Region. I use models to estimate biomass status, and appropriate management measures for fish stocks.

And I use historical long term, time series data to do that as well as the biological and ecological research. And I want to start out with some background and definitions. So El Nino is a climate phenomenon defined by sea surface temperatures being greater than their historical average within a region of the Equatorial Pacific.

And the size of that deviation, defines the strength of the of an El Nino. So a minimum threshold is half of a degree celsius. Our coastal marine ecosystem off of California is defined by cool nutrient rich water that drives high biological productivity. Normal wind and current patterns produce upwelling of this cool water from the deep along our coast.

And during El Ninos, the normal trade winds weaken, allowing warm water to build up on the surface of the Eastern Pacific. And this weakens upwelling and shifts the system into warmer, less productive state. And El Ninos typically occur on a three to seven year time cycle.

But next, I want to differentiate El Ninos from marine heat waves, which can be thought of as more haphazard ocean warming events. And they simply are defined by sea surface temperatures exceeding a 90th percentile of their long term average, wherever that occurs. And they are increasing in frequency and spatial extent as our climate warms.

So the last strong El Nino was unprecedented because it was preceded by a large marine heat wave. A warm water mass in 2014 and 2015 was termed the blob. And this was immediately followed by one of the strongest El Nino events ever recorded, through the summer of 2016. So when I refer to the last El Nino El Nino, I mean this last strong El Nino. And current conditions are shaping up right now similarly to what we experienced in 2014 to 2016.

So two marine heat waves are currently being tracked in the Northeast Pacific and forecasts indicate that they, they will increasingly impact our coastal waters this coming summer and fall. And then we'll transition to the El Nino in fall and winter. So how do these, warming events typically, how do our fisheries typically respond to them?

Fishery dynamics are a complex outcome of ecosystem processes, as well as economic and regulatory factors. But responses to warm events are typically most visible in our short lived, and migratory species, which can respond quickly.

Longer lived species, they may experience an increase or a decrease in the survival of their young life stages. And we won't know the impact on the adult stocks for several years after that. I'll go through some concerning impacts, from past El Ninos that that we've seen. However, the last El Nino also brought some new fishing opportunities and some increases in species diversity and productivity.

And if we, if we get reprieves of coastal upwelling bringing that cool water along the coast within the overall warming event, then we can see maintenance of our cool associated species at the same time that we're seeing an increase in availability of warm associated species.

So to speak to a few lessons that we've learned from the past, beginning with those that are most concerning, we've already talked quite a bit about about domoic acid, so I won't say much about that except that it also impacts many other fisheries besides the Dungeness crab.

The Northern California nearshore rocky reefs experienced a dramatic change during the last El Nino with over 90% reduction in coverage of bull kelp, closure of the recreational red abalone fishery, and impacts to our red urchin fishery.

And the red urchin fishery declined, substantially after the 1997, 1998 El Nino and never returned to its former levels. Coastal pelagic species responded to the last El Nino in very unexpected ways with a boom in anchovy and continued low productivities for sardine, which is not what we would have anticipated. And the responses, of these and other prey species had important impacts for whales and seaport predators.

Other lessons from past El Ninos that are more neutral or mixed, from a human perspective. Market squid is one of the state's highest value, and largest volume fisheries. And it experienced a dramatic drop in the '97-'98 El Nino. And overall for that fishery, warming tends to result in decreased landings in the southern extent of that fishery and neutral or boosted landings in the more northern extent of that fishery.

And we saw a lot more availability of market squid in the last El Nino in Northern California as well as Oregon and Washington. Spiny lobster and California halibut show a similar pattern to market squid with northward shifts or expansions of those fishery ranges.

El Ninos, can be a mixed bag for salmon, potentially improving river basin water levels but also decreasing, prey availability in the ocean. And then finally, on a more positive note, migratory species like tunas respond to warm water both from El Ninos and marine heat waves. And we can see an increase in availability of these species to our fisheries.

These temporary range shifts can boost recreational fishing opportunities for those vessels and also potentially shift fishing pressure away from our resident stocks of other species.

So we also, in the last El Nino, saw a boost in diversity and abundance of juvenile rockfish, which was unexpected. And currently, the very popular recreational fishery for barred sand bass is experiencing an increase due to improved survival of young life stages in the last El Nino.

So overall, as the climate changes, we're increasingly seeing conditions that have no historical analog. And this suggests that relying on historical patterns to make our management decisions can be risky. So CDFW is up against a large task, preparing for and studying and responding to these events.

So thank you.

Doctor, thank you so much. I appreciate that overview, fascinating, by the way, and also scary, right? As we embark in this new era. We are grateful that Doctor Anderson is also with us.

