From danielbacher at fishsniffer.com Thu Jan 3 10:07:48 2008 From: danielbacher at fishsniffer.com (Dan Bacher) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 10:07:48 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Select Sportfishing Panel to Discuss "The Plight of our Fisheries" at San Mateo & Sacramento ISE Shows In-Reply-To: References: <000801c843d7$4a8096f0$0201a8c0@richard2vkoxza> Message-ID: P R E S S A D V I S O R Y SPORTFISHING COALITION CALLS FOR ACTION For Immediate Release: December 30, 2007 Contact: Sep Hendrickson (707) 449-8413 Select Sportfishing Panel to Discuss ?The Plight of our Fisheries? Press Conference Will Detail Plans For Action WHAT: An expert panel of Sport Fishermen will discuss the state of the fishery crisis in Northern California and steps that fishermen, the fishing industry and fishing groups can take to turn around the disastrous declines. The top priorities are the restoration of the San Francisco Bay Delta and the Klamath River and their impact on Striped Bass, Salmon and Steelhead. WHERE: The International Sportsmen?s Exposition San Mateo Show San Mateo Fairgrounds, Sportfishing Theater WHEN: Saturday January 12, 2008 at 1:00 PM. and The International Sportsmen?s Exposition Sacramento Show Cal Expo Fairgrounds, California Sportsman Theater WHEN: Saturday January 19, 2008 at 1:00 PM. WHO: Introductions, Sep Hendrickson, California Sportsmen Moderator, Mike Aughney, USA Fishing.com SPEAKERS: Dan Bacher, The Fish Sniffer State and Federal Water Mismanagement ? Who, What and the Results John Beuttler, Director of Conservation, Calif. Sportfishing Protection Alliance Restoring Delta Fisheries ? How and When Assemblymember Lois Wolk, Chair, Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee (at Sacramento ISE) The Legislative Outlook and What Anglers Need to Do Jim Martin, Former Chief of Fisheries, State of Oregon The Klamath River - The Problem, State of the Fishery and Actions Needed Dick Pool, Pro-Troll Fishing Products How We Can Win ? Grassroots Political Action through Water4Fish.org # # # ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Flyer Fisheries Plight.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 307909 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Mon Jan 7 11:40:19 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 11:40:19 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Retirement of Ed Solbos, Recruitment for RIG Branch Chief Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C5D5@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Good morning and Happy New Year, I had intended to make this announcement at tomorrow's TMC meeting, but since the weather reports are creating some uncertainty about travel plans and the vacancy announcement is opening today, I am sharing this very personal message in a less personal format than I'd prefer. Ed Solbos will be retiring on May 3, 2008. The two of us have been discussing this for the past several months, and just before the holidays Ed was able to pin down the exact date. While I am extremely happy for Ed and Sandy, and wish them all the best, this will be a real challenge for us to find a replacement who comes anywhere close in terms of knowledge, experience, and passion for the Trinity. We will be making plans for a proper celebration later this spring and we can give Ed the roasting and recognition that he deserves at that time. More details in coming months. I am advertising this position beginning today and closing Friday, February 1, in order to give us the best possible chance of having the replacement in place 3-4 weeks before Ed leaves. This transition period will be extremely valuable as we enter the new construction season. The position is being advertised internally (current federal employees) and externally (non-feds who otherwise qualify). The vacancy announcements are posted on USAJobs at http://www.usajobs.gov/; search for BR-MP-2008-001 (internal) and BR-MP-2008-002 (external). This information will also be posted at our website www.trrp.net in the next few days, but the applications must be submitted electronically through USAJobs. I would appreciate your assistance in giving this job opportunity the widest possible distribution through your own networks and personal contacts. Feel free to have any potential applicants call me directly with any questions. thank you, Doug ___________________________________ Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director Trinity River Restoration Program P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. Weaverville, CA 96093 (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov ___________________________________ From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 8 07:32:52 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 07:32:52 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Weather/Travel Info Message-ID: <011001c8520b$bc547a70$c6653940@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Schleusner" To: "Steve Anderson" ; "James Spear" ; "James Feider" ; "Byron Leydecker" ; "Larry Hanson" ; "Mike Berry" ; ; "Sharon Heywood" ; ; "Joe Polos" ; ; "Mike Orcutt" ; "George Kautsky" ; "Joan Hartman" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Brandt Gutermuth" ; "Brian Person" ; "Diana Clifton" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Deanna Jackson" ; "Don Reck" ; "Doug Schleusner" ; "Ed Solbos" ; "John Klochak" ; "Joe Riess" ; "Nina Hemphill" ; "Priscilla Davee" ; "Rod Wittler" ; "Elizabeth Soderstrom" ; "Edgar Duggan" ; ; "Rick Rogers" ; "Tom Weseloh" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Tim Hayden" ; "Richard Lorenz" ; "Dana Hord" ; "Dan Haycox" ; "Serge Birk" ; "Pat Frost - TCRCD" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Roger Jaegel" ; "David Steinhauser" ; "Teresa Connor" ; "Dave Hillemeier" Cc: "Steve Rothert" ; "Francis Berg" ; "Elizabeth Hadley" ; "Steve Turek" ; "Ann Hayden" ; "Loren Everest" ; "Sherri Miller" ; "Hetrick, Nick" ; "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Robert Franklin" ; ; "Margaret Tauzer" ; "Joe Neill" ; "Howard Freeman" ; "joshua allen" ; "Curtis Anderson" ; "Jeff Morris" Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 7:16 AM Subject: Weather/Travel Info > ** High Priority ** > > SR 299 [IN THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AREA] > > CHAINS ARE REQUIRED ON ALL VEHICLES EXCEPT 4-WHEEL-DRIVE VEHICLES WITH > SNOW TIRES ON ALL 4 WHEELS FROM 1 MI EAST OF JUNCTION CITY TO > WEAVERVILLE (TRINITY CO)/OREGON MTN SUMMIT > > CHAINS ARE REQUIRED ON ALL VEHICLES EXCEPT 4-WHEEL-DRIVE VEHICLES WITH > SNOW TIRES ON ALL 4 WHEELS FROM WEAVERVILLE (TRINITY CO) TO 19 MI WEST > OF REDDING (SHASTA CO) /BUCKHORN SUMMIT/ > > Weaverville schools are closed. > > Weather Underground forecast > Snow and rain in the morning...then snow and rain showers in the late > morning and afternoon. Snow level 2000 feet early...rising to 3000 feet. > Snow accumulations of 1 to 3 inches between 2000 and 3000 feet...with 5 > to 7 inches above 3000 feet highs 34 to 44. > > Area forecast discussion > National Weather Service Eureka California > 438 am PST Tuesday Jan 8 2008 > Locally lower snow levels remain a concern for the valleys in eastern > Humboldt and Trinity counties. Warm air advection has wrangled a bit of > a foothold across many of the RAWS sites in Trinity County with > temperatures having bottomed out a few degrees above freezing below > about 2500 feet. With lighter quantitative precipitation forecast > amounts expected...a Snow Advisory still is the best course of action > for the upper Trinity zone. Snow levels are expected to rise to around > 3000 feet later today...though wouldn't be surprised to see a few > sheltered spots > remain lower. > > > ___________________________________ > > Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director > Trinity River Restoration Program > P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. > Weaverville, CA 96093 > (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 > e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov > ___________________________________ > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 8 07:33:07 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 07:33:07 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Weather Delay for TMC Meeting Message-ID: <011501c8520b$c4f2e630$c6653940@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Schleusner" To: "Steve Anderson" ; "James Spear" ; "James Feider" ; "Byron Leydecker" ; "Larry Hanson" ; "Mike Berry" ; ; "Sharon Heywood" ; ; "Joe Polos" ; ; "Mike Orcutt" ; "George Kautsky" ; "Joan Hartman" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Brandt Gutermuth" ; "Brian Person" ; "Diana Clifton" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Deanna Jackson" ; "Don Reck" ; "Doug Schleusner" ; "Ed Solbos" ; "John Klochak" ; "Joe Riess" ; "Nina Hemphill" ; "Priscilla Davee" ; "Rod Wittler" ; "Elizabeth Soderstrom" ; "Edgar Duggan" ; ; "Rick Rogers" ; "Tom Weseloh" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Tim Hayden" ; "Richard Lorenz" ; "Dana Hord" ; "Dan Haycox" ; "Serge Birk" ; "Pat Frost - TCRCD" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Roger Jaegel" ; "David Steinhauser" ; "Teresa Connor" ; "Dave Hillemeier" Cc: "Steve Rothert" ; "Francis Berg" ; "Elizabeth Hadley" ; "Steve Turek" ; "Ann Hayden" ; "Loren Everest" ; "Sherri Miller" ; "Hetrick, Nick" ; "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Robert Franklin" ; ; "Margaret Tauzer" ; "Joe Neill" ; "Howard Freeman" ; "joshua allen" ; "Curtis Anderson" ; "Jeff Morris" Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 7:05 AM Subject: Weather Delay for TMC Meeting > ** High Priority ** > > We have 4-8" of snow in Weaverville and still snowing heavily at 7:00 > a.m. > Spoke with Mike Long at 6:30, Hwy 299 has chain controls both ways and > at least one accident. > We will initially delay the start time from 9:30 to 1:00 p.m. > Around mid-morning he and I will talk again and decide whether or not > to delay until tomorrow (Wednesday) and make it a one-day meeting. > More weather/travel info to follow shortly. > Remember - safety is our first concern! > ds > > ___________________________________ > > Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director > Trinity River Restoration Program > P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. > Weaverville, CA 96093 > (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 > e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov > ___________________________________ > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 8 10:24:33 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:24:33 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: TMC Meeting/Weather Update Message-ID: <015801c85223$bcec39b0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Schleusner" To: "Steve Anderson" ; "James Spear" ; "James Feider" ; "Byron Leydecker" ; "Larry Hanson" ; "Mike Berry" ; ; "Sharon Heywood" ; ; "Joe Polos" ; ; "Mike Orcutt" ; "George Kautsky" ; "Joan Hartman" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Brandt Gutermuth" ; "Brian Person" ; "Diana Clifton" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Deanna Jackson" ; "Don Reck" ; "Doug Schleusner" ; "Ed Solbos" ; "John Klochak" ; "Joe Riess" ; "Nina Hemphill" ; "Priscilla Davee" ; "Rod Wittler" ; "Elizabeth Soderstrom" ; "Edgar Duggan" ; ; "Rick Rogers" ; "Tom Weseloh" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Tim Hayden" ; "Richard Lorenz" ; "Dana Hord" ; "Dan Haycox" ; "Serge Birk" ; "Pat Frost - TCRCD" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Roger Jaegel" ; "David Steinhauser" ; "Teresa Connor" ; "Dave Hillemeier" Cc: "Steve Rothert" ; "Francis Berg" ; "Elizabeth Hadley" ; "Steve Turek" ; "Ann Hayden" ; "Loren Everest" ; "Sherri Miller" ; "Hetrick, Nick" ; "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Robert Franklin" ; ; "Margaret Tauzer" ; "Joe Neill" ; "Howard Freeman" ; "joshua allen" ; "Curtis Anderson" ; "Jeff Morris" Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 10:16 AM Subject: TMC Meeting/Weather Update > ** High Priority ** > > Good morning, > > I just spoke with Mike Long a few minutes ago, and we've decided to > cancel today's TMC meeting, but based on current weather reports > tomorrow's weather should be better and we will proceed with a revised > one-day agenda - starting at 8:30 a.m. I will send that out a little > later today. We recommend that if possible, you out-of-towners plan to > arrive in Weaverville this afternoon/evening when there is supposed to > be an improvement in the weather. > > Oregon Mountain is currently closed to trucks, and chains/snow tires > are required from Junction City through Weaverville to Buckhorn Summit. > We've experienced a few power "flickers" but are still on, although some > outlying areas have lost electricity. > > I apologize for the uncertainty and inconvenience, but we definitely > don't want anyone stuck, injured, or overly stressed out trying to make > a meeting with these weather/road conditions. > > We'll keep you posted on local conditions, but otherwise plan to see > you tomorrow morning. > > thanks, > Doug > > > ___________________________________ > > Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director > Trinity River Restoration Program > P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. > Weaverville, CA 96093 > (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 > e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov > ___________________________________ > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 8 11:20:51 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 11:20:51 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Latest Weather Advisory Message-ID: <018401c8522b$96bc66e0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Schleusner" To: "Steve Anderson" ; "James Spear" ; "James Feider" ; "Byron Leydecker" ; "Larry Hanson" ; "Mike Berry" ; ; "Sharon Heywood" ; ; "Joe Polos" ; ; "Mike Orcutt" ; "George Kautsky" ; "Joan Hartman" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Brandt Gutermuth" ; "Brian Person" ; "Diana Clifton" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Deanna Jackson" ; "Don Reck" ; "Doug Schleusner" ; "Ed Solbos" ; "John Klochak" ; "Joe Riess" ; "Nina Hemphill" ; "Priscilla Davee" ; "Rod Wittler" ; "Elizabeth Soderstrom" ; "Edgar Duggan" ; ; "Rick Rogers" ; "Tom Weseloh" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Tim Hayden" ; "Richard Lorenz" ; "Dana Hord" ; "Dan Haycox" ; "Serge Birk" ; "Pat Frost - TCRCD" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Roger Jaegel" ; "David Steinhauser" ; "Teresa Connor" ; "Dave Hillemeier" Cc: "Steve Rothert" ; "Francis Berg" ; "Elizabeth Hadley" ; "Steve Turek" ; "Ann Hayden" ; "Loren Everest" ; "Sherri Miller" ; "Hetrick, Nick" ; "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Robert Franklin" ; ; "Margaret Tauzer" ; "Joe Neill" ; "Howard Freeman" ; "joshua allen" ; "Curtis Anderson" ; "Jeff Morris" Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 11:16 AM Subject: Latest Weather Advisory > NWS Statement as of 11:00 AM PST on January 08, 2008 > > ... Heavy Snow Warning in effect until 6 PM PST this afternoon... > > The National Weather Service in Eureka has issued a Heavy Snow > Warning... which is in effect until 6 PM PST this afternoon. The > Snow Advisory is no longer in effect. > > Moderate to heavy snow will continue through the afternoon in > Trinity County. Total snow accumulations of 4 to 8 inches are > expected at 2500 feet... with lesser accumulations on the valley > floors. Between 10 and 12 inches of new snow will fall above 3500 > feet elevation. > > Travel along highways 299 and 36 will be very hazardous and > motorists are encouraged to postpone travel until weather and Road > conditions improve tomorrow. > > A Heavy Snow Warning means severe winter weather conditions are > expected or occurring. Significant amounts of snow are forecast > that will make travel dangerous. Only travel in an emergency. If > you must travel... keep an extra flashlight... food... and water in > your vehicle in case of an emergency. > > > ___________________________________ > > Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director > Trinity River Restoration Program > P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. > Weaverville, CA 96093 > (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 > e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov > ___________________________________ > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 8 16:58:26 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (tstokely at trinityalps.net) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 19:58:26 -0500 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: Revised TMC Agenda, Conf. Call Info, Handouts Message-ID: <380-2200813905826517@M2W002.mail2web.com> Original Message: ----------------- From: Doug Schleusner DSCHLEUSNER at mp.usbr.gov Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:30:04 -0800 To: s1anders at blm.gov, Jim.Spear at ca.usda.gov, lchilton at ci.redding.ca.us, bwl3 at comcast.net, LKHanson at dfg.ca.gov, MBerry at dfg.ca.gov, srosekrans at environmentaldefense.org, sheywood at fs.fed.us, wbrock at fs.fed.us, Joe_Polos at fws.gov, michael_long at fws.gov, director at hoopa-nsn.gov, Hupafish at hoopa-nsn.gov, jrhartmann at impulse.net, AKRAUSE at mp.usbr.gov, BGUTERMUTH at mp.usbr.gov, BPerson at mp.usbr.gov, DCLIFTON at mp.usbr.gov, DGAEUMAN at mp.usbr.gov, DLJACKSON at mp.usbr.gov, DRECK at mp.usbr.gov, DSCHLEUSNER at mp.usbr.gov, ESOLBOS at mp.usbr.gov, JKLOCHAK at mp.usbr.gov, JRIESS at mp.usbr.gov, NHEMPHILL at mp.usbr.gov, PDAVEE at mp.usbr.gov, RJWITTLER at mp.usbr.gov, esoderstrom at n-h-i.org, yen2fish at netzero.net, irma.lagomarsino at noaa.gov, rick.rogers at noaa.gov, caltrout at sbcglobal.net, awhitridge at snowcrest.net, hayden at snowcrest.net, rlorenz at snowcrest.net, splash at snowcrest.net, tsh at snowcrest.net, sergebirk at starband.net, pfrost at tcrcd.net, tstokely at trinityalps.net, rjaegel at trinitycounty.org, splash at trinityriverrafting.com, connor at water.ca.gov, dhillemeier at yuroktribe.nsn.us, srothert at americanrivers.org, francis_berg at ca.blm.gov, ehadley at ci.redding.ca.us, STurek at dfg.ca.gov, ahayden at environmentaldefense.org, leverest at fs.fed.us, smiller02 at fs.fed.us, nick_hetrick at fws.gov, abbstock at gmail.com, fishwater at hoopa-nsn.gov, Scott at mcbaintrush.com, margaret.tauzer at noaa.gov, joensuz at thegrid.net, hfreeman at trinitycounty.org, jallen at trinitycounty.org, curtisa at water.ca.gov, jeff at weavervilleinfo.com Subject: Revised TMC Agenda, Conf. Call Info, Handouts Good afternoon, After 8 hours of uncertainty and a great deal of exercise in the art of flexibility, this is to confirm that we are having a "blended" one day TMC meeting tomorrow. Several of the TMC Principals are already in town and plan to spend the night here. Others have informed me they plan to drive up in the morning, while several others have understandably requested conference call capabilities. The call-in information is as follows: Phone number: 1-888-282-0174 Pass code: 38545 Leader's Name: Scott Nolan (fyi - Call Center Manager who reserved this) As of 3:00 p.m. today, chain controls are still on for Buckhorn, but not for Oregon Mountain. Forecasts call for diminishing precip this evening and tomorrow, still with the possibility of snow showers above 4000 ft. and another (smaller/warmer) front possibly moving through on Wednesday night. Please check NWS and CalTrans websites for the latest info tomorrow morning before deciding whether to make the trip to Weaverville. For those of you unable to be present in person, I have attached the handouts we are likely to be using. There are quite a few, and I've tried to attach at least most of them in the order they will occur in the agenda. Given the dispersed nature of the participants, and the compressed set of agenda topics, Mike Long and I request your patience and an extra effort to follow basic rules of conference call etiquette. He will probably be using the "round robin" approach that has been reasonably successful in the past, where each TMC Principal will be given the chance to make a statement. Following that the Chair typically calls on the TAMWG Chair, and then asks if any other participants would like to speak. This will be a challenge with some of the agenda topics, but I'm confident that we will later view this meeting/call as having been valuable and effective. Thank you, Doug ___________________________________ Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director Trinity River Restoration Program P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. Weaverville, CA 96093 (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov ___________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com ? What can On Demand Business Solutions do for you? http://link.mail2web.com/Business/SharePoint -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: TMC Agenda_draft_08Jan_v2.doc Type: application/octet-stream Size: 52736 bytes Desc: TMC Agenda_draft_08Jan_v2.doc URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: Directors_Report_Jan_2008.doc Type: application/octet-stream Size: 134656 bytes Desc: Directors_Report_Jan_2008.doc URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Jan 14 11:35:00 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:35:00 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: January 23 Watershed Council Meeting Message-ID: <009501c856e4$b103af00$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Cousins" To: Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 8:13 AM Subject: January Watershed Council Meeting > Our meeting is scheduled for the 23rd of January at the Trinity County > PUD office at 2 pm. > I will get an agenda out on Monday afternoon, the main topic of > discussion will be a project list to present to the TMC meeting > scheduled for the 25th... > Please start getting projects ready for that discussion > > Thanks and see you then > > Alex > > > > > -- > Alex Cousins > Trinity County RCD > PO Box 1450 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > > 530-623-6004 (office) > 530-623-6006 (fax) > acousins at tcrcd.net > www.tcrcd.net > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 15 10:02:46 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:02:46 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Drought persists despite heavy snow Message-ID: <006f01c857a0$d60d7850$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER CONDITIONS: Drought persists despite heavy snow Lassen County Times ? 1/15/08 Jan. 15, 2008 ? Despite two feet or more of snow on the ground in some places, Lassen, Plumas, Modoc, and four other counties are still suffering a drought disaster. The new snow did not impact drought conditions, such as ?continued low reservoirs, below-average mountain snowpack, and long-term precipitation deficits,? according to the U.S. Drought Monitor Web site at drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html. The Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Small Business Administration declared a drought in Lassen, Plumas, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama and Trinity counties. The disaster declaration for Shasta and contiguous counties was based on agricultural losses beginning Jan. 1, 2007. ?With both those declarations in place, it does free up small-business loans and some other things that are available through the federal system that normally wouldn?t be available,? said Lassen County Office of Emergency Services Chief Chip Jackson. ?Through the secretary of agriculture?s declaration, I believe, it allows for crop losses and a lot of other things.? Farmers and ranchers who conduct family-sized operations can apply through July 16, 2008, for emergency loans of up to $500,000 for actual losses as a direct result of the disaster. That?s eight months after the two federal agencies declared the drought on Nov. 16, 2007. The loans will be available at an interest rate of 3.75 percent. Applicants may contact the local Farm Service Agency on Russell Avenue in Susanville at 257-7272 or online at fsa.usda.gov/pas/disaster/assistanc1.htm. Since the secretary of agriculture and the SBA declared the drought, only the two federal agencies can say when the drought is over. ?They won?t even look at it until spring,? Jackson said. Federal officials will evaluate all the rainfall and snowfall totals reported by local agriculture departments and take into account the water content in the snow, he said. Until then, farmers and ranchers may apply for the loans. ?They?re still eligible if they?re ag related (losses) because the crop damages have already happened from last season,? Jackson said. Small, nonfarm companies that do business directly with growers and producers, such as truckers and agricultural equipment or service providers, and small agricultural cooperatives may apply for SBA economic-injury disaster loans. To apply, contact SBA at 800-659-2955 or visit the agency?s Web site at sba.gov/services/disasterassistance. Jackson summarized the drought declarations for the Lassen County Board of Supervisors at its Dec. 11 meeting. The board got drought information in May from Lassen National Forest Fire Chief Lorene Duffey. ?Where we?re doing snow surveys, in some cases there isn?t any snow to survey,? Duffey told the board at its meeting on May 15, 2007. She reported the drought severity index found eastern Lassen County in severe drought and found moderate drought in the west. In the spring of 2007, the State Water Project estimated the snowpack ranged from 29 percent of average to 46 percent of the normal statewide average ? its lowest level in since 1989. However, the California Department of Water Resources announced no water shortages in the summer of 2007, because reservoirs and groundwater basins were full from the winter of 2005-2006, the fifth-wettest on record in Northern California, according to the Sacramento Bee. # http://www.lassennews.com/News_Story.edi?sid=4513&mode=thread&order=0 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 15 10:10:55 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:10:55 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Project Concept Form and TRRP Funding Criteria for Watershed Council Meeting Message-ID: <007a01c857a1$f93d6280$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Attached is a Trinity River Watershed Council Project Concept Form and the TRRP Funding Criteria for Watersheds. These documents should be used by folks who are preparing project proposals for the January 23, 2008 Watershed Council meeting. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1351, Press 2-2-1 FAX 623-1353 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: TRWC Project Concept Form.doc Type: application/msword Size: 91648 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: TRRP Funding Criteria for Watersheds.doc Type: application/msword Size: 24064 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Jan 15 18:33:39 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:33:39 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Hoopa Valley Tribe Klamath Press Release Message-ID: Media Contacts: Clifford Lyle Marshall (530) 625-4211 ext. 161 Mike Orcutt (530) 625-4267 ext. 13 Tom Schlosser (206) 386-5200 HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE REJECTS KLAMATH RIVER DEAL BECAUSE IT LACKS ASSURED WATER FOR FISH Hoopa, Calif. - The Hoopa Valley Tribe of northern California will not endorse the latest draft of the Klamath River Basin Restoration Agreement (KRBRA) because the agreement lacks adequate water assurances for fish. Despite being in the minority among the negotiators, Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall said Hoopa would never waive its fishery-based water rights, as demanded by federal and other negotiators, in a deal providing no assurances for fisheries restoration. "What began as dam removal negotiations got turned into a water deal. PacifiCorp left the room two years ago and negotiations with the company have since been separate from this negotiation. The terms of this so-called restoration agreement make the right to divert water for irrigation the top priority, trumping salmon water needs and the best available science on the river," Marshall said. "Such an upside down deal threatens the goal of restoration and the Hoopa Tribe's fishing rights," Hoopa Councilman Joe LeMieux said. "We cannot waive the rights of generations to come. Dangling a carrot like this will not work for Hoopa." The Hoopa objections come after three years of negotiations with farm irrigators, environmental and fishing groups, government agencies, counties, and other tribes. The Tribe has been a leading advocate to protect water rights and fish habitat in the Klamath and Trinity rivers that run through their reservation. "We have worked for years with all the parties to forge an agreement that genuinely restores Klamath River salmon habitat. Unfortunately, this deal locks away too much water for irrigators with no recourse for salmon when the fish need more water. Salmon need enough water, plain and simple," he said. Marshall said the proposed billion dollar deal altogether ignores the National Academy of Science's recommendations in its November 2007 report on the U.S. - contracted Hardy Phase II Instream Flow Assessment in the Klamath River. Congressional members have urged the use of the Hardy Report to protect coho salmon from jeopardy. Marshall said the deal also dismisses the only independent scientific reviews of the agreement itself. "This latest draft is not a modern science-based river restoration plan. It looks more like an old West irrigation deal, guarantees for irrigators, empty promises for the Indians." The Tribal Chairman also said that agreement proponents talk about helping the river's fish, but no real fisheries restoration objectives, standards, or assurances are in the agreement. "Some parties seem to think there's no other way to remove the dams. The declining fish population tells us the river is being compromised to death. Hoopa will retain its rights to defend the Klamath. We will work with any and all parties to remove the dams and assure a restored healthy river." ### Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair California Trout, Inc., Advisor PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org http://www.fotr.org http://www.caltrout.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From TBedros765 at aol.com Tue Jan 15 16:41:39 2008 From: TBedros765 at aol.com (TBedros765 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:41:39 EST Subject: [env-trinity] Hoopa Rejects Klamath Deal Message-ID: Media Contacts: Clifford Lyle Marshall (530) 625-4211 ext. 161 Mike Orcutt (530) 625-4267 ext. 13 Tom Schlosser (206) 386-5200 HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE REJECTS KLAMATH RIVER DEAL BECAUSE IT LACKS ASSURED WATER FOR FISH Hoopa, Calif. ? The Hoopa Valley Tribe of northern California will not endorse the latest draft of the Klamath River Basin Restoration Agreement (KRBRA) because the agreement lacks adequate water assurances for fish. Despite being in the minority among the negotiators, Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall said Hoopa would never waive its fishery-based water rights, as demanded by federal and other negotiators, in a deal providing no assurances for fisheries restoration. ?What began as dam removal negotiations got turned into a water deal. PacifiCorp left the room two years ago and negotiations with the company have since been separate from this negotiation. The terms of this so-called restoration agreement make the right to divert water for irrigation the top priority, trumping salmon water needs and the best available science on the river,? Marshall said. ?Such an upside down deal threatens the goal of restoration and the Hoopa Tribe?s fishing rights,? Hoopa Councilman Joe LeMieux said. ?We cannot waive the rights of generations to come. Dangling a carrot like this will not work for Hoopa.? The Hoopa objections come after three years of negotiations with farm irrigators, environmental and fishing groups, government agencies, counties, and other tribes. The Tribe has been a leading advocate to protect water rights and fish habitat in the Klamath and Trinity rivers that run through their reservation. ?We have worked for years with all the parties to forge an agreement that genuinely restores Klamath River salmon habitat. Unfortunately, this deal locks away too much water for irrigators with no recourse for salmon when the fish need more water. Salmon need enough water, plain and simple,? he said. Marshall said the proposed billion dollar deal altogether ignores the National Academy of Science?s recommendations in its November 2007 report on the U.S. - contracted Hardy Phase II Instream Flow Assessment in the Klamath River. Congressional members have urged the use of the Hardy Report to protect coho salmon from jeopardy. Marshall said the deal also dismisses the only independent scientific reviews of the agreement itself. ?This latest draft is not a modern science-based river restoration plan. It looks more like an old West irrigation deal, guarantees for irrigators, empty promises for the Indians.? The Tribal Chairman also said that agreement proponents talk about helping the river?s fish, but no real fisheries restoration objectives, standards, or assurances are in the agreement. ?Some parties seem to think there?s no other way to remove the dams. The declining fish population tells us the river is being compromised to death. Hoopa will retain its rights to defend the Klamath. We will work with any and all parties to remove the dams and assure a restored healthy river.? ### **************Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape. http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jan 16 13:34:30 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:34:30 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] News on Proposed Klamath Settlement Message-ID: <009e01c85891$98c6b280$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> If anybody has any additional information on this issue, please send it to me for posting, or post it to env-trinity at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us This is an important issue for the Trinity River in terms of both funding and water for fish. As we have all seen in the past, issues on the Klamath River do affect its largest tributary, the Trinity River. I have not yet read enough of the information to make up my own mind about this issue. Respectfully submimtted, Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1351, Press 2-2-1 FAX 623-1353 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org Department of Water Resources California Water News A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment January 16, 2008 5. Agencies, Programs, People KLAMATH RIVER AGREEMENT: Deal on Dams on Klamath Advances - New Work Times Groups Offer Plan to Help Oregon Salmon - Associated Press Klamath water deal reached; Tribes, farmers and others draw up a plan to remove dams and revive dwindling salmon populations - Los Angeles Times Tentative Klamath deal reached; But it hinges on removal of four dams by a utility not included in the talks - Sacramento Bee Klamath River pact out of the gate - Eureka Times Standard Klamath dams may go; Basin stakeholders reach agreement to remove 4 barriers - Redding Record Searchlight KLAMATH RIVER AGREEMENT: Deal on Dams on Klamath Advances New Work Times - 1/16/08 By Felicity Barringer, staff writer Bitter opponents over the future of the Klamath River unveiled a formal agreement on Tuesday to pave the way for removal of four aging hydroelectric dams that re-engineered the watershed and sharply decreased fish stocks. The decades-old disputes between advocates for fish and the farmers who are their historic adversaries appeared to dissolve as almost all of 26 user groups, tribes and governments involved backed a plan to allocate the waters of a dam-free river. But the agreement lacks one vital link: a decision by the dams' owner, PacifiCorp Power, to agree to their removal. That decision, a company spokesman said, will not be made unless the financial interests of the company's customers are safeguarded. If the dams came down, more than 300 miles of the Klamath, in northern California and southern Oregon, would be open to fish for the first time in more than 90 years. The removal of the four dams and the restoration efforts would constitute one of the most far-reaching efforts ever to reverse the harm done by human intervention on a river while safeguarding the viability of the towns, industry and agriculture along it. The agreement envisions "one of the most amazing restoration projects in the world," said Steve Thompson, a regional director of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service based in Sacramento. The deal would cost nearly $1 billion over the next decade, federal officials said, but more than half of that could come from money already being spent to mitigate the impact of the dams, which provide enough electricity for about 70,000 households. Arguments remain over who should bear the $120-million cost of taking the dams down - the utility and its 1.6 million customers in six states, or state and federal agencies, or some other entity. The president of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents farmers on 220,000 acres in the Klamath Basin, said the agreement met the farmers' three primary objectives. These, the president, Luther Horsley, said, include having a reliable primary source of water, affordable power for irrigation and insurance that farmers' planting plans will not be disrupted by unexpected new federal wildlife regulations. The agreement comes as federal energy regulators are considering PacifiCorp Power's application for a new 50-year license to operate the dams. The license may not be granted unless the requirements of wildlife protection agencies are met, and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which protects the sharply reduced salmon populations, has said it will agree to the relicensing only if the company builds fish ladders to allow salmon to reach the waters above the dam. By two separate estimates, removing the four Klamath dams would be cheaper than modifying them. The company, which disputes these estimates, is negotiating separately with the various interest groups over the fate of the dams. Paul Vogel, a spokesman for PacifiCorp Power, said, "Fulfilling everyone else's interests doesn't protect our customers." "What we would not allow," Mr. Vogel said, "is for the cost of removal and the cost of replacement power to be totally borne by our customers." PacifiCorp Power is a subsidiary of Mid-American Energy Holdings Company, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The agreement sets out how water will be allocated in wet and dry years (generally the needs of fish take priority) and how those users with lower priority during droughts (largely farmers) may be given additional supplies and new storage capacity in subsequent years. Negotiators for the Hupa Indian tribe and for a second group of farmers have not acceded to the plan. Oregon Wild, an environmental group that was not involved, issued a news release condemning the deal as a $1 billion boondoggle. # http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16klamath.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Groups Offer Plan to Help Oregon Salmon Associated Press - 1/15/08 By Jeff Barnard, staff writer GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - An ambitious deal calling for the removal of four hydroelectric dams to restore struggling salmon runs has been forged among farmers, Indian tribes, fishermen, conservation groups and government agencies battling over scarce water in the region. The plan, announced Tuesday, came after two years of closed-door negotiations and resolved long-standing differences over how to divide Klamath Basin water between a federal irrigation project and fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. The agreement, which would be the largest dam removal project in the nation's history, must be reviewed by federal agencies, including the U.S. Justice Department. The deal would open 300 miles of rivers that have not seen salmon in the past century and restore 60 miles of reservoir to free-flowing river, according to American Rivers, a conservation group. Removal of the Klamath River dams, perhaps as soon as 2015, depends on agreement from their owner, Portland-based utility PacifiCorp, as well as some $400 million in new spending on salmon restoration, primarily from Congress, for a total of $1 billion over 10 years. The plan contains no provision for paying the estimated $180 million to remove the dams, leaving that to PacifiCorp. "What we've come up with is a blueprint for how to solve the Klamath crisis," said Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign coordinator for the Karuk Tribe, which has been working for years to restore dwindling salmon catches that were once key to members' diet and culture. "We wanted to put together a plan that keeps fishing communities whole and farm communities whole," he said. "The only thing standing in the way of where we are today and resolution is Warren Buffett's Klamath dams." PacifiCorp is a unit of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., which is controlled by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. PacifiCorp has previously said it would be willing to remove the dams if its ratepayers don't have to pay. But it has also been pursuing a new 30- or 50-year operating license, which would require it to spend about $300 million to build fish ladders. The dams produce enough power for about 70,000 homes. "It's worth taking a pretty serious look at it," said PacifiCorp spokesman Paul Vogel. "Not being in the room (during negotiations), we don't know whether anyone has seriously represented our customers on our behalf, because our customers have to be protected in this." Steve Thompson, director of the California-Nevada office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, Calif., said the Bush administration has supported the settlement process, but the plan must be reviewed by federal agencies. Thompson added that he knew of no dam removal project in the country that has restored more habitat or would generate more fish, and characterized the $400 million in new spending as a better investment than past disaster relief to farmers and fishermen. Luther Horsley, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents the 1,000 farms on the project, said farmers achieved their goals of predictable irrigation deliveries, affordable power for irrigation pumps, and freedom from future lawsuits over endangered species. Opposition to the agreement is coming from the Hoopa Valley Tribe, based on the Trinity River, which flows into the Klamath below the dams; some farmers who are not part of the Klamath Reclamation Project; and two conservation groups tossed out of the talks last spring, Oregon Wild and WaterWatch. Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild and Robert Hunter of WaterWatch said they were skeptical that the deal could actually produce the extra water salmon need to thrive, or that Congress could come up with the money. They characterized the agreement as a sweetheart deal for the Bush administration to give farmers what they want. Hoopa Chairman Clifford Marshall said the agreement gives irrigation water priority over the needs of salmon and requires the tribe to waive its water rights on behalf of fish, without any hard assurances the dams would come out. "Dangling a carrot like this will not work for Hoopa," he said. The Klamath was once the third most productive salmon river system on the West Coast, but it has declined because of misguided hatchery practices, overfishing, development and the loss of habitat to dams, mining, and logging. Fish returns have become so small that in 2006 commercial salmon fishing had to be nearly shut down off most of Oregon and California, causing a federal disaster declaration. During a drought in 2001, irrigation was shut off to most of the Klamath Reclamation Project to protect threatened suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, the irrigation project's primary reservoir, and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River, the lake's natural outlet. When irrigation was restored in 2002, some 70,000 adult Chinook salmon died in the river from diseases caused by low and warm water. After the commercial fishing collapse in 2006, the governors of Oregon and California called for a summit to find solutions, but it never came off. # http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i4HAakwXZYosUwUCFDwwUj6Fp_fQD8U6M9IG1 Klamath water deal reached; Tribes, farmers and others draw up a plan to remove dams and revive dwindling salmon populations Los Angeles Times - 1/16/08 By Eric Bailey, staff writer SACRAMENTO -- After more than three years of negotiations, a collection of long-quarreling Klamath Basin farmers, fishermen and tribes announced a breakthrough agreement Tuesday that they said could lead to the nation's most extensive dam-removal project. The $1-billion plan proposes to end one of the West's fiercest water wars by reviving the Klamath River's flagging salmon population while ensuring irrigation water and cheap power for farmers in the basin, which straddles the Oregon-California state line. The company that owns the four dams in the basin -- billionaire Warren Buffett's PacifiCorp -- was excluded from negotiations and did not sign on. But participants heralded the hard-fought agreement as a sprawling, basin-wide solution that united factions long at odds over the fate of the troubled river. "Never has the basin been so unified around the necessity for removal of those dams," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Assns. Two environmental groups and a Northern California tribe balked at the blueprint, calling it a Bush administration sellout to agribusiness allies. Clifford Lyle Marshall, chairman of the holdout Hoopa Valley Tribe, said the proposal favors farmers over the river's fish and labeled it "an Old West irrigation deal: guarantees for irrigators, empty promises for the Indians." "The ironic thing is there's not even dam removal in this dam-removal deal," said Bob Hunter of WaterWatch of Oregon, one of the two dissenting environmental groups, both of which were excluded from the negotiations last year. "It seems they released it now because time is running out for the Bush administration to deliver to its political allies in the Klamath farm community." PacifiCorp officials also took exception to the proposal. Paul Vogel, a PacifiCorp spokesman, said the company initiated the talks as part of its bid for a new federal operating license for the dams. But he said PacifiCorp was "shut out of the room" for most of the last year as the final plan was cobbled together by more than two dozen state, federal and local government agencies, tribes and other groups. "You really have to question if there's enough substance there to be worth the paper it's printed on," he said. The federal government's chief negotiator at the talks, Steve Thompson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he participated free of political influence from the White House and continues to hold out hope that PacifiCorp will sign on to the proposal in coming weeks. But critics, including Hunter, suggested that the deal could prompt PacifiCorp to lay its money on winning renewal from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The commission is expected to follow the lead of U.S. wildlife agencies, which have required the company to build fish ladders over the dams. Those ladders could cost up to $300 million and might not work. Several studies suggest it would be cheaper for the company to demolish the dams and find alternative power. The Klamath River Basin has been an epicenter of the fight over dwindling water in the West for a decade. In the drought year of 2001, worries about endangered fish prompted the federal government to cut back water to farmers, igniting a heated summerlong protest. The next year farmers won more water, but environmentalists blamed a cutback in river flows for the death of 70,000 salmon. By 2006, the river's chinook salmon population had declined so much that federal officials sharply cut back the commercial fishing season, spreading dismay to coastal communities. At the same time, those representing the Klamath region's competing interests began trying to settle their differences behind closed doors. Meeting roughly once a month, they quarreled in secret but slowly reached the consensus that yielded the final draft released Tuesday. Farmers won the three prime concessions they had sought. The agreement establishes water deliveries they can live with: more in wet years, less in dry. It provides $40 million toward subsidized power to run irrigation pumps and develop renewable energy to replace the electricity they now get from PacifiCorp's hydropower dams. And it assuages their concerns that the reappearance of endangered salmon won't end up shutting down farms in the upper basin "if and when the fish get up here," said Greg Addington of the Klamath Water Users Assn. Steve Rothert of American Rivers, one of several environmental groups that endorsed the deal, said he was confident that even with guaranteed water for farming, the agreement guarantees adequate flows in the river to help salmon rebound. "We are on the cusp of ending decades-long disputes and charting a better future for farmers, tribes, fishermen and all the communities that depend on a healthy Klamath River," he said. The dissenting environmental groups disagree, saying the agreement cements promises to farmers that in dry years could rob the river of water needed to sustain the salmon and other fish. "What began as an effort to help salmon and remove dams has turned into a plan to farm American taxpayers," said Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild, the other dissenting group. He said the plan also institutionalizes "large-scale commercial agriculture" on 22,000 acres in Klamath wildlife refuges, which his group has fought to see reserved just for birds. The plan goes far beyond fixing the river. It calls, for instance, for the purchase of a 90,000-acre tract for the Klamath Tribes of Oregon for use as a reservation. # http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-klamath16jan16,1,6366227.story?coll=la-headlines-california Tentative Klamath deal reached; But it hinges on removal of four dams by a utility not included in the talks Sacramento Bee - 1/16/08 By David Whitney, staff writer WASHINGTON - An agreement to restore the Klamath River so that it would once again teem with salmon was unveiled Tuesday, but it lacked one crucial element - removal of four hydroelectric dams that have slowed its waters and helped breed fish-killing disease. The $950 million deal would double spending on the sick river system over the next decade and give Klamath basin farmers in southern Oregon guaranteed irrigation water while also sending more water downriver to support fish runs. Advocates said the deal is contingent upon separate negotiations with Portland-based PacifiCorp to dismantle the dams, which would free water to replenish the river system. But the utility could not say how seriously it is considering doing that. Federal regulators are in the last stages of relicensing the dams for another 50 years. PacifiCorp spokesman Paul Vogel said the company is "negotiating with any number of folks" over the fate of the dams but dismissed Tuesday's announcement because the company was specifically excluded from the negotiations. "It is difficult to believe that it can be called comprehensive when 700,000 of our customers were not in the room," Vogel said. Parties to the deal, including farmers, irrigation districts, Indian tribes and fishermen, hope an agreement for removal of the dams can be reached within a month or two to give them time to lobby Congress for final approval. Participants in the closed talks were largely enthusiastic. "It's a major step forward on solving some of the most intractable water problems in the West," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which represents commercial salmon fishermen. "At no time has there been so much unanimity on the river." Craig Tucker of Northern California's Karuk tribe, a key player in the talks, said the deal will "give fish 300 miles of spawning habitat, increase river flows and do it in a way that that allows farms and fish to survive." Under the deal, additional water would come into the system through new storage, breaching of some levees, tighter controls on agricultural diversions and retirement of water rights. But some environmentalists, who also were not part of the 26 parties negotiating the final agreement, called it a "half a deal" that will burden federal taxpayers with millions of dollars for economic assistance unrelated to fish restoration. "There is some good stuff in here for the river," said Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild. "But this is a lot of money - $1 billion for every special interest in the Klamath basin." Some participants, including the Hoopa tribe, were balking at the deal. Other participants are public agencies that will have to hold public hearings before casting a vote on the deal. Tuesday's announcement makes the agreement public so that those public discussions can begin. # http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/637676.html Klamath River pact out of the gate Eureka Times Standard - 1/16/08 By John Driscoll, staff writer A diverse group of fishermen, farmers, tribes, agencies and environmental groups have announced a tentative agreement to remove dams on the Klamath River, restore salmon and settle agonizing conflicts that have for years split the basin. It would be the biggest dam removal project in history and one of the most ambitious fisheries restoration efforts ever. The pact calls for removing four dams on the Klamath, securing water and power for farms, and restoring salmon runs. The deal struck by 26 groups and aired Tuesday has yet to be endorsed by their governing bodies, and negotiations are needed with dam owner Pacificorp regarding the removal of the dams. While huge hurdles remain, notably finding hundreds of millions of dollars to put the agreement in place, the negotiations represent a watershed in compromise between once-bitter opponents. On a conference call with the groups, Craig Tucker with the Karuk Tribe said that the parties agreed to civil talks when it was clear that the resources of the river would have to be shared. He called the settlement a means to do that. "I call it the fish and chips settlement," Tucker said, referring to potato farming in the basin. "We can have both." The plan calls for support of a separate agreement to remove Iron Gate, J.C. Boyle, Copco 1 and Copco 2 dams, which cut off about 300 miles of salmon spawning habitat in the upper Klamath River. It also proposes reintroducing fish like chinook and coho salmon, steelhead and lamprey to those areas and managing them with an eye toward making them self-sustaining populations. The announcement comes nearly seven years after the federal government cut off water to many farms around Upper Klamath Lake to spare coho salmon in the river and suckers in the lake. The next year, water was crimped to fish to provide full water supplies to irrigators. The events were lightning rods for already simmering conflicts, and sparked a bitter water war. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is currently considering Pacificorp's request for a new license for the dams, which could last 30 to 50 years. Commission staff have recommended keeping the dams in place, and trucking fish around the dams in a effort to restore fisheries. The settlement could supplant the commission process. Pacificorp has reached settlement agreements in other watersheds, and has said it is interested in settling on the Klamath if it's feasible and economical. A proposal has been pitched to Pacificorp, said Chuck Bonham with Trout Unlimited, but its contents are confidential. The proposal looks for $985 million over the next decade, not including another $150 million expected to be needed for dam removal. Some of that money can be found be reallocating funds from existing state and federal programs, according to the settlement group. Dam removal may need to be covered by Pacificorp's ratepayers and could be cheaper than putting fish passage provisions in place on the existing dams, Bonham said. A permanent increase in the amount of water available to fish would be secured as part of a long-term plan drafted by a group of irrigation districts in the Upper Klamath Basin. Some of that water would be made available by reducing irrigation use, retiring water rights on upper tributaries and improving storage by breaching levees in the Williamson River delta, reconnecting the Barnes and Agency Lake ranches and reconnecting Wood River Wetlands to Agency Lake. The agreement also lays out obligatory allocations for wildlife refuges in the upper basin -- rich havens for waterfowl and bald eagles. A drought plan and an investigation into how climate change will affect fish and communities in the river basin would be authorized, as well as a monitoring effort to track populations of fish. The groups agreed to a permanent limitation on the amount of water taken from Upper Klamath Lake, and crafted assurances to irrigators using a variety of approaches including increased efficiency, land and water acquisitions and water storage projects. Greg Addington with the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents farmers that use the federal irrigation project in the upper basin, said the settlement stakes out a huge amount of middle ground and has provided an opportunity to gain some certainty. The status quo is a frightening place to be for irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin, Addington said. "We live here, we live with the results, with the resource," Addington said. "We're dependent on it -- we want healthy communities." Substantial details need to be worked out, said Erica Terence with the Northcoast Environmental Center in a separate phone interview. The plan represents an enormous shift, she said, but does not promise to be able to fully restore the watershed. "It represents an incremental step in the right direction," Terence said. Costs are enormous, she said, and until the separate but integral hydropower agreement is solidified, it would be premature for the center to sign off on the plan. Water supply and regulatory certainty that would be provided to farmers in the upper basin are critical areas that Terence said would require the center to conduct a thorough legal review. Other environmental groups no longer part of the talks criticized the agreement as lacking guarantees for dam removal and water for fish, and for securing farming on wildlife refuges in the upper basin. "While the package has important fisheries restoration components that are needed in the basin, the total package is so loaded up with special interest giveaways to agribusiness that it is hard to see how it could credibly move through congress," said Bob Hunter with the group WaterWatch in a statement. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional director Steve Thompson said that while the Bush administration hasn't reviewed the details of the plan, it has been supportive of his efforts in the basin talks. The groups vowed to turn over every stone to find the political and financial support needed to make the deal happen. Troy Fletcher, a policy analyst for the Yurok Tribe, said the settlement has the potential to manage the watershed holistically and provide more than the minimum needs of fish on a year-to-year basis. The agreement only works if the four dams are removed, he said. "We're prepared to do our part, roll our sleeves up and get to work on restoring fish in the basin," Fletcher said. California Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa -- "I want to congratulate the members of the Klamath Settlement Group. This agreement represents their hard work and best efforts to put aside one of the most contentious and bitter wars over water." Luther Horsley, president, Klamath Water Users Association -- "We look forward to working together with the entire watershed." Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena -- "I'm especially pleased that their solution includes taking down all the dams. I've said since the beginning that it's both the best thing for the river and the most cost-effective solution. But we can't move forward until Pacificorp comes to the table and is ready to do what's best for the environment and our local economy by taking down the dams." Hoopa Valley Tribe Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall -- "What began as dam removal negotiations got turned into a water deal. Pacificorp left the room two years ago and negotiations with the company have since been separated from this negotiation. The terms of this so-called restoration agreement make the right to divert water for irrigation the top priority, trumping salmon water needs and the best available science on the river." Steve Rothert, American Rivers -- "We applaud the hard work and commitment of all the partners in hammering out this agreement. It proves that when people with very different interests work together in good faith, real solutions are possible." # http://www.times-standard.com/ci_7984769 Klamath dams may go; Basin stakeholders reach agreement to remove 4 barriers Redding Record Searchlight - 1/16/08 By Dylan Darling, staff writer After years of disputes and lawsuits, those often at odds over water in the Klamath Basin have come to an agreement -- the dams have to go. In a historic proposal announced Tuesday, salmon and steelhead would return with the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. Growers still would get irrigation water from the river, which runs from southern Oregon and through Siskiyou County on its way to the Pacific Ocean. The proposed 50-year agreement would cost $96 million per year, according to a coalition of 26 basin stakeholders. "This agreement only works with the removal of four dams," said Troy Fletcher, a consultant, and former executive director for the Yurok Tribe, which has a reservation near the river's mouth on the north coast. Removing the dams -- Iron Gate, J.C. Boyle, Copco No. 1 and Copco No. 2 -- would open up an estimated 300 miles of habitat for salmon and steelhead. Stakeholders involved with the agreement include federal and state agencies, environmental organizations, grower groups and fishing interests. But Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp is working with the federal government toward keeping the dams in the river and producing power, said company spokesman Paul Vogel. "Kind of makes me question what was settled," he said. And not all Klamath stakeholders agree there is an agreement. The Hoopa Valley Tribe, whose reservation flanks the lower stretch of the Klamath River, said it won't endorse the agreement because it doesn't assure water for salmon. "The terms of this so-called restoration agreement make the right to divert water for irrigation the top priority, trumping salmon water needs and the best available science on the river," said Clifford Marshall, tribal chairman. The 26 groups who crafted the 256-page agreement after 2? years of closed-door talks said it could squelch the embers of dispute remaining from the summers of 2001 and 2002. In 2001, the federal government cut off the usual supply of water to growers in the Klamath Reclamation Project -- which straddles the California-Oregon border -- because of water requirements for fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. It sparked a water war that drew national media attention. The following summer, the regular supply of water again flowed into the irrigation canals and more than 30,000 salmon died downstream in the Klamath River, which critics blamed on low flows in the river because of the diversion. Along the river, PacifiCorp has a string of power dams, which produce about 150 megawatts of power, or enough to power about 70,000 homes, that are up for a new federal license. Because of the negotiations involved with the relicensing process, the different groups started a dialog that became the agreement talks, Vogel said. The company, which is owned by billionaire Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, pulled out of the talks "several months ago" when a pillar of it became the removal of the dams, he said. Although PacifiCorp wasn't involved with the talks, Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association, said he recently called the company's official heading up the relicensing to tell him the agreement was coming "They certainly should have known we were getting close," he said. # http://www.redding.com/news/2008/jan/16/klamath-dams-may-go/ DWR's California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff, for information purposes, by the DWR Public Affairs Office. For reader's services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost2.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news. DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of California. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Vina_Frye at fws.gov Wed Jan 16 14:58:00 2008 From: Vina_Frye at fws.gov (Vina_Frye at fws.gov) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:58:00 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Federal Register for TAMWG meeting Message-ID: Hi Folks, The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG) has scheduled a meeting on January 22, 2008. The "Notice" was published in the Federal Register today. Best regards, Vina Vina Frye U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Arcata FWO 1655 Heindon Road Arcata, CA 95521 Telephone: (707) 822-7201 Fax: (707) 822-8411 vina_frye at fws.gov [Federal Register: January 16, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 11)] [Notices] [Page 2937] >From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16ja08-81] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Fish and Wildlife Service Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. ACTION: Notice of meeting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG) affords stakeholders the opportunity to give policy, management, and technical input concerning Trinity River (California) restoration efforts to the Trinity Management Council (TMC). Primary objectives of the meeting will include discussion of the following topics: Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP) FY 2009 budget, and election of TAMWG officers. Completion of the agenda is dependent on the amount of time each item takes. The meeting could end early if the agenda has been completed. The meeting is open to the public. DATES: The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group will meet from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, January 22, 2008. ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held at the Weaverville Victorian Inn, 1709 Main St., 299 West, Weaverville, CA 96093. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Randy A. Brown of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1655 Heindon Road, Arcata, CA 95521. Telephone: (707) 822-7201. Randy A. Brown is the working group's Designated Federal Officer. For background information and questions regarding the Trinity River Restoration Program, please contact Douglas Schleusner, Executive Director, P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main Street, Weaverville, CA 96093. Telephone: (530) 623-1800, E-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.), this notice announces a meeting of the Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG).??? Dated: December 20, 2007. Randy A. Brown, Designated Federal Officer, Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office, Arcata, CA. [FR Doc. E8-633 Filed 1-15-08; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4310-55-P From mbelchik at snowcrest.net Wed Jan 16 15:09:20 2008 From: mbelchik at snowcrest.net (Michael Belchik) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:09:20 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement Information Message-ID: <003901c85894$d572be10$0500000a@yuroktribe.nsn.us> The main points: There are two agreements, one of which was released yesterday, and one yet to be completed. This is because part of the agreement contemplated actions under FERC jurisdiction, such as dam removal, and part of it contemplated actions not under FERC, such as limitations to agricultural deliveries. The agreement released yesterday is not effective unless an agreement is reached to remove dams from the Klamath River. The summary document has a concise picture of what happens. Here's some important points from a fishery perspective: 1. brings about the removal of four large Hydroelectric Project dams on the Klamath River in what will be the largest dam removal project in US history; 2. restores fish access to areas of cold water in the Upper Klamath Basin, which is a key element of protection in a warming climate; 3. improves flows beyond what we have seen in the past four decades; 4. brings about restoration of vast areas of wetlands and ranchlands in the Upper Basin which will improve water quantity and quality for anadromous fish and their habitats; There are other provisions for other parties having to do with power prices, county funding, etc. that can be found in the summary or in the agreement itself. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: Press Release for Proposed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement 1-15-07.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 24054 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Jan 17 10:13:55 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:13:55 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Unpaid CVP Capital Costs Message-ID: <004901c85934$b993ecf0$0301a8c0@optiplex> Private Water Contractors in CA Owe Taxpayers $500 million New government audit finds that the bulk of an interest-free loan from the 1960s is still unpaid by irrigation water contractors WASHINGTON - Four large irrigation water districts in the Central Valley of California still owe federal taxpayers nearly $500 million for a network of dams and canals constructed for their benefit in the 1960s, according to a new report issued by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO). Only 14 percent of capital costs have been repaid. "This independent audit confirms that taxpayers are still owed an awful lot of money by some of the largest private users of water in the state," said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the former chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and author of several key water reform laws. Miller and two of his colleagues requested the GAO report. "Taxpayers paid for these water projects decades ago, taxpayers paid for the cleanup of some of the projects' worst environmental consequences over the years, and now the taxpayers are still waiting to be repaid nearly a half a billion dollars that they are owed," Miller added. "The Bush Administration is responsible now to ensure that the new water contracts for these agribusinesses are strengthened not only to end the devastation of California's fish and wildlife but to recoup in a timely manner this long-standing debt owed to the taxpayer." The Central Valley Project (CVP) is the largest federal irrigation system in the nation, and the beneficiaries of the CVP's San Luis Unit include some of the most productive and lucrative farms in the world. The irrigation districts that were the subject of the report were assessed $523 million by the Bureau of Reclamation for the construction of the San Luis Unit, which was first authorized in 1960. But due to the heavily subsidized and forgiving nature of antiquated federal western water policy, the water districts had repaid to the federal treasury only $74 million of that $523 million as of September 30, 2005, according to today's GAO report. The approximately 600 agribusinesses that make up the Westlands Water District - the San Luis Unit district that is often cited as the largest irrigation district in the world - were assessed an additional $179 million for the construction of their internal water distribution system. Including the remaining balance on Westlands' account, the San Luis Unit contractors still owe the federal treasury approximately $497 million. The report was commissioned by Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, Congresswoman Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Water & Power Subcommittee, and Miller, to help them assess a recent proposal by the San Luis Unit water districts and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. That proposal included a debt-for-cleanup deal, in which the federal government would forgive the water districts' debt and provide other benefits, and in exchange the water districts would commit to cleaning up the salt- and selenium- infused water that drains from their irrigated agricultural operations. How to manage that toxic drainwater has been the source of substantial controversy over the life of the water project: when the water was allowed to accumulate in the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in the 1980s, it caused serious harm to wildlife, including deaths and deformities in waterfowl. To mitigate and clean up the Kesterson disaster cost the taxpayers $26.6 million, according to the new report, of which about $19.8 million must be repaid by the Westlands Water District. Cleaning up the broader regional drainwater problem, as proposed by the water districts and the Bureau of Reclamation, is projected to be a significantly greater expense. That problem already has cost taxpayers more than $100 million in costs of studies for possible remedies. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation does not require the full repayment of construction costs for water infrastructure such as the San Luis Unit, nor is the assessment adjusted for inflation over the life of the repayment period; the amount owed by the four water contractors amounts to an interest-free loan from the taxpayer that will not be repaid in full until 2030. The total capital cost to construct the Central Valley Project, the massive federal infrastructure project that moves water for irrigation and urban use throughout state, was about $3.4 billion, according to the GAO report, and the San Luis Unit portion of the project had a total capital cost of $778 million. The report is online at http://gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-08-307R Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair California Trout, Inc., Advisor PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org http://www.caltrout.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jan 18 16:38:50 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:38:50 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Delta Flows -- Weekly Highlight from Restore the Delta for the Week of January 15, 2008 Message-ID: <02b501c85a33$a97de050$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Barbara Parrilla To: Barbara at restorethedelta.org Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 12:45 PM Subject: Delta Flows -- Weekly Highlight from Restore the Delta for the Week of January 15, 2008 Delta Flows - Weekly Highlights from Restore the Delta for the Week of January 15, 2008 "Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." --Hamlet, William Shakespeare Audit Shows that Peripheral Canal Supporters Have Failed to Pay For Previous Water Projects Restore the Delta staff, comprised primarily of environmental and community concern activists, finds it quite interesting that we are commenting over two consecutive weeks on debt and finances as it relates to water management in California. However, we are exasperated by the history of money spent, unpaid debt, and potential for additional financial recklessness, in terms of acquired debt, that goes hand-in-hand with the steady ecological decline of the California Delta. While word has it that presently business proponents of a water bond including the peripheral canal will not be pursuing this endeavor through the initiative process, Restore the Delta has learned that the Delta's future will be on this year's legislative agenda. We will keep you informed as proposed legislation becomes known. For years, many Californians have ignored the environmental degradation of the Delta. Perhaps, a closer look at loans, debt, and taxpayer responsibility, will prompt voters to rethink how proposed public funds could be best spent for Delta restoration. The articles posted below from today's Contra Costa Times and Fresno Bee best sum up the past. Those water districts which have driven excessive Delta water exports - all to the detriment of Delta fisheries, farming, and recreation - and who are now behind the proposed plan for the peripheral canal, are the same groups who have not repaid what they owe for the dams and canals built forty years ago. Why do some political leaders and agency officials let these same water users drive the shaping of California's water policy in the present? When will these same leaders begin to protect the Delta's environmental needs, part of the public trust, with the same vigor that they defend water exporters? When will water conservation, the most cost effective and environmentally friendly means for protecting our water supply, become the driving force behind California's water policy? Irrigation district owes millions, report finds Contra Costa Times - 1/18/08 By Mike Taugher, staff writer Forty years after it started farming the west San Joaquin Valley, the nation's largest irrigation district -- and one of the richest -- has repaid only 15 percent of what it owes taxpayers for a massive water delivery project, according to a congressional watchdog agency. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in its first update in a decade on the debt repayment status of the Westlands Water District and several smaller irrigation districts, concluded Westlands still owes $372 million, the bulk of the $449 million owed by the districts. The debt, which dates to the late 1960s, carries no interest. "If they were homeowners, they would be foreclosed on," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, one of three lawmakers who requested the report. The report was commissioned to help lawmakers evaluate a proposal from Westlands and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that would turn ownership of pieces of the Central Valley Project over to the water district and forgive the debt. In exchange, Westlands would develop its own drainage disposal plan and relieve the federal government of its obligation to drain irrigation water from the region. Miller said the GAO report showed the exchange, the details of which are still in flux, would probably be a bad deal for taxpayers. "They want more forgiveness from taxpayers," Miller said. "It's a flat-out abuse of the taxpayer." A layer of clay that underlies most of the Westlands district inhibits drainage and causes polluted water to build up, potentially into the root zones of crops. Before the district's drain was plugged in the 1980s, the polluted water emptied into the Keterson National Wildlife Refuge, causing a wildlife disaster of deformities and deaths in birds. Without a place to dispose of its drainage, Westlands sued and in 2000 won a court order that requires the federal government to fix the problem. The reclamation bureau has estimated the cost of draining the land at $2.7 billion, which is why Westlands has said the exchange would be a good deal for taxpayers: the government would not have to build the expensive project. But if the government does have to deal with the drainage problem, Westlands would have to repay that $2.7 billion, or at least a substantial portion of it, although it might be under terms highly favorable to the water district. Frustrated by Westlands' slow repayment of the original debt, Congress in 1986 passed a law that set a 2030 deadline for Westlands and the other, smaller, west San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts to repay. But 22 years after that law was passed -- and 22 years before 2030 -- Westlands still has repaid just 15 percent of the total. Westlands and the reclamation bureau say the 2030 deadline to repay the interest-free loan could be met with a balloon payment or with some other financing plan. "There are reserves in Westlands to pay that," said district spokeswoman Sarah Woolf. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said the details of debt repayment fall to Westlands. "How they do that is really up to them," McCracken said. "They are meeting their contractual obligations and they have until 2030 to repay the capital costs." The districts' debt is for their share of the San Luis Unit, the last piece of the massive Central Valley Project, a sprawling water delivery system that began with construction of a canal from the Delta to the Contra Costa Water District in the late 1930s and 1940s. The amounts owed by Westlands and the smaller San Luis districts are the irrigation districts' share to build San Luis Dam, a major canal, water distribution works, pump plants and other facilities. Under a separate repayment contract, Westlands has repaid $131 million of the $179 million cost of building the water distribution system within the district, the GAO reported. # http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_8007925?nclick_check=1 Valley growers owe $497m for water projects, audit shows Fresno Bee - 1/18/08 By Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- San Joaquin Valley farmers still owe the federal government almost $500 million for dams and canals built in the 1960s, according to a new audit that will help frame the next round of decisions about California water. Farmers in the giant Westlands Water District and three other smaller irrigation districts south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta owe $497 million, the Government Accountability Office found. The money must be paid by 2030. It's no surprise that the farmers owe money. They've been gradually paying it back as part of their long-term water contracts with the federal Bureau of Reclamation. The dollar amount, though, draws attention on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are considering expensive proposals such as restoring the San Joaquin River and cleaning up irrigation drainage. The proposals address problems spawned by the construction of dams and canals. On the Valley's west side, a lack of natural drainage allowed irrigation water to accumulate, creating concentrations of dangerous elements leached from soil. "Taxpayers paid for these water projects decades ago, taxpayers paid for the cleanup of some of the projects' worst environmental consequences over the years, and now the taxpayers are still waiting to be repaid," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. Miller is the former chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and a longtime critic of Central Valley irrigation contracts. He helped request the GAO study, the latest in a long line of related audits. In 1992, Miller used earlier GAO audits in his campaign to direct more Central Valley water to environmental protection. Miller sought the latest audit to shape the debate over irrigation drainage problems on the Valley's west side. "Drainage is needed ... because a layer of clay prevents natural drainage, trapping salt and water in the root zones of crops and reducing the region's agricultural productivity," the GAO report issued Thursday stated. The Bureau of Reclamation estimates one drainage option would cost the government $2.7 billion, for a combination of land retirements, evaporation ponds and soil treatments. A second option would transfer responsibility to the water districts. They would fund the drainage solutions in exchange for having their construction debt forgiven. Water district officials and state and federal representatives have been meeting to discuss irrigation drainage options, but no solution appears to be imminent. Westlands representatives could not be reached to comment Thursday. All told, the new audit notes, the federal government spent about $3.4 billion on the Redding-to-Bakersfield system of dams and canals known as the Central Valley Project. The CVP's San Luis Unit serves the Westlands, Pacheco, Panoche and San Luis water districts, which stretch as far north as Merced County. A separate proposal has been made to restore water flows and salmon population to the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam. The dam, which is not part of the San Luis Unit, is blamed for drying up the once-teeming river. Though the irrigation drainage problems primarily affect the Valley's west side and the river restoration primarily affects the east side, taken together they illustrate the scope of the water problems facing the region. On Thursday, reflecting the ongoing river struggle, Friant Water Users Authority Chairman Kole Upton said he would not run for re-election. Upton once praised the river restoration deal reached with environmental groups, but he now believes it could harm farmers by taking away too much irrigation water. "This 'Neville Chamberlain' strategy of capitulation and surrender will doom the Friant service area to 20 years of hardship and involuntary land retirement," Upton wrote Thursday in a message to other water officials. Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and other Friant-area water district directors contend the river settlement is the best long-term solution, offering certainty for both fish and farmers. # http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/332338.html #### Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla Campaign Director Restore the Delta Making the Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable by 2010! Barbara at restorethedelta.org www.restorethedelta.org ph: 209-479-2053 PO Box 691088 Stockton, CA 95269 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From michelle_clark at dot.ca.gov Fri Jan 18 16:45:21 2008 From: michelle_clark at dot.ca.gov (Michelle Clark) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:45:21 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Michelle Clark is out of the office. Message-ID: I will be out of the office starting 01/18/2008 and will not return until 05/05/2008. I am on Maternity Leave from January 18th until May 5th. Please contact my supervisor, Tom Balkow, at thomas.balkow at dot.ca.gov or 530-225-3405 if you have any questions. From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jan 22 08:23:11 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:23:11 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: January 23 Watershed Council Meeting Message-ID: <001c01c85d13$15935cc0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Cousins" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 7:26 AM Subject: January Watershed Council Meeting > Just a reminder that the meeting set for tomorrow January 23 is going to > start at > 10am instead of 2. We are still going to meet at the TPUD conference > room. > Hope to see you all there. > > Alex > -- > Alex Cousins > Trinity County RCD > PO Box 1450 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > > 530-623-6004 (office) > 530-623-6006 (fax) > acousins at tcrcd.net > www.tcrcd.net > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WSC Agenda 1-23.doc Type: application/msword Size: 26624 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Tue Jan 22 09:32:50 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:32:50 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Hatchery Interpretative Center Quote Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C5F6@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Good Morning Trinity River Enthusiasts, As you may or may not be aware, there is an effort to restore the Interpretative Center at the Trinity River Fish Hatchery. Essentially, there will be a number of hard plastic panels that tell the story of the Trinity River past, present, and future. This will be a multi agency and stakeholder influenced project that will update the old displays. Why I'm sending this info out, is so you can have a chance to be part of the process. We need a quote for the multi-agency/stakeholder panel. This panel will have the logos of those who are active in Trinity River restoration (i.e. TMC & TAMWG) in a circular fashion around a quote. We would like to have a quote about the river either from someone famous or something brilliant by you. Personally, I came up with, "The Trinity River brings us together due to our shared histories and a desire to restore its ecological functions for past, current, and future generations". Yours doesn't have to be like mine, but I'll be throwing mine in for consideration. If you can do better, please then by all means... All quotes will be considered by the committee set up to do the update and they will chose which one is published on the panel. If you would like to have your quote considered for publishing on the multi-agency/stakeholder panel, please send it to me no later than Monday, February 4th by COB at jallen at trinitycounty.org. Hope to hear from you! Joshua Allen Associate Planner PO Box 2819 60 Glen Road Weaverville, CA 96093 Phone: (530)623-1351 ext. 222 Fax: (530)623-1353 E-mail: jallen at trinitycounty.org Website: http://www.trinitycounty.org/Departments/Planning/natresources3.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jan 23 10:40:52 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:40:52 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Times Standard- No 'Kumbaya moment' on Klamath deal Message-ID: <006901c85dfd$5f9ccdc0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> KLAMATH RIVER: No 'Kumbaya moment' on Klamath deal Eureka Times Standard ? 