[env-trinity] Trinity Litigator - Northern California Power Agency

[Byron Leydecker]

TRINITY RIVER RESTORATION
Hupas ask power interest to back out of Trinity suit
Eureka Times-Standard - 3/17/04
Dozens of Hupa Indians marched on the offices of the Northern California
Power Agency on Monday asking that a suit barring restoration of the Trinity
River be dropped.

Joined by Roseville residents, fishermen and environmentalists, the tribal
members offered the agency officials a basket of kippered salmon, as a peace
offering.

The power agency is suing over the approval of a restoration plan for the
river, most of which is diverted to the Sacramento River and Central Valley
farms. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed off on the plan in
2000.

But a suit has blocked the implementation of the plan.

Other cities and utility districts, including the Sacramento Municipal
Utilities District have dropped out of the suit being spearheaded by the
Westlands Water District.

"The Trinity River is part of our sustenance and culture," said Hoopa Valley
Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall. "The NCPA is destroying the river,
the fish and our tribal heritage by taking too much water from the river."

The 2000 restoration plan calls for a reduction in the diversion, from about
75 percent to nearly 50 percent. That difference only produces a small
amount of power, and estimates have been made that the average power agency
ratepayer would only see a $3 per year increase in their bill if the plan
was implemented.

The Hoopa Tribe, which sees the plan as a settlement, has been presented
with two settlement proposals that would crimp flows to the river more than
the restoration plan. Westland's proposal was rebuffed, as was a recent
proposal from the U.S. Interior Department, as ignoring the two decades of
science behind the original restoration plan.


Byron Leydecker
Chairman, Friends of Trinity River
Consultant, California Trout, Inc,
PO Box 2327
Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327
415 383 4810 ph
415 519 4810 cell
415 383 9562 fx
bwl3 at comcast.net
bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary)
http://www.fotr.org
http://www.caltrout.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20040318/5489a260/attachment.html>