Saving California's salmon: Open more fish hatcheries

<p>When I was a boy growing up in Half Moon Bay, salmon boats would sail forth from the harbor and head out to sea long before sunrise. When the salmon were running, hundreds of mast lights -- like a tiny galaxy of stars -- went forth in darkness to bring salmon to your table.</p><p>My father was a salmon fisherman, and in time I was too, as were my brothers. We all fished salmon to feed our families, for there was a time in California when wild salmon were plentiful -- costing little more than hamburger.</p><p>Now it's finished.</p><p>The federal government has closed both the commercial and sport fishing season for salmon. It cites diminished returns of spawning salmon. Sadly, some planetary visionaries applaud this decision. They see commercial fishermen as ravishers of the sea. They see sports fishermen as recreational rednecks who should learn to eat tofu. It's a condescending viewpoint. Salmon are sustainable.</p><p>What has happened to our salmon? Most fifth graders can tell us: Salmon have lost their spawning grounds.</p><p>Motel King Salmon is out of business. We know the culprits: placer mining in the 19th century that washed away hundreds of miles of spawning ground, pollution, real estate development, logging, the extraction of fresh water from the delta. Sea lions are blamed, but sea lions and salmon have coexisted for eons. Then comes the big one -- dams. There are 1,400 dams in the state of California. Many block salmon from ever going home again.</p><p>Then there's global warming, that convenient excuse that often forestalls solutions. Some claim that global warming has depleted the ocean of the food salmon eat. Simplistic and easy despite the obvious: Salmon survived the ice ages -- the waxing and waning of global climates before fishing poles existed.</p><p>Is there a solution? Last year, Congress authorized $60 million, and this year they're talking $90 million more to pay impacted fishermen to sit around the docks. The welfare state is sailing out to sea.</p><p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to help. He's proposed two new dams near Sacramento and Fresno which he terms "above ground storage." According to the Austrian whiz kid, the dams will fight -- here it comes again -- global warming. Schwarzenegger states that the Sierra snow pack is melting too fast. We need someplace to store it because salmon need fresh water. (Wink, wink -- so does Southern California.)</p><p>There is a solution despite the lack of federal and state leadership -- hatcheries.</p><p>Currently, there is one federal hatchery in the state of California. It was built in 1906 and expanded in 1992. The California Department of Fish and Game maintains eight hatcheries, most of them built in the '50s and '60s. That's nine hatcheries verses 1,400 dams -- advantage, cement. New hatcheries could be built not only on the waterways that drain the environmentally impacted San Joaquin Valley but also on our north coastal rivers that historically had large runs of king salmon.</p><p>Unfortunately, hatcheries are disdained by some well-meaning people who view them as Band-Aids that mask the real problem: The degradation of our streams and rivers. They are correct, but in so doing they've used salmon as symbol. They don't see it as a fish that people like to eat.</p><p>Environmentalists have arguments against hatcheries. They say salmon continue to decline despite existing hatcheries. They're right, but how many are we talking about: Those insignificant nine? They say that hatcheries require money. But look at the pay off: The restoration of salmon and reduced prices for the public.</p><p>They say that hatchery fish, selected by human hands, could be genetically unsound; that strays from hatcheries breed with what's left of the wild fish. So be it. Select fish at the hatchery that are strong, fast and wily, as nature has for a million years. Toss out the Pee Wee Hermans; trust the fish to hook up with the survival of the fittest. It's bound to be better than what we have now: a glut of genetically altered salmon awash in our market place -- mostly from foreign countries -- raised in pens on antibiotics with their flesh dyed pink.</p><p>This year there will be no mast lights on the ocean and soon no salmon beneath it unless we choose a pragmatic solution that transcends symbolism. We owe it to these fish. We owe it to ourselves.</p><p>Michael Koepf is a resident of the Mendocino County community of Elk and is the author of "The Fisherman's Son."</p>