1/23/08 By Jessie Faulkner, staff writer EUREKA -- Like any thoroughly negotiated agreement between divergent interests, the Klamath settlement agreement isn't totally to anyone's liking. Nonetheless, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to continue discussion of the agreement and keep the public comment period open when the matter comes before the board again on Feb. 19. Several representatives from among the 26 parties to the agreement testified and it was not -- as 5th District Supervisor Jill Geist outlined -- a ?Kumbaya moment.? All of those speaking, ranging from representatives from the North Coast Environmental Center to state Department of Fish and Game to the Yurok, Hoopa and Karuk tribes, agreed that removal of PacifiCorp's four lower dams was essential to the restoration of the Klamath River. Geist introduced the lengthy presentation with a review of the process and the need for a grassroots solution. ?If we can't develop a solution,? she said, ?the basin -wide conflicts will continue.? At the heart of those conflicts is the dichotomy between the use of the river's water for agriculture in the upper basin and the need to restore flows to the rest of the river for the health of the fisheries. That need became even more apparent -- particularly to those on the periphery -- with the 2002 fish kill in which more than 30,000 salmon died due to low flows. The key provisions, Geist explained, are rebuilding the fisheries, water for upper basin farmers and wildlife refuges. Craig Tucker, the Klamath campaign coordinator for the Karuk Tribe, stressed the importance of the agreement. ?What we're talking about is resetting the bar in environmental restoration,? he said. That, of course, is hinged on removal of the four PacifiCorp-owned dams. ?Unless we get the dams out, we can't fix the Klamath River -- period,? Tucker said. ?If we don't get the dam removal, the basin agreement won't go forward.? For Lyle Marshall, chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, the emphasis was on the fact that Klamath settlement agreement does not include removal of the dams. And, he said, it appears that the PacifiCorp is unlikely to enter into a separate agreement. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is currently considering PacifiCorp's request to relicense the dams, a move recommended by the commission's staff. But, Marshall said, it is the agreement's request that the tribe waive fishing and water rights in perpetuity that has prompted the tribe's opposition to the settlement agreement. ?We believe that request in and of itself is unconscionable,? Marshall said. However, Yurok Tribe Senior Biologist Michael Belchik had a different take on the agreement's details. After considerable internal deliberation, Belchik said, the tribe is prepared to support the settlement. The Yurok Tribe is never going to waive its water rights or fishing rights, he said, but the agreement only requires a limited waiver if a series of conditions are met. # http://www.times-standard.com//ci_8052063?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Fri Jan 25 11:45:06 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:45:06 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Crane accident Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C5FE@mail3.trinitycounty.org> FYI: on Wed. a 30-ton crane came off a low boy on one of the tight 25 mph curves near Salyer on 299. The crane landed 1000 feet below in the river. The F & G Warden and members of the local fire department used the department's hovercraft to access the site. They pulled the crane's gas tank out of the water and patched it to prevent more leaking. They estimated that only 10 gallons of fuel entered the river and have absorbent booms and pads in place. I'm confident they are doing what is necessary and what is possible based on this tricky site at the base of a cliff. Today they have a 200-ton crane coming to pull it up, but CalTrans said no to that because the highway is too unstable. So they're planning to pull it across the river, yes across the river, and out through some private property that isn't such a cliff. It might be on KRCR channel 7 if they make it over there. And that's the news today! Peter Hedtke TC Environmental Health Director -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jan 25 12:56:47 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:56:47 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Reclamation Announces Preliminary 2008 Central Valley Project Water Supply........... Message-ID: <004101c85f94$d05af6c0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Reclamation Announces Preliminary 2008 Central Valley Project Water Supply...........I thought this would be of interest to all of you. Please note the differences in allocations for South-Of-Delta water contract allocations between a 50% exceedance forecast and a 90% exceedance forecast and/or with Delta Smelt actions. There is quite a difference between the two forecasts. Tom Stokely ----- Original Message ----- From: Theresa Castaneda To: tstokely at trinityalps.net Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 10:07 AM Subject: Reclamation Announces Preliminary 2008 Central Valley Project Water Supply........... Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region Sacramento, CA MP-08-010 Media Contact: Jeffrey S. McCracken, 916-978-5100, jmccracken at mp.usbr.gov For Release On: January 25, 2008 Reclamation Announces Preliminary 2008 Central Valley Project Water Supply Outlook The Bureau of Reclamation today announced the preliminary Water Year 2008 outlook for available supplies from the Federal Central Valley Project (CVP). Reclamation prepared two forecasts: a conservative forecast with a 90-percent chance of having runoff greater than forecasted (90-percent probability of exceedence) and a median forecast with a 50-percent chance of having runoff greater than forecasted (50-percent probability of exceedence). In the 90-percent exceedence forecast, the water year inflow into Shasta Reservoir is about 3.4 million acre-feet. The Shasta Reservoir inflow is a criteria for imposing shortages to settlement contractors and refuges. This preliminary announcement of the available water supply outlook is based on January 1, 2008, water runoff information prepared by the California Department of Water Resources and does not take into account the strong winter storms experienced earlier this month. Reclamation traditionally expresses the monthly outlook as a percentage (see summary table) of the contract total for each of the contract categories. Allocations are also compared to the recent historic 5-year average of the final forecasts. Mid-Pacific Region Preliminary Water Year 2008 Supply Forecast January 25, 2008 Probability of Exceedence Forecasts and Extent of Fishery Actions ** Percent of Historical Average Sacramento Valley Index & Year Type North of Delta Allocation South of Delta Allocation Ag M&I* R WR Ag M&I* R WR 50% and/or few Delta smelt protective actions 73% Dry 100% 100% 100% 100% 55% to 65% 80% to 90% 100% 100% 90% and/or numerous Delta smelt protective actions 54% Critical 25% 75% 100% 100% 25% 75% 100% 100% Recent Historic Average (5-Year Average Allocation) 100% 100% 100% 100% 80% 98% 100% 100% Ag = Agriculture M&I = Municipal and Industrial R = Refuges WR = Water Rights *M&I supply is based on historical deliveries. ** Reclamation is implementing interim court-ordered measures this year to provide additional protection for Delta smelt. The actual actions will vary depending on a real-time assessment of Delta conditions and the location and maturity of the Delta smelt. The extent that these actions will impact water supply available for allocation can vary, and this preliminary project water supply outlook reflects the uncertainty associated with operations to implement the new protective measures The Friant Division deliveries for Water Year 2008 are projected to be 400,000 acre-feet, or 32 percent of 1.25 million acre-feet, which is the Recent Historic Average (5-Year Average Allocation). The preliminary allocation for the Friant Division Contractors will be 50 percent Class 1 water and 0 percent Class 2 water. The projected Friant Division delivery of 400,000 acre-feet is based on the California Department of Water Resources' 90 percent, January 1, 2008, forecast. As of January 22, 2008, precipitation in the San Joaquin River Basin was 11.27 inches for the water year compared to 9.42 inches this time last year. In the 90-percent and 50-percent exceedence forecasts, the current Interim Plan of Operations for New Melones Reservoir, which is used as a guide, suggests that little or no project water would be available for the CVP Eastside Division contractors (Stanislaus River). However, Reclamation believes some project water is available for delivery, and Reclamation is reviewing various operational scenarios to evaluate project storage, projected inflows, and degrees of risk management to protect all project use. The official 2008 CVP water allocation will be made on or about Friday, February 15, 2008. Throughout the precipitation season, updated information will be provided as conditions warrant. To receive the latest forecast on CVP operations, please contact Mr. Paul Fujitani at 916-979-2197. In the coming months, additional information will be posted on the Mid-Pacific Region's Website at http://www.usbr.gov/mp/. ### Reclamation is the largest wholesale water supplier and the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the United States, with operations and facilities in the 17 western states. Its facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits. Visit our website at http://www.usbr.gov. If you would rather not receive future email messages from Bureau of Reclamation, let us know by clicking here. Bureau of Reclamation, Denver Federal Center, Alameda & Kipling Street PO Box 25007, Denver, CO 80225 United States -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Seth.Naman at noaa.gov Mon Jan 28 13:03:14 2008 From: Seth.Naman at noaa.gov (Seth Naman) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:03:14 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] new job Message-ID: <479E4312.3080807@noaa.gov> Hello colleagues, Just thought I'd let you know that I took a position with NOAA in Arcata. I throughly enjoyed working on Trinity River restoration and hatchery research during nearly 5 years of employment with the Yurok Tribe. I look forward to crossing paths with you in the future. Best, Seth -- Seth Naman Fisheries Biologist NOAA Fisheries Southwest Region 1655 Heindon Rd. Arcata, CA 95521 707-825-5180 fax: 707-825-4840 From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jan 30 12:42:43 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:42:43 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Various Articles- Salmon supply is collapsing Message-ID: <010901c86380$aa9cddf0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Salmon supply is collapsing, officials say; Number of fish that returned to spawn in the Sacramento River this past year is down by 67 percent Associated Press ? 1/30/08 By Terence Chea, staff writer SAN FRANCISCO -- The state's largest salmon run is suffering an "unprecedented collapse," part of a broader decline throughout the West that has scientists vexed and likely will trigger severe fishing restrictions, according to federal fishery regulators. The number of chinook, or king, salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries this past fall dropped 67 percent from a year earlier, according to an internal memo to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. The Central Valley salmon population has fallen by more than 88 percent from its high five years ago, when salmon restoration efforts in the Sacramento watershed were being touted as a wildlife management success story. However, recent years have seen salmon populations steadily dwindle in the Sacramento and many other western rivers, and scientists are trying to understand why. Some say they believe it's related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming. Others blame the troubles in California on increased pumping of fresh water from the Delta. In his e-mail to members of the fishery management council, Executive Director Donald McIsaac offered "an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse in the abundance of adult California Central Valley ... fall Chinook salmon stocks." "The magnitude of the low abundance ... is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned," he said. About 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number on record, the memo said. The population was at 277,000 in 2006 and 804,000 five years ago. It's the second time in 35 years that the Central Valley has not met the agency's conservation goal of 122,000 to 180,000 returning fish, according to the council, which regulates Pacific Coast fisheries. More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks returned to the Central Valley last year, by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles, or "jacks," return each year. The low number of juvenile salmon means this year's runs are likely to be even smaller. Complete statistics on other key salmon runs won't be available for two weeks, but experts said it looks like a bad year for salmon elsewhere in the West. Ron Boyce, a salmon program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the Rogue River barely hit its goal of 20,000 fall chinook in 2006 and 2007. Coastal rivers farther north are in even bigger trouble. Oregon's Coquille River has seen steadily diminishing returns the past three years, and the Siletz River farther north saw 500 fish, less than 20 percent of the goal. "This is a large-scale phenomenon affecting chinook stocks and other species coastwide," Boyce said. "It appears for those northern Oregon coast streams, we will not be able to make escapement goals even without any fishing on them." It is difficult to point to a cause, but the fact that both hatchery and wild fish are showing low returns points to the ocean and estuaries, where salmon spend most of their lives, said Curt Melcher, deputy director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Last year there were very unusual conditions in the ocean, Boyce said. Southwesterly winds blew all summer, driving warm waters near shore and disrupting the marine food chain. Some fishers and environmentalists say they believe the sharp decline in Central Valley chinook is related to increased water exports from the Delta, which supplies drinking water to millions of people in drought-stricken Southern California, as well as irrigation for America's most fertile farming region. "It's time to reduce pumping of Delta waters before we destroy the fish and wildlife species we appreciate so much in California," said Mike Sherwood, an attorney for Oakland-based Earthjustice. Salmon that spawn in Central Valley rivers form the backbone of the West Coast's commercial and recreational salmon fishery and are caught by fishers from Southern California to British Columbia. More than 90 percent of the wild salmon harvested in California originate in the Sacramento River system, officials say. "Sacramento fish are really what the fishery depends on," said Chuck Tracy, the council's salmon management officer. "When Central Valley fish are low, it gets really hard to catch fish even if you're given the opportunity." The council plans to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss possible restrictions, including a complete closure of the salmon season that begins in May. Final decisions will be made at its meeting in Seattle in April. "Even if they have a salmon fishing season, there won't be very much salmon to catch without a strong Central Valley component," said Alan Grover, a biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game. Duncan MacLean, a Half Moon Bay fisher who is on a team that advises the fishery council, said he's bracing for hard times. "It's probably going to be worse than anything we've experienced before," said MacLean, 58, who relies on salmon fishing for as much as 70 percent of his income. "It's going to put a lot of us out of business. I don't know how I am going to be paying my bills through the summer." Dick Pool, who owns Concord-based fishing gear manufacturer Pro-Troll, said the salmon collapse will be felt in fishing communities all along the coast, noting that a recent study found that recreational anglers spend more than $2 billion annually in California. "The impact is going to be huge," said Pool, a former board member of the American Sportfishing Association. "It will take its toll on manufacturing, retailers, wholesalers, fishermen and the charter fleet." The salmon fishing industry is still reeling from severe limits on West Coast salmon fishing in 2006 to protect dwindling populations on the Klamath River in Northern California and Oregon. After three years of poor returns, the number of returning Klamath chinook in 2007 exceeded minimums set by federal fishery managers. Preliminary counts showed about 50,000 spawners, though low numbers of juvenile fish indicate there may be poor returns of adult salmon this year. The precipitous decline of Central Valley chinook marks a dramatic reversal for what's traditionally been one of the West Coast's most abundant salmon runs. After hitting a record low of 83,000 returning adult salmon in 1992, Sacramento River salmon returns rose steadily during the next decade as the state and federal government spent about $1 billion to restore salmon runs throughout the river system. # http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_8117653?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com Salmon run verges on a collapse; Sport and commercial fishing are in jeopardy Sacramento Bee ? 1/30/08 By Matt Weiser, staff writer The Sacramento River's fall chinook salmon population is headed for a collapse, according to new federal data, threatening the upcoming commercial and recreational fishing season on one of the country's most important runs. The fall chinook run in the Central Valley has long been touted as a conservation success story. As many other species declined, fall salmon spawning in the Sacramento River and its tributaries held reliably above 200,000 fish for 15 years. But in fall 2007, the number of spawners suddenly fell to just 90,414 fish, the second-lowest total since 1973. That includes wild and hatchery-raised fish. The news came in a memo e-mailed Monday from the director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council to council board members. The numbers are preliminary and normally are not made public until February. But they represent a steep drop from the 2006 return of about 270,000 chinook. "It's frightening to think how far we've fallen so quickly," said J.D. Richey, a salmon fishing guide on the American River, a key tributary that contributes to the Valley's chinook run. "It's pretty bleak." Even more worrisome, the count of 2-year-old chinook returning to spawn in 2007 was just 2,021 fish. That is not just a record low, but also a mere fraction of 36-year average of about 40,000 fish. Early spawners, also called "jacks," are considered a reliable indicator of the number of 3-year-old fish expected to spawn in the following year. In addition, the 90,414 total falls below the council's minimum conservation target of 122,000 fish, which may compel officials to shorten the 2008 fishing season both in the ocean and in Central Valley rivers. The council meets in Sacramento March 8-14 to begin that regulatory process for the season that begins in May. "The magnitude of the low abundance ? is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned," Donald McIsaac, the council's executive director, wrote in the memo. He called the numbers "an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse." The Central Valley run includes fish that spawn on the San Joaquin River. But the vast majority of the fall chinook spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries. These fish mainly range north in the Pacific Ocean, supporting the fishing industry in Washington and Oregon as well as California. In 2006, the salmon season was drastically curtailed to protect the smaller Klamath River chinook. With fishermen still recovering from that, another reduction would sting. "It's going to be devastating," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "It could mean no fishing at all." It remains unclear why the run fell off so sharply in 2007. But many indicators point to poor ocean health, which may, in turn, be caused by factors linked to global warming, according to researchers. For several years, changes in wind patterns have halted or delayed deep upwelling currents in the ocean. The upwelling drives a food cycle that produces plankton, which in turn feed tiny shrimp-like krill. The krill, in turn, are the primary food for young salmon spending their first year in the ocean. The upwelling disruptions may have contributed to a decline in krill along with their salmon predators. Krill also feed a variety of seabirds, many of which also have declined in number. Other experts said they believe poor environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are to blame. Six other fish species are declining there due to a combination of near-record water exports, poor water quality and competition for food from invasive species. "It's just another piece of evidence that our management of the rivers and the estuary are insufficient to support these species," said Tina Swanson, senior scientist at the Bay Institute. "We need to do better, and really quickly." Many anglers fear a reduced season in 2008, but it may not be much worse than what they just went through because of the poor chinook return. Richey, for example, had only 10 percent of the usual number of clients booking salmon trips on the American River last year. "I basically just stopped offering salmon (trips) because there wasn't anything to catch," he said. "To me, it just felt like there was a void in the Valley. It was odd. I guess having the chinook was something I've taken for granted all these years." # http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/672392.html Salmon arriving in record low numbers San Francisco Chronicle ? 1/30/08 By Jane Kay, staff writer The Central Valley fall run of chinook salmon apparently has collapsed, portending sharp fishing restrictions and rising prices for consumers while providing further evidence that the state's water demands are causing widespread ecological damage. The bad news for commercial and sport fishermen and the salmon-consuming public surfaced Tuesday when a fisheries-management group warned that the numbers of the bay's biggest wild salmon run had plummeted to near record lows. In April, the Pacific Fishery Management Council will set restrictions on the salmon season, which typically starts in May. A shortage could drive up the price of West Coast wild salmon. The council's leaders said the news is troubling because normally healthy runs of Central Valley chinook salmon are heavily relied upon by fishermen. Runs on the other river systems historically have been smaller. "The low returns are particularly distressing since this stock has consistently been the healthy 'workhorse' for salmon fisheries off California and most of Oregon," the council's executive director, Donald McIsaac, said in a statement Tuesday. At its peak, the fall run has numbered hundreds of thousands of fish, exceeding 800,000 in some years. But this year the preliminary count has put the number at 90,000 adults returning to spawn in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries. During the past decade, the number of returning fish has never fallen below 250,000. Through the years, the chinook, or king, salmon that pass through San Francisco Bay have suffered from diversions of freshwater to cities and farms, the operation of the water-export pumps that send delta water to other regions, exposure to pollutants and warming ocean conditions. "We've known that the numbers were going to come in low, but we didn't know they would be this low," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which represents commercial fishermen. "This could end up closing us," Grader said. "Part of what we're trying to do is put a fish on the table that people can afford." A few more than 1,000 commercial fishermen who catch the Central Valley salmon in the ocean from Santa Barbara to southeast Alaska received $40 million in federal relief funds two months ago. The fishermen were given the funds for losses they incurred due to fishing restrictions in 2006 initiated to protect the Klamath and Trinity river runs that were suffering from a lack of fresh river water. In addition, related businesses received $20 million in aid. Grader, along with representatives of most sport and environmental groups, attribute the salmon decline primarily to Central Valley dams that flood or block spawning grounds and the delta water pumps that move water around the state. "Twenty years ago, we identified the amount of additional freshwater we needed for healthy fish," he said. A federal law was passed in 1988 to reserve water to help fish, but the water only makes it as far as the delta - not out to the bay, where it would help migrating fish like salmon, he said. Pollution that drains off farms also hurts the fish, Grader said. Heidi Rooks, an environmental program manager in the Department of Water Resources, said the salmon's woes probably are linked to the Pacific Ocean. "Although there are environmental challenges in the Central Valley and the delta, I'm concerned that ocean conditions, including currents and food sources, are influencing our salmon populations as well," she said. "We're working on habitat restoration, but it's not going to address ocean conditions." Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the federal part of California's water system, said he couldn't comment on the preliminary salmon numbers. He said the federal system is operated based on input from fisheries biologists. The economic impacts from the loss of salmon also would affect businesses associated with sport fishing, including the boating, hotel and manufacturing industries. "The last two years have been the worst salmon fishing years in all of California history," said Dick Pool, president and owner of Pro-Troll Fishing Products in Concord, a company that makes salmon-fishing equipment. "The main reason has been the collapse of the delta. The tiny little smolts aren't making it the 100 miles from the rivers to the bay. As the water exports have increased over the last five years, the food chain has been significantly affected," he said. According to the American Sportfishing Association, there are 2.4 million recreational anglers in California. The economic value of recreational fishing and related activities reached $4 billion in 2001, according to the association. The popular chinook salmon is the most recent of the fish that feed in the rivers, delta and the bay to suffer a loss in numbers, said Tina Swanson, senior scientist at the Bay Institute, an environmental group. Delta smelt, threadfin shad, longfin smelt and striped bass have declined in numbers starting in the early 2000s, she said. "That's the same time that the salmon that returned this year to spawn were going through the delta," she said. The five highest water-export years have all occurred since 2000, she said. Today's adult fish were migrating out to the ocean in 2005, the year the delta exports hit a record high, Swanson said. Salmon are hatched in the rivers and feed in the delta and bay. At three to four months, they move to the ocean, where they feed near shore before they head for the open ocean. "Dams along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers are holding back water, and the flows are usually less than what the salmon need," Swanson said. The low flows of freshwater to the bay can also raise overall water temperatures beyond what is healthy for juvenile salmon, she said. In the delta, the water pumps suck up salmon and other fish. The pumping system moves the juvenile salmon into large, open areas of the delta, where they are prey for bigger fish. Scientists studying the decline in fish populations also consider the effect of the ocean environment, although they agree that it is still too early to measure the effects of global warming. They look at the timing of migrations and food availability, said William Sydeman, a biologist with the Farallon Institutes for Advanced Ecosystem Research. He found that in 2005, 2006 and, to a lesser extent, in 2007, the breeding failures of the Cassin's auklet on the Farallones could be linked to the demise of krill in the marine environment at the time when the birds needed it. Salmon, too, feed on krill, anchovies and other small aquatic creatures, which are affected in abundance by ocean conditions. When salmon come through the bay to the ocean, they spend time in the Gulf of the Farallones, the same as the Cassin's auklets, where they need to find sufficient zooplankton and other food. "The ocean environment has a strong influence on how many survive the initial period at sea and how many come back to spawn three to four years later in the Sacramento River," Sydeman said. # http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/MNRIUOE8C.DTL Salmon collapse could force fishing restrictions; Regulators issue the warning as the number of chinook in the Sacramento River falls to historic lows Los Angeles Times ? 1/30/08 By Eric Bailey, staff writer SACRAMENTO -- -- Faced with an "unprecedented collapse" of California's Central Valley salmon population, federal regulators warned Tuesday that the West Coast fishing industry is on course toward steep restrictions this year. The number of chinook salmon returning to the Sacramento River plummeted to near historic lows last year, and fishery experts are predicting similarly light returns this year. Donald McIsaac, director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said the reason for the decline remains unclear. But the numbers of chinook or king salmon returning to many other West Coast rivers were also down last year, and scientists suspect the culprit is ocean conditions linked to global warming. "The implications of a precipitous decline could be substantial for both commercial and recreational fisheries coastwide," McIsaac said, drawing a comparison to 2006, when plummeting Klamath River salmon stocks prompted major fishing cutbacks. Some environmentalists blamed the troubles on water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, headwaters of the giant aqueducts that funnel water to Southern California. The Sacramento River's "missing salmon" were juveniles migrating to sea in spring 2005, when state and federal water managers "set records for pumping delta water south," said Mike Sherwood, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental legal group that has been jousting with water managers over water exports. McIsaac sent an e-mail late Monday to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council outlining the steep salmon decline. Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second-lowest number on record and nearly one-tenth the all-time high of more than 800,000 five years ago. McIsaac said he wanted to give council members "an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse." Particularly worrisome, he said, is the historic slump in the number of returning 2-year-old salmon, which are used as an indicator of future adult salmon returns. Just 2,000 of the young fish returned to the Sacramento River last year, an all-time low, compared with more than 76,000 in 2004. The fishery council, which sets annual federal fishing limits on the West Coast, is slated to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss potential restrictions, with a final decision in April. The salmon season typically begins in May. # http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-salmon30jan30,1,5329114.story Salmon run in big trouble, fish counts show; Those who fish may face stiff restrictions Modesto Bee ? 1/30/08 By Mike Mooney, staff writer A dramatic decline in the number of chinook salmon returning to spawn in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, and elsewhere in California, could lead to severe fishing restrictions. As of Tuesday, only 1,100 chinook, also known as king salmon, had been counted on the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers. That's about an 80 percent drop from the previous year, when about 5,800 returning salmon were reported in the three rivers. "These numbers, while still preliminary, are very disappointing. There is nothing in particular that we can point to at this stage to explain it." said Kate Hora, Modesto Irrigation District spokeswoman. In the Sacramento River basin, the number of returning chinook also has declined precipitously, leading federal fishery regulators to consider imposing stiff restrictions on salmon fishing this year. Experts say the dwindling chinook population is part of a broader decline in wild salmon runs across the West. The number of chinook returning to the Sacramento River and its tributaries is down more than 88 percent from the all-time high recorded five years ago, according to an internal memo sent to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. About 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second-lowest number on record, the memo says. The population was at 277,000 in 2006 and 804,000 five years ago. In an e-mail to fishery council members, Donald McIsaac, the agency's executive director, said he wanted to give them "an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse in the abundance of adult California Central Valley ... fall chinook salmon stocks." "The magnitude of the low abundance," he wrote, "is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned." Last fall, Doug Demko of FishBIO, a consulting firm with offices in Oakdale and Chico, told The Bee that salmon numbers were in decline throughout the West. Why? Demko and other experts believe changing climate conditions, including warmer water temperatures in the northern Pacific Ocean, could be behind the dramatic decline. Salmon thrive in colder water. For years, conventional wisdom in the Northern San Joaquin Valley has been that more water flowing through rivers during the spring would lead to larger numbers of salmon returning to spawn in the fall. MID officials have speculated that a host of problems could be making life difficult for the fish, including predatory striped bass, declining water quality, warmer water temperatures and delta pumping. It's only the second time in 35 years that the Central Valley has not met the agency's conservation goal of 122,000 to 180,000 returning fish, according to the council, which regulates Pacific Coast fisheries. More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks -- used to predict returns of adult spawners in the coming season -- returned to the Central Valley last year, by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles, or "jacks," return each year. # http://www.modbee.com/local/story/195895.html AP: Officials Warn Of Salmon Population 'Collapse'; Regulators Could Close West Coast Salmon Fishing This Year CBS Channel 13 ? 1/29/08 The number of chinook salmon returning to California's Central Valley reached a near-record low last year, pointing to an "unprecedented collapse" that could lead to severe restrictions on West Coast salmon fishing this year, according to federal fishery regulators. The sharp drop in chinook or "king" salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries this past fall is part of broader decline in wild salmon runs in rivers across the West. Regulators are still trying to understand the reasons for the shrinking number of spawners; some scientists believe it's related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming. Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number on record, according to an internal memo sent to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and obtained by The Associated Press. That's down from about 277,000 in 2006 and an all-time high of 804,000 five years ago. In an e-mail to council members, Donald McIsaac, the agency's executive director, said he wanted to give them "an early alert to what at this point appears to be an unprecedented collapse in the abundance of adult California Central Valley ... fall Chinook salmon stocks." "The magnitude of the low abundance ... is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned," he said. It's only the second time in 35 years that the Central Valley has not met the council's conservation goal of 122,000 returning fish, according to the council, which regulates Pacific Coast fisheries. More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks -- an important indicator for the coming salmon season -- reached an all-time low in 2007, compared to a long-term average of about 40,000. Salmon that spawn in Central Valley rivers form the backbone of the West Coast's commercial and recreational salmon fishery and are caught by fisherman as far north as British Columbia. "Sacramento fish are really what the fishery depends on," said Chuck Tracy, who heads the council's salmon technical team. "When Central Valley fish are low it gets really hard to catch fish even if you're given the opportunity." The council plans to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss possible restrictions on the salmon season that begins in May. Final decisions will be made at its meeting in Seattle in April. # http://cbs13.com/local/salmon.population.collapse.2.640632.html #### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Jan 31 12:31:49 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:31:49 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Sac Bee January 31 Message-ID: <00b501c86448$4f059d10$0201a8c0@optiplex> Farmers sue in fight over water; State fish policy ruining the Delta, they claim Sacramento Bee - 1/31/08 By Denny Walsh and Matt Weiser, staff writers After months of losing fights over how much water can be pumped to farms from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a coalition of farm groups is striking back with a federal lawsuit blaming state agencies for endangering native fish in the Delta. In a suit filed in Sacramento federal court, the groups ask for a halt to California's practice of maintaining predatory, nonnative striped bass in the Delta for the benefit of fishermen, claiming the policy violates the Endangered Species Act. The bass feed on spring- and winter-run chinook salmon, steelhead and Delta smelt - all protected by the Endangered Species Act - and their dwindling populations harm the overall health of the estuary, ultimately resulting in reduced water deliveries to farmers, the lawsuit charges. "Allowing this destruction to continue when the populations of several of these species - including the Delta smelt - are crashing is outrageous," said Michael Boccadoro, spokesman for the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, the lead plaintiff in the suit filed late Tuesday. Biologists already are concerned about drastic reductions in the Sacramento River's fall chinook salmon run, saying it is near collapse. Sport fishermen, however, scoffed Wednesday at the lawsuit's thesis, saying the real threat to the Delta is all the water channeled to farmers through the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. "We're irrigating desert that never should have been irrigated anyway," said Jim Crenshaw, president of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "The real resolution is to stop sending water to the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. "Anything they can do to relax the restrictions on pumping they'll do," Crenshaw said of the agriculture interests. "I suspect the judge will see through this foolishness." Members of the coalition include four large agricultural water districts in Kern County, at the southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley. The districts supply State Water Project deliveries to land within their respective boundaries through contracts with the Kern County Water Agency. The agency has grown over the past 10 years into one of the most powerful and wealthy water players in California. The coalition's tactics suggest it aims to draw attention from the effects of water exports on the Delta's habitat and fish. Its Web site, for example, offers information about virtually every other problem affecting the Delta except the major pumping systems. The Delta ecosystem is deteriorating due to a number of factors, including degradation of water quality from urban and agricultural runoff and water withdrawals to support the needs of the state's growing human population. A federal district judge recently ruled that State Water Project and Central Valley Project water deliveries must be reduced substantially to protect the Delta smelt. The coalition's suit names as defendants the California Fish and Game Commission and the Department of Fish and Game, along with the agencies' top officials. It has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. Department spokesman Steve Martarano declined comment Wednesday. The suit claims one factor in federal regulators' past decisions to cut San Joaquin Valley farmers' water allocations has been the declining Delta populations of the protected fish, and the "illegal and unmitigated" killing of them aggravates the problem. Matt Nobriga, a staff environmental scientist at the CalFed Bay-Delta Program, said Wednesday very little is known about whether striped bass are a serious threat to any other fish species. Much of the available information, he said, is decades old. In 2001 and 2003, Nobriga examined about 1,000 striped bass stomachs to find out what they were eating. He learned they were mainly eating lots of shad and goby, both nonnative species. But, he said, more research is needed before drawing any conclusions. "It should be studied, but all we can do right now is guess," he said. He said striped bass are definitely a top predator in the estuary, and are themselves preyed upon only by humans and sea lions. The coalition's suit says the Department of Fish and Game estimates that, at a population of 765,000 adults, striped bass annually consume 6 percent of Sacramento River winter-run chinook salmon and 3 percent of the Central Valley spring-run chinook salmon. It says that, at the same population, the department estimates striped bass annually consume 5.3 percent of Delta smelt. Despite those facts, the Fish and Game Commission's policy "establishes a long-term bass restoration goal of 3 million adult striped bass in the Delta," the suit says. The policy also "requires the Department of Fish and Game to stabilize and restore the striped bass fishery in the Delta," the suit says. The suit asks Damrell to enjoin the state from enforcing its strict limits on striped bass sport fishing and policies that tend to protect the bass, and to direct the state "to remedy their violations of the ESA." 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Jan 31 12:36:31 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:36:31 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Several News Stories and Editorials on Salmon Decline Message-ID: <00ba01c86448$f6cf1ad0$0201a8c0@optiplex> SALMON SEASON ISSUES: Fishermen fear lost salmon season; Dramatic drop in chinook returning to Sacramento River may idle North Coast boats - Santa Rosa Press Democrat Salmon report disastrous news for fishermen; Sacramento River's chinook population plummets precipitously - Inside Bay Area Chinook return uncertain - Marysville Appeal Democrat Editorial: Our shrinking salmon; Answer to 'unprecedented collapse' needed - Sacramento Bee Editorial: Salmon mystery; What is happening with California's Chinook? - Santa Rosa Press Democrat SALMON SEASON ISSUES: Fishermen fear lost salmon season; Dramatic drop in chinook returning to Sacramento River may idle North Coast boats Santa Rosa Press Democrat - 1/31/08 By Robert Digitale, staff writer North Coast sport and commercial fishermen fear they might lose this spring's salmon season, a mere two years after federal officials declared the same fishery a disaster. ADVERTISEMENT "When they start talking about no fishing at all, that's obviously a concern," said Chuck Wise, a Bodega Bay fisherman and president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "It would be devastating to the charter boats in Bodega Bay," said Rick Powers, the skipper of the New Sea Angler. Powers' vessel and other charter boats provide ocean salmon fishing trips for sport anglers. The possible fishing closure is tied to reports of a dramatic drop in the number of adult chinook salmon returning to spawn in the Sacramento River, the state's most productive salmon river. About 90,000 adult chinook returned this fall to the Sacramento, the fewest since 1992. Federal regulators suggested in a press release that they might be unable to conserve enough Sacramento salmon this year "even without any commercial or recreational salmon fishing where these fish are found." The regulators will meet in early April in Seattle to devise season rules and recommend them to the U.S. secretary of commerce. The state's commercial fishery has declined sharply during the past two decades, even as the number of salmon raised worldwide in aquaculture, or fish farms, has grown exponentially. More than 2,500 commercial vessels landed salmon in California in 1988, compared with fewer than 500 in 2006, the most recent year of record. That year, the federal Pacific Fisheries Management Council sharply curtailed fishing because of low salmon stocks from the Klamath River north of Eureka. The federal government eventually provided $64 million in relief for West Coast fishermen and related industries. Now attention is turned to the Sacramento, from which come the majority of salmon caught in both California and Oregon. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who sponsored the disaster relief legislation, said Wednesday that a fishing ban on salmon this year could cost West Coast fishing ports upwards of $80 million. "It's terrible news for both the fish and the industry," Thompson said. If the fishery is once more declared a disaster, Thompson said he again will seek aid for the fishermen. State and federal officials are reporting low salmon runs this year from California to British Columbia. "As you go up and down the West Coast, there are not very many bright spots," said Harry Morse, spokesman for the state Department of Fish & Game. Returning chinook salmon on the Russian River this fall numbered 1,900, compared with an average this decade of about 4,500, said Sean White, a fisheries biologist for the Sonoma County Water Agency. Federal regulators said the reason for the decline is unclear but probably related to ocean conditions. However, Zeke Grader, executive director of the federation of fishermen's associations, maintained the decline is much sharper on the Sacramento than other rivers. Water diversions for farms and cities "is at least a major cause" of the problems in the river system, he said. "We've just taken too much water out," Grader said. Despite the grim outlook for this season, fishermen maintained the declines aren't permanent. "I fully expect these fish to bounce back," said Chris Lawson, president of the Fisherman's Marketing Association of Bodega Bay. Nonetheless, he said, "I'm concerned with the season we're going to get this year." # http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080131/NEWS/801310346/1033/NEWS01 Salmon report disastrous news for fishermen; Sacramento River's chinook population plummets precipitously Inside Bay Area - 1/31/08 By Julia Scott, staff writer PRINCETON-BY-THE-SEA - Local fishermen saw doom in a report released Tuesday warning that the Sacramento River's fall chinook salmon population fell by two-thirds in 2007 and is headed for collapse, according to data from the federal government. The sharp drop in chinook, or "king," salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River led the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which released Tuesday's report, to suggest that it may be necessary to close the salmon season entirely. That would spell disaster for both commercial and recreational fishermen at Pillar Point Harbor, who typically depend on the salmon and Dungeness crab seasons for their entire incomes. Poor salmon returns from the Klamath River in 2006 and 2007 previously caused regulators to cut the first month and a half of salmon season, which normally starts May 1, resulting in untold financial losses for fishermen. Those losses would be compounded by an even poorer season this year. And the pain would be borne not just by fishermen, but by all the groups that benefit from salmon season - from processors to bait shops, RV parks, and fishing guides along the Klamath River. Duncan MacLean, a Half Moon Bay fisherman who is on a team that advises the fishery council, said he's bracing for hard times. "It's probably going to be worse than anything we've experienced before," said MacLean, 58, who relies on salmon fishing for as much as 70 percent of his income. "It's going to put a lot of us out of business." Fishermen say they knew the Sacramento River runs were weaker than expected last year, but even they were shocked by the low number of chinook returning to the river to spawn. Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number since 1973, according to the report. More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old chinooks - whose numbers are used to predict returns of adult spawners in the coming season - returned to the Central Valley last year - by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles, or "jacks," return each year. Some believe the losses are related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming. Others blame the troubles in California on increased pumping of fresh water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, which supplies drinking water to millions of people in drought-stricken Southern California, as well as irrigation for America's most fertile farming region. The Pacific Fishery Management Council will use the data to decide on possible restrictions to, or a complete closure of, the season when it meets in Sacramento in March. Final decisions will be made in April. Sacramento salmon form the cornerstone of the Pacific salmon fishery. They have a much greater range than Klamath River stocks, and are caught in California, Oregon, Washington and even British Columbia. The news would be easier to take if the Dungeness crab season had been less of a bust this year, said Jim Anderson, chairman of the California Salmon Council and a commercial fisherman out of Pillar Point. Fishermen across Northern California lost the first two weeks - the most profitable two weeks - of the crab season in November when the Cosco Busan oil spill forced Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to ban all fishing in potentially affected areas. It's been impossible to catch up since then, said Anderson. "The weather's been really bad, and there's not much crab out there. I talked to a lot of guys, and they've just made their expenses. Nobody's been able to make any money," he said. "I'm still trying to catch up on the gear I bought last year." In his work with the California Salmon Council, Anderson helped secure a $33 million emergency compensation package last year for California fishermen and fishing-related businesses from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The payouts, which were based on a fisherman's catch history between 2002 and 2006, helped ease the pain a little, but "didn't do anything for the future," said Anderson. He said he has already been in touch with officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the Department of Commerce, about the possibility of putting together another compensation package or securing zero-interest loans for fishermen and others affected across the state. Any loss of the salmon season would strip away 50 percent of the annual profits at Huck Finn Sportfishing, a mainstay of Pillar Point Harbor for years. "Salmon has always been our bread and butter, along with rockfish," said Peggy Beckett, who owns the store along with her husband Bill. "It's not been a good winter. If we lost the salmon season, I don't know. Unless I can figure out something else to do, I don't know how we'll survive." # http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_8127445?IADID=Search-www.insidebayare a.com-www.insidebayarea.com Chinook return uncertain Marysville Appeal Democrat - 1/30/08 By Howard Yune staff writer A dramatic fall in the Sacramento River's salmon population has fishing-related businesses uncertain when, or if, sales will bounce back anytime soon. Bait-and-tackle shops and other businesses linked to recreational fishing reported steep sales declines during the past fall's salmon season - the effect, they say, of a chinook salmon population federal regulators believe has dropped precipitously in five years. With a possible closure of the salmon-fishing season looming, no quick relief is apparent. "Mainly, it's going to cut out that whole season," said Mike Searcy, owner of Star Bait and Tackle in Linda. "We'll basically lose three months of business because of the loss of (salmon) season, because there isn't any other species to target during that time. A good 25 percent of our business would be gone." The numbers of chinook, also called king salmon, returning from the Pacific Ocean to the Sacramento River system to spawn fell steeply in river systems across the North State, according to an internal memo of the Pacific Fishery Management Council. The Associated Press released the memo's contents on Wednesday. Last year's total of about 90,000 salmon in the Sacramento River and its tributaries marked a near-historic low and an 88 percent falloff from the record 804,000 chinook that entered the river and its tributaries in 2002. It was the Sacramento's smallest salmon tally since the 82,000 fish counted in 1992, according to fishery council records. Scientists, anglers and water authorities are debating the cause of the decline. In the Mid-Valley, some blame heavy-handed management of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta - particularly the pumping of water to support agriculture and the millions of residents in Southern California. Excessive drawing from the delta has shrunk the supply of one-celled plankton and upset the food chain that salmon depend on, according to Searcy. He also pointed to non-native plants like water hyacinths stripping the delta of native plants that give young chinooks cover from predatory adult fish. "I had guys who used to catch 70-100 salmon a year, and last year they were counting the number of salmon they caught on both hands," he said. In Yuba City, Bob Boucke reported salmon-related business at his shop, Johnson's Bait & Tackle, has shriveled to barely 10 percent of the level five years ago. While others focus on the draining of the Sacramento, he pointed to intensified ocean fishing that enriches overseas fishers at the expense of West Coast anglers. "You've got Russians, Japanese, and their boats are taking every salmon they can get and we don't have control over those people," said Boucke, who added his shop and local competitors are having to lean far more heavily on striper bass anglers to stay profitable. Fishery council members will meet in Sacramento in March and could shorten or even cancel the salmon season, which is slated to begin in May. But a longtime Colusa angler cautioned authorities against such haste, saying more research is needed to understand the disappearance of salmon - and adding such declines have happened before. "I've fished the Sacramento River since I was 8, and I'm 42 now," said Pat Kittle, co-owner of Kittle Outdoor & Sport Co. "When I was in high school, next to nobody caught salmon in the river, and if you did you were a hero. Then for the last eight years, it was pretty common. "Why? There are so many variables, I couldn't point a finger at any one." # http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/salmon_59735___article.html/river_sacram ento.html Editorial: Our shrinking salmon; Answer to 'unprecedented collapse' needed Sacramento Bee - 1/31/08 Throughout the ages, salmon populations have been known to gyrate from year to year. Newborn salmon that enjoy a perfect combination of river and ocean conditions come swimming back in huge numbers three or four years later. Lousy environmental conditions lead to a salmon decline. Apparently, life for Central Valley salmon was pretty lousy four years ago. The current fall run of fish is at near-record lows. A preliminary count suggests that the 2007 class of Valley salmon will consist of a mere 90,000 fish, compared to more than 250,000 in 2006 and 800,000 in 2002. Federal fishery regulators are calling the downturn an "unprecedented collapse," meaning that commercial fishermen can expect to see fishing restrictions beyond those that are already hurting this industry. Gone are the days when consumers could easily find fresh, locally caught salmon for less than $10 a pound. If only it were easy to understand what is driving this downturn. Dams, water diversions, pollution and loss of shady river habitat clearly are hurting the effort to rebuild numbers of natural spawners. But water diversions have spiked steadily since the 1990s in the Central Valley, and salmon nonetheless had impressive runs from 2001 to 2003. That suggests that stresses on salmon go beyond the Valley's water projects and extend far out into the ocean. While out at sea, salmon eat shrimp-like creatures called krill, as well as anchovies and other small fish. Some scientists have found that changes in West Coast wind patterns have disturbed a normal "upwelling" of the ocean that helps energize the food chain. This could be a harbinger of climate change or just a temporary cycle. Much more research is needed to understand the links. In coming decades, California is expected to invest billions of dollars in new water projects, including a possible canal to divert fresh water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But will such projects help or hurt salmon? Or have no impact? Californians will want answers before opening their wallets. # http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/675216.html Editorial: Salmon mystery; What is happening with California's Chinook? Santa Rosa Press Democrat - 1/31/08 The decline of California's salmon population is no mystery. Sonoma County residents have experienced first-hand the impacts of the decline -- from fishing bans to water conservation efforts. The mystery now is why efforts to bolster the number of Chinook or king salmon, particularly those returning from the Pacific to the Sacramento River, have failed -- and what can be done to turn the situation around. According to a Pacific Fishery Management Council memo, the state's largest salmon run is suffering an "unprecedented collapse." The number of salmon returning to the Sacramento River and its tributaries this past fall dropped 67 percent from a year earlier. In just five years, the Central Valley salmon population has dropped 88 percent. Is it global warming? Fishing? The influence of fresh water being pumped from the delta? Whatever the cause, the effect is going to be another season or two of severe fishing restrictions throughout the West. # http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080131/WIRE/801310375/1043/OPINION01 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From TBedros765 at aol.com Fri Feb 1 11:36:22 2008 From: TBedros765 at aol.com (TBedros765 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 14:36:22 EST Subject: [env-trinity] Hoopa Valley Tribe Sues Federal Gov't for $80 Million Message-ID: News from the Hoopa Valley Reservation pasted and attached. Thank you. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- FEB. 1, 2008 HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE SUES GOVERNMENT OVER DISBURSEMENT OF THE HOOPA-YUROK SETTLEMENT FUND Media Contacts: Clifford Lyle Marshall (530) 625-4211 Tom Schlosser (206) 386-5200 Tod Bedrosian (916) 421-5121 Hoopa, CA ? The Hoopa Valley Tribe of northern California filed an $80 million lawsuit against the federal government today (Feb. 1, 2008) because the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) has begun disbursing trust fund money from Hoopa timber sales to the neighboring Yurok Tribe. The funds came from logging on Hoopa Valley Reservation before it was divided by Congress in 1988. ?We are suing because the Department of Interior?s decision to give all the Hoopa timber money to the Yuroks defied federal law and preempted a more equitable solution by Congress,? said Hoopa Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall. The Hoopa lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. was triggered by the DOI?s $15,000 payment to individual members of the Yurok Tribe on Jan. 15. The lawsuit is the aftermath of the DOI?s decision last spring to give all $90 million of the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act (HYSA) funds to the Yuroks. The money was part of a government plan to divide and disburse profits from the Hoopa Reservation timber sales managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1974-88. When the adjacent Hoopa and Yurok reservations were Congressionally split in l988, Hoopa accepted the agreement and part of the timber receipts. The Yurok Tribe refused the money and sued to negate the division of the Hoopa Valley Reservation into the ancestral lands of the two tribes. Nearly two decades of unsuccessful Yurok litigation followed as the remaining funds grew to $90 million. The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee conducted a hearing on the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act in 2002. The Interior Department recommended new legislation. Following mediation between the Hoopa Tribal Council and the Yurok Tribal Council, the tribes also agreed on proposed legislation, but nothing was enacted. In 2007, high officials in the Interior Department decided the Department?s long-standing position had been wrong and no legislation was necessary. ?Interior had other plans. They treated the Settlement Act as a right of first refusal by Congress and they took the law into their own hands when Congress was slow to react,? said Marshall. The original monies in the HYSA Trust Fund came (98%) from timber sales on the Hoopa Valley Reservation. The tribe agreed to share the timber receipts money with the Yuroks as a condition of the l988 Congressional HYSA act that split the reservations. The Yuroks refused to accept the division of the reservation and the money. Their unsuccessful litigation for more money ended when the U.S. Supreme Court would not hear their case. ?The Settlement Act gave the Yurok Tribe until November 1993 to drop its litigation and obtain certain benefits; it refused to do so,? said Marshall. ?Now that they lost in the courts they have used lobbying tactics at the Department of Interior to reverse the last decade of legal and administrative decisions saying they could not access this money.? The Hoopa Valley Tribe had asked Congress to intervene and resolve this final fiscal chapter of the HYSA. Marshall said, ?Congress could have resolved this issue equitably for both tribes, but the Interior Department has chosen to inequitably amend the statute by itself.? - 30- ************** Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: HYSA Lawsuit PR-Final.doc Type: application/octet-stream Size: 24385 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Vina_Frye at fws.gov Wed Feb 6 15:56:56 2008 From: Vina_Frye at fws.gov (Vina_Frye at fws.gov) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 15:56:56 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Public Notice Membership Renewal Message-ID: (See attached file: Nominations 2 Version.pdf) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Nominations 2 Version.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 37575 bytes Desc: not available URL: From BGUTERMUTH at mp.usbr.gov Fri Feb 8 13:16:38 2008 From: BGUTERMUTH at mp.usbr.gov (Brandt Gutermuth) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:16:38 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Lewiston-Dark Gulch EA-FONSI/Final EIR available for review Message-ID: Hi All- The final environmental review/disclosure document for the Lewiston-Dark Gulch Project (the EA-FONSI/Final EIR) is now available for your review at: http://www.trrp.net/implementation/DarkGulch.htm This project will be the next that the TRRP will put on the ground to enhance Trinity River form & function and to create juvenile fish rearing habitat. The plan is to add coarse sediment (gravel) to the river during high spring 2008 fish flows (at the diversion pool and another downstream area (Sawmill site)) and to construct the larger project (in-river and on the floodplain) in summer/fall. Best Regards- Brandt ____________________________ Brandt Gutermuth Environmental Specialist Trinity River Restoration Program PO Box 1300 (mailing) 1313 S. Main Street (physical) Weaverville, CA 96093 530.623.1806 (voice) 530.623.5944 (fax) www.trrp.net (website) _______________________ More details are included below and at the website. Trinity River Restoration Program and Trinity County Resource Conservation District Finalize the Lewiston-Dark Gulch Rehabilitation Site Environmental Documents Under guidance of the Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP), the Bureau of Reclamation has acted as the federal lead agency in preparation of the Lewiston-Dark Gulch Project Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and Environmental Assessment (EA). The Trinity County Resource Conservation District (TCRCD), in their role as the state lead agency, has prepared the Final Environmental Impact Report (Final EIR). This joint environmental document for the proposed Lewiston-Dark Gulch Rehabilitation Project: Trinity River Mile 105.4-111.7 (FONSI-EA/Final EIR), meets California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements and fulfills evaluation needs stipulated under Executive Orders 11988 (floodplain management), 11990 (protection of wetlands), 13112 (invasive species), and 12898 (environmental justice). This mechanical channel rehabilitation project is one of those originally identified in the Interior Secretary?s December 19, 2000 Record of Decision (ROD) as a necessary step towards restoration of the Trinity River?s anadromous fishery. The purpose of the proposed Lewiston-Dark Gulch Rehabilitation Project (Project) is to provide increased juvenile salmonid rearing habitat on the mainstem Trinity River. Construction will create additional fish and wildlife habitat that is expected to increase over time as river processes are restored. Work to be performed includes re-contouring bank and floodplain features, as well as conducting in-river work such as gravel placement and grade control removal. Gravel additions to the river are expected to start in May 2008 and to be performed annually thereafter. Construction in-river and the adjacent floodplain would begin in summer 2008. The TCRCD is working as a partner agency under a grant from the California Department of Fish and Game?s Klamath River Restoration Grant Program that provides financial support for Project implementation. The FONSI-EA/Final EIR includes the EA/Draft EIR (incorporated by reference), a list of persons and agencies commenting on the EA/Draft EIR, written comments, Lead Agency responses to comments, revised Draft EIR text, and a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program (MMRP) for the proposed Project. Prior to approving the Project, the TCRCD will certify that the Final EIR is in compliance with CEQA and Reclamation will sign the FONSI. Then the document will be used to support necessary permit applications as well as to identify and adopt appropriate monitoring and mitigation plans. Electronic copies of the EA/Draft EIR, and the FONSI-EA/Final EIR are available on the TRRP?s website at: http://www.trrp.net/RestorationProgram/Lewiston-Dark Gulch.htm, on the TCRCD?s website at: www.tcrcd.net, or on Reclamation?s Mid-Pacific Region website at: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/nepa/nepa_projdetails.cfm?Project_ID=2094. The documents may also be reviewed at the TRRP Office at 1313 South Main Street (next to Tops grocery); the Trinity County Resource Conservation District, #1 Horseshoe Lane; or the Trinity County library, 211 North Main Street; all in Weaverville, California. If you have any questions concerning this document or the Project, please contact Mr. Alex Cousins of the TCRCD at 530-623-6004 or email acousins at tcrcd.net; or Mr. Brandt Gutermuth, TRRP, at 530-623-1806 or bgutermuth at mp.usbr.gov. From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Feb 8 14:54:16 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 14:54:16 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Eureka Times Standard 2 8 08 Message-ID: <002a01c86aa5$89ce5cd0$0201a8c0@optiplex> KLAMATH COMPACT: Guest Opinion: Klamath plan: What have we learned in 20 years? Eureka Times Standard - 2/8/08 By Bill Kier, of Kier Associates, lives in Blue Lake As you discuss and contemplate the next decade or two of wrestling with the terms/spirit of the proposed Klamath basin restoration agreement, it's hard not to recall the past two decades -- the Klamath Act of 1986, with which Congress intended to rejuvenate Klamath river salmon resources. Our consulting group was awarded a contract (summer 1988) to assist the Klamath Act's Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) chartered Klamath River Basin Fisheries Task Force develop what would become its long-range plan for restoring the basin's fish resources (see www.krisweb.com/biblio/gen_usfws_kierassoc_1991_lrp.pdf). Sari Sommarstrom, a key member of our team, and I split the task force list and interviewed each of the 14 members at the very outset of the project. I interviewed the U.S secretary of agriculture's appointee, Klamath National Forest Supervisor Bob Rice, in San Francisco, where he was doing a stint as acting regional forester. Bob shared with me, over lunch, what I've regarded ever since as a particularly prescient concern about the way these things go. Bob said somehow we've got to prevent the funds available to the 20-year program from becoming "socialized, " by which he meant from being taken for granted and becoming an expected portion of each agency's or tribe's budget base. Bob's point was that 20 years was a long enough period to determine, as we proceeded, whether we were making any progress or not, and if the funds became "socialized," then it would be impossible to redirect them toward more promising measures -- an early-day adaptive management (a term that was then just beginning to appear in the literature) issue, right? If any of you have looked the plan over, you'll see that it approaches the many contentious issues in a step-wise fashion, which was Sari's influence -- try cooperation first, and if that doesn't do it within X months or years, seek administrative remedies. And if that doesn't do it, then litigate. Program plans such as the task force's are typically laid aside, forgotten early on (if ever created in the first place, which didn't really happen with the multibillion-dollar CalFed program over the hill). For so long as she was able, Ronnie Pierce, bless her heart, was the self-anointed keeper of the Klamath Long Range Plan -- asking in the welter of task force deliberations "What's the plan say -- anybody checked the plan on this?" What I'm saying is that we've had a heavy dose of process -- we had a plan, a governance structure (such as it was -- the FACA committee to advise the secretary of the Interior -- but it's frankly hard to do better), a 20-year process, $1 million a year budget for administration, plus restoration grants. And no more fish, really, to show for it. By the way, we were hired a second time, a decade out, to help the Klamath Task Force evaluate the Klamath program's progress (see http://www.fws.gov/yreka/MTE/toc-ch1.pdf) One of the principal findings of that evaluation was that the task force's consensus policy, sought by the salmon fishermen after years of being outvoted on various committees and commissions, simply wasn't working as the consensus process is supposed to work -- where you state your position and, if the clear majority wishes otherwise, you "step aside." In the case of the task force, the ags were simply blocking any meaningful engagement by the task force of the in-your-face problems of water use, water quality, etc. What, then, you have to ask yourself, is different about the present restoration agreement/contemplating congressional authorization/appropriation? What foibles, such as that signaled by Bob Rice 20 years ago, will likely be repeated? What have we learned from the last 20 years that will get us to an any-better place in the next 20 years? 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Feb 12 12:54:11 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:54:11 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: 26th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference: March 5-8, Lodi, CA Message-ID: <003f01c86db9$6c69ceb0$0201a8c0@optiplex> _____ From: Heather Reese [mailto:heather at calsalmon.org] Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 12:28 PM To: 'Dana Stolzman' Subject: 26th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference: March 5-8, Lodi, CA Hello, Below please find pasted (and attached as a Word Document) the Press Release and Public Service Announcement regarding the up-coming Salmonid Restoration Conference, taking place in Lodi, CA this year, March 5-8. Also attached is an announcement for the Wild and Scenic Film Festival On Tour being hosted by SRF at the Conference on Thursday evening, March 6th. Great films! Please feel free to forward this to any mailing list, add to any Events webpage, or include in any form of newsletter. Also, please share with your fish-loving friends and constituents. Also, we have beautiful posters for display. If you would like to post one in your office - or local public display board, please send me your mailing address and the number of posters you would like to post. Thank you so much for your time and we hope to see you there!! 26th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference March 5-8, 2008 in Lodi, CA This premier restoration conference features all-day field tours of Tuolumne and Stanislaus River restoration and monitoring projects, a Fisheries Monitoring and Management tour of the Mokelumne River, and half-day workshops and tours of fish-friendly vineyards, and the Cosumnes River Preserve. Workshops include Fins and Zins: Sustainable Agriculture and Watershed Management, Fish Passage: Managing Flows on Regulated Rivers and Streams, Floodplain Restoration, and Invasive Species. The Plenary session will feature fisheries professor Peter Moyle who will discuss the state of California salmonids and the restoration of the San Joaquin, Christina Swanson, senior scientist of the Bay Institute, will present on Bay Delta recovery issues, Robert Lackey from the EPA will discuss the Salmon 2100 Project that factors global conditions into long-term projections about salmon recovery around the world, and California Assembly Member Jared Huffman will highlight current watershed bills and opportunities in the state legislature. Concurrent sessions will focus on the policy and biological considerations in formulating the San Joaquin Restoration Program, Recovery Planning models, Central Valley Chinook and Steelhead, and Trout, Restoring Natural Hydrographs, Dam Removal and Salmonid Recovery, Engaging the Community in Salmonid and Watershed Education, and Monitoring and Management issues in the Central Valley. Other highlights of the conference include the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival, SRF's annual meeting, a poster session and reception, and a cabaret, a Copper River salmon banquet, and a lively dance party with Latin-dance band Sambada. For more information, please see www.calsalmon.org or contact Salmonid Restoration Federation at 707 923-7501. PSA Version: Salmonid Restoration Federation proudly presents the 26th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference in Lodi, California, March 5-8, 2008. The conference includes two full days of workshops and field tours on fisheries restoration topics, a plenary session featuring prominent keynote speakers and concurrent sessions focusing on environmental, biological, and policy issues that affect salmonid recovery. Please see www.calsalmon.org or contact SRF at 707 923-7501. Heather Reese Project Coordinator Salmonid Restoration Federation PO Box 784 Redway, California 95560 (707) 923-7501 heather at calsalmon.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2008 SRF Conf PSA121407.doc Type: application/msword Size: 118784 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WSEFF PR 2008.doc Type: application/msword Size: 61440 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Feb 20 11:22:37 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:22:37 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Humboldt Supervisors conditionally approval Klamath agreement Message-ID: <007b01c873f5$f4a4ec50$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Supervisors conditionally approval Klamath agreement Eureka Times Standard ? 2/20/08 By Jessie Faulkner, staff writer EUREKA -- The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to conditionally approve the Klamath Basin Agreement -- once the separate agreement on the dam removal has been reached. At the earlier request of the supervisors, Public Works Department Director Tom Mattson -- with the assistance of retired Deputy Public Works Director Don Tuttle -- reviewed the agreement and presented three conclusions to the supervisors: * that the agreement did not jeopardize the board's local control; * that the increased flow in the river would not adversely affect public works facilities; and * that language in the agreement may force the county to reallocate waterway restoration dollars to the Klamath. The latter raised concern among board members about the ability to prioritize the use of existing rehabilitation dollars After further discussion, the focus on reallocation of rehabilitation dollars was clarified as dealing with newly acquired federal and state funds - not monies already granted, according to Yurok Tribe attorney John Corbett. The objective, Corbett said, was for all involved parties to go to Congress to seek funding. ?It was intended to be new money,? Corbett said. ?We're after new monies, not old monies.? Yurok Tribal Chair Maria Tripp also encouraged the board's approval of the Klamath Basin agreement. The agreement, Tripp said, restores the fish and the river without giving away sovereign rights. The tribe's support of the agreement, she said, came after extensive consultation with tribal members. ?The Yurok Tribe has no other river -- (there's) no more important battle,? she said. Fifth District Supervisor Jill Geist -- who has been attending years of meetings leading up the agreement -- acknowledged that asking for conditional approval of the agreement is venturing into uncharted territory. River advocate Denver Nelson of Eureka urged the supervisors to approve the agreement and praised Geist's attendance at the numerous meetings that led to the agreement's semi-final form. While not convinced that taking out the dams will restore the river's fisheries, Nelson reminded the board that the license for those dams lasts 50 years. If its not done now, it won't be for another 50 years. The Klamath Basin Agreement, a lengthy effort to balance the agricultural water needs in the upper basin with restoring flows for the health of the fisheries, first came before the board Jan. 22 and was continued until this week. PacificCorp -- owner of the dams on the Klamath -- is currently asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to relicense its dams. # http://www.times-standard.com//ci_8311894?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com #### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Fri Feb 22 11:00:48 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:00:48 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Region 9 Wetland Program Development Grants Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C62E@mail3.trinitycounty.org> EPA Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 Wetland Program Development Grants Grant http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=true&oppId=16 828 Document Type: Grants Notice Funding Opportunity Number: EPA-R9-WP8 Opportunity Category: Discretionary Posted Date: Feb 08, 2008 Creation Date: Feb 08, 2008 Original Closing Date for Applications: Mar 25, 2008 Please refer to the full announcement, including Section IV, for additional information on submission methods and due dates. Current Closing Date for Applications: Mar 25, 2008 Please refer to the full announcement, including Section IV, for additional information on submission methods and due dates. Archive Date: Apr 24, 2008 Funding Instrument Type: Grant Cooperative Agreement Category of Funding Activity: Environment Category Explanation: Expected Number of Awards: 15 Estimated Total Program Funding: $1,792,000 Award Ceiling: $300,000 Award Floor: $50,000 CFDA Number: 66.461 -- Regional Wetland Program Development Grants Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: Yes Eligible Applicants State governments County governments Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized) City or township governments Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification) Additional Information on Eligibility: Projects must be performed within one or more of the states or other areas of EPA Region 9, specifically Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and other unincorporated U.S. Pacific possessions, to be eligible to apply for funding. See Section III of the announcement for additional eligibility information. Agency Name Environmental Protection Agency Description The goals of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) wetland program include increasing the quantity and quality of wetlands in the U.S. by conserving and restoring wetland acreage and improving wetland condition. In pursuing these goals, EPA seeks to build the capacity of all levels of government to develop and refine effective, comprehensive programs for wetland protection and management. Link to Full Announcement Region 9 Wetland Program Development Grants If you have difficulty accessing the full announcement electronically, please contact: Suzanne Marr, 1-415-972-3468 Suzanne Marr -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Feb 24 16:55:41 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:55:41 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Backlog of requests for Delta water pile up as experts say system is already maxed out (duh!) Message-ID: <040601c87749$2722d010$86e1ff42@trinitycounty.org> The Trinity River is an artificial tributary of the Sacramento River and its Delta. Tom Stokely A 75-year-old promise no longer holds water a.. Backlog of requests for Delta water pile up as experts say system is already maxed out By Mike Taugher STAFF WRITER Article Launched: 02/24/2008 03:05:04 AM PST During the Great Depression, the southern and central parts of the state cut a deal with the north: Let us build big pumps and canals to take your surplus water, and we'll give it back when you need it. The time to deliver on that promise may be nearing -- but coming through will be tough because California's water supply is already threatened by climate change, a declining Delta ecosystem and a desiccating Colorado Basin. The state agency responsible for doling out water rights, it turns out, has a massive backlog of pending applications for Delta water at the same time experts are coming to the conclusion that the system is already maxed out. This puts the state Water Resources Control Board in a difficult position: how to satisfy historic assurances for the north at a time when the amount of water available for other parts of the state is already being cut? "Those (applications from the north) can change the equation pretty significantly," Vicky Whitney, the water rights division chief for the State Water Resources Control Board, testified recently. The pending applications, which total more than all of the Delta water delivered each year to Southern California, would, to the extent they are granted, take water directly from the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, Whitney told a task force formed to develop solutions to the Delta's water supply and environmental problems. California, Whitney said, "let permanent demand occur in geographic areas on borrowed water." Too much demand The problems posed by the pending applications emerged in recent months during meetings of the Delta Vision task force, appointed to solve the intertwined problems of the Delta's deteriorating ecology and the state's increasingly unreliable water supply. Members of the task force, who were becoming convinced that too much water was being promised from the Delta, wanted to know how much more water was being sought in the rivers and streams that ultimately drain to the estuary. The number that came back was startling: 4.8 million acre-feet a year, a figure greater than the 4.1 million acre-feet under contract -- but rarely delivered fully -- from the sprawling State Water Project that serves 25 million people in Southern California and 750,000 acres of farms in Kern County. And that does not count an additional 3 million acre-feet to 5 million acre-feet being requested by the state on behalf of Northern California counties. Not all of those unfulfilled claims will prove legitimate. But played out to its worst extreme, the situation could dry up Delta water supplies to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, regions that are highly dependent on Delta water delivered through the State Water Project and the smaller, federal Central Valley Project. "I don't get terribly panicky about this," said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, which manages the State Water Project. "This is something that will play out over a series of years. There will be time to adjust to this." Solution didn't happen The situation echoes the fight over the Colorado River, where seven states, including California, divided up rights to the river's flow in 1922. That dilemma arose because states, relying on a string of wet years, assumed the river carried more water on average than it really did. Meanwhile, Southern California was, for a time, allowed to use more than its share of the Colorado River. That began to end in 2003, when California agreed to wean itself off the excess use of the river so other states, especially Nevada and Arizona, could take their share. In the Delta, water contracts were signed at a time when optimistic state planners were counting on major new dams to supply water from the Eel, Klamath and Trinity Rivers on the North Coast. Those dams, which might have supplied an additional 5 million acre-feet of water to the Delta, were never built. The result is that just like what happened on the Colorado River, parts of California developed on overly optimistic water supply estimates and an obligation to eventually return "surplus" water. Johns said it is incumbent on Southern California water agencies to develop more water supplies, conservation programs and other plans to make up for future losses on the Delta. It is unknown how many of the pending applications will be granted. But the fact that the demands in the north are on a collision course with the rest of the state should not be a surprise because the North Coast rivers were put off limits to dams in the 1970s and 1980s when those rivers were designated wild and scenic. "They've known that water supply wasn't going to be there for about 25 years," said John Herrick, manager of the South Delta Water Agency. "Nobody planned. That doesn't mean the solution would be easy, but they've had 25 years." Further, the solution most often touted by some water agencies -- an aqueduct to connect the Sacramento River directly with south Delta pumps -- will not work if the underlying problem is an insufficient water supply, some critics contend. "The early plans anticipated developing a lot more water," said Greg Gartrell, assistant general manager of the Contra Costa Water District. "That never happened. The result is that the system has been squeezed to what appears to be a limit. A (peripheral canal) will not solve the lack of water." A promise from 1933 The deal over water distribution stems from a string of laws dating more than 70 years that were intended to prevent a repeat of Los Angeles' water raid on the Owens Valley, an incident made famous in the movie "Chinatown." The laws, referred to collectively as "area of origin" laws, require water users in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley to give Delta water back when the region needs it and can use it. But the laws have rarely been exercised or tested in courts, leaving it unclear how far the rights extend. The key is a 1933 promise that water will be made available to the watershed where the water originates or in areas "immediately adjacent to" the watershed that can be "conveniently" supplied with water from it. Rather than test how broadly that language applies, state water officials in 2002 negotiated a deal with the cities of Benicia, Fairfield and Vacaville that provided the cities with the water they wanted without setting a precedent that defined them as being in the area of origin. Benicia, in particular, was making a claim that some water officials did not want to see cemented in precedent. That city's watershed drains to the Carquinez Strait, which the city argued was a historical source of fresh water but other water officials said did not properly belong in the area of origin. Today, the biggest applications are from the Stockton East Water District, Delta Wetlands Properties, a private enterprise that is trying to build for-profit reservoirs in the Delta, and the Westlands Water District, a 600,000-acre farm district whose claim to San Joaquin River flow sparked outrage from other farmers. Other applicants include the growing Sacramento region and the cities of Davis, Stockton and Woodland. "Part of their responsibility was to go out and develop that water," said Kevin Kauffman, general manager of the Stockton East Water District, which has applied for 1.4 million acre-feet of water to accommodate growth and recharge an overused aquifer. "They just simply haven't done it." Taken together, those applications represent an enormous potential strain on a water system that has already been stretched past the breaking point. In December, for example, a federal judge imposed water delivery cuts to prevent one fish species, Delta smelt, from going extinct. State wildlife officials are imposing more restrictions to protect another fish species, the longfin smelt. And the Delta Vision panel all but concluded that Delta water supplies would shrink in coming years to protect the environment. "Everything points in the direction of not just being fully allocated, but way overallocated right now," William Reilly, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator under the first President Bush and a member of the Delta Vision panel, concluded at a recent hearing. Michael Jackson, an environmental lawyer in Plumas County and a director of the California Water Impact Network, said about 5 million acre-feet of water originates in the Sierra Nevada county but only about 2,000 acre-feet of water rights exist there. He said it is time for the water resources board to open a formal proceeding, likely to take years, to straighten out how much water is available and how best to distribute it while protecting the public trust values of that water. "The thing that makes the state board the only place you can probably solve it is they have the ability to put everybody's five leading experts on the stand, and then let everybody's leading lawyers cross-examine them," Jackson said. "There's no more B.S." Jackson said the board has not wanted to exercise that power in the past. "It comes with unexpected result," he said, adding that the board appears more willing to wade into the problem recently. "It's like they're waking up from a deep sleep," he said. Mike Taugher covers natural resources. Reach him at 925-943-8257 or mtaugher at bayareanewsgroup.