Sacramento-area scientists say salmon could live, even thrive, in the Yolo Bypass floodplain

The fields of the Sacramento River floodplain generate much of the nation’s rice supply—but if managed just right, it seems they could also help produce wild fish.

A two-year experiment led in part by UC Davis scientists has revealed that baby chinook salmon can thrive in submerged rice paddies, where sun-warmed waters generate algae and phytoplankton that provide essential food for young fish and other creatures.

Before the Sacramento River was tamed with dams, levees and canals, vast floods were a regular event, according to Jacob Katz, a biologist with the nonprofit CalTrout, who has directed the so-called “Nigiri Project”—symbolically named for the classic sushi presentation of raw fish served on a wedge of rice.

This historic ephemeral swamp, he says, helped support huge populations of animals.

“The ducks that blackened the sky and the runs of 2 million salmon that once came up the .... http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/sac...nt?oid=11971472

Too cool!
Let it flood.
Developers, keep you projects off flood plains. You money hungry jackals...

How would the fingerlings escape the ponds after their time of growth in the rice fields? Downhill channel / water raceways back to the main river channel? No mention in the article.

The Yolo Bypass is one of two bypasses in the Sacramento Valley. Essentially, they are overflows for the Sacramento River. When the river reaches a cerain stage water goes into the bypass and on down to the delta. Essentially creating another river channel. Of course, it is leveed to keep the water in. The land is used as agricultural land, to grow crops but with the understanding and knowledge that it could have 20' of water on it some winters. Doesn't have structures in it that can't take significant annual flooding.

Those bypasses are also a death trap for returning adults.

When open, fish swim up them, but if the flood subsides, they are then stranded since they can't get out the upstream side. About half of the endangered winter run chinook are thought to have been stranded and died in them this last year. There was some discussion about installing fish weirs to keep them out, but of course it's too much money...

Best,