Doctor Anderson does so much work. She is the Director of Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing. Their system there at Scripps oversees the Cooperative Institute for Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Systems. We are so appreciative that she is here.

She has five minutes. Doctor Anderson, let's do a quick mic check, making sure that you're hearing us loud and clear.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mister Chair and Madam vice Chair. Can you hear me?

You are coming in loud and clear.

The floor is yours.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for letting me do this remotely. I'm gonna go fast. I know I have five minutes. I wanna share a lot of things. You already introduced me beautifully.

We got a beautiful primer from Doctor Coates there just now. I don't need to go into this. I just would say that when it comes to wetter winters, I think we all appreciate that the statistical correlation can be kind of weak with precipitation and we don't always see a lot of that. It's stronger in SoCal. We probably will see bigger waves and more coastal erosion.

We do see that a lot depending on the storm tracks and the intensity of those storms. Warmer water, probably a given with every El Nino, and how it replicates a lot of the marine heat wave patterns that were just mentioned, and then reduced upwelling. I like to point out you can have a lot of upwelling. Doctor Coates mentioned these repress. You can have a lot of upwelling, but the water that's upwell comes from a shallower depth.

So those waters are more deplete or, you know, the quality of them is different and that they have lower nutrients, which affects primary productivity. I was asked to talk about erosion. We're certainly monitoring a lot of this at Scripps. We do these surveys that right now are only funded by a California State Parks since the US Army Corps Federal Investment has really gone down. But these kind of surveys that are done regularly give us that baseline.

We know what's going on with coastal erosion and flooding because of a lot of these data streams. Dick Ogg made a beautiful pitch for data. I think it's critical that we always remember how essential this is. And these are the kind of images that we have with some of these Lidar data, particularly in the and I'm by the last El Nino, I don't mean 2016. I'm referring to the last last last.

And that was the lidar data collected here. And you can see the before and after where there was massive cliff origin. This had a huge impact on rail service, military service, all the kinds of things you can imagine. So I wanna put a pitch in for that. We need to keep our eye open for that and the preparedness on that side.

The wave action can be really critical for flooding unlike the East Coast where it's all sea level rise. On the West Coast, we know wave action is really important for predicting that sort of flooding and inundation. So another pitch here for how well the state is helping to keep this coastal data information program alive.

These buoys give us the essential data for the flooding index that will tell us what happens. And a lot of times, we get that kind of thermal expansion, steric height increase during a marine heat wave war in El Nino. Even I think it was 11 inches in the 2016 event. So that kind of sea level change can really have impacts on our low lying coastal areas.

So warning temperature is probably a given. You can already see here at our shore stations. I'm just showing you Humboldt, and I'm showing you Scripps Pier down in San Diego. A little less dramatic right now at Humboldt. I think this really speaks speaks to what Dick was saying about how it's been up and down.

You've seen a lot of upwelling, but you've seen some recent warming and that trend is above average. We're starting to see in Southern California temperatures that almost exceed the envelope of climatology that we're used to seeing for temperature here. We're getting, you know, almost 80 degree fahrenheit water. It's pretty radical, but it's been going on for months, and this was already mentioned.

We have these beautiful gliders that are out 24/7 on one of these lines operationally, run out of scripts. And these things are showing us how our region connects to the Equator. You heard about how this stuff starts at the Equator. I think that's a critical part of this narrative.

We respond in kind, but we don't always know how quickly that's going to happen. And these gliders give us a lot of data about that connection to low frequency variability. It's critical for fisheries. These these sort of, you know, oscillations of sardines and anchovy that we've come to think are connected to a lot of this low frequency variability.

Some of those patterns are starting to break down, and that was already mentioned. But what we're seeing with the gliders this year and so I point you to this plot where you can see, all the different glider lines and in black what's happening at the Equator.

And I want you to then zone in on what's been happening more recently in 2026 is that our temperature skyrocketed well before anything changed at the equator. So normally, we're sort of lagging what happens at the equator. Here we're preceding it. The last time we saw that was the 2015, 2014 Pacific warm Anomaly.

I think really alluding to what Doctor Coates said, which is that this is somewhat similar to that scenario, and we need to be prepared for all the things that happened in that year. Although, we weren't able to really predict everything that happened then. Hindsight is 2020. We know that upwelling should be, quote, unquote, suppressed.

But if you just look at the vertical transport of water, which is this QD index, you can see that from 35 to say, you know, 43 degrees latitude here in this upper left plot, it's been actually very intense.