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Feb 24 16:56:41 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:56:41 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] http://www.contracostatimes.com/animals/ci_8351938 Message-ID: <040d01c87749$492d6990$86e1ff42@trinitycounty.org> The article is from the Contra Costa Times, available at http://www.contracostatimes.com/animals/ci_8351938 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Feb 26 12:07:42 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:07:42 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Delta canal alive again?; Legislative whispers suggest controversial plan might return Message-ID: <07e001c878c0$fca5d700$86e1ff42@trinitycounty.org> Delta canal alive again?; Legislative whispers suggest controversial plan might return Stockton Record - 2/26/08 By Hank Shaw, staff writer SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may issue an executive order jump-starting a controversial plan to build a canal around the Delta, sources familiar with the matter said Monday. Doing so would bypass the Legislature, which is divided over whether such a canal should be built. Schwarzenegger supports the idea of a new way to ship water from the Sacramento River to the giant pumps near Tracy that supply roughly 25 million Californians with their drinking water. Schwarzenegger spokesman Bill Maile neither confirmed nor denied that an executive order is in the works. Opponents, such as Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden, say a canal around the Delta would divert the flow of fresh water away from the area of the estuary near Stockton, turning it into a fetid backwater. "I don't think this is helpful at all," said Machado, who represents the part of the Delta that would be affected. "This executive order is a presumption of a direction without any determination that it is the right direction to go. "It could be a disaster for San Joaquin County." No argument from Dante Nomellini, a Stockton attorney who represents central Delta farmers. Nomellini said Monday he's heard whisperings about an impending executive order. "We'll have to see what it says," he said. He calls the governor's entire Delta Vision process a "sham," saying that state officials have long known they wanted to build a canal. South Delta farmer and engineer Alex Hildebrand also is closely following developments. "They seem to want to get the thing financed and committed before analyzing the consequences," Hildebrand said. "If they're bull-headedly going to go ahead with the plan to build the canal, then we've lost." Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget includes $1.4 million to begin the environmental analysis needed to determine whether to build a peripheral canal. His budget request would create eight positions with a goal of developing potential routes for a canal by 2009. A no-build option would be included. Maile said that plan was written under the assumption that the governor and the Legislature come to a deal on how to proceed with a peripheral canal. If the governor issues the executive order, it would, among other things, direct eight existing employees to do the environmental analysis. The money to pay for it would come from the State Water Project. The argument in support of the move is that the environmental review is so time-consuming and so complex that the state cannot afford to delay much longer. "Nothing is more important to California and its economy than making sure that we have all the water we need now and far into the future," Schwarzenegger said during his weekly radio address Saturday. "There is no more time to waste. We have to plan and build for California's future right now ... because these projects take years to build." But issuing an executive order over the peripheral canal could prove politically dicey, especially just days after the state's water warriors met behind closed doors to talk about a negotiated solution. "What it tends to say is that the meeting was a ruse," Machado said. "He's basically declaring war." # http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080226/A_NEWS/802260317 #### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Feb 27 17:00:03 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:00:03 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Senators' Letter to Governor on His Start of the Peripheral Canal Message-ID: <00db01c879a5$44a26fc0$0201a8c0@optiplex> February 27, 2008 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger State Capitol First Floor Sacramento, CA 95814 Dear Governor: We are shocked to learn that your administration has acted unilaterally to begin work on an alternative delta conveyance system, i.e. The Peripheral Canal. Specifically: 1. In recent correspondence with the Chair of the Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee, your water department opined that, without any further legislative action, it had broad authority and discretion to construct facilities like the Peripheral Canal under current law (Letter to Assembly Member Wolk - November 21, 2007-page 1, Paragraph 2) 2. Your proposed 2008 budget seeks eight permanent positions to produce engineering and environmental documents for the construction of an Alternative Delta Conveyance System (i.e. peripheral canal) funded through revenues in the State Water Project. Among other things, the budget request states that the state needs to act quickly to construct new water conveyance and that Department of Water Resources should be the sole agency overseeing the construction of the canal. (Budget Change Proposal #10, Element 20--Department of Water Resources July 31, 2007) 3. It was reported to us that last Friday, a resources agency official stated in a public meeting on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan that the administration is preparing an executive order directing to begin environmental and engineering documents for a canal facility despite the fact that the budget request has not been acted upon and the request contends that no staff currently are available for that purpose. We are vexed that only last week, you invited Senator Diane Feinstein to meet with us to help forge a comprehensive agreement on a water bond for the November 2008 ballot. At that time, you repeatedly stressed the singular importance of reaching a balanced, statewide consensus on water policy that meets the needs of the entire state, and not acting in a manner that addresses some concerns while ignoring others. You appointed a Blue Ribbon Task Force to review the state of the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta and make recommendations to fix the fragile delta. The task force emphasized the need to integrate actions to save the delta into a single, comprehensive plan. Launching a peripheral canal without addressing ecosystem, water quality, structure and governance simply enflames old sectional passions and suspicions. And, it moves us in the exact opposite direction from a comprehensive water policy. Frankly, we find it difficult to negotiate seriously with D.W.R. and other interests in view of this. We urge you to withdraw the executive actions cited above and to direct your agency to work with all parties of interest to ensure California?s water policy truly reflects the needs of the entire state. Sincerely, DON PERATA MIKE MACHADO DARRELL STEINBERG Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair California Trout, Inc., Advisor PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax 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: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Feb 27 18:53:09 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:53:09 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Irrigators clash over proposed Klamath deal Message-ID: <0a2501c879b6$536f48f0$86e1ff42@trinitycounty.org> Irrigators clash over proposed Klamath deal Capitol Farm Bureau Federation - 2/27/08 By Christine Souza, staff writer Irrigators who once stood alongside one another and protested the Klamath Basin water shut-off in 2001 are now at odds over a proposed settlement agreement that would potentially benefit one group of irrigators and may cause problems for others. "The proposed settlement was a tough choice for Klamath irrigators," said Chris Scheuring, managing counsel for the California Farm Bureau Federation's National Resources and Environmental Division. "At the same time, folks on the Shasta and Scott rivers have concerns about the blowback. All of it shows that species laws, in their current form, are pitting the human species against itself in a way that perhaps was not contemplated when they were enacted." The proposed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, released to the public by Klamath River Basin stakeholders in January, is a $985 million plan that would ensure irrigation water and affordable power for irrigators of the Klamath Water Project and revive the river's salmon populations. The deal, developed by an assortment of groups and agencies including farmers, tribes, fishermen and environmentalists, is contingent upon the removal of four dams on the Klamath River. "This proposed agreement would implement a true watershed-wide approach to Klamath issues, something we have stressed since 2001," said Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA), one of 26 stakeholders involved in the negotiations. "This is a product of more than two years of blood, sweat and tears. We believe, given the range of alternatives and needs of Klamath irrigators, that we have negotiated a successful package that secures our future as a viable agricultural economy." For Klamath Basin irrigators, Addington said the KWUA did make some compromises in its water allotment, but said the association has tools that can help work with those and keep communities sustainable and keep agriculture in production for future generations. "The agreement is multifaceted and will not be without some controversy," Addington said. "We have to look at what the alternatives are for us. For some groups, status quo is OK. If you are an irrigator in the Klamath Reclamation Project, the status quo is a frightening place to be where assurances related to water deliveries are year to year, month to month." However, downstream Scott River and Shasta River valley irrigators, who were not at the table during settlement negotiations, are concerned about what this plan could mean for their farming operations. "Siskiyou County Farm Bureau is concerned that during dry years, with no minimum flow established on the Klamath River, they will look to the Shasta and Scott rivers to make up the flow in times of drought and during dry summer months," said Siskiyou County Farm Bureau President Mike Luiz. "That would be detrimental to irrigators, striking a blow to Scott and Shasta valley agriculture." Other areas of concern include higher power rates, encroachment of private property rights, a reduction in funding for restoration projects, increased regulations and water quality issues. "The loss of the power generation capabilities of those dams is something that needs to be addressed," said Luiz, a Montague sheep rancher. "In California and across the West we are still bordering on a power crisis. Every summer we receive warnings of a power shortage and this is good green power that we will be pulling out, so how will they replace that?" The removal of dams, Luiz said, will also reduce the value of homes located on the region's lakes and the Klamath River. "If the dams are removed the value of these people's properties is going to be severely impacted. These homeowners are going to go from having lakefront property to desolation-front property," Luiz said. "People have purchased these properties to be next to the lakes and to take advantage of the recreation opportunities so the value of that property is going to be severely impacted." Retired rancher Ernie Wilkinson, who serves as an associate director for the Siskiyou Resource Conservation District, estimates that over the course of the last 20 years, nearly $15 million has been spent on recovery projects in the Scott River valley. He is worried that these recovery dollars that have been spent on projects such as installing fish screens and riparian plantings, may be directed to other projects. "We're concerned with fishery health overall because we get an awful lot of pressure from the California Department of Fish and Game to sustain habitat for fish," Wilkinson said. "My concern is that a fairly large portion of whatever is available in the way of recovery project funding may go elsewhere." For Etna rancher Gary Black, who also works for the Siskiyou Resource Conservation District, one of the main problems for many in the Scott River and Shasta River valleys is not having had a seat at the table during the discussions. "There are a lot of unknowns and there appears to be no way to fit into the process if we need to," Black said. Klamath Basin farmer Luther Horsley, president of the KWUA, said Klamath Basin irrigators taking part in the negotiations had three primary objectives: a reliable source of water to irrigate crops; affordable power for irrigation and drainage pumps; and regulatory assurance from lawsuits related to the introduction of new species. "We believe this agreement achieves those objectives," Horsley said. "We also feel by working together with other interests and parties along the river, we can achieve a lot more than we have from the past status quo of fighting and suing each other." Horsley recalls how farmers suffered from the water shut-off of 2001, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service issued biological opinions under the Endangered Species Act that required higher water levels to protect endangered sucker fish and higher flows to protect threatened coho salmon. "In 2001 it was devastating for us in the basin and we just know that we don't want to go through that again, not only for the farmers, but all of the other species that depend on the water life and habitat that we create," Horsley said. The parties who were involved in the development of the settlement agree that the many restoration projects that the plan sets in motion, combined with the removal of the dams, will translate into significantly improved conditions for coho and other anandramous fish. The key to making this agreement work is the removal of the Iron Gate, J.C. Boyle, Copco1 and Copco2 dams which are owned by Oregon-based PacifiCorp. This would give threatened coho salmon and other fish species access to 300 miles of habitat in the river and improve water quality. Negotiations are currently taking place with PacifiCorp to reach an agreement on the removal of the utility's dams. Stakeholders say the estimated $120 million tab to remove the dams should be paid for by PacifiCorp. PacifiCorp spokesperson Paul Vogel stated that the utility is currently reviewing the 256-page proposed agreement. "We have made it pretty clear for a long time if dam removal is what is settled upon, we are willing to consider that option, but our customers have to be protected and not be paying the unreasonable cost of dam removal, plus replacement power, plus the liability," Vogel said. "Hand in hand with the liability is the science and what is an accurate scientific understanding of what the impacts are of taking these dams out." Stakeholders have estimated the cost to implement the restoration is $985 million over 10 years. Of that total, $585 million would come from existing programs and the remaining $400 million would have to be authorized by Congress. Settlement party negotiators have indicated initial support, but the agreement now needs approval of individual irrigation districts, tribal governments, fisheries groups and state and federal agencies. # http://www.cfbf.com/agalert/AgAlertStory.cfm?ID=989&ck=A1140A3D0DF1C81E24AE954D935E8926 #### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Feb 27 19:20:15 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:20:15 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath River 2007 Salmon Age Composition Report and 2008 Stock Projection Reports Available Message-ID: <0a5201c879b8$da1d8450$86e1ff42@trinitycounty.org> The run size report for 2007 Klamath Fall Chinook and the 2008 Stock Projection Report, respectively, can be found at the Pacific Fisheries Management Council websites below. http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/salother/KRTAT_2007_Age_Comp_Rept_12Feb2008.pdf http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/salother/KRTAT_2008_Stk_Prj_Rept_25Feb2008.pdf What is interesting to note is that the 2007 fall chinook run on the Klamath-Trinity was larger than the 2007 fall chinook run on the Sacramento River. It seems that the Sacramento River stocks are much more impacted than Klamath-Trinity stocks at this time. Gee, I wonder why? Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1351, Press 2-2-1 FAX 623-1353 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Wed Feb 27 19:51:33 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:51:33 -0500 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath River 2007 Salmon Age Composition Report and2008 Stock Projection Reports Available Message-ID: Yes, I saw that also, especially comparing 2004 to 2007. The Central Valley run size (focussing on naturally produced fall run chinook) is roughly one third of their cohorts of three years ago (also ignoring the role of jacks in run size). The Klamath run size is 2 to 3 times that of 3 years ago. If you move further north into the Oregon watersheds the 2007 numbers are worse than 2004 as in the Central Valley. Spreck Rosekrans -----Original Message----- From: Tom Stokely [mailto:tstokely at trinityalps.net] Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 10:19 PM Eastern Standard Time To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath River 2007 Salmon Age Composition Report and2008 Stock Projection Reports Available The run size report for 2007 Klamath Fall Chinook and the 2008 Stock Projection Report, respectively, can be found at the Pacific Fisheries Management Council websites below. http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/salother/KRTAT_2007_Age_Comp_Rept_12Feb2008.pdf http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/salother/KRTAT_2008_Stk_Prj_Rept_25Feb2008.pdf What is interesting to note is that the 2007 fall chinook run on the Klamath-Trinity was larger than the 2007 fall chinook run on the Sacramento River. It seems that the Sacramento River stocks are much more impacted than Klamath-Trinity stocks at this time. Gee, I wonder why? Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1351, Press 2-2-1 FAX 623-1353 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Feb 28 10:03:25 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:03:25 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] More on Peripheral Canal Message-ID: <0be001c87a34$37b6bcf0$86e1ff42@trinitycounty.org> Senators tell Schwarzenegger to curtail work on peripheral canal - Associated Press Canal plan ignites old state feud; Three lawmakers accuse governor of enflaming rivalries, threaten to halt negotiations over water bond - Contra Costa Times No end run on 'Peripheral Canal,' governor told - San Diego Union Tribune blog Senators tell Schwarzenegger to curtail work on peripheral canal Associated Press - 2/27/08 By Steve Lawrence, staff writer SACRAMENTO-Three Senate Democrats accused Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday of jeopardizing negotiations over water projects and generating regional tensions by moving ahead with planning for a canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. "Launching a peripheral canal without addressing ecosystem, water quality, structure and governance simply enflames old sectional passions and suspicions," Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, Sen. Mike Machado and Sen. Darrell Steinberg said in a letter to the Republican governor. "And it moves us in the exact opposite direction from a comprehensive water policy. Frankly, we find it difficult to negotiate seriously with (the Department of Water Resources) and other interests in view of this." The concept of a peripheral canal has been controversial for decades, with many Northern Californians fearing it would enable the more heavily populated southern part of the state to take more water from northern reservoirs. In 1982, voters rejected a plan to build the canal. The senators said they had been told that the administration was preparing an executive order requiring environmental and engineering work on a canal, even though lawmakers had not approved the governor's request for funding to pay for staff to do the work. The information about the executive order came from an unidentified California Resources Agency official who made a comment about it during a public meeting on a delta conservation plan last Friday, the lawmakers said. They said they also were disturbed by the Department of Water Resource's assertion last November that it had "broad authority and discretion to construct facilities like the Peripheral Canal" without additional authorization from the Legislature. Asked about the letter on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said he had no plans to sign an executive order. "I'm not off doing anything," he said during a news conference called to announce efforts to fix 97 failing school districts. "I'm right now working with everybody and bringing everyone together to make sure that we rebuild our water system so that we can guarantee people not only 20 years from now, but 30, 40, 50 years from now that when they turn on the faucet, there is water coming out." The governor called a special legislative session last year to try to reach a deal on a series of projects that would boost the state's water supply, but the administration and the Legislature's Democratic leaders remain divided over how much money-if any-should be spent on new dams. Democrats prefer increased water conservation measures. In the background is a ballot initiative sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce that would authorize the sale of $11.6 billion in bonds to pay for water projects, including new dams and a peripheral canal. Schwarzenegger has said he hopes the Legislature will reach an agreement that will enable it to put its own water measure on the November ballot. In an attempt to restart negotiations, he brought in U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein last week for a meeting with Republican and Democratic legislators. Perata, Machado and Steinberg said they found it vexing that the administration was talking about going ahead with planning for a peripheral canal after Schwarzenegger repeatedly stressed at that meeting "the singular importance of reaching a balanced statewide consensus on water policy. ..." Steinberg, of Sacramento, chairs the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee and is in line to succeed Perata as president pro tempore-the Senate's top post-after the Oakland Democrat is termed out this fall. Machado, of Linden, is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Delta Resources. # http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8383084 Canal plan ignites old state feud; Three lawmakers accuse governor of enflaming rivalries, threaten to halt negotiations over water bond Contra Costa Times - 2/28/08 By Mike Taugher, staff writer Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request for a new team to plan rerouting of water away from the Delta -- a peripheral canal -- has ignited opposition in the Legislature. Three key lawmakers on Wednesday angrily accused the governor of enflaming rivalries and threatened to halt negotiations over a multibillion-dollar water bond. "Launching a peripheral canal without addressing ecosystem, water quality, structure and governance simply enflames old sectional passions and suspicions," the three senators wrote. "It moves us in the exact opposite direction from a comprehensive water policy." The letter was signed by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland; his successor as Senate leader, Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden. The showdown comes as lawmakers and the administration face off over whether the Department of Water Resources already has the legal authority to build the canal. The administration says that it does but lawmakers are not so sure. The request to add eight new positions to plan a canal could be one of the few occasions for which the administration voluntarily seeks approval from lawmakers -- and it could be an uphill climb. "We're getting way ahead of ourselves," said Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, chairwoman of the water, parks and wildlife committee. She called the chances of approval "very slim." The department apparently does not need approval for funding the canal project. Its contractors, a group of water districts from the East Bay to Southern California, have already agreed to pay for the canal by passing along costs to users. At a news conference Wednesday, the governor called the water supply situation a statewide crisis but added he would continue to work with Democrats. "We are all going to work together. I'm not off doing anything," he said. Support for a peripheral canal has grown in the past year after the failure of a comprehensive water management and environmental program, launched in 2000, to fix the Delta ecosystem and stabilize water supplies. The Delta's fish populations are crashing, and its levees are vulnerable to earthquakes and collapse. In an unprecedented move, a court last year cut water deliveries to protect an endangered fish, which has not yet rebounded. State water officials say that 25 years after voters rejected the original Peripheral Canal to move water across the state, they have no choice but to try again with something similar. Canal supporters say diverting water upstream would reduce the number of fish killed at giant pumps near Tracy that deliver water to the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. Also, supporters say, water would be cleaner and possibly less susceptible to shortages due to earthquakes. But, by depriving the Delta of a fresh water flows from the Sierra snowpack, the canal diversion could lead to much higher pollution in the Delta, the sole source of drinking water for 500,000 Contra Costa residents. At least three planning processes are under way that lend support, in varying degrees, to a canal. A Delta Vision task force is considering a new aqueduct but its proposal, which could be unveiled this summer, appears likely to include potentially strict caveats and conditions. Another study, a risk assessment commissioned by the water resources department, suggests an earthquake could cause the state's plumbing system to fail. Finally, a plan to comply with endangered species laws being negotiated primarily by regulators and water users is moving along fast and could end up recommending a new canal. Machado said the governor was latching on to the endangered species solution. "He (Schwarzenegger) is proposing to go after a solution that is one of the proposals and saying this is the answer using off-budget dollars," said Machado, referring to contractors' dollars that are not subject to legislative approval. "He's pre-empting the process." Jerry Johns, deputy director of the Department of Water Resources, said the need for planning is urgent but added, "just because we're planning it, doesn't mean it's going to get built. "You can't make any choice until you have an environmental document and that will take years," Johns added. He said a formal decision to build a canal could be made by the department in late 2010 at earliest and construction could be done as early as 2015. # http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_8390869?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com No end run on 'Peripheral Canal,' governor told San Diego Union Tribune blog - 2/27/08 Posted By Michael Gardner, Copley News Service SACRAMENTO -- Just days after heralding a new era of cooperation on water issues with the help of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in hot water for kicking around the idea of unilaterally jumpstarting a new north-to-south water delivery canal by issuing an executive order. State Senate Democrats have pounced, saying they are "shocked" that Schwarzenegger would consider resorting to an end-run right after face-to-face water meetings produced promises to foster compromise on reserves and a canal. Suggestions of an executive order to start the environmental studies for a canal without approval of the Legislature and without an extensive look at other issues "simply enflames old sectional passions and suspicions," top Democrats wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger Wednesday. Various conveyance proposals have been dogged by the ghost of the "Peripheral Canal," rejected by voters in 1982, primarily out of fears that it was a bid by the south to steal water from the north. Schwarzenegger sought to defuse the dust-up Wednesday, telling reporters that "I'm not off doing anything." He added later, "Right now I have no plans" to push ahead with the directive. The letter also warned that Democrats "find it difficult to negotiate seriously ... in view of this." Signing the letter were Senate leader Don Perata of Oakland and Senators Mike Machado of Linden (near Stockton) and Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento. All three are from the north, a region traditionally wary of water transfers south. As further evidence of a possible scheme to bypass lawmakers, the trio also cite the governor's bid in the 2008-09 budget to fund eight new positions to work on conveyance and an agency letter that claims the Department of Water Resources has "broad authority and discretion" to construct facilities under current law. Feinstein, a Democrat, came to the Capitol last week at the invitation of Schwarzenegger to help broker a deal on an approximately $11 billion bond that would include funding for new storage, environmental projects and conservation. A second round of high-level talks may be held next week. Republicans also want the bond to contain explicit authority to build a new conveyance system, although Southern California water interests, including Metropolitan and the San Diego County Water Authority, have offered to pay for most of it. Following is the transcript of the governor's response to reporter questions: Q: Governor, a quick question. Can you talk about the peripheral canal? There's been a lot of talk that you may sign some sort of an Executive Order to begin work on diverting water around the Delta to create more supply in California. GOVERNOR: Well, I'm very proud to say that we have for the last 18 months all worked together very hard, all the stakeholders, Democrats and Republicans, to come up with a solution to improve our infrastructure on water, because right now we cannot guarantee the people of California water in the future, if it is 10, 15 years from now, we cannot guarantee that. We have seen already a one-year drought, and we have most of our reservoirs are down by 50 to 75 percent, so we are really in a crisis situation. We have seen water prices go up, we have seen that permits for businesses and building have been denied because of a lack of water and so on. So it's hurting our economy, it's hurting everyday folks out there in California, and we want to fix that. And this is why we recommend to redo that infrastructure and to build the new infrastructure on water, to build more above the ground and below the ground water storage, to fix the Delta once and for all, and to build a new delivery system. And we are in the middle of negotiating right now. We were very happy that Senator Feinstein came out last week and helped us with the negotiations, and it kind of inspired everyone again to go in there. So we're going to all work together. I'm not off doing anything. I'm right now working with everybody and bringing everyone together to make sure that re rebuild our water system so that we can guarantee people not only 20 years from now but 30, 40, 50 years from now water, so when they turn on the faucet there is water coming out, when the farmers turn on and want to irrigate their land, there is water coming out. That's what I want to guarantee. Q: Governor, can we expect an Executive Order from your office in the next week or so? GOVERNOR: Right now I have no plans, but I will let you know. As you know, we are like an open book, and everything that is developing in our office, you will always know about it. Thank you very much. Thank you. # http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/breaking/2008/02/no_end_run_on_peripheral_canal.html #### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sat Mar 1 08:35:28 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 08:35:28 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Central Valley Business Times- Central Valley farms to get 45 percent of irrigation water allocations Message-ID: <004301c87bfe$8aa09af0$89e1ff42@trinitycounty.org> AG WATER SUPPLY: Central Valley farms to get 45 percent of irrigation water allocations Central Valley Business Times - 2/28/08 Farmers who purchase their irrigation water from the Central Valley Project can expect 45 percent of their allocations, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. But the Bureau says allocations for those north of the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta may be subject to further review for Sacramento River water temperatures to protect salmon. The bureau is also implementing interim court-ordered measures this year to protect the delta smelt, and water supply for the allocations south of the delta could change. Farmers south of the delta face an even more uncertain season for irrigation water, according to a Sacramento-based private water law attorney. Additional court decisions about endangered species protections for salmon and a new fish that may be added to the list could further reduce water flows. "The Delta smelt interim decision regarding additional restrictions to protect Delta smelt is ongoing. There also has recently been a state decision on the longfin smelt and so we may get additional restrictions on the State [Water] Project," says Becky Sheehan, a private water law attorney in Sacramento. On Feb. 7, the California Fish and Game Commission voted to designate the longfin smelt as a "candidate species," the first step toward formal listing of the tiny fish as an endangered or threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act. Ms. Sheehan adds that there is a decision expected soon in yet another case, this one involving salmon, which could further restrict use of the Delta's fresh water. It all adds up to make predictions of water deliveries this year and next very uncertain, says Ms. Sheehan. "This year is particularly uncertain because of all of the decisions that have been made and decisions that will be made. But it's not just this year, it's going probably be the next couple years," she says. # http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=7976 #### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greg at yournec.org Sun Mar 2 22:08:28 2008 From: greg at yournec.org (Greg King) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 22:08:28 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] News Release: NEC Rejects Klamath Agreement Message-ID: EMBARGOED Until 8 a.m. Monday, March 3, 2008 Apologies for cross-postings. Attachment same as below. Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org ====================================== News Release NEC Rejects Klamath Agreement Top scientists say Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement is flawed, and could prevent fish recovery, without guaranteed downstream flows Contact: Greg King, Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 707-822-6918 Science Contacts: Dr. Bill Trush: 707-826-7794 x. 12 Dr. Thomas Hardy: 435-797-2824 Greg Kamman: 415-491-9600 March 3, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Arcata, CA ? The Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC) will not support the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement as it is currently written, the NEC?s Board of Directors decided in late February. The NEC, which has worked for 37 years to protect the Klamath River and its fishery, is concerned that the Agreement does not contain a guarantee of water for fish nor even a goal for fish recovery. Yet the Agreement would give farmers in the upper Klamath basin an unprecedented guaranteed allotment of water for irrigation. The decision not to support the Restoration Agreement (also known as the Settlement Agreement) is based on scientific analyses provided by three of the West?s most respected river flow analysts, who concur that as a ?plan for a plan? ? even with the removal of four dams ? the Agreement could result in Klamath River flows so sparse at crucial times that endangered salmon may not be able to recover from what are now critically low numbers. ?We want nothing more than to support a workable agreement that would result in decommissioning of four mainstem Klamath dams and provide fish with the water they need to avoid extinction,? Greg King, Executive Director of the Northcoast Environmental Center, said Monday. ?The independent scientists we have commissioned and consulted, who are among the most respected river analysts in the west, tell us this deal won?t do that. This Agreement would lock us in to supporting water allocations for agriculture, as well as state and federal legislation, that could result in stream flows so low as to cause extinction. We can?t do that.? The NEC is one of 26 parties to the Klamath Basin Agreement. Last year the organization contracted with hydrologist Greg Kamman, of Kamman Hydrology in San Rafael, and fisheries biologist Dr. Bill Trush, of McBain and Trush in Arcata, to analyze the scientific modeling and conclusions contained in the Restoration Agreement. In their reports (available at http://yournec.org) both scientists concluded that the Agreement could lock into place water allocations that would harm salmon. Last week Trush completed an alternative plan for evaluating the needs of Klamath River fish prior to approval of the Restoration Agreement. That plan (attached) would have to be well under way, or completed, before the NEC will support the Basin Agreement. In his alternative plan, Trush wrote, ?The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement relegates salmon and the Klamath River ecosystem to the status of junior water users, while Upper Basin irrigators become the senior water users. This premise squarely places onto the salmon and the river ecosystem any risk inherent in the conclusion that flows contained in the Agreement will actually provide enough water for recovery of the species. Nowhere is this clearer than in the future allocation of water. ? Quantitative goals for fish and the river ecosystem, conspicuously missing from the Settlement Agreement, are necessary to establish how much improvement (benefit) is required for restoration. ? The NEC shouldn?t support the Settlement Agreement until these specific concerns are addressed quantitatively.? In addition to Trush and Kamman, another river scientist, Dr. Thomas Hardy, has expressed trepidations about the Basin Agreement. Hardy is the Associate Director of the Utah Water Research Laboratory at Utah State University. Many consider his studies of Klamath River hydrology to be the ?best available science? for evaluating the river?s fishery. Last year the National Research Council utilized much of Hardy?s work in its definitive text, Hydrology, Ecology, and Fishes of the Klamath River Basin. In February 2008 Hardy told the NEC Board of Directors that in the Restoration Agreement, ?Agriculture gets all the guarantees, and everything related to the environment is left to somewhat vague processes and committees.? Hardy said that in dry years agriculture in the upper basin will be ?taking too much water from the system,? with flow models demonstrating that the river will probably go well below 1,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) in late summer and early fall. ?I?m just scared to death any time the flows get below 1,000 cfs,? said Hardy. Such low flows, he said, ?double the risk to the system.? Flows that resulted in the 2002 fish kill, which killed nearly 70,000 adult Chinook salmon, were between 600 and 700 cfs. Hardy said that an acceptable Agreement would ?guarantee flows for fish first, then other water uses.? In his hydrological report, Kamman said, ?I am concerned that the successful implementation of the Settlement Agreement hinges on a conceptual plan which has no guarantees of being achieved within a specified amount of time ? time does not appear to be on the side of Klamath River salmonids.? Under the Agreement, water in the mainstem will be reduced from September to February, ?and this reduction in flow may prove detrimental to Klamath River salmonids,? said Kamman. ?These flow conditions further emphasize the imbalance in flow and likely, in turn, salmonid habitat quality between the winter and spring periods (a time of salmonid immigration and spawning).? Kamman also reports that the flows recommended in the Basin Agreement will draw too much water from Upper Klamath Lake, part of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex, one of the most important habitats in North America for migrating waterfowl. Kamman said water use projected in the Basin Agreement could result in ?lower total annual lake storage than was experienced historically.? The NEC is also concerned that Settlement parties are being asked to support the Basin Agreement without seeing a dam removal agreement from PacifiCorp, owner of the four mainstem Klamath River dams whose relicensing process was the catalyst that brought the 26 Settlement parties together nearly three years ago. The PacifiCorp deal has been marred from the start by the company?s intransigence and occasional fits of economic hubris. ?Tearing down these dams would be the best thing to happen to an American river since dams started going up in the first place,? said the NEC?s Greg King. ?You?d think that in facing the best opportunity in history to save precious salmon from extinction the folks at PacifiCorp would declare a ?no-brainer? and just go ahead and do it.? PacifiCorp ratepayers, said King, would also save $114 million if the company tore down the dams, as opposed to building the more expensive fish ladders required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. # # # ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: NewsRelease-NEC Rejects Klamath Deal.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 224221 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greg at yournec.org Sun Mar 2 22:11:54 2008 From: greg at yournec.org (Greg King) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 22:11:54 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Trush Attachment [NEC Rejects Klamath Agreement] Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Klamath Agreement - Trush Recommendations.