[env-trinity] Joint Legislative Comm on Fisheries and Aquaculture

Tue Mar 23 21:44:30 PST 2004

Joint Legislative Committee

On Fisheries and Aquaculture

State of California

Remarks of Byron W. Leydecker

Chairman, Friends of Trinity River

Consultant, California Trout, Inc.

Trinity River Restoration

March 17, 2004

Chairperson Berg and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for providing this opportunity to share with you some thoughts
about restoration or

non-restoration of the Trinity River.  My name is Byron Leydecker.  I’m the
founder and volunteer chair of Friends of Trinity River and a volunteer
consultant to California Trout.  I served on the former federally legislated
Trinity River Task Force and currently serve on the Trinity Adaptive
Management Working Group.

I’ve been fishing the Trinity River since I was a young boy in the 1930s.  I
’ve experienced great fisheries and almost non-existent fisheries -
fisheries that now are about 12 percent of pre-dam population levels.

We do have the promise, however, for restored fisheries – a promise that
dates back to the days before Trinity Division legislation was passed in
1955.   And we have every piece of Trinity Division law ever passed to
assure that.

My goal is simple.  I’m a fly fisherman.  I have no economic or any other
interest in Trinity River - none - aside from its restoration.  My purpose
is to see the Trinity River and its fisheries restored in my lifetime.

I founded Friends of Trinity River 11 years ago to ensure involvement and
participation in restoration of the river by non-governmental organizations
and the recreational fishing community.  We were instrumental in
reauthorization of the federal Trinity Restoration Act in 1994 and in adding
to the program’s Task Force representatives of two Native American Tribes,
commercial fishing, sport fishing, and timber.  Later, I was instrumental in
adding irrigator and power representatives to the Trinity Task Force.

Trinity River is the single, the only – the one, single river in the United
States below a federally financed dam that has the opportunity for
significant ecosystem and fishery restoration.

The reasons for this are simple:  promises in the pre-legislative and
legislative history of the Trinity Division, the legislation that created
the Trinity Division and in all subsequent Trinity legislation.  All
reinforce the original promises and legal mandates for fisheries protection
and restoration.  One of those laws requires that fish populations be
restored to pre-dam levels.

An example of the promises is found in the words of Clair Engle, then
congressman from the area and proponent of building Trinity Dam.  He said
his legislation, and I quote, “does not contemplate diversion of one
bucketful of water which is necessary is this watershed."    There were
numerous similar promises.

Then, Trinity Division authorizing legislation provided, and I quote again,
“
the Interior Secretary is authorized and directed to adopt appropriate
measures to insure the preservation and propagation of fish and wildlife
.”
That is the law.  We have consistent promises.  We have consistent law.

About four years after completion of Trinity Dam in 1963, major fishery
declines became obvious.  It was not until 1981, however, that Interior
Secretary Cecil Andrus ordered a modest increase in returns of water to the
river and a 12-year flow study by scientists to determine a flow regime that
would restore fisheries as mandated by law.  In 1992, the Miller/Bradley Act
incorporated the Secretary’s decision and mandated completion and
implementation of the remediation plan by December 1996.

After 20 years of solid scientific evaluation and study, the flow report and
related environmental documentation finally was completed.  In December
2000, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, with the concurrence of the Hoopa
Valley Tribe, signed a decision to provide for sufficient returns of water
to the river and other actions to restore the river’s fisheries.  That
decision would restore fish populations to about 60 percent of pre-dam
levels.  Immediately following the decision, implementation of it was
blocked by litigation, and it remains so.

This issue is not merely a matter of recreational fishing opportunities.
Aside from the transfer of Trinity’s water to the Western San Joaquin
Valley, there also is an ongoing major wealth transfer from the North Coast
to a relative handful of large landowners.  Trinity restoration is critical,
absolutely critical to the economy of the North state.

Unemployment in Trinity and affected counties remains in excess of 20
percent.  From San Francisco Bay to our Northern border, some 17,000 off and
on shore jobs have been lost to the commercial fishing industry alone.
Tourism increases from a restored fishery remains the foundation of a
rejuvenated economy for the entire North Coast area.

Well, what do we ask the Joint Committee to do?

We ask for support to implement the Trinity Record of Decision as soon as
possible.

We ask you not to support a settlement of litigation that would allow
continued destruction of the Trinity Basin.  There have been litigation
settlement proposals, and more settlement proposals.  As stated by the Hoopa
Valley Tribe, "These proposals have failed because they cannot accomplish
the restoration objectives or meet the scientific standards established by
the Congress for the Trinity River."

We ask that California continue as an active participant in the
policy-making entity for restoration, the Trinity Management Council.  The
California position is now vacant.  The TMC is charged with implementing the
Record of Decision, and that needs to be accomplished as quickly as possible
and in a manner that measures and ensures the program’s success.

Finally, as a member of a family that immigrated to California in the 1860s,
and provided me with the unique experiences of a vibrant Trinity River until
the mid-1960s, I ask that you support achieving a restored Trinity in my
lifetime – for me, for my children, for my grandchildren, for you and your
children and grandchildren and for all future generations.

Having lived nearly eight decades in California, the issue gets down to
this:

Is our legacy to be a partially restored irreplaceable resource as promised
and legislated?   Or, is it to be within a few decades - largely with the
Trinity’s water - a 950 thousand acre Western San Joaquin Valley Superfund
site?

Thank you very much.

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

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