The red is telling you it's been anomalous for the last year, which really does mean there's a lot of upwelling. And if you wanna think about how much nutrient is in that, how much nitrate, what the nutrient levels are, you can look at the bottom plot and that's showing you that in that same latitudinal range, also very extreme. So we don't really know what this is going to mean, but it's sort of weakening in Southern California.

And the multivariate indices are showing that it's still sort of neutral in Northern California but trending high in Southern California. And we don't know what this will mean for animals.

We know there will be winners. We know there will be losers. You've heard about a lot of this. So I'm kind of just gonna flash forward here and just say, let's, you know, let's talk a little bit about the base of the food web since that is my specialty. And I don't want you to read all of this, but I wanna point out that when it comes to marine mammal and seabird impacts, there is a lot of uncertainty.

It happens in years with El Ninos. It happens in years with La Nina. It happens in neutral years, and I think Dick really spoke to that. I think it's it is very uncertain. I don't I cannot say, being a domoic acid expert, that we will have the same thing that we had in 2015.

And in fact, we didn't know that was coming because we always associate the organism that causes this with cold water and cold upwelling, interestingly enough. But we look over the time series that we have of these of this toxin and nutrients, and there really is a lot of confusion in that. But if you start to think about just marine mammal and bird impacts, for instance, it can change the picture a little bit.

And we've seen, like I said, ENSO neutral years, El Nino years. And then lately, the last five years in a row, it has been on top of a strong La Nina or cold buckling event.

And in fact, these are those those strandings that are aligned with our C Harm model. We see a lot of connection between how many animals strand and the toxins. And this is what we're seeing right now for your region, high potentially high production of cellular domoic acid in the hot spots that were already mentioned.

So I just wanna say that because we have state funding for these imaging flow cytobot robots that are telling us what the plankton are doing 24/7, we can see how, these low frequency events propagate blooms up the coast, and we will have our eye on that 24/7 for you. My last slide is just to point out the food web matters.

Fish is an indicator. I think that's brilliant. It's a great indicator for mammals. It's a great indicator for how the toxin gets to those animals. We are seeing record anchovy recruitment year after year lately.

If we still see that and we monitor anchovy, we may be able to predict a lot of downstream things, including domoic acid events at least for mammals. Crabs are trickier. But I wanna say we're monitoring it. We'll continue to put out our products and I thank you for your time.

Doctor Anderson, I have questions. I'm gonna hold them though, till we hear from our final Doctor on the panel. And I just wanna take a moment to say thank you so much to the Marine Mammal Center. You do fantastic work, I gotta say, each and every year.

And Doctor. Boehm, you are a fantastic communicator. And I'm grateful for you. He's a Chief External Relations Officer for the Marine Mammal Center. He's gonna give us his prediction. And I'll just say the Marine Mammal Center over the past decade is more important than ever with a change in ocean and a change in climate.

The floor is yours for five minutes on the impacts of the potential Super El Nino.

I got you. Thank you for the introductory remarks. Thank you for the invitation and to the committee as well. And thank you, Senator for your for your leadership. Very, very much appreciated. Do you wanna jump right into it? Imagine the the cover slide is up there. There we go.

Marine Mammal Center, as the Senator, mentioned has been in existence now for more than 50 years. We're authorized by NOAA Fisheries to do our work along with hundreds of other organizations on every coastline in The US.

We just happen to occupy a portion of the coastline, which is rather extensive in Northern California and Central California, over 600 miles. And we operate in Hawaii where we focus on the Hawaiian monk seal. Over those decades, we have seen more than 20,000 animals in our care.

And the way we're looking at it now as we treat the animals, as we do the scientific research, and as we educate about what we find, we're on the front lines virtually.

And as has been mentioned by colleagues on this panel and and elsewhere, we're seeing a lot through the species that we all work with that are sometimes early indicators, early validators of things that we might have predicted. So let me take you through a quick tour. It's not exactly a prediction but my best thinking, our best thinking on what we might be might be seeing. So here we go.

General comment could be myriad, but I'll focus in this in these comments on nutritional stress, on risks associated with temporary range shifts as animals move from one area of you know, water temperature to another.

All of this against the backdrop of what we're seeing as novel emerging and reemerging diseases, just further stressing our system. And a couple of comments on humans at risk. My colleague to my left has already, set the stage, as have others around the fact that we can't predict from history, but boy, we sure learned a lot a decade ago. And as was elaborated on, this was an event of extraordinary proportions.

And to put it in numeric context, along Southern California seashore, we were seeing some 3,000 juvenile California sea lions stranding. So it got the attention of people, loud and clear.