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 148143 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- From leverest at fs.fed.us Mon Mar 3 07:33:14 2008 From: leverest at fs.fed.us (Loren Everest) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 07:33:14 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Forest Service snow survey results Message-ID: Looking good in the Trinity watershed. If you would like this in excel, please let me know. (Embedded image moved to file: pic13027.jpg) Loren Everest Fishery Biologist Trinity River Management Unit leverest at fs.fed.us -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: pic13027.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 121204 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Vina_Frye at fws.gov Tue Mar 4 10:55:58 2008 From: Vina_Frye at fws.gov (Vina_Frye at fws.gov) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 10:55:58 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Federal Register notice for TAMWG meeting Message-ID: Hi Folks, The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG) meeting notice for March 10-11, 2008, was published in the Federal Register on February 26, 2008. Best regards, Vina Vina Frye U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Arcata FWO 1655 Heindon Road Arcata, CA 95521 Telephone: (707) 822-7201 Fax: (707) 822-8411 vina_frye at fws.gov [Federal Register: February 26, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 38)] [Notices] [Page 10281] >From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26fe08-70] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Fish and Wildlife Service [FWS-R1-FHC-2008-N35; 81331-1334-8TWG-W4] Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. ACTION: Notice of meeting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG) affords stakeholders the opportunity to give policy, management, and technical input concerning Trinity River (California) restoration efforts to the Trinity Management Council (TMC). The meeting is open to the public. DATES: TAMWG will meet from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, March 10, 2008 and from 8:30 to 12:00 noon on Tuesday, March 11, 2008. ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held at the Weaverville Victorian Inn, 1709 Main St., 299 West, Weaverville, CA 96093. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Randy A. Brown of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1655 Heindon Road, Arcata, CA 95521; telephone: (707) 822-7201. Randy A. Brown is the TAMWG Designated Federal Officer. For background information and questions regarding the Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP), please contact Douglas Schleusner, Executive Director, Trinity River Restoration Program, P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main Street, Weaverville, CA 96093; telephone: (530) 623- 1800; E-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.), this notice announces a meeting of the (TAMWG). Primary objectives of the meeting will include discussion of the following topics: 2008 flow schedule, Carryover storage of water allocated to instream use, TRRP budget, TRRP watershed restoration program, and Interactions between wild and hatchery fish. Completion of the agenda is dependent on the amount of time each item takes. The meeting could end early if the agenda has been completed. Dated: February 7, 2008. Randy A. Brown, Designated Federal Officer, Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office, Arcata, CA. [FR Doc. E8-3572 Filed 2-25-08; 8:45 am] From awhitridge at snowcrest.net Tue Mar 4 15:27:26 2008 From: awhitridge at snowcrest.net (Arnold Whitridge) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:27:26 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] TAMWG meeting March 10-11 Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20080304150040.036965c0@mail.snowcrest.net> Trinity minders, Here's the draft agenda for the March 10-11 meeting of the Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group. All TAMWG meetings are open to the public. Please note: while developing this agenda, I assumed that a requested discussion about reservoir carryover storage could take place under Item 8, but I've already received suggestions to make the discussion a separate item. Tom Stokely has agreed to be prepared with a presentation, and at the beginning of the meeting the group can decide whether and how to fit it into the agenda. I propose that it be inserted between Items 8 and 9 below. Arnold Whitridge, TAMWG chair Draft Agenda TRINITY ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT WORKING GROUP Victorian Inn (large room), 1709 Main Street, Weaverville, CA March 10 and 11, 2008 Time Presentation, Discussion, and/or Action on: Presenter Monday, March 10 1. 1:00 pm Adopt agenda; approve January minutes 2. 1:10 Open forum; public comment 3. 1:20 Statewide Watersheds Program Dennis Bowker, Dept of Conservation 4. 2:00 TRRP Watersheds Program Dave Gaeuman 5. 3:00 FY 2009 TRRP Budget Doug Schleusner 6. 4:30 Executive Director's Report Doug Schleusner 7. 4:45 Designated Federal Officer Topics Randy Brown 5:00 Adjourn for the day Tuesday, March 11 8. 8:30 Trinity River Flow Schedule for 2008 Rod Wittler 9. 9:30 Interactions between wild and hatchery fish Nina Hemphill 10. 10:30 Gravel Management calculations and estimates Dave Gaeuman 11. 11:00 Recommendations to the Trinity Management Council 12. 11:45 Tentative date and agenda topics for next meeting 12:00 Adjourn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Mar 4 15:35:19 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 15:35:19 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath water deal snags on environmental group's opposition Message-ID: <03b901c87e51$9978f130$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Klamath water deal snags on environmental group's opposition Sacramento Bee - 3/4/08 By David Whitney, staff writer WASHINGTON - A plan to end fighting over Klamath River water along the California-Oregon border took a hit Monday when the Northcoast Environmental Center said the $1 billion deal doesn't provide enough help for salmon. The NEC said it cannot support the agreement, still in flux, which guarantees water for up-river farmers in Oregon but gives no such assurances for endangered salmon trying to make their way up the 260-mile river to spawn. Participants touted the January deal as benefiting both fish and farming because it would complement separate negotiations to get Portland-based PacifiCorp to remove a series of dams impeding fish passage. "This agreement would lock us into supporting water allocations for agriculture that could result in stream flows so low as to cause extinction," said Greg King, the center's executive director. He said his group wants to reopen the water allocation talks, one of the stickiest parts of the deal. The Arcata-based NEC's opposition, based on scientific studies it commissioned, will complicate, if not kill, the chances of a deal getting to Congress in time for enactment this year. "It's disappointing," said Craig Tucker of California's Karuk Tribe, a leading advocate of the deal. "It's a big deal for congressmen like Mike Thompson." Thompson, D-St. Helena, represents the area with most of the river in Northern California, and Tucker said it would be difficult for him to back a deal opposed by his district's leading environmental organization. Thompson could not be reached immediately for comment. The NEC announcement will put pressure on the 26 groups involved in the talks to amend key principles that have taken more than two years to draft. Talks resume Wednesday. Glen Spain, who represents commercial fishermen in the talks, said his group agrees that fish-friendly changes will have to be made. "Clearly there are uncertainties about what the fish in the lower Klamath River get out of this in the long term," he said. Those on the other side of the bargaining table, however, expressed little interest in reexamining the down-river concerns. Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association that relies on the federal irrigation water, said his bigger concern now is trying to shore up support among irrigators. "I can't spend more time on that," Addington said of the NEC's concerns. "I've got to spend time in my own backyard at this point." Time may be the bigger factor. Advocates of the deal are trying to get it wrapped up in the next month or so in order to get it through Congress and signed by President Bush before he leaves office in January. # http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/757874.html #### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Mar 6 20:59:49 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 20:59:49 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Concerns well up over Klamath agreement Message-ID: <004001c88010$14952590$c2653940@trinitycounty.org> http://www.times-standard.com/ci_8459366?source=most_viewed -------------------------------------------------------- Concerns well up over Klamath agreement John Driscoll/The Times-Standard Article Launched: 03/05/2008 01:27:11 AM PST The Northcoast Environmental Center's opposition to the agreement touted to be a major first step toward a settlement to remove the Klamath River's dams has some concerned about the potential for the deal's political progress. The center on Monday said the agreement aired in January provides guarantees for water deliveries to irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin, but not for salmon. As written, the Arcata-based group said, the deal could thwart the recovery of salmon in the watershed. ?Our rejection of the agreement is predicated on no guarantee of water for fish,? said center Executive Director Greg King. The environmental center consulted with Arcata fisheries expert Bill Trush and Klamath River hydrologist Thomas Hardy, who both expressed serious reservations about the commitment of water to farms. It also commissioned a legal review, which it received Tuesday, King said. ?This premise squarely places onto the salmon and the river ecosystem any risk inherent in the conclusion that flows contained in the agreement will actually provide enough water for recovery of the species,? Trush wrote in his analysis. ?Nowhere is this clearer than in the future allocation of water.? The deal is still being finalized, however, and the parties in the talks that led to the agreement are meeting today in Ashland, Ore. Craig Tucker, Klamath campaign organizer for the Karuk Tribe, said that the environmental center brings up some reasonable concerns. But he said a drought plan will be developed as part of the agreement to safeguard water for salmon in the driest years, and that the deal preserves the tribes' and other parties' right to sue if federally protected species are at risk of serious harm. Tucker said the tribe's flow plan for the river lined out in the agreement is solid, and comes out of a strategy by tribes in the Klamath Basin with a goal of removing the four dams on the river. Tucker said it's hard to imagine putting out a proposal for dam removal and Klamath restoration without bipartisan support -- something which the environmental center's opposition could threaten. ?I do feel like they're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good,? Tucker said. The Hoopa Valley Tribe has also opposed the agreement, calling it a water deal that does not include the critical element of dam removal. The settlement group is in talks with dam owner Pacificorp, and several parties have pledged their support of the basin-wide agreement only if a deal is reached with the company to take down the dams. Humboldt County Supervisor Jill Geist said she hopes the environmental center will bring its issues to the table at today's talks, but said that the various parties' support or lack of support matters most after the final draft of the agreement is reached. Geist said it seems premature for the center to say it's rejecting the deal. ?This is our opportunity,? Geist said. ?We have 50 years until the next one and we need to give it the best shot we can.? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is finalizing a relicensing agreement with Pacificorp for the dams, a process that occurs every 30 to 50 years. It has signaled in its draft environmental analysis that the dams can continue operating. But federal fisheries and wildlife agencies have directed that Pacificorp will have to build fish ladders -- at a cost of possibly hundreds of millions of dollars -- to allow salmon to get to historic spawning grounds above the dams. King said that the environmental center intends to fund an alternative plan to evaluate the needs of salmon, and that it would have to be completed before the group would support the agreement. He said he recognizes that any delay could mean the agreement is considered in the next congressional cycle, but he didn't see the deal disintegrating because of it. Rep. Mike Thompson has voiced his support for the agreement, and added that he hopes the center remains part of the talks. ?I think it's extremely important that NEC remains a participant of the talks, despite their opposition,? Thompson said in a statement. ?I've always been a supporter of this process. I expect that there will be some changes before this draft proposal is finalized, and I hope NEC will remain an interested and productive player.? John Driscoll can be reached at 441-0504 or jdriscoll at times-standard.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Mar 7 16:14:36 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 16:14:36 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Preliminary Draft Discussion Paper on Trinity River Temperatures and Carryover Storage Message-ID: <01b401c880b1$7a35ebe0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Dear Trinity River Restoration Program Participants, Attached is a Preliminary Draft Paper entitled "THE ROLE OF COLD WATER CARRYOVER STORAGE IN MEETING TRINITY RIVER RESTORATION PROGRAM FISHERY RESTORATION GOALS". The attached discussion paper is in the "track changes" mode, so please feel free to send your comments to me. This issue will allegedly come up at the upcoming meet of the Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group on March 10-11 in Weaverville. Respectfully submitted, Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1351, Press 2-2-1 FAX 623-1353 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Carryover Storage White Paper for TAMWG 3.11.08.doc Type: application/msword Size: 53760 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Mon Mar 10 10:09:17 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:09:17 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Salmon fishing ban mulled in California as run suffers record plunge Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C661@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Salmon fishing ban mulled in California as run suffers record plunge By Matt Weiser - mweiser at sacbee.com http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/772762.html Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, March 10, 2008 Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1 Print | E-Mail | | Digg it | del.icio.us A jubilant Gary Morse of Fremont, left, with Gerry Perko, center, and fishing guide J.D. Richey, reels in his second catch of the day on the American River in Sacramento last Thursday. Richey says a dwindling salmon run - and possible fishing ban - could lead him to end his 10-year guiding career after this year. Hector Amezcua / hamezcua at sacbee.com J.D. Richey caught his first salmon in the American River as a seventh-grader. It was just over 13 pounds, hooked on a spinning lure from a canoe downstream of the Howe Avenue bridge. The experience so impressed him that he became a fishing guide. Now, after 10 years helping clients from all over the world catch Central Valley salmon, 2008 could be Richey's final season. A near-record-low fall chinook spawning run in 2007 has regulators considering an all-out ban on salmon fishing in California this year. It would protect surviving fish, but for Richey and others whose lives are tied to salmon, the future looks dim. "Sacramento is pretty unique in that we've had world-class numbers of salmon coming through a major metropolitan area," said Richey, 39, who was born and raised in the city. "Sacramento has had more salmon than lots of Alaskan rivers. We took our bounty for granted." The Central Valley fall chinook run is the mainstay of commercial and recreational salmon fishing on the California and Oregon coasts, worth $103 million annually. This does not include dollars generated by inland fishing on rivers. After 15 years of historically robust returns, the 2007 fall run saw a plunge to near-record lows - surprising regulators who expected an average year. Biologists aren't certain what caused the plunge. But they suspect poor ocean conditions. The National Marine Fisheries Service has measured ocean food productivity since 1975, both near California and in the larger Pacific Ocean. In 2005, for the first time in that data-keeping record, California productivity failed to follow the larger ocean. Food declined in the ocean near California, while increasing elsewhere. Young salmon entering the ocean from their California spawning rivers may not have found enough to eat. Because salmon return to their home rivers after two to four years at sea, last year's poor run may be just the first proof of this theory. Fall 2008 may be worse. "It's going to be a hard year for the fishermen," said Peter Dygert, a biologist at the fisheries service. "The circumstances this year for Sacramento fall chinook in particular - but for some other stocks too - are pretty bad. I don't recall a time when fisheries have been so constrained." The Pacific Fishery Management Council meets this week in Sacramento to debate the season. On Friday it will approve one of three options for the season, including a ban. The final option will be chosen in April. State and federal agencies will then adopt final rules that take effect May 1. But Dygert said his agency may impose limits sooner, because some areas have already opened to fishing or will open soon, including an offshore recreational season near Point Arena that opened Feb. 16. The California Fish and Game Commission will consider closures on April 15 affecting state waters within 3 miles of shore, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and major tributaries. Some fishing groups blame water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for the salmon decline. They certainly have an effect: Records show the state and federal water pumps killed about 5,800 chinook salmon between October and February. But because chinook runs in other coastal rivers also declined last year, biologists believe ocean effects are to blame. That decline occurred because the jet stream changed course in spring 2005, in turn disrupting ocean currents. The currents drive an upwelling of nutrient-rich waters, touching off a phytoplankton bloom that forms the base of the food chain. That bloom either failed to happen in some places or was delayed, leaving the menu empty when hungry young salmon went looking for food. Scientists have said the disrupted jet stream is consistent with changes likely to be caused by global warming. J.D. Richey, then, may be one of Sacramento's first climate change victims. "A lot of people don't realize it's more than just a fish going away. We're losing a significant neighbor," Richey said. "I felt this last year there was something missing - almost at the soul level. I could just feel the salmon weren't anywhere, and it just bummed me out." Helping people catch salmon on the American, Sacramento and Feather rivers makes up 90 percent of Richey's business. Last year, the salmon return was so low that he booked only a handful of trips. By now he would be filling his calendar with salmon bookings for 2008. But he's not even advertising salmon this year. On Thursday he helped two men from Fremont catch steelhead on the American River. He also plans to go after striped bass in the Delta. He says he'll probably give up guiding after this year. He'll sell his gear and turn full-time to writing for various sporting publications, which he's done part time for several years. Richey is one of about 10 full-time salmon guides in Sacramento whose fortunes are dimming along with the fishing retailers, restaurants and hotels that benefit at least in part from the chinook's annual return. Alan Fong, manager of Fisherman's Warehouse in Sacramento, said his shop is the largest tackle dealer in Northern California. A third of its $3 million annual gross is salmon-related. "I was born and raised here, and this is the worst salmon season I've ever seen in my life," said Fong, 54. "It's going to hurt a lot of people - put a lot of people out of business." Gary Manies, owner of Strictly Fishin' tackle shop in Redding, said the chinook run supports 78 guides in his area. Each salmon caught, he said, is worth $700 to the local economy. "It's a very, very big thing for this community," adds Redding guide Daryl Rogers, who called a season closure "crushing" for his business. "There are a tremendous amount of guides here that are going to lose." On Friday, 46 members of Congress representing Pacific states urged Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to declare a fishery failure. This would speed economic aid to people like Richey, but do nothing for the fish. "The part that gets me all choked up is, are my kids going to be able to catch salmon?" Richey said. "I don't know. The signs aren't looking real good." About the writer: * Call The Bee's Matt Weiser, (916) 321-1264. Guide J.D. Richey, right, lets fisherman Gerry Perko savor one of the steelhead caught on the American River Thursday. Hector Amezcua / hamezcua at sacbee.com Click on photo to enlarge -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 21424 bytes Desc: image003.jpg URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 16371 bytes Desc: image002.jpg URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 19357 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: From sari at sisqtel.net Mon Mar 10 11:39:31 2008 From: sari at sisqtel.net (Sari Sommarstrom) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:39:31 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] NOAA research links sea temp to Salmon return numbers Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20080310103722.02cdf508@pop.sisqtel.net> THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN: Weekly Fish and Wildlife News www.cbbulletin.com. March 7, 2008 Issue No. 430 ----------------------------- * NOAA RESEARCH LINKING SEA TEMPERATURE SWINGS TO SALMON RETURN NUMBERS North Pacific sea surface temperatures have historically swung up and down in 20 to 30-year cycles, changing with it climatic and ecological variables that shift the fate of salmon. That cold-warm-cold-warm pattern has quickened over the past 10 years -- exhibiting turnarounds that have lasted only four years, according to research being conducted by the NOAA Fisheries Service's Northwest Fisheries Science Center. The good news is that this sea surface cycle, dubbed the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, last year appeared to have entered a negative, cool phase, which most often signals a rise in the number of salmon that return to the Columbia River basin in succeeding years. The PDO, like shorter term La Nina/El Nino (ENSO) patterns, is characterized by changes in sea surface temperature, sea level pressure, and wind patterns. Past research has shown that warm eras have seen enhanced coastal ocean biological productivity in Alaska and inhibited productivity off the west coast of the contiguous United States. Cold periods reverse that north-south pattern of marine ecosystem productivity. "The biology reacts quickly" to such changes in ocean conditions, according to Edmundo Casillas, NWFSC Ocean and Estuary program leader. "Salmon respond equally as fast." During a Thursday presentation to the Columbia Basin's Regional Forum Implementation Team, Casillas pointed out that at no time since 1900 had there been a deviation from an established PDO regime of longer than 16 months. Once established, warm or cool regimes have stayed locked in with an occasional brief lapse, sometimes influenced by a contrary ENSO. Most recent history shows, however, that the North Pacific has had two shifts of four years duration recently: a cold era from 1999-2002 and warm period from 2003-2006. Chinook salmon returns to the Columbia mirrored those trends with total numbers climbing upwards from 2000-2003, then declining for the next four years. The University of Washington scientist Nathan Mantua and colleagues were the first to show that adult salmon catches in the Northeast Pacific were correlated with the PDO. Regardless of the duration of any ocean condition, it is important that freshwater fish managers know what is happening so they can evaluate the benefits of salmon recovery actions and respond accordingly, Casillas said. Advancing global warming could complicate things, affecting the duration and variability of the large scale climate forces. "You need to be cognizant of what's going on in the ocean to do what you need to do in freshwater," Casillas said. In anticipation of poor ocean conditions, as an example, hatchery managers might scale back their production to reduce potential competition between hatchery and wild fish for resources that will be in short supply. The NWRFC has for the past 10 years been monitoring a variety of physical and biological ocean conditions that may affect the growth and survival of juvenile salmon in the northern California current off Oregon and Washington. The 30-40 mile swath of ocean represents the young fishes' first saltwater experience after they leave the Columbia River estuary. "That's when they're smallest and most vulnerable" to predators and other natural forces, and when the recruitment into future adult returns can most be affected, Casillas said. Those physical, biological and ecosystem "indicators" have for the past few years been fed into a forecasting tool that documents current ocean conditions and potential impact on salmon survival 1 to 2 years ahead of their actual return. The NWFSC monitoring and forecasting focuses on that first year at sea through food-chain processes. The most recent forecast, released late last month, says that the PDO tide has turned, shifting last year to a neutral, and then a negative, cool phase. Environmental changes seemed to follow. "What we're seeing is the ocean is improving," said Casillas. The latest "Ocean Ecosystem Indicators of Salmon Marine Survival in the Northern California Current" forecast's indicators, cumulatively, fall in the positive (for fish) mid-range. "Most indicators in 2007 pointed toward greatly improved ocean conditions compared to the previous few years. Indicators that point to good salmon survival included a cold ocean in winter/spring 2007, an early spring transition date, high biomass of cold--water lipid--rich copepods, and a long upwelling season." according to the updated NWFSC adult spring chinook and coho forecast. "Negative indicators included weak upwelling in late spring and summer, very warm sea surface temperatures, and low catches of juvenile coho in September surveys." Fish sampling last year also showed a good news-bad news result. In June 2007, trawl surveys collected the third highest number of juvenile spring chinook in the 10 years of sampling. That suggests "improved adult spring chinook runs can be expected in 2009," according to the forecast, when the first adults from that year class return to the Columbia. Catches of juvenile coho in September produced some of the lowest catches of juvenile coho (7th worse in 10 years of surveys). "Since it is widely believed that juvenile coho live only within the upper few meters of the water column, we hypothesize that the anomalously warm waters, in some way, led to the demise of the juvenile coho. "They either moved (out of the sampling area) or they died. We think they died," Casillas said. The trawl surveys follow eight transect lines running from Newport, Ore., north to La Push, Wash. The forecast calls for a poor coho return, though improved numbers for coho that went to sea in 2007 and return in 2008. The relatively early transition of the zooplankton community in spring, and the high biomass of coldwater zooplankton species could counter to some extent coho trawl catch statistics. Ocean conditions at the time of the spring chinook's ocean entry were "very good" last year. "Since spring chinook juveniles reside in waters off Oregon and Washington for only a few weeks before migrating north to unknown waters, their survival might have been relatively well supported by these conditions. These fish could begin to return as early as spring 2009," the forecast says. Adult return data displayed as part of the forecast show that the 4-year period of cold ocean conditions (1999-2002) resulted in good returns of chinook salmon. Warm ocean conditions from 2003 to 2006 correspond with declining returns. "We expect at least one more year of poor returns from this period, after which returns should begin to increase, so long as the cold ocean conditions observed in 2007 continue into 2008 and beyond," the forecast says. The forecast charts an "improving set of conditions" that began later in 2006, Casillas said. The numerous variables monitored came out, on average overall, in the mid-range for fish that emerged from the Columbia in 2006, thus anticipated an improved spring chinook return this year. Federal, state and tribal fishery officials have forecast a strong upriver spring chinook return this year. That prediction was based in large part on a near-record return of "jacks," fish that returned after only one year in the ocean. The forecast can be found at: http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/a-ecinhome.cfm ----------------------------- * NOAA SCIENTISTS STUDYING IMPACTS OF ANOMALY IN CALIFORNIA CURRENT IN 2005 NOAA scientists are reviewing unusual environmental conditions in the Pacific Ocean as the likely culprit for the dramatically low returns of chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams along the West Coast of the United States in 2007. Researchers from NOAA's Northwest and Southwest Fisheries Science Centers are comparing data on the low food production of the California Current in 2005 that occurred when this year's and 2007's returning salmon would have been entering the ocean from their natal streams to feed and grow. The cold waters of the California Current flow southward from the northern Pacific along the West Coast and are associated with upwelling, an ocean condition caused by winds that bring nutrients to the ocean's surface and is the main source of nourishment for the ocean's food web. In 2005 a southward shift in the jet stream, delayed favorable winds and upwelling for the California Current, which normally begins in spring. The winds instead arrived in mid-July, causing high surface water temperatures and very low nutrient production within the nearshore marine ecosystem. "We are not dismissing other potential causes for this year's low salmon returns," said Usha Varanasi, NOAA Fisheries Service Science Center director for the Northwest Region. "But the widespread pattern of low returns along the West Coast for two species of salmon indicates an environmental anomaly occurred in the California Current in 2005." Data released Thursday by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council indicate the 2007 returns of fall chinook salmon to the Sacramento River in California's Central Valley were approximately 33 percent of what fishery biologists expected. Projections for 2008 are substantially lower than last year's estimate. Coho salmon returning to spawning streams in California and Oregon are also considerably lower than predicted. A preliminary analysis found an average 27 percent of the parental stock returning in 12 streams monitored in California. Even though coho returns appear to improve along the coast from south to north, Oregon Coast coho salmon had less than 30 percent of their parental stock return. Coho salmon are listed as either endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act in the Central/Northern California and Southern Oregon watersheds -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ilg-farm at peoplepc.com Tue Mar 11 12:03:59 2008 From: ilg-farm at peoplepc.com (ilg-farm at peoplepc.com) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:03:59 -0000 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: EPA Issues Toxic Algae Warning for Warren Message-ID: <000001c883aa$7e9c9890$c58af204@househol1b5f54> Dear whom ever it may concern, I am a high school student and am doing a project on dams. I have read your article on the Toxic Algae. In the reading I understood that by removing the dam it will eliminate the algae! But what is the possibility of the algae growing on the left over pieces of the dam at the bottom of the river? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Mar 11 15:38:58 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:38:58 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] San Joaquin Restoration Message-ID: Group pulls out of water deal; Madera district first to leave river settlement Fresno Bee - 3/10/08 By Mark Grossi and Michael Doyle, the Fresno Bee The Madera Irrigation District is abandoning the hard-won agreement to restore the San Joaquin River -- a sign of growing doubts about the plan among farmers whose support is crucial. At stake is the return of a regular water flow next year in the state's second-longest river. The San Joaquin has been seasonally dry in two major sections for decades since Friant Dam was built in the 1940s. The flow was diverted to farm fields on the San Joaquin Valley's east side. Farmers and environmentalists in 2006 signed an agreement to restore the river and salmon runs, ending an 18-year legal fight. On average, farmers would lose almost 20% of their river water. They agreed to the deal because they were afraid they would lose more water if the decision was left to a judge. Nevertheless, they continue to worry about how much water they are going to lose. For the past 18 months, lawmakers have been working on legislation to provide funding for the agreement and possibly to replace some of the farm water supplies. With no final bill to assure them that they could reclaim some of that restoration water, the Madera district decided to back out of the agreement last week at a board meeting. Madera is the first water district to take this action. The agreement requires a 30-day cooling off period during which the district will discuss its issues with other water districts, environmentalists and the federal government. "We need to talk about our concerns," said Madera board president Carl Janzen. "Maybe we can settle this." Many water officials do not think the loss of one district will hurt the restoration agreement. Most of the 18 farm water agencies involved still appear to support the agreement, said Ron Jacobsma, general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents all the districts involved. But the concern is that farmers -- worried that they have no guarantee the water will be restored -- will pressure other water districts to back out. On Friday, the Friant governing board is scheduled to discuss restoration bill amendments that may calm farmer fears. The Friant meeting will be in Visalia behind closed doors because they are discussing legal action, though any official action must be publicly announced. Supporters of the restoration bill in Washington, D.C., say the project can legally proceed even if several irrigation districts opt out. "I don't suspect this will hold the process up," said Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa. Democratic Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno agreed. But Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia, the restoration effort's most vocal opponent among lawmakers, said Madera's disapproval alone is enough to kill the settlement. He said Friant organization votes on the legislation and the agreement must be unanimous to be valid. Attorneys are looking into whether Friant needs unanimous agreement among its board of directors for the deal. To address the farm water supply worries, Costa and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein have prodded legislative negotiators to make the restoration bill stronger. They pushed amendments to assure farmers that some restoration water will be returned to fields after it has run through the river. Negotiators agreed to authorize up to $35 million from a federal restoration fund to rehabilitate the Friant-Kern and Madera canals, which deliver water to farmers. They also agreed to authorize such projects as the ground-water bank that the Madera Irrigation District wants to build. Those proposed amendments will be discussed Friday at the Friant meeting. But many farmers have been even more concerned since a federal judge last year ruled that more water might be needed to protect fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. They worry that river restoration water will go to the delta for the fish, not to their irrigation canals. Farmer Kole Upton, Chowchilla Water District board member, said he supports Madera's vote. "They're the only ones who have done it so far," said Upton, who helped negotiate the 2006 agreement but has changed his mind over the last several months. "Chowchilla might do it. There may be others." Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Mar 11 15:40:49 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:40:49 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: "On the Water Front" - EDF's water policy forum for the Golden State Message-ID: <635ECC38E33547C485CE6FF7B352D273@ByronsLaptop> _____ From: EDF CA Water Team [mailto:EDFCAWaterTeam at environmentaldefense.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 1:25 PM To: EDF CA Water Team Subject: "On the Water Front" - EDF's water policy forum for the Golden State Friends and Colleagues: We are pleased to announce the launch of a blog dedicated to protecting California's ecosystems and providing reliable water supplies for our farms and cities. How do we meet out water needs while protecting our rivers, fish and wetlands in a State that is growing rapidly and a world that is warming up? We will be sharing some of our thoughts on these matters and invite your feedback. After 37 years, why is Tom Graff still optimistic? http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/waterfront/2008/03/03/still-optimistic/ What about Governor Schwarzenegger's 7-point plan? And how is his Delta Vision different from the Calfed effort a decade ago? Or is it? Please join us On the Water Front http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/waterfront/ Sincerely, The EDF Water Team -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simef at water.ca.gov Tue Mar 11 14:05:20 2008 From: simef at water.ca.gov (Sime, Fraser) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:05:20 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: EPA Issues Toxic Algae Warning for Warren References: <000001c883aa$7e9c9890$c58af204@househol1b5f54> Message-ID: What a great question - it shows you're thinking, and that's a really good thing!! Without giving you the answer (or at least my version of it) I encourage you to go online and research the type of algae (species name) that's causing the water quality problems. Then, you should investigate whether or not it is a species of phytoplankton (algae) that is "free floating" meaning it doesn't attach to stuff or a species that belongs to a group of algae that attach themselves to the bottom substrate (rocks, logs, plants, etc.) known as periphyton. You might find the answer to your own question!! Something to think about........Have fun with this........... Cheers, Fraser R. Sime Chief, Water Quality and Biology Section Regional Coordinator, DWR Watershed Program 2440 Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 (530) 529-7374 (Office) (530) 941-5623 (Cell) "If we each selfishly pursue only what we believe to be in our own interest, we not only may end up harming others, but also ourselves." ~The Dalai Lama _____ From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of ilg-farm at peoplepc.com Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 7:48 PM To: env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: [env-trinity] FW: EPA Issues Toxic Algae Warning for Warren Dear whom ever it may concern, I am a high school student and am doing a project on dams. I have read your article on the Toxic Algae. In the reading I understood that by removing the dam it will eliminate the algae! But what is the possibility of the algae growing on the left over pieces of the dam at the bottom of the river? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 281 bytes Desc: image001.gif URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed Mar 12 15:21:32 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:21:32 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] YSI Foundation Minding the Planet 60th Anniversary Grant Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C665@mail3.trinitycounty.org> YSI Foundation Minding the Planet 60th Anniversary Grant In honor of our 60th Anniversary, YSI will be awarding a special $60,000 grant to an organization focused on protecting water resources. Since 1990, YSI has publicly demonstrated commitment to its core values and being a good corporate citizen through its 501(c)(3) Foundation. The Foundation grants have funded a variety of projects, including university environmental science scholarships, large scale restoration projects, a wetlands data center, and equipment for fishermen who lost their livelihood in the December 2005 tsunami. This year the Foundation is pleased to recognize the important work local volunteer monitoring organizations are doing to improve the quality of the nation's water. Goals of Grant The YSI Foundation will award $60,000 to an organization that demonstrates a need for capacity building in a volunteer monitoring organization, whose work focuses on activities throughout an entire watershed. The YSI Foundation defines capacity building as any of the following: 1. assistance with staffing, or 2. the development or enhancement of outreach and training programs, or 3. infrastructure development. Examples of the types of projects and programs that are eligible for funding with this grant include: * New watershed volunteer monitoring programs that are being developed and implemented. * Existing watershed volunteer programs in need of additional staffing such as a coordinator or administrative support. * Existing watershed volunteer programs that have an opportunity to extend their program through community outreach, training, and education. * Existing watershed volunteer programs in need of office space, supplies, equipment, etc. Funding period: * The grant will be awarded at the 2008 National Water Quality Monitoring Conference in Atlantic City, NJ, May 18-22, 2008. * One grant will be awarded for $60,000 to the selected organization. * Grant monies must be spent within three years of receipt. Those monies not spent must be returned to the YSI Foundation for redistribution to other grants. Eligibility for grant: * Must be a 501(c)(3) organization or in partnership with a 501(c)(3) organization. * Organization must conduct work in area(s) relevant to grant theme and on a watershed scale. * At least 80% of grant must go toward direct activity as written in the application. * Preference will be given to those organizations that demonstrate an ability to attract matching funds and have a sustainability plan in place. * Preference will be given to those organizations that can demonstrate an ability to publish or present their work to the larger water monitoring community. Grant timeline: * Solicit grant applications: March through April 10, 2008 * Grant applications due: April 15, 2008 * Selection process: April 15 through May 1, 2008 * Grant award announced: May 19, 2008* *The grant award recipient will be notified prior to May 19 th so arrangements can be made for them to accept the award in person at the National Water Quality Monitoring Conference. Application : There is no official application form. The grant application should contain no more than five (5) pages of text, written in English, including any figures or tables (but not including any cover page or table of contents pages). The grant application must include the following information at a minimum: * Name of the organization. * Statement of the purpose or charter of the group. * Name and title (if appropriate) of the contact person, including contact information (address, telephone number, and email). * Statement of how the group meets the basic eligibility criteria; 501(c)(3) IRS documentation must be included. * Brief statement of qualifications. * Scope of work and project's impact, goals, and objectives. * Clearly defined measures of success, such as: o a watershed based monitoring plan o the expected reach of an outreach program o the expected number of participants in the program * Proposed schedule and budget. Other than the page limit, there are no requirements for formatting of the application. Responsibilities of grant recipient : * Submit annual accounting of grant to YSI Foundation. * Create a final project report describing the goals of the grant, the activities undertaken to achieve goals and objectives, difficulties encountered, work products, and funds spent. The final project report is to be completed within 90 days of the end of the funding period, or within 3 years of receipt of funding, whichever comes first. Include photo documentation. * Create a final financial report showing the final balance sheet. * Recipients agree to be featured in news articles about their projects, written and submitted to the media by YSI. * Recipients agree to work with YSI to publish or present their work to the larger water monitoring community. Contact for information and application submittal : YSI Foundation Attention: Susan Miller, Foundation President 1725 Brannum Lane Yellow Springs, OH 45387 937-767-7241 ext. 406 email: smiller at ysi.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TWIGS Network" group. To post to this group, send email to twigs-network at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to twigs-network-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/twigs-network?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Mar 13 08:50:01 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:50:01 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] State and Feds Impose Emergency Salmon Fishing Closure on California and Oregon Coast Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C668@mail3.trinitycounty.org> State and Feds Impose Emergency Salmon Fishing Closure on California and Oregon Coast by Dan Bacher State and federal government fishery managers this morning chose to close commercial and recreational salmon fishing seasons that were already open or scheduled to open before May 1. The decision was made to protect Central Valley chinook salmon stocks that have declined to record low levels. While the National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal fisheries agency, claims that "ocean conditions" are the "likely culprit" for the collapse, commercial and recreational fishing groups, Indian Tribes and environmental groups are pointing to record water exports out of the California Delta, pollution, habitat destruction and other factors as driving the collapse. Photo: Central Valley chinook salmon migrating upstream. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Water Resources. fish.jpg State and Feds Impose Emergency Salmon Fishing Closure on California and Oregon Coast By Dan Bacher State and federal fishery managers meeting in Sacramento this morning imposed an emergency closure on seven salmon fishing zones in California and Oregon to protect Sacramento River chinook salmon, now in a state of unprecedented collapse. This closure would apply to zones that were open or scheduled to open before May 1. The emergency closure was issued as the state and federal governments were reviewing options for salmon fishing seasons after May 1 during the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) meeting in Sacramento this week. For the first time in history, salmon season may be closed in ocean waters south of Cape Falcon, Oregon in 2008, with the exception of an area around the mouth of the Klamath River (Klamath Management Zone). Considering the record low numbers of Central Valley stocks we are expecting to see this year, we decided it would be wise to prevent any impacts upon Sacramento salmon that would take place in the early season, said Eric Chavez, natural resources management specialist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. This way the fish would be preserved for any potential fishing opportunity later in the season. The National Marine Fisheries Service will have to grant an emergency rule to allow any salmon fishing in ocean waters in California and Southern Oregon this year. Based on the latest statistical modeling, only 59,100 salmon are expected to return to Central Valley rivers even if no fishing is allowed. A spawning escapement floor of 122,000 to 180,000 fish has been set for decades and this would be way below it. In 2007, a total of only 87,966 natural and hatchery fall chinook adults were estimated to have returned to the Sacramento River for spawning. This was the second lowest escapement estimate on record and was 33 percent of the preseason expectation of 265,500 fish. Our forecast indicates that we wont meet the escapement floor even with all fishing for Sacramento River salmon stocks closed, said Peter Dygert, fisheries biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. If any fishing is allowed, the federal government would have to grant an emergency rule. "We're in uncharted waters," Craig Stone of the Emeryville Sportfishing Center told me at the meeting yesterday afternoon. "We have never been in a situation where the Sacramento River chinook salmon stocks are in collapse. Who would ever imagine that a run that was over 800,000 fish in 2002 would collapse to almost nothing this year." Four recreational fishing zones and three commercial fishing zones were slated for the emergency closure. The only area open to fishing now, the section from Horse Mountain to Point Arena including the Fort Bragg and Shelter Cove areas, would close effective April 1. However, virtually no salmon have been caught in this area to date. The other three recreational fishing areas whose opening will be delayed are from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mountain, Oregon, scheduled to open on March 15; Point Arena to Pigeon Point, CA. (San Francisco) scheduled to open April 7; and Pigeon Point to the U.S.-Mexico Border (Monterey South), scheduled to open on April 7. In more bad news, the PFMC got their first look at the impacts of the season options that were developed by the Council's advisory teams. The results were not encouraging - even with all fisheries closed (both commercial and recreational) throughout the state, the projected returns to the Sacramento River achieve only half of the minimum conservation objective, said Dan Wolford, PFMC member and Coastside Fishing Club science director. The other two options essentially achieve seasons that represent 2/3 of the 2007 season and 1/3 of the 2007 season, he said. They, of course, drive the projected returns even further below the conservation objective. The closures will have a huge impact upon the California economy, considering that recreational angling is worth $4 billion per year in California, according to the American Sportfishing Association. Salmon fishing is traditionally a very popular activity for recreational anglers along the California and Oregon coast. The closures will also result in a sharp increase in the price of wild king salmon and cause economic devastation to the commercial fishing industry, an industry already hit hard in recent years by Bush administration fishing closures. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) continues to pinpoint unusual environmental conditions in the Pacific as the likely culprit behind the salmon collapse, while fishing and environmental groups say other factors, including massive increases in water exports out of the California Delta, water diversions and the destruction of habitat, should be addressed. The salmon collapse is a combination of a number of things all going wrong at once, said Roger Thomas, president of the Golden Gate Fishermans Association (GGFA) and former PFMC member. The problems resulting from water exports on the Delta, the lack of net pens to acclimate hatchery salmon when released into San Pablo Bay for two years, and adverse ocean conditions are fell into place at the same time. All of us need to work together to bring back the salmon to our rivers and the ocean. Fishing and environmental groups contend that the massive increases of federal and state water exports in recent years play a huge role in the collapse of the Central Valley fall chinook run. The salmon that would have run up the Sacramento River as adults in 2008 and 2007 migrated as juveniles through the California Delta at the same time that record water exports to subsidized agribusiness and southern California were taking place. The fish may have starved from lack of forage as they migrated through the Delta or were killed in the massive state and federal pumping facilities. At the same time, four species of pelagic (open water) Delta fish delta smelt, longfin shad, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad - have declined to record low levels. Water exports have been pinpointed by federal and state fishery scientists as the number one cause of the Pelagic Organism Decline (POD), followed by invasive species and toxics. To date, the federal and state governments have failed to explore the relationship between increases in export pumping and the salmon collapse. They have also refused to consider the impact of increased water exports and the decline of the Bay-Delta Estuary food chain upon ocean forage and water conditions. In addition, they have not considered the impact of unregulated agricultural waste discharges into the Delta and ocean ecosystems upon Central Valley salmon. While the PFMC meets on Friday, March 14, a panel of fishing, tribal and environmental groups will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. to discuss proposed solutions to the current crisis in California Delta fisheries and the unprecedented collapse of the Central Valley chinook salmon runs. The event will take place at the Del Paso Room in the Double Tree Hotel, 2001 Point West Way, in Sacramento, (916) 929-8855. The group is proposing immediate, practical and necessary measures that will begin to rebuild the stocks of salmon. They believe these solutions could help prevent future fishery disasters for California. Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA), Caleen Sisk-Franco, spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, and Dick Pool, owner of Pro-Troll Fishing Products, will speak at the event. David Nesmith, Environmental Water Caucus facilitator, will be the moderator. "Fish need water, Nesmith said. We must leave more clean, cool water in the Delta and our rivers so salmon can live." For more information, call David Nesmith (510) 893-1330 or cell (510) 693-4979 or Dick Pool (925) 825-8560. These are the draft recreational draft ocean salmon fishing options for California waters proposed yesterday, according to Jim Martin, West Coast Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance. April will be closed for the entire state. The PFMC will propose three options on Friday and will finalize the seasons and/or closures in mid-April. Option 1 KMZ (Klamath Management Zone): May 24-September 1 Ft. Bragg: Feb 16-March 31, May 1-Sept 7 SF: May 1- Sept 21 Monterey & South: May 1- Aug 2 Option 2: KMZ: May 24- May 31 (all days) + June 4-Sept 1 (Wednesdays thru Sundays) Ft. Bragg: Feb 16-March 31, May 17- July 12 SF: May 24-26; May 29 - August 24 (Thursdays thru Sundays) Monterey & South: May 1- June 8 Option 3: No directed fishery for ocean salmon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: fish.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 22575 bytes Desc: fish.jpg URL: From greg at yournec.org Thu Mar 13 13:00:43 2008 From: greg at yournec.org (Greg King) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:00:43 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] NOAA research links sea temp to Salmon return numbers In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20080310103722.02cdf508@pop.sisqtel.net> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080310103722.02cdf508@pop.sisqtel.net> Message-ID: <3B41FBD0-6074-44E4-9783-09E1B3CEA0D7@yournec.org> Ocean conditions do not explain why the Sac run has been devastated in a few short years while the Klamath run has remained (relatively) stable. Could it be that NOAA is attempting to shift attention from the abysmal habitat conditions in the Sacramento River? Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org On Mar 10, 2008, at 10:39 AM, Sari Sommarstrom wrote: > > > THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN: > Weekly Fish and Wildlife News > www.cbbulletin.com. > March 7, 2008 > Issue No. 430 > > ----------------------------- > > * NOAA RESEARCH LINKING SEA TEMPERATURE SWINGS TO SALMON RETURN > NUMBERS > > North Pacific sea surface temperatures have historically swung up > and down in 20 to 30-year cycles, changing with it climatic and > ecological variables that shift the fate of salmon. > > That cold-warm-cold-warm pattern has quickened over the past 10 > years -- exhibiting turnarounds that have lasted only four years, > according to research being conducted by the NOAA Fisheries > Service's Northwest Fisheries Science Center. > > The good news is that this sea surface cycle, dubbed the Pacific > Decadal Oscillation, last year appeared to have entered a negative, > cool phase, which most often signals a rise in the number of salmon > that return to the Columbia River basin in succeeding years. > > The PDO, like shorter term La Nina/El Nino (ENSO) patterns, is > characterized by changes in sea surface temperature, sea level > pressure, and wind patterns. Past research has shown that warm eras > have seen enhanced coastal ocean biological productivity in Alaska > and inhibited productivity off the west coast of the contiguous > United States. Cold periods reverse that north-south pattern of > marine ecosystem productivity. > > "The biology reacts quickly" to such changes in ocean conditions, > according to Edmundo Casillas, NWFSC Ocean and Estuary program > leader. "Salmon respond equally as fast." > > During a Thursday presentation to the Columbia Basin's Regional > Forum Implementation Team, Casillas pointed out that at no time > since 1900 had there been a deviation from an established PDO > regime of longer than 16 months. Once established, warm or cool > regimes have stayed locked in with an occasional brief lapse, > sometimes influenced by a contrary ENSO. > > Most recent history shows, however, that the North Pacific has had > two shifts of four years duration recently: a cold era from > 1999-2002 and warm period from 2003-2006. Chinook salmon returns to > the Columbia mirrored those trends with total numbers climbing > upwards from 2000-2003, then declining for the next four years. > > The University of Washington scientist Nathan Mantua and colleagues > were the first to show that adult salmon catches in the Northeast > Pacific were correlated with the PDO. > > Regardless of the duration of any ocean condition, it is important > that freshwater fish managers know what is happening so they can > evaluate the benefits of salmon recovery actions and respond > accordingly, Casillas said. Advancing global warming could > complicate things, affecting the duration and variability of the > large scale climate forces. > > "You need to be cognizant of what's going on in the ocean to do > what you need to do in freshwater," Casillas said. In anticipation > of poor ocean conditions, as an example, hatchery managers might > scale back their production to reduce potential competition between > hatchery and wild fish for resources that will be in short supply. > > The NWRFC has for the past 10 years been monitoring a variety of > physical and biological ocean conditions that may affect the growth > and survival of juvenile salmon in the northern California current > off Oregon and Washington. The 30-40 mile swath of ocean represents > the young fishes' first saltwater experience after they leave the > Columbia River estuary. > > "That's when they're smallest and most vulnerable" to predators and > other natural forces, and when the recruitment into future adult > returns can most be affected, Casillas said. > > Those physical, biological and ecosystem "indicators" have for the > past few years been fed into a forecasting tool that documents > current ocean conditions and potential impact on salmon survival 1 > to 2 years ahead of their actual return. The NWFSC monitoring and > forecasting focuses on that first year at sea through food-chain > processes. > > The most recent forecast, released late last month, says that the > PDO tide has turned, shifting last year to a neutral, and then a > negative, cool phase. Environmental changes seemed to follow. > > "What we're seeing is the ocean is improving," said Casillas. The > latest "Ocean Ecosystem Indicators of Salmon Marine Survival in the > Northern California Current" forecast's indicators, cumulatively, > fall in the positive (for fish) mid-range. > > "Most indicators in 2007 pointed toward greatly improved ocean > conditions compared to the previous few years. Indicators that > point to good salmon survival included a cold ocean in winter/ > spring 2007, an early spring transition date, high biomass of cold-- > water lipid--rich copepods, and a long upwelling season." according > to the updated NWFSC adult spring chinook and coho forecast. > "Negative indicators included weak upwelling in late spring and > summer, very warm sea surface temperatures, and low catches of > juvenile coho in September surveys." > > Fish sampling last year also showed a good news-bad news result. In > June 2007, trawl surveys collected the third highest number of > juvenile spring chinook in the 10 years of sampling. That suggests > "improved adult spring chinook runs can be expected in 2009," > according to the forecast, when the first adults from that year > class return to the Columbia. > > Catches of juvenile coho in September produced some of the lowest > catches of juvenile coho (7th worse in 10 years of surveys). > > "Since it is widely believed that juvenile coho live only within > the upper few meters of the water column, we hypothesize that the > anomalously warm waters, in some way, led to the demise of the > juvenile coho. > > "They either moved (out of the sampling area) or they died. We > think they died," Casillas said. The trawl surveys follow eight > transect lines running from Newport, Ore., north to La Push, Wash. > > The forecast calls for a poor coho return, though improved numbers > for coho that went to sea in 2007 and return in 2008. The > relatively early transition of the zooplankton community in spring, > and the high biomass of coldwater zooplankton species could counter > to some extent coho trawl catch statistics. > > Ocean conditions at the time of the spring chinook's ocean entry > were "very good" last year. > > "Since spring chinook juveniles reside in waters off Oregon and > Washington for only a few weeks before migrating north to unknown > waters, their survival might have been relatively well supported by > these conditions. These fish could begin to return as early as > spring 2009," the forecast says. > > Adult return data displayed as part of the forecast show that the 4- > year period of cold ocean conditions (1999-2002) resulted in good > returns of chinook salmon. Warm ocean conditions from 2003 to 2006 > correspond with declining returns. > > "We expect at least one more year of poor returns from this period, > after which returns should begin to increase, so long as the cold > ocean conditions observed in 2007 continue into 2008 and beyond," > the forecast says. > > The forecast charts an "improving set of conditions" that began > later in 2006, Casillas said. The numerous variables monitored came > out, on average overall, in the mid-range for fish that emerged > from the Columbia in 2006, thus anticipated an improved spring > chinook return this year. > > Federal, state and tribal fishery officials have forecast a strong > upriver spring chinook return this year. That prediction was based > in large part on a near-record return of "jacks," fish that > returned after only one year in the ocean. > > The forecast can be found at: > http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/a-ecinhome.cfm > > ----------------------------- > > * NOAA SCIENTISTS STUDYING IMPACTS OF ANOMALY IN CALIFORNIA CURRENT > IN 2005 > > NOAA scientists are reviewing unusual environmental conditions in > the Pacific Ocean as the likely culprit for the dramatically low > returns of chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams along the > West Coast of the United States in 2007. > > Researchers from NOAA's Northwest and Southwest Fisheries Science > Centers are comparing data on the low food production of the > California Current in 2005 that occurred when this year's and > 2007's returning salmon would have been entering the ocean from > their natal streams to feed and grow. > > The cold waters of the California Current flow southward from the > northern Pacific along the West Coast and are associated with > upwelling, an ocean condition caused by winds that bring nutrients > to the ocean's surface and is the main source of nourishment for > the ocean's food web. > > In 2005 a southward shift in the jet stream, delayed favorable > winds and upwelling for the California Current, which normally > begins in spring. The winds instead arrived in mid-July, causing > high surface water temperatures and very low nutrient production > within the nearshore marine ecosystem. > > "We are not dismissing other potential causes for this year's low > salmon returns," said Usha Varanasi, NOAA Fisheries Service Science > Center director for the Northwest Region. "But the widespread > pattern of low returns along the West Coast for two species of > salmon indicates an environmental anomaly occurred in the > California Current in 2005." > > Data released Thursday by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council > indicate the 2007 returns of fall chinook salmon to the Sacramento > River in California's Central Valley were approximately 33 percent > of what fishery biologists expected. Projections for 2008 are > substantially lower than last year's estimate. > > Coho salmon returning to spawning streams in California and Oregon > are also considerably lower than predicted. A preliminary analysis > found an average 27 percent of the parental stock returning in 12 > streams monitored in California. Even though coho returns appear to > improve along the coast from south to north, Oregon Coast coho > salmon had less than 30 percent of their parental stock return. > > Coho salmon are listed as either endangered or threatened under the > Endangered Species Act in the Central/Northern California and > Southern Oregon watersheds > _______________________________________________ > env-trinity mailing list > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greg at yournec.org Thu Mar 13 15:04:04 2008 From: greg at yournec.org (Greg King) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:04:04 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] NOAA research links sea temp to Salmon return numbers In-Reply-To: <3B41FBD0-6074-44E4-9783-09E1B3CEA0D7@yournec.org> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080310103722.02cdf508@pop.sisqtel.net> <3B41FBD0-6074-44E4-9783-09E1B3CEA0D7@yournec.org> Message-ID: <2BC3BDBC-8B01-4C88-AE3F-D4905A0ED765@yournec.org> All, My question was meant to go only to Sari, I didn't realize it would go to the entire list. The dangers of email. The question was rhetorical, as I have had several inquiries as to whether the "ocean conditions" claim is a "smokescreen" to cover for a lack of protections for the Sacramento. Part of my job is to get to the bottom of these things, the politics v. science, on behalf of our members. But I meant no offense to scientists at NOAA or elsewhere. I am seeking more concrete answers. Thanks to all for your understanding, Greg On Mar 13, 2008, at 12:00 PM, Greg King wrote: > Ocean conditions do not explain why the Sac run has been devastated > in a few short years while the Klamath run has remained > (relatively) stable. Could it be that NOAA is attempting to shift > attention from the abysmal habitat conditions in the Sacramento River? > > Greg King > Executive Director > Northcoast Environmental Center > 1465 G Street > Arcata, CA 95521 > (707) 822-6918 > greg at yournec.org > http://www.yournec.org > > > On Mar 10, 2008, at 10:39 AM, Sari Sommarstrom wrote: > >> >> >> THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN: >> Weekly Fish and Wildlife News >> www.cbbulletin.com. >> March 7, 2008 >> Issue No. 430 >> >> ----------------------------- >> >> * NOAA RESEARCH LINKING SEA TEMPERATURE SWINGS TO SALMON RETURN >> NUMBERS >> >> North Pacific sea surface temperatures have historically swung up >> and down in 20 to 30-year cycles, changing with it climatic and >> ecological variables that shift the fate of salmon. >> >> That cold-warm-cold-warm pattern has quickened over the past 10 >> years -- exhibiting turnarounds that have lasted only four years, >> according to research being conducted by the NOAA Fisheries >> Service's Northwest Fisheries Science Center. >> >> The good news is that this sea surface cycle, dubbed the Pacific >> Decadal Oscillation, last year appeared to have entered a >> negative, cool phase, which most often signals a rise in the >> number of salmon that return to the Columbia River basin in >> succeeding years. >> >> The PDO, like shorter term La Nina/El Nino (ENSO) patterns, is >> characterized by changes in sea surface temperature, sea level >> pressure, and wind patterns. Past research has shown that warm >> eras have seen enhanced coastal ocean biological productivity in >> Alaska and inhibited productivity off the west coast of the >> contiguous United States. Cold periods reverse that north-south >> pattern of marine ecosystem productivity. >> >> "The biology reacts quickly" to such changes in ocean conditions, >> according to Edmundo Casillas, NWFSC Ocean and Estuary program >> leader. "Salmon respond equally as fast." >> >> During a Thursday presentation to the Columbia Basin's Regional >> Forum Implementation Team, Casillas pointed out that at no time >> since 1900 had there been a deviation from an established PDO >> regime of longer than 16 months. Once established, warm or cool >> regimes have stayed locked in with an occasional brief lapse, >> sometimes influenced by a contrary ENSO. >> >> Most recent history shows, however, that the North Pacific has had >> two shifts of four years duration recently: a cold era from >> 1999-2002 and warm period from 2003-2006. Chinook salmon returns >> to the Columbia mirrored those trends with total numbers climbing >> upwards from 2000-2003, then declining for the next four years. >> >> The University of Washington scientist Nathan Mantua and >> colleagues were the first to show that adult salmon catches in the >> Northeast Pacific were correlated with the PDO. >> >> Regardless of the duration of any ocean condition, it is important >> that freshwater fish managers know what is happening so they can >> evaluate the benefits of salmon recovery actions and respond >> accordingly, Casillas said. Advancing global warming could >> complicate things, affecting the duration and variability of the >> large scale climate forces. >> >> "You need to be cognizant of what's going on in the ocean to do >> what you need to do in freshwater," Casillas said. In anticipation >> of poor ocean conditions, as an example, hatchery managers might >> scale back their production to reduce potential competition >> between hatchery and wild fish for resources that will be in short >> supply. >> >> The NWRFC has for the past 10 years been monitoring a variety of >> physical and biological ocean conditions that may affect the >> growth and survival of juvenile salmon in the northern California >> current off Oregon and Washington. The 30-40 mile swath of ocean >> represents the young fishes' first saltwater experience after they >> leave the Columbia River estuary. >> >> "That's when they're smallest and most vulnerable" to predators >> and other natural forces, and when the recruitment into future >> adult returns can most be affected, Casillas said. >> >> Those physical, biological and ecosystem "indicators" have for the >> past few years been fed into a forecasting tool that documents >> current ocean conditions and potential impact on salmon survival 1 >> to 2 years ahead of their actual return. The NWFSC monitoring and >> forecasting focuses on that first year at sea through food-chain >> processes. >> >> The most recent forecast, released late last month, says that the >> PDO tide has turned, shifting last year to a neutral, and then a >> negative, cool phase. Environmental changes seemed to follow. >> >> "What we're seeing is the ocean is improving," said Casillas. The >> latest "Ocean Ecosystem Indicators of Salmon Marine Survival in >> the Northern California Current" forecast's indicators, >> cumulatively, fall in the positive (for fish) mid-range. >> >> "Most indicators in 2007 pointed toward greatly improved ocean >> conditions compared to the previous few years. Indicators that >> point to good salmon survival included a cold ocean in winter/ >> spring 2007, an early spring transition date, high biomass of >> cold--water lipid--rich copepods, and a long upwelling season." >> according to the updated NWFSC adult spring chinook and coho >> forecast. "Negative indicators included weak upwelling in late >> spring and summer, very warm sea surface temperatures, and low >> catches of juvenile coho in September surveys." >> >> Fish sampling last year also showed a good news-bad news result. >> In June 2007, trawl surveys collected the third highest number of >> juvenile spring chinook in the 10 years of sampling. That suggests >> "improved adult spring chinook runs can be expected in 2009," >> according to the forecast, when the first adults from that year >> class return to the Columbia. >> >> Catches of juvenile coho in September produced some of the lowest >> catches of juvenile coho (7th worse in 10 years of surveys). >> >> "Since it is widely believed that juvenile coho live only within >> the upper few meters of the water column, we hypothesize that the >> anomalously warm waters, in some way, led to the demise of the >> juvenile coho. >> >> "They either moved (out of the sampling area) or they died. We >> think they died," Casillas said. The trawl surveys follow eight >> transect lines running from Newport, Ore., north to La Push, Wash. >> >> The forecast calls for a poor coho return, though improved numbers >> for coho that went to sea in 2007 and return in 2008. The >> relatively early transition of the zooplankton community in >> spring, and the high biomass of coldwater zooplankton species >> could counter to some extent coho trawl catch statistics. >> >> Ocean conditions at the time of the spring chinook's ocean entry >> were "very good" last year. >> >> "Since spring chinook juveniles reside in waters off Oregon and >> Washington for only a few weeks before migrating north to unknown >> waters, their survival might have been relatively well supported >> by these conditions. These fish could begin to return as early as >> spring 2009," the forecast says. >> >> Adult return data displayed as part of the forecast show that the >> 4-year period of cold ocean conditions (1999-2002) resulted in >> good returns of chinook salmon. Warm ocean conditions from 2003 to >> 2006 correspond with declining returns. >> >> "We expect at least one more year of poor returns from this >> period, after which returns should begin to increase, so long as >> the cold ocean conditions observed in 2007 continue into 2008 and >> beyond," the forecast says. >> >> The forecast charts an "improving set of conditions" that began >> later in 2006, Casillas said. The numerous variables monitored >> came out, on average overall, in the mid-range for fish that >> emerged from the Columbia in 2006, thus anticipated an improved >> spring chinook return this year. >> >> Federal, state and tribal fishery officials have forecast a strong >> upriver spring chinook return this year. That prediction was based >> in large part on a near-record return of "jacks," fish that >> returned after only one year in the ocean. >> >> The forecast can be found at: >> http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/a-ecinhome.cfm >> >> ----------------------------- >> >> * NOAA SCIENTISTS STUDYING IMPACTS OF ANOMALY IN CALIFORNIA >> CURRENT IN 2005 >> >> NOAA scientists are reviewing unusual environmental conditions in >> the Pacific Ocean as the likely culprit for the dramatically low >> returns of chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams along the >> West Coast of the United States in 2007. >> >> Researchers from NOAA's Northwest and Southwest Fisheries Science >> Centers are comparing data on the low food production of the >> California Current in 2005 that occurred when this year's and >> 2007's returning salmon would have been entering the ocean from >> their natal streams to feed and grow. >> >> The cold waters of the California Current flow southward from the >> northern Pacific along the West Coast and are associated with >> upwelling, an ocean condition caused by winds that bring nutrients >> to the ocean's surface and is the main source of nourishment for >> the ocean's food web. >> >> In 2005 a southward shift in the jet stream, delayed favorable >> winds and upwelling for the California Current, which normally >> begins in spring. The winds instead arrived in mid-July, causing >> high surface water temperatures and very low nutrient production >> within the nearshore marine ecosystem. >> >> "We are not dismissing other potential causes for this year's low >> salmon returns," said Usha Varanasi, NOAA Fisheries Service >> Science Center director for the Northwest Region. "But the >> widespread pattern of low returns along the West Coast for two >> species of salmon indicates an environmental anomaly occurred in >> the California Current in 2005." >> >> Data released Thursday by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council >> indicate the 2007 returns of fall chinook salmon to the Sacramento >> River in California's Central Valley were approximately 33 percent >> of what fishery biologists expected. Projections for 2008 are >> substantially lower than last year's estimate. >> >> Coho salmon returning to spawning streams in California and Oregon >> are also considerably lower than predicted. A preliminary analysis >> found an average 27 percent of the parental stock returning in 12 >> streams monitored in California. Even though coho returns appear >> to improve along the coast from south to north, Oregon Coast coho >> salmon had less than 30 percent of their parental stock return. >> >> Coho salmon are listed as either endangered or threatened under >> the Endangered Species Act in the Central/Northern California and >> Southern Oregon watersheds >> _______________________________________________ >> env-trinity mailing list >> env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > env-trinity mailing list > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Sat Mar 15 11:43:04 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:43:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] A Fiery Legacy Message-ID: <002c01c886cc$68d06f80$6701a8c0@HAL> A Fiery Legacy: USGS Assesses 26 Years of Wildland Fires By Rebecca L. Johnson, SAIC, contractor to the U.S. Geological Survey Previous Next Photo by BLM-Idaho. The USGS-USDA Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project is mapping and analyzing the destructive impact of major U.S.wildfires from 1984 to 2010. The project is part of a Wildland Fire Leadership Council strategy to monitor the effectiveness of the National Fire Plan and the Healthy Forests Initiative. Start with soaring summertime temperatures. Add a profusion of parched landscapes. Season liberally with violent storms. And you have the perfect recipe for potentially disastrous wildland fires. Jeff Eidenshink at the U.S. Geological Survey's Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science knows that recipe well. But while most of us merely wonder or worry about where the next fire will strike, Eidenshink is part of a scientific effort to assess the occurrence and effects of wildland fires in the United States over time. The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project is a six-year collaboration between USGS and the USDA Forest Service to map and analyze the destructive impact, or burn severity, of large wildfires over a 26-year period. (The MTBS project defines large fires as those that affect more than 1,000 acres in the western United States or 500 acres in the East.) This project is part of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council's overall strategy to monitor the effectiveness of the National Fire Plan and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. In the past, consistent geospatial information on the effects of large U.S. wildfires was nonexistent. Researchers and land managers had no scientifically sound baseline for burn severity, no clear and comprehensive data set to identify trends in the frequency of wildland fires or the shifts in the post-fire characteristics of burned lands. But the MTBS project is changing that. For the next several years, the project will be creating an invaluable data legacy of wildland fires and their impacts across the nation. "Burn severity maps and analyses will help answer many fundamental questions about wildland fires, including how fires relate to possible climate change," Eidenshink says. Eidenshink and his colleagues at EROS and the Forest Service's Remote Sensing Applications Center are developing data on U.S. wildfires by using a powerful mathematical tool, the "differenced Normalized Burn Ratio algorithm." The methodology to map burn severity was developed by colleagues from USGS and the National Park Service. The group has begun mapping the burn severity of the thousands of major U.S. wildland fires from 1984 to 2010 and is carrying out the project in two concurrent time phases: historic and current. They are mapping by region fires from 1984 to 2003 (historic fires). At the same time, they are mapping fires across the country from 2004 to 2010 (current fires). Mapping is now underway for historic fires in the Pacific Northwest and California. Mapping for current fires from 2004 culminated this past spring. During 2004, 347 major wildland fires raged across 7,781,049 acres nationwide. This extraordinary project contains an essential ingredient: Landsat images. These readily available, low-cost images provide the longest consistent record of relatively high spatial and spectral resolution data for mapping burn severity. In fact by employing Normalized Burn Ratio algorithms, the project's computer programs can automatically extract a great deal of fundamental burn-severity information from Landsat images. However, creating burn-severity maps, requires the skills of highly trained analysts. These specialists interpret the raw data in light of their own experience with fire behavior and its effects in a given ecological setting. It is a time-consuming process. "Once an analyst has the appropriate pre- and post-fire imagery in hand," says Eidenshink, "a single assessment can take several hours, depending upon the size of the fire and the complexity of the interplay of land-cover and burn-severity variations." The mapping team will have to invest an enormous amount of time and effort to analyze all of the major wildfires from 1984 to 2010. But the 26-year span of the project is critical. Severe periodic droughts, increased fuel loads, and a higher frequency of uncharacteristic fires since 2000 have made it essential for trend analyses to span a significant period of time. These lengthier analyses will help the mapping team better account for variability in factors potentially affecting fire severity, including climate. The maps and analyses from the MTBS project are accessible to anyone at http://svinetfc4.fs.fed.us/mtbs/, but local, state and national researchers and land and resource managers are the site's primary audience. Online project information will help this group to evaluate trends in burn severity and to develop and assess the effectiveness of their land-management decisions. It will also provide them with an essential baseline from which they can monitor the recovery and health of fire-affected landscapes over time - a recipe for success. To learn how scientists create burn-severity maps, go to: http://eros.usgs.gov/images/mtbs_process.jpg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 99_rightArrowOrange.gif Type: image/gif Size: 79 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 99_leftArrowOrange.gif Type: image/gif Size: 79 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: blmwildfire-270.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 9180 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Sat Mar 15 17:16:10 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:16:10 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle March 15 Chinook Message-ID: <001101c886fa$f10064e0$0201a8c0@optiplex> San Francisco Chronicle 1-year ban on chinook salmon fishing proposed Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, March 15, 2008 (3-15) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- Commercial and recreational fishing for chinook salmon will be banned this year under two of the three options outlined Friday by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to handle the catastrophic disappearance of California's fabled run of the pink fish popularly known as king salmon. Even if some fish are taken for scientific purposes - a possibility under one of the scenarios - the overriding message that came out of the weeklong series of federal hearings in Sacramento is that the West Coast salmon fishery is in the midst of complete disaster. The council did propose one option that would allow limited fishing, but the likelihood of any significant commercial or sport fishing this year is minimal, fisheries experts said. "This will be the first total closure since commercial fishing started in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1848," said Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, who, like most anglers, acknowledges that closing the season is necessary if the chinook are to be saved. "Right now we're looking at trying to keep the industry alive for the next two years," he said. So few fall-run chinook came back to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries last fall that the fishery council is required under its management plan to halt fishing throughout the salmon habitat, which is all along the California and Oregon coasts. Only an emergency ruling by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez could change the requirement, and that, according to fisheries experts, is unlikely except to allow limited fishing for scientific purposes. Recreational fishing is scheduled to kick off in April. Commercial fishing would start the following month and run through mid-November. If the ban holds, it would mean the loss of $20.7 million that commercial and recreational salmon fishing brings into the California economy each year. The 400 or so commercial fishermen and women in the state stand to lose 70 to 80 percent of their annual incomes. Losses in Oregon would top $9 million. At least 1,000 fishermen troll the waters for king salmon between Santa Barbara to Washington State. "It is clearly an absolute crisis," said Dick Pool, president of Pro-Troll, a company based in Concord that manufactures fishing equipment. The management council, a federal agency created 32 years ago to manage the Pacific Coast fishery, winnowed the options down to three Fridays following a week of testimony and the digestion of mounds of documents and studies. One of the proposals by the 14-member council - which is made up of commercial and sportfishing representatives, conservationists, biologists, and wildlife agency representatives - would close the entire salmon fishing season this year. The second option would allow fish to be caught between May 1 and Aug. 31 only for scientific research. A third option would allow limited commercial fishing in three areas. Fishing would be permitted in Oregon between April 15 and May 31, but the catch would be restricted to 28-inch chinook and larger. In August only, limited fishing would be permitted in fishing zones from San Francisco to Eureka. Recreational fishing would be permitted from May 18 to May 26 in the Monterey area and from April 15 to June 15 in Oregon. All three options will now go through a monthlong public comment period, during which scientists and number crunchers will change the calculations and tweak the proposals until one stands out as the most viable. The National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to approve the final decision on the salmon fishing season the second week of April. The Sacramento fall spawning season was the last great salmon run along the giant Central Valley river system, including the San Joaquin River, where leaping, wriggling chinook were once so plentiful that old-timers recalled reaching in and simply plucking fish right out of the water. Dams, water diversions for farming, silt from logging and pollution from industry and agriculture long ago combined to diminish the late fall, winter and spring runs. The fall run, which numbered more than 800,000 spawning fish just six years ago, has been reduced to a small fraction of that. Experts are predicting that a little more than 50,000 fish will be in the river this coming fall. No change next year Most fishing industry representatives and anglers have already written off next year based on the projections. Pool said that this year and 2009 "are toast as far as we are concerned. We're targeting 2010 and 2011." Fisheries managers have already canceled early-season ocean fishing for chinook off Oregon, where commercial trolling had been set to open today up to the Oregon-California border. Another ocean salmon fishing season that was set last year began Feb. 17 in the Shelter Cove area off Garberville (Humboldt County). The state is expected to follow the lead of the feds and close that season during a meeting in April, said spokesman Harry Morse, of the California Department of Fish and Game, which controls fishing within three miles of the coast. Morse said a ruling is also expected during the meeting on whether to allow a freshwater salmon catch, which he said is unlikely if the ocean season is shut down. One option presented by the council Friday recommended that a 1,000-fish limit be enacted for anglers on the Central Valley river system, including the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Feather rivers. Nobody knows for sure what has caused the recent precipitous decline of the chinook salmon, but the National Marine Fisheries Service pointed to a sudden lack of nutrient-rich deep ocean upwellings caused by ocean temperature changes as a possible cause. Most biologists believe it is a combination of factors, including agricultural pollution and damaged habitat. Grader and Pool are members of a coalition of anglers, Indian tribes and environmentalists who claimed Friday that the collapse corresponded with increases in exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta between 2001 and 2007. The coalition members called for reductions in water exports to agricultural interests in the Central Valley, tighter controls on pollution and more enforcement of environmental laws. Fight for survival "This is a battle for the whole coast," Grader said, "and I think it is time that we began taking action." One certainty is that consumers can kiss fresh West Coast wild salmon goodbye for now and expect to pay astronomical prices for the Alaska equivalent. Paul Johnson, president of the Monterey Fish Market, a high-end seafood wholesaler at San Francisco's Pier 33, said this week that people can expect to see salmon in fancy restaurants for around $40 a portion, about twice the normal price. The price fishermen get for their catch has gone up from about $1.75 a pound three years ago to about $5.50 a pound, but to most anglers, the situation isn't about money anymore. It's about survival of a species. "I, for one, am more interested in making sure my grandchildren will be able to experience these wonderful natural resources than I am in making a living at it," said Duncan MacLean, who has represented commercial fishermen before the council this past week. "It's the responsibility of our government to ensure the future of those resources and they are falling flat on their faces." "There's no smoking gun here," he said, "but there are a lot of empty weapons and spent shell casings." Online resource For the recommended chinook fishing restrictions: www.pcouncil.org/whatsnew.html Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1013 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Mar 17 09:30:21 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:30:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] New York Times March 17 Message-ID: <00c501c8884c$3361d240$0201a8c0@optiplex> New York Times Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace Noah Berger/Associated Press Tim Calvert, a fisherman, in San Francisco. The scarcity of Chinook salmon may keep the Pacific fishery closed for the season. By FELICITY BARRINGER Published: March 17, 2008 SACRAMENTO - Where did they go? Skip to next paragraph The New York Times The Chinook journey up and down the Sacramento River. The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations - and coming up dry. Whatever the cause, there was widespread agreement among those attending a five-day meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council here last week that the regional $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from northern Oregon to the Mexican border. A final decision on salmon fishing in the area is expected next month. As a result, Chinook, or king salmon, the most prized species of Pacific wild salmon, will be hard to come by until the Alaskan season opens in July. Even then, wild Chinook are likely to be very expensive in markets and restaurants nationwide. "It's unprecedented that this fishery is in this kind of shape," said Donald McIsaac, executive director of the council, which is organized under the auspices of the Commerce Department. Fishermen think the Sacramento River was mismanaged in 2005, when this year's fish first migrated downriver. Perhaps, they say, federal and state water managers drained too much water or drained at the wrong time to serve the state's powerful agricultural interests and cities in arid Southern California. The fishermen think the fish were left susceptible to disease, or to predators, or to being sucked into diversion pumps and left to die in irrigation canals. But federal and state fishery managers and biologists point to the highly unusual ocean conditions in 2005, which may have left the fingerling salmon with little or none of the rich nourishment provided by the normal upwelling currents near the shore. The life cycle of these fall run Chinook salmon takes them from their birth and early weeks in cold river waters through a downstream migration that deposits them in the San Francisco Bay when they are a few inches long, and then as their bodies adapt to saltwater through a migration out into the ocean, where they live until they return to spawn, usually three years later. One species of Sacramento salmon, the winter run Chinook, is protected under the Endangered Species Act. But their meager numbers have held steady and appear to be unaffected by whatever ails the fall Chinook. So what happened? As Dave Bitts, a fisherman based in Eureka in Northern California, sees it, the variables are simple. "To survive, there are two things a salmon needs," he said. "To eat. And not to be eaten." Fragmentary evidence about salmon mortality in the Sacramento River in recent years, as well as more robust but still inconclusive data about ocean conditions in 2005, indicates that the fall Chinook smolts, or baby fish, of 2005 may have lost out on both counts. But biologists, fishermen and fishery managers all emphasize that no one yet knows anything for sure. Bill Petersen, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's research center in Newport, Ore., said other stocks of anadromous Pacific fish - those that migrate from freshwater to saltwater and back - had been anemic this year, leading him to suspect ocean changes. After studying changes in the once-predictable pattern of the Northern Pacific climate, Mr. Petersen found that in 2005 the currents that rise from the deeper ocean, bringing with them nutrients like phytoplankton and krill, were out of sync. "Upwelling usually starts in April and goes until September," he said. "In 2005, it didn't start until July." Mr. Petersen's hypothesis about the salmon is that "the fish that went to sea in 2005 died a few weeks after getting to the ocean" because there was nothing to eat. A couple of years earlier, when the oceans were in a cold-weather cycle, the opposite happened - the upwelling was very rich. The smolts of that year were later part of the largest run of fall Chinook ever recorded. But, Mr. Petersen added, many factors may have contributed to the loss of this season's fish. Bruce MacFarlane, another NOAA researcher who is based in Santa Cruz, has started a three-year experiment tagging young salmon - though not from the fall Chinook run - to determine how many of those released from the large Coleman hatchery, 335 miles from the Sacramento River's mouth, make it to the Golden Gate Bridge. According to the first year's data, only 4 of 200 reached the bridge. Mr. MacFarlane said it was possible that a diversion dam on the upper part of the river, around Redding and Red Bluff, created calm and deep waters that are "a haven for predators," particularly the pike minnow. Farther downstream, he said, young salmon may fall prey to striped bass. There are also tens of thousands of pipes, large and small, attached to pumping stations that divert water. Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which is among the major managers of water in the Sacramento River delta, said that in the last 18 years, significant precautions have been taken to keep fish from being taken out of the river through the pipes. "We've got 90 percent of those diversions now screened," Mr. McCracken said. He added that two upstream dams had been removed and that the removal of others was planned. At the diversion dam in Red Bluff, he said, "we've opened the gates eight months a year to allow unimpeded fish passage." Bureau of Reclamation records show that annual diversions of water in 2005 were about 8 percent above the 12-year average, while diversions in June, the month the young Chinook smolts would have headed downriver, were roughly on par with what they had been in the mid-1990s. Peter Dygert, a NOAA representative on the fisheries council, said, "My opinion is that we won't have a definitive answer that clearly indicates this or that is the cause of the decline." Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1877 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 60423 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.gif Type: image/gif Size: 8785 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.gif Type: image/gif Size: 10123 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Mar 17 11:18:27 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:18:27 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] AP San Joaquin Legislation Message-ID: <00ef01c8885b$4cb71ed0$0201a8c0@optiplex> SAN JOAQUIN RIVER RESTORATION: Water authority vote supports San Joaquin River restoration Associated Press - 3/14/08 By Aaron C. Davis, staff writer SACRAMENTO-A sweeping settlement to restore salmon to the San Joaquin River took a step forward Friday. The Friant Water Users Authority, a powerful band of Central Valley water districts that represents farmers, voted to support changes to the legislation needed to begin the restoration. Supporters say they hope the action adds urgency to the issue in Congress, where bills are pending but Republicans and Democrats disagree over how to pay for the effort. Under a legal settlement for the restoration reached in 2006, water is supposed to be returned to a dry 60-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River by 2009. Chinook salmon are to be returned no later than Dec. 31, 2012. The Friant authority would agree to relinquish a set portion of its traditional water use. Its board has viewed that arrangement as preferable to having a judge establish the water flows. The deal capped an 18-year legal battle over how much water should be released from Friant Dam, outside Fresno. Completion of the federal dam in 1949 dried up portions of the river below where salmon once ran thick. "It's not that any of us think this settlement is a perfect solution," said Ronald Jacobsma, Friant's general manager. "However, our boards concluded two years ago and continue to believe today that water supply and cost certainty provided by the settlement are a much better business decision for everyone in the valley than leaving it up to a federal judge to decide how much water should be released for salmon." Last week, farmers in the Madera Irrigation District took steps to back out of the restoration plan, saying it would cause them to lose too much valuable irrigation water. But they also recommitted to the plan this week. U.S. Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, said he would work to move the settlement through Congress "without tax increases, and finally put this issue to rest and allow the community to come together." Scott Gerber, a spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, called the Friday announcement good news. "It reaffirms that Friant, along with environmentalists, are still prepared to go forward in a meaningful way," he said. "There are other issues, and we are trying to work through those." Among the most problematic of those outstanding issues is getting money for the river's restoration. The total cost could range from $250 million to $800 million, according to estimates by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought the original lawsuit that forced the settlement. Some $200 million would come from state bond money, with much of the rest from irrigation districts. Federal approval is necessary because water fees that now go into the federal treasury would be diverted to the settlement, something requiring congressional signoff. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that fee diversion as a $170 million loss to the U.S. Treasury. Under congressional "pay as you go" rules, that loss must be offset by other income. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Mar 18 22:18:53 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:18:53 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Management Council Meeting March 19-20 in Arcata, Days Inn Message-ID: <00a601c88980$b98cc9d0$c6653940@trinitycounty.org> Draft Agenda TRINITY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL Days Inn, Arcata, CA Wednesday and Thursday, March 19-20, 2008 Wednesday, March 19 Topic, Purpose and/or Time Decision to be Made Discussion Leader Regular Business: 9:00 Introduction: Validate agenda, approve Jan. 9 TMC minutes Mike Long, Chair 9:10 Open Forum: Comments from the public Mike Long 9:20 Report from TAMWG Chair Arnold Whitridge 9:40 Report from TMC Chair Mike Long 9:50 Report from Executive Director Doug Schleusner Information/Decision Items: 10:00 Response to TAMWG Recommendations Mike Long TMC discussion/action on several key recommendations Arnold Whitridge Information Item: 11:15 2008 Fisheries Management Issues/Concerns Mike Orcutt Recent PFMC actions, upcoming season restrictions 12:00-1:00 Lunch Information Item: 1:00 Initial Report by CDR & Assoc. Chris Moore Findings of the February Roles/Responsibilities Interviews 2:45-3:00 Break 3:00 Initial Report by CDR & Assoc. (cont.) Chris Moore Discussion by TMC members Mike Long 4:30 Adjourn for the day Note: DOI and Tribal G2G meetings tentatively scheduled for 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 Thursday, March 20 Topic, Purpose and/or Time Decision to be Made Discussion Leader Decision Items: 8:00 CDR & Assoc. ? Follow up to TMC Discussion Chris Moore, Mike Long Clarification of findings and ?next steps? Brian Person 9:15 Policy Question 1B(2) - Numeric Harvest Goals Mike Long Review DOI Solicitor?s March 12 opinion on Goal Statement, Vote on Goal Statement, next steps? 10:30-10:45 - Break Thursday, March 20 (cont.) Topic, Purpose and/or Time Decision to be Made Discussion Leader Information/Decision Item: 10:45 Integrated Assessment Plan (IAP) Update Tim Hayden, Joe Polos, Status, how to resolve technical/scientific disagreements; Rod Wittler Workshops, ?next steps?, and schedule implications Information Item: 11:30 FY2008 and FY2009 Budget Updates: Brian Person DOI decisions on FY08 $3M add-on; status of Habitat Mike Long Assessment, FY09 staff recommendation and DOI review Doug Schleusner 12:30-1:30 - Lunch Information/Decision Items: 1:30 2008 Flow Schedule: Rod Wittler Results of Feb. 25 meeting, most recent water year info, Obtain conditional approval pending final classification, April conference call Regular Business: 2:30 Open Forum: Comments from the public Mike Long 2:40 Calendars: Confirm next meeting date and location Mike Long Tentatively June 25-26, Weaverville 2:45 Adjourn Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1351, Press 2-2-1 FAX 623-1353 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Mar 19 06:52:06 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:52:06 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Public Trust, Unreasonable Use Complaint Filed With State Board Message-ID: <011901c889c8$6c438d10$c6653940@trinitycounty.org> California Sportfishing California Water Protection Alliance Impact Network ?An Advocate for Fisheries, Habitat and Water Quality? "The Water Watch Dawgs" Embargoed for Release until 10 a.m. Wednesday: 19 March 2008 For information: Bill Jennings, CSPA Executive Director, 209-464-5067, 209-938-9053 (cell), deltakeep at aol.com Carolee Krieger, C-WIN Chairperson, 805-969-0824, caroleekrieger at cox.net Michael Jackson, attorney for petitioners, 530-283-0712, 530-927-7387 (cell), mjatty at sbcglobal.net Public Trust, Unreasonable Use Complaint Filed With State Board Groups will Sue in 60 Days if Board Fails to Schedule Evidentiary Hearing Two statewide environmental organizations filed a public trust, waste and unreasonable use of water and method of diversion petition with the State Water Resources Control Board today (March 19) contending the Board has failed to halt the continuing ecological collapse of the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary by permitting excessive amounts of Northern California water to be pumped to western San Joaquin megafarms and Southern California. The California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) contend the Water Board has allowed the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau) to pump so much water each year from the beleaguered Delta that many fish species have been pushed to the brink of extinction, forcing citizen groups to turn to the courts instead of the Water Board, which has primary authority for protecting the state's surface water supplies. ?The Water Board has served as a handmaiden for decades to special interest groups instead of doing its job as a regulatory agency,? said Carolee Krieger, chair of the C-WIN board of directors. ?Dying fish populations and degraded drinking water are the result of this shocking dereliction of duty. It is time board members realize they have a duty to protect the public's interest in our state's aquatic resources and drinking supplies," she added. Bill Jennings, executive director of CSPA, noted that because of the ongoing failure of the Water Board to do its job a federal judge in Fresno recently was forced to order reduced pumping in the Delta to protect endangered fish species - an action C-WIN and CSPA said the Water Board should have taken years ago. "The stall-and-delay tactics of the Water Board as the Central Valley?s salmonid fisheries and the Delta?s pelagic fishers collapse borders on the criminal," said Jennings, a longtime critic of the Water Board's history of inaction and delay. "Watching fisheries that God nurtured over tens of thousands of years being virtually destroyed in less than two decades while DWR, the Bureau and the State Board continue their embrace of denial is surely one of the most wretched and despicable spectacles we have ever witnessed,? he said. The two groups say that if the Water Board does not take decisive action to begin reversing the decline of the Delta within the next 60 days they will take the matter into state court. The petition filed by C-WIN attorney Michael B. Jackson notes that despite a massive accumulation of evidence that something is seriously wrong in the Delta, the Water Board has still not established mandatory minimum daily flows from upstream dams on the main rivers feeding the Delta in order to protect salmon and other species of fish. The petition alleges the Water Board is violating the Public Trust Doctrine, the California Constitution and numerous California Water Code sections and federal laws by allowing clearly excessive export of Northern California water from the South Delta pumps resulting in 2 an unreasonable use and method of diversion of water. While there is more than one cause contributing to the Delta's decline, including invasive species and degraded water quality, excessive pumping is clearly the main problem, the petition contends. Water Board action demanded by the two groups includes: (1) modification of existing water rights to improve the fishery; (2) mandatory daily flow requirements; (3) mandatory pulse flows during salmon migration; (4) functional fish passage facilities on all dams; (5) state-of-the-art fish screens on all diversion points to prevent young fish from being ground up in the Delta pumps or sucked down irrigation ditches; (6) requiring DWR and the Bureau of Reclamation to begin actually complying with all water and fishery protection laws; and (7) establishing minimum pool and temperature requirements on all water storage reservoirs to protect fish. The petition requests the board to begin holding evidentiary hearings including testimony under oath, cross-examination and rebuttal on the issues raised as soon as possible. CSPA is a public benefit conservation and research organization established in 1983 for the purpose of conserving, restoring, and enhancing the state?s water quality, fisheries and associated aquatic and riparian ecosystems. On behalf of its members, CSPA participates in administrative and judicial proceedings before state and federal agencies and actively enforces laws protective of fisheries and water quality. C-WIN is a non-profit public benefit corporation formed under the laws of the State of California for the purpose of protecting and restoring the scenery, fish and wildlife resources, water quality, recreational opportunities, agricultural uses, and other natural environmental resources and uses of the rivers and streams of California, including the Bay/Delta, its watershed and its underlying groundwater resources. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Mar 20 18:24:51 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:24:51 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Pacific Fishery Management Council NEWS RELEASE Message-ID: <009901c88af2$610a41c0$0201a8c0@optiplex> Pacific Fishery Management Council NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, March 20, 2008 Contact: Ms. Jennifer Gilden, Communications Officer, 503?820?2280 Dr. Donald McIsaac, Executive Director, 503?820?2280 PACIFIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL TO CHOOSE FINAL OPTION FOR 2008 SALMON SEASON Portland, OR. - Today the Pacific Fishery Management Council formally announced its April 7-12 meeting in Seattle, Washington, where an option for managing West Coast salmon fisheries will be chosen and recommended to National Marine Fisheries Service. The Council invites public comment on the options; details for commenting are provided below. On March 14, the Council adopted three public review options for the 2008 salmonseason, two of which would totally close fisheries for Chinook salmon off California and most of Oregon. Seasons for northern Oregon and Washington were also drastically reduced. The Council is scheduled to take final action to choose a single option on Thursday, April 10. "The 2008 salmon season considerations have been dominated by the unprecedented collapse of the large Sacramento River fall Chinook stock," said Council Executive Director Donald McIsaac. "Council members will now take a final vote on whether any fishing on Sacramento fish should be allowed in the ocean this year." Options A detailed table of options is available online. The options for the area south of Cape Falcon (from northern Oregon to the Mexico border) are summarized below. Option I allows a small amount of recreational and commercial ocean Chinook fishing, and a small quota for Sacramento Basin freshwater sport fisheries. Under Option I, sport Chinook fishing would be open on the following dates: April 15 -June 15 from CapeFalcon to Humbug Mountain (Oregon); Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day weekends for areas between Humbug Mountain (southern Oregon) and Pigeon Point (central California); and May 18-26 south of Pigeon Point. In addition, only fishing (for coho that were marked at the hatchery) would be allowed between Cape Falcon and the Oregon/California border from June 22 August 31, or until a quota of up to 10,000 coho are caught. Ocean commercial Chinook fishing would be allowed April 15 May 31 between Cape Falcon and the Oregon/California border, and August 1-31, or a 3,000 fish quota, for each of these areas in California: the Oregon/California border to Humboldt South Jetty,Fort Bragg, and San Francisco. Option II allows a catch-and-release genetic research experiment for Chinook salmon south of CapeFalcon. This fishery is not open to the public. However, Option II also allows a sport fishery for 6,000 hatchery coho off Oregon between Cape Falcon and Humbug Mountain. This option assumes salmon could not be kept in Sacramento Basin freshwater fisheries. Option III would allow no ocean salmon fishing, and also assumes salmon could not be kept in Sacramento Basin freshwater fisheries. North of Cape Falcon to the U.S./Canada border, the three options range from a quota of 15,000 to 25,000 coho (last year's limit was 140,000), and 45,000 to 25,000 Chinook (last year's limit was 32,500), split between commercial and recreational fishermen. BACKGROUND: SACRAMENTO RIVER FALL CHINOOK DECLINE The Sacramento River is the driver of commercial and recreational fisheries off California and southern Oregon. The minimum conservation goal for Sacramento fall Chinook is 122,000 - 180,000 spawning adult salmon (this is the number of salmon needed to return to the river to maintain the health of the run). As recently as 2002, 775,000 adults returned to spawn. This year, even with all ocean salmon fishing closed, the return of fall run Chinook to the Sacramento is projected tobe 58,200. Under the option that allows small fisheries in specific areas, returns would be approximately 51,900. Economic impacts The economic implications of the low abundance of Sacramento River fall Chinook salmon could be substantial for commercial, recreational, marine and freshwater fisheries. In California and Oregon south of Cape Falcon (in northern Oregon), where Sacramento fish stocks have the biggest impact, the commercial and recreational salmon fishery had an average economic value of $103 million per year between 1979 and 2004. From 2001 to 2005, average economic impact to communities was $61 million ($40 million in the commercial fishery and $21 million in the recreational fishery). The potential closure is devastating news to beleaguered salmon fleetson the west coast. California and Oregon ocean salmon fisheries are still recovering from a poor fishing season in 2005 and a disastrous one in 2006, when Klamath River fall Chinook returns were below theirspawning escapement goal. The catch of salmon in 2007 in these areaswas also well below average, as the first effects of the Sacramento River fall Chinook stock collapse was felt. Causes The reason for the sudden collapse of the Sacramento fall Chinook stock is not readily apparent. The National Marine Fisheries Service has suggested ocean temperature changes, and a resulting lack of upwelling, as a possible cause of the sudden decline. Many biologists believe a combination of human-caused and natural factors are to blame, including freshwater in-stream water withdrawals, habitat alterations, dam operations, construction, pollution, and changes in hatchery operations. The Council has requested a multi-agency task force led by the National Marine Fisheries Service'sWest Coast Science Centers to research about 50 potential caustive areas and report back to the Council at the September meeting in Boise, Idaho. "After everyone asks how this could have happened, the question then becomes 'is there anything we can do to fix it?'," said Council Chairman Don Hansen. "The Council will take an immediate step to fix what it has authority to fix, which is appropriately managing the ocean fisheries that affect this valuable resource." Process The Council will accept public comment on the salmon options until April 1, and at its April 7-12 meeting in Seattle, Washington. Comments may be sent to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, 7700 NE Ambassador Place, Suite 101, Portland, OR 97220, emailed to pfmc.comments at noaa.gov, or faxed to (503) 820-2299. Meanwhile, scientists will also review the options to determine the effects on salmon and on the coastal economy. Public hearings to receive input on the options are scheduled for March 31 in Westport, Washington and Coos Bay, Oregon, and for April 1 in Eureka, California. In addition, the California Fish and Game Commission will make a decision on California's state-managed salmon fisheries on April 17. At its meeting in Seattle, the Council will consult with its scientific and fishery stakeholder advisory bodies, hear public comment, and choose a final option for ocean commercial and recreational salmon fishing. Final Council action is scheduled for Thursday, April 10. The National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to make a decision to implement the Council recommendation into federal regulations before May 1. The California Fish and Game Commission will set freshwater seasons affecting Sacramento fall Chinook salmon later in 2008. All Council meetings are open to the public. Press Packet and Briefing Materials Available A press packet with contacts, background information, a preliminary agenda for the April Council meeting, a map of affected areas, and acronyms is available on the Council website at http://www.pcouncil.org/newsreleases/sal_presspacket.html. Detailed materials for Council decision?making will be posted on the Council's online Briefing Book at http://www.pcouncil.org/bb/2008/bb0408.html around March 27. Council Role The Pacific Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional fisherymanagement councils established by the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 for the purpose of managing fisheries 3-200 miles offshore of the United States of America coastline. The Pacific Council recommends management measures for fisheries off the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. ### On the Web Pacific Fishery Management Council: http://www.pcouncil.org Options for 2008 salmon management: http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/salcurr.html#saloptions08 Schedule of hearings: http://www.pcouncil.org/events/2008/salproc08.html#hearings Geographical points used in salmon management: http://www.pcouncil.org/facts/geosalmon.pdf Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danielbacher at fishsniffer.com Tue Mar 18 23:54:25 2008 From: danielbacher at fishsniffer.com (Dan Bacher) Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:54:25 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Public Trust, Unreasonable Use Complaint Filed With State Water Board In-Reply-To: <00a601c88980$b98cc9d0$c6653940@trinitycounty.org> References: <00a601c88980$b98cc9d0$c6653940@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: Embargoed for Release until 10 a.m. Wednesday 19 March 2008 For information: Bill Jennings, CSPA Executive Director, 209-464-5067, 209-938-9053 (cell), deltakeep [at] aol.com Carolee Krieger, C-WIN Chairperson, 805-969-0824, caroleekrieger [at] cox.net Michael Jackson, attorney for petitioners, 530-283-0712, 530-927-7387 (cell), mjatty [at] sbcglobal.net Public Trust, Unreasonable Use Complaint Filed With State Board Groups will Sue in 60 Days if Board Fails to Schedule Evidentiary Hearing Two statewide environmental organizations filed a public trust, waste and unreasonable use of water and method of diversion petition with the State Water Resources Control Board today (March 19) contending the Board has failed to halt the continuing ecological collapse of the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary by permitting excessive amounts of Northern California water to be pumped to western San Joaquin mega- farms and Southern California. The California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) contend the Water Board has allowed the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau) to pump so much water each year from the beleaguered Delta that many fish species have been pushed to the brink of extinction, forcing citizen groups to turn to the courts instead of the Water Board, which has primary authority for protecting the state's surface water supplies. ?The Water Board has served as a handmaiden for decades to special interest groups instead of doing its job as a regulatory agency,? said Carolee Krieger, Chair of the C-WIN board of directors. ?Dying fish populations and degraded drinking water are the result of this shocking dereliction of duty. It is time board members realize they have a duty to protect the public's interest in our state's aquatic resources and drinking supplies," she added. Bill Jennings, executive director of CSPA noted that because of the ongoing failure of the Water Board to do its job a federal judge in Fresno recently was forced to order reduced pumping in the Delta to protect endangered fish species - an action C-WIN and CSPA said the Water Board should have taken years ago. "The stall-and-delay tactics of the Water Board as the Central Valley?s salmonid fisheries and the Delta?s pelagic fisheries collapse borders on the criminal," said Jennings, a longtime critic of the Water Board's history of inaction and delay. "Watching fisheries that God nurtured over tens of thousands of years being virtually destroyed in less than two decades while DWR, the Bureau and the State Board continue their embrace of denial is surely one of the most wretched and despicable spectacles we have ever witnessed,? he said. The two groups say that if the Water Board does not take decisive action to begin reversing the decline of the Delta within the next 60 days they will take the matter into state court. The page petition filed by C-WIN attorney Michael B. Jackson notes that despite a massive accumulation of evidence that something is seriously wrong in the Delta, the Water Board has still not established mandatory minimum daily flows from upstream dams on the main rivers feeding the Delta in order to protect salmon and other species of fish. The petition alleges the Water Board is violating the Public Trust Doctrine, the California Constitution and numerous California Water Code sections and federal laws by allowing clearly excessive export of Northern California water from the South Delta pumps resulting in an unreasonable use and method of diversion of water. While there is more than one cause contributing to the Delta's decline, including invasive species and degraded water quality, excessive pumping is clearly the main problem, the petition contends. Water Board action demanded by the two groups includes: (1) modification of existing water rights to improve the fishery; (2) mandatory daily flow requirements; (3) mandatory pulse flows during salmon migration; (4) functional fish passage facilities on all dams; (5) state-of-the-art fish screens on all diversion points to prevent young fish from being ground up in the Delta pumps or sucked down irrigation ditches; (6) requiring DWR and the Bureau of Reclamation to begin actually complying with all water and fishery protection laws; and (7) establishing minimum pool and temperature requirements on all water storage reservoirs to protect fish. The petition requests the board to begin holding evidentiary hearings including testimony under oath, cross-examination and rebuttal on the issues raised as soon as possible. CSPA is a public benefit conservation and research organization established in 1983 for the purpose of conserving, restoring, and enhancing the state?s water quality, fisheries and associated aquatic and riparian ecosystems. On behalf of its members, CSPA participates in administrative and judicial proceedings before state and federal agencies and actively enforces laws protective of fisheries and water quality. C-WIN is a non-profit public benefit corporation formed under the laws of the State of California for the purpose of protecting and restoring the scenery, fish and wildlife resources, water quality, recreational opportunities, agricultural uses, and other natural environmental resources and uses of the rivers and streams of California, including the Bay/Delta, its watershed and its underlying groundwater resources. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Pumpscasepressrelease.doc Type: application/octet-stream Size: 66334 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Mar 24 08:17:50 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:17:50 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle March 24 Message-ID: <000801c88dc2$3d929e90$0201a8c0@optiplex> Scientists try to explain dismal salmon run Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer Monday, March 24, 2008 John Rueth holds a hatchery chinook salmon to be transfer... Double whammy for chinook salmon. Chronicle graphic by Jo... Amid growing concern over an imminent shutdown of the commercial and sport chinook salmon season, scientists are struggling to figure out why the largest run on the West Coast hit rock bottom and what Californians can do to bring it back. The chinook salmon - born in the rivers, growing in the bay and ocean, and returning to home rivers to spawn - need two essential conditions early in life to prosper: safe passage through the rivers to the bay and lots of seafood to eat once they reach the ocean. Yet, the Sacramento River run of salmon that was expected to fill fish markets in May didn't find those life-sustaining conditions. And some scientists say that's the likeliest explanation for why the number of returning spawners plummeted last fall to roughly 90,000, about 10 percent of the peak reached just a few years ago. The devastating one-two punch happened as the water projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pumped record amounts of snowmelt and rainwater to farms and cities in Southern California, degrading the salmon's habitat. And once the chinook reached the ocean, they couldn't find the food they needed to survive where and when they needed it. "You need good conditions in the rivers and ocean to get survival and good returns for spawning," said Stephen Ralston, supervisory research fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and a science adviser to the Pacific Coast Fishery Management Council. Without those favorable conditions, the salmon run crashed. Five years ago, the peak was 872,700 returning spawners. Roughly 90,000 were counted in 2007, and only 63,900 are expected to return to spawn in fall 2008. Helped by cool-water winter The fishery council, a regulatory body charged with setting fishing limits, has recommended a full closure or a strict curtailment of the commercial and sport season. A final decision will come in April. NOAA researchers say a cool-water winter will help the beleaguered run in the future. An influx of cold Alaska waters, along with a shot of nutrients from vigorous upwelling of deep waters, have been fueling the food chain that feeds salmon, birds and marine mammals. But the scientists warn that chinook, which have swum through the San Francisco Bay for thousands of years, have suffered human harm over the past half-century and now also need human help. They've proposed a number of solutions, including sending more water over the dams and reservoirs and down the tributaries where salmon spawn; removing barriers to migration such as old dams; screening the fish away from the pumps and diversion pipes that suck them up, misdirect or kill them; controlling pesticide and sewage pollution - and catching fewer fish while the populations try to rebuild. Over the millennia, salmon have been born in the Central Valley rivers. At about six months, they head through the delta. At 10 months and only 4-inches long, they reach the ocean and start feeding voraciously in the Gulf of the Farallones on small shrimp, krill and young rockfish. >From there they move to the open waters from Monterey to Vancouver Island in British Columbia until 3 or 4 years of age or older. Then they return home to their birth river to reproduce and die. The young come down the rivers, and the cycle begins again. The problems for the troubled fall run began in 2004 and 2005, the years the chinook were born and traveled to the ocean. In those two years, the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project exported record amounts of delta water to urban and agricultural customers in Southern California. 2005 a bad year for chinook In 2005, a crucial year for the young salmon, 55 percent of natural river flows never made it out to the bay, according to records of the state Department of Water Resources. The water was either exported by the water agencies, diverted upstream of the delta or held back by dams. "The flows were less than what the salmon needed, and the populations are collapsing," said Tina Swanson, senior scientist with the Bay Institute. Even if water agencies are meeting minimum standards, they are inadequate to protect the fish, she said. A network of nonprofits, including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, filed a notice Tuesday with the State Water Resources Control Board, saying it would sue if it doesn't curb pumping. But when looking for an answer to the fall run collapse, Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, said there are many causes for the salmon's decline. "You can't just simply blame it on the pumps," he said. Ocean conditions, a reduction of phytoplankton in the bay, the amount of salmon fishing, natural die-off and other factors are part of the broader picture, he said. There may have been increases in exports to water customers in recent years, but the crucial point is whether there was also an increase in rainfall and snowmelt, he said. That would mean there was more water to divert. State and federal water project representatives say they follow requirements put forth in their permits, which, among other things, ensure a big enough water supply to protect endangered species and provide certain minimum temperatures. They've aided the salmon by removing dams, screening off diversion pipes and improving habitat. Biologists caution that salmon need generous flows of cold water at almost every life stage. The fish also need the fresh river water from the reservoirs at the right times, particularly in the fall and summer. "The adults come upstream in the fall to spawn partly because they're responding to cooler water temperatures," said Peter Moyle, professor of fish biology at UC Davis. "If the females have to swim through water that's too warm, their eggs don't mature as well. Some don't hatch at all." Some females, Moyle said, just stop migrating and wait for cool water. "They know from evolutionary perspective that if they don't wait until the water gets cold, the young won't survive," he said. In the end, they spawn or die before spawning. 'Squirrelly' ocean conditions According to Moyle, good ocean conditions can somewhat make up for drought in the river systems and vice versa. But ocean conditions have been "squirrelly" in the last several years with a number of anomalies that produced abnormally warm conditions not good for salmon, he said. "Usually, salmon populations are at their worst when conditions are bad in both fresh water and salt water," Moyle said. Some scientists think that is what happened to the 2007 fall run. Once in the ocean, salmon must gorge on small sea creatures to survive. In 2005 and 2006, the years that the 2007 fall run needed food near the shore in the Gulf of the Farallones, the upwelling of nutrients apparently came too late to produce the small fish that feed the salmon. Most of the scientists studying the ocean link the unexpected bouts of rising temperatures to global warming. As the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, researchers have had to discard the theory of decades of warmer, then cooler, ocean temperatures. Now they expect an unpredictability, which is projected in climate models. "What's happening is that the rockfish, the squid, the krill, the anchovies and the community of critters that salmon feed on changed dramatically in 2004 to the prey that is not as favorable to salmon," NOAA's Ralston said. The distribution of the sea life also changed. Young rockfish moved well to the north or to the south of Central California, he said. Ralston's hypothesis is that animals are adapted to finding food at certain times and in certain locations. "When salmon arrive in the ocean, they'll go to certain areas to find their food as they have for millennia," he said. "If we have a major change, their fitness, their ocean survival is compromised." Bill Peterson, a NOAA researcher in Newport, Ore., offered some hope for a cooler offshore current, although he cautioned that there would be a few years of hard times for chinook. "It's looking kind of good this year" with five months of cold ocean currents, he said