Oregon Public Broadcasting

Fishing advocates from Oregon and California are in Washington D.C. this week pressing for a solution to the problems that closed this year’s coastal salmon season. Rob Manning reports.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is meeting in Washington D.C. to discuss the hit that Oregon's salmon fishery has taken.

Poor fishing conditions in the Sacramento River prompted officials last spring to mostly close Chinook and Coho fisheries stretching up to the northern Oregon coast.

Laura Anderson with Newport-based Local Ocean Seafoods went to suggest changes to the Sacramento water system.

Laura Anderson: “If water diversion were actually measured, if irrigation pumps were actually screened, if some of these things were taken care of, there’d be more than enough water not just for aquatic life, but for farmers as well.”

Federal officials have drafted plans to direct more irrigated water from farming to salmon.

Both farm and fishing groups have said the plans are problematic.

California Senator Diane Feinstein has asked the National Research Council to review the plans.