And as I say, there was much we learned from those events, which was again a a confluence of ocean heat waves and an El Nino, and other factors as well over multiple years. So getting right into it, malnutrition. Wanna talk about sea lions here and I also wanna talk a bit about whales.

If you are a California sea lion, you're more than likely going to be giving birth on the Channel Island, which means you're kind of anchored because that pup of yours is going to be dependent from for some 9 months or so.

So as a mom, you're moving to get food for yourself, to keep your plane of nutrition high, but also to nurse your pup. And if water temperatures are moving your food source further and further away from those Channel Islands, you're expending more and more calories just in the getting of the food. And that's why we saw so many California sit on stranding. We predict more of that kind of thing this next year.

A footnote though on malnutrition, you may have heard that we're seeing more and more gray whales in San Francisco Bay over the last five, ten years.

We're correlating that with shifting food sources up in the Arctic for that species where they're making these epic migrations to Northern Mexico and back up. They're stopping off in San Francisco Bay for snacks now where they didn't used to need to do that. So all of these things are existing and are gonna be exacerbated by an El Nino of significance. Rain shifts and and risks.

So if the water temperatures that you're evolved to forge in and that you you occupy are shifting, you will be moving. And, as was discussed in the last panel around the Dungeons crab fishery, this could be creating mashups of whales and fishing gear that exacerbate what is an ongoing problem that many many people, many different stakeholders are bringing their best thinking, to bear to solve.

But that is going to be, in our sights this next year. We've heard plenty about domoic acid, impacts sea lions profoundly, causes, seizures in an acute phase, chronic exposure, causes actual deterioration of brain tissue, and it impacts humans as well.

So, a significant disease. What we're worried about is animals moving again into waters that they're typically not occupying, possibly encountering blooms that they wouldn't have otherwise.

So it's again, I'm using this term mash up, not terribly professional but you you get the point. A lot of different circumstances coming together. All of this is overlaying what we are seeing more and more as, back to this front lines analogy. We're we're seeing things emerge. We're seeing novel diseases.

We saw highly pathogenic Avian influenza this past year in elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Park. That's this rather grim image here on the left is that. We're seeing protozoa infections in sea otters at a clip and at a pace that we didn't use to sarcocystis, toxoplasmosis, things like that. Again, all of this is to say that an El Nino on top of this is again, just making our work, more and more complicated. Humans at risk.

This this first image on the left may be familiar to my colleague here. That is right down there in La Jolla. If you have California sea lion pups that are are coming ashore, orphaned, malnourished, we're going to see more and more of an interface of wildlife and concentrations of human populations, especially in Southern California.

This can cause at at the very least, physical risk from bites and injuries of that like, but also disease transmission as well. So there's a humans at risk, consideration there.

On the right, you're seeing some of our staff and volunteers. This is wearying work. This is hard work. This brings work that demands a lot of a lot of rigor, but also a lot of emotion. And we're watching our team and our team of teams up and down the coast and across The US as we stand ready to do more and more of this intensive work.

So the conclusion in in a significant El Nino bringing free stress to marine mammals and other marine wildlife obviously and to the systems, the resources and the people that respond to them. Happy to address any questions that you might have.

Thank you so much, Doctor. I'm gonna turn it over to you, I think, over to Rogers.

Yeah. And I know in the interest of time, I'll be a little bit brief. My question is really for Doctor Anderson but all three of you, if you see an opportunity or see something we should know about. But Doctor Anderson, you mentioned that the Army Corps' Investment in some of the, I think it was the the Buoy system that gives data, had been decreased and that largely you're seeing funding being backfilled if that's the way to put it from Parks.

And I'm wondering especially when you talk about the coastal data index, we've obviously seen this with NOAA in other places as well with tsunami buoys. Is there a particular area that we should be focused on where increased investment from the state could either help fill the gaps of what we're seeing at the federal disinvestment in California or an area that has historically been underfunded that could advance our understanding and preparation for significant events like the super El Nino.

Yeah. Thank you for that question. I would say that it is this sort of physical coastal flood array of assets that we have in the coastal processes group, which includes those seeded buoys. It includes a lot of these lidar saver surveys that I mentioned that are, not even just stop gap. State Parks already had a certain investment and that hasn't gone away.

But the monstrous that big chunk of federal money is what has largely disappeared in the last two years. So continuing that, I would say is critical. On the biological side, we're actually doing really well. We're continuing to get our investment for harmful algal bloom monitoring. So I do think the focus on these wave and inundation measurements is a great place to focus effort.

And we do still have some gaps in Northern California where it is harder to get some of these buoys out there and keep them maintained. We do have a larger array in SoCal, but I think it's a critical statewide program that needs to be invested in. So I hope that answers your question.

Doctor and Doctor?

None nothing to add there.

Okay. Yeah. And then, and then the last one, I think you touched on it very briefly kind of collectively, but I'm also particularly interested in kelp populations and the restoration. Obviously, that's been a challenge in Northern California. Any predictions on what we what we should expect, specifically there in the coming years?

Happy to have Doctor.

Address that briefly. Well, despite our efforts at developing the kelp restoration and management plan, I would not expect to see much recovery of North Coast kelp during the next couple of years. We might also see impacts to Southern California macrocystis. That tends to decline also during large El Ninos. However, luckily that species is a perennial.

So there are there are young life stages in the water throughout the year that can more easily, recover those those habitats. But may not see much recovery in the North Coast for some time.

So not good news. Gotcha. Alright. Senator.

Thank you so much. First question, Doctor. Anderson, I wanna go back to ocean temperatures for a moment. So, as Doctor. Anderson, what you had said is that I'm gonna give you my own non scientific verbiage here.

Humboldt is up and down. Southern California is 80 degrees. Down in your neck of the woods in San Diego. That's hotter than what you've seen in your career?

It so in the glider time series, which is a twenty year time series, a lot like our shore station, it's reaching the the max temperatures. I don't I wouldn't say they've exceeded it yet, but we're at that point that we were with the 2015 '16 Pacific warm anomaly where we were seeing the highest temperatures. So it's getting there. And we do expect this kind of change to happen gradually up the coast as you know. Sometimes those teleconnections from the Equator can be atmospheric.

They can be by by a Kelvin wave, and it can take time for all of that to manifest in Northern California.

What distinguishes an El Nino from a Super El Nino?

That is a good question. I was probably the how how large the large the exceedances at the equator because we already heard point five is the threshold. I think we're reaching a two degree Celsius threshold, which puts it in that Super El Nino category like others. But in 2016, we saw that Godzilla Godzilla El Nino and didn't necessarily have a hugely wet winter. You know, those predictions can fall apart and we need to remember that even though we need to be prepared.

And I'll go to, doctor Coates, in just one moment on this. Doctor Anderson, when does these events that would be considered an anomaly anomaly become our new reality? Like, when when do you put that flag down?

Right. So the baseline's shifting. This point has been made already eloquently that this marine heat wave slash El Nino is that El Nino is happening on top of an existing marine heat wave. That means that animals are already pushed to their extent of their ranges perhaps or their tolerances. And once they're at the edge of those tolerances, that's when we start to see some things spill over into the problematic areas.

So the baseline's shifting. This point has been made already eloquently that this marine heat wave slash El Nino is that El Nino is happening on top of an existing marine heat wave. That means that animals are already pushed to their extent of their ranges perhaps or their tolerances. And once they're at the edge of those tolerances, that's when we start to see some things spill over into the problematic areas.

And I think that's what we have to have our eyes on is that this is not the same El Nino it was in 1997 because the baseline temperatures are already different and we're already having this kind of barrage of marine heat waves every one to three years.

So I'm gonna doctor Anderson, I'm gonna follow-up and then I'm gonna go to doctor Coates. And I know you may be breaking out your crystal ball on this, but is this the reality that we're living with now? Because we're not gonna go back to the way it was. Correct?

Well, it does appear that since 2015, something has shifted in our kind of a Pacific atmospheric ocean and graphic connectivity that has led to the like I said, a barrage of marine heat waves that haven't gone away. I don't know anyone in this field who's ready to say that will never switch back because if you look at the cable patterns, you do see a lot of oscillations.

But it does seem as though we're in a kind of we have crossed some sort of a tipping point in terms of warming in the new baseline. And so I'm gonna just go out on a limb and say probably yes, even though I don't like to do that.

Yeah. I apologize. I appreciate that doctor Anderson. And let's go to doctor Coates. Same questions.

Yeah. I concur with everything that Doctor Anderson said. That that the strength of the El Nino is tied to that the size of that deviation from the average in that region of the Equatorial Pacific. So a two degree C deviation would be a very strong. Not quite sure if there is a super definition.

Yeah.

So these marine heat waves, they are increasing in in frequency and duration and spatial extent as I said. Also all of those things are gonna impact their their the influence that they have on the ecosystem. Also, the depth of those marine heat waves, which are typically measured at the sea surface temperature, but how far down does that warm water extend?

And then I guess to sum up your question, are we in a new normal?

So all of these things make responses to marine heat waves highly variable because all of those different sort of parameters about the marine heat wave can be different from from event to event. But we are seeing much more frequency and and and intensity of these events.