[env-trinity] Eureka Times Standard Trinity Editorial

[Byron]

TRINITY RESTORATION:

Editorial: Trinity restoration: Promises should be kept

Eureka Times Standard - 12/13/07

 

History holds many lessons for us, and current efforts to force the federal
government to honor its financial commitment to a healthy Trinity River
conjure up many of them. 

 

The U. S. push westward left behind it many broken treaties with Indian
tribes, such as the 1877 seizure of the Black Hills of South Dakota (yes,
home of the noble monument at Mount Rushmore), despite a treaty that
recognized the Sioux Nation as owner in perpetuity. 

 

In southeastern California's Owens Valley, the 1920s "water wars" pitted
valley farmers against the city of Los Angeles, which coveted the rural
area's water for itself. Once verdant, the Owens Valley now features a
dried-up lake and alkali dust storms. (This tragedy was immortalized in the
movie "Chinatown".) 

 

Also in the 1920s, in northern California, the Hetch Hetchy Valley -- said
to be even more beautiful than Yosemite Valley -- was dammed and filled with
water to provide a reservoir for San Francisco, despite protests by John
Muir and other early environmentalists. 

 

Even closer to home in 1964, the Lewiston Dam began diverting Trinity River
water to the Central Valley. The Bureau of Reclamation promised Congress
that 45 percent of the water would stay in the Trinity to sustain its
abundant salmon and steelhead populations. 

 

That turned out to be a lie. Up to 90 percent of the flow was sent south.
Not only did this have a tragic effect on the Trinity itself, depleting the
fishery by 80 percent, but the Trinity is the only Klamath River tributary
producing harvestable quantities of endangered species of salmon. The
Klamath, in turn, is an economic lifeline for native people as well as for
commercial and sport fishermen for 900 miles along the California and Oregon
coast. 

 

Then in 1992, Congress approved a law to fix rivers damaged by excess water
diversion. In 2000, Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed a
so-called "Record of Decision," promising to fund the restoration of the
Trinity's water levels and the riverbed. But soon George Bush came into
office, and his administration began dragging its feet, despite a 2002
decision by the federal courts upholding the commitment. 

 

Today, the Trinity agreement is five years behind schedule and receiving
only half its annual funding, $8 million. Yet fulfilling a promise to the
Trinity seems much cheaper that the recent payout of $60 million in federal
aid to fishermen and businesses devastated by the 2006 salmon season
failure. 

 

That's why North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson is seeking the passage of a
bill, HR 2733, mandating that the Bureau of Reclamation do what it promised
to do. BOR Director Robert Johnson has made it clear that he won't do it
willingly, opposing the bill because it "reduces the discretion of the
executive branch." That's why we support HR 2733, because that's what it
will take. 

 

Remember the desolate Owens Valley? In 1997, Inyo County, Los Angeles,
farmers and environmentalists signed a "Memorandum of Understanding" laying
out how the lower Owens River would be rewatered by June 2003. They're still
waiting.

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Friends of Trinity River, Chair

California Trout, Inc., Advisor

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810

415 383 9562 fax

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary)

http://www.fotr.org

http://www.caltrout.org

 

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