Since 1996, Family Water Alliance, Inc. (FWA) has been supporting efforts in salmon recovery and actively protecting our fishery resources through their Sacramento River Small Diversion Fish Screen Program. FWA has led a long-term proactive program to assist farmers with the screening of agricultural diversions to not only protect the fisheries, but to also protect their water rights and right to farm through the development of the screen program.

Because construction and installation of fish screens competes for limited grant monies with other fish conservation dollars, and the little quantative data available to prove that diversions take fish, FWA and their program partners have included a fish entrainment monitoring as part of the Sacramento Valley/Delta Fish Screen Program.

The purpose is to collect data on fish entrainment by river diverters during two irrigation seasons. This will help us gather data to address whether small diversions in fact “take” fish, and if continuation of funding and screening of smaller diversions is needed. It is our hope that we can in fact collect enough data to either give small diverters a waiver to pump, or continue current efforts to screen the small diversions.

Three sites were chosen for year one of the program: Sutter Mutual Water Company State Bend Pumping Plant, Sycamore Mutual Water Company Site 2, and River Garden Farms Site 2.

Sites were chosen because of several important factors, such as the voluntary participation of landowners, environmental considerations and permitting ease, engineering ease, total cubic-feet per-second (cfs), river location and ability to monitor the pump outfall.. All required and necessary state and federal permits are obtained on behalf of the landowner before monitoring begins, by FWA and our program partners.

David Vogel, senior biologist, Natural Resources Scientists, Inc. (NRS), will be performing the monitoring. NRS is an environmental sciences consulting firm specializing in scientific investigations and resolution of complex resource issues associated with water project development. Dave has extensive experience in his field and will sample each diversion once daily, seven days a week during the pumping season at each site.

Each landowner is also guaranteed a fish screen after the monitoring of the diversion, thus protecting the landowner and their water rights. Intake Screens, Inc. (ISI) will be designing, constructing and installing the site specific, self-cleaning, retractable fish screen system. MBK Engineers, Inc. will provide independent engineering oversight, review, and approvals for each screen system throughout the program.

FWA, along with the AFSP Technical Team and program partners, will be selecting sites for Year 2 of the program within the next few months. Anyone that is interested in participating in the program should contact FWA as soon as possible to be included in the site selection process.

It is extremely important to find a viable solution to screening of diversions in the Sacramento Valley and the Delta region for not only the fishery resources, but agricultural diversions as well.

If you are interested participating in the fish screen program, please contact the Sacramento Valley Fish Screen Program at (530) 438-2026, or submit a letter of interest to P.O. Box 365, Maxwell, CA 95955.

Since 1991, Family Water Alliance (FWA) has been supporting efforts in salmon recovery and the fishery resources with their Sacramento River Small Diversion Fish Screen Program. Through the development of the screen program, FWA has lead a long-term proactive program to assist farmers with the screening of agricultural diversions to not only protect the fisheries, but to also protect their water rights and right to farm.

With the salmon populations in crisis and the crash of the fisheries in the Delta, the Family Water Alliance has changed the name of their fish screen program to the Sacramento Valley Fish Screen Program and is set to begin Phase 7 of the program to continue their efforts to assist in fishery restorations.

Working closely with our program partners, FWA has successfully written and received funding to screen up to 15 diversions in 5 years. The only difference being that we have incorporated a pilot biological assessment and we will be extending our program to the Delta region.

Funding for Phase 7 will be provided by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act’s Anadromous Fish Screen Program (administered by the Bureau of Reclamation) and Proposition 84 through the CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Program, administered by the California Department of Fish and Game.

FWA will begin Phase 7 by identifying landowners with river diversions willing to participate in the biological assessments and have fish screens installed. Diversions to be screened will be selected based on relevant information including the size and location of the diversion, potential for biological assessments, the voluntary participation of the diverter, and other criteria deemed necessary by the agencies. All work under Phase 7 will occur with oversight by the Anadromous Fish Screen Program (AFSP), which is a U.S. Department of the Interior fish screening program jointly administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR).

Biological assessments of unscreened diversions will be conducted at diversions for a period of up to two irrigation seasons prior to the installation of the fish screens. A range of diversion sizes and locations will be selected in order to obtain the most useful scientific data. Each diverter who participates in the pilot assessment will be provided a fish screen, thus assuring the landowner’s rights are not compromised. In addition, the landowner diversions will be referred to as a site rather than by a landowner name, until the assessment is completed and the fish screen has been installed.

The assessments will be done by Natural Resource Scientists, Inc. (NRS) an environmental sciences consulting firm specializing in scientific investigations and resolution of complex resource issues associated with water project development. The goal of the assessment is to help develop criteria for prioritizing future fish screening efforts and project funding by conducting assessments at each diversion prior to screening.

Intake Screens, Inc. (ISI) will be fabricating and installing their site specific, state-of-art fish screen systems at each selected diversion. MBK Engineers, Inc. will provide engineering construction management, oversight, and approvals.
ISI, MBK, and NRS have extensive experience and knowledge that will be invaluable to the goals and objectives of Phase 7.

To date, FWA has completed 24 successful fish screen projects representing the cumulative screening of 563 cubic feet per second of California water, while at the same time protecting over 22,000 acres of productive agricultural lands. FWA will continue to work to restore the fishery resource while protecting agriculture, water rights, and rural communities.

If you are interested participating in the fish screen program, please contact the Sacramento Valley Fish Screen Program at (530) 438-2026, or submit a letter of interest to P.O. Box 365, Maxwell, CA 95955. Click here for landowner application in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) or Microsoft Word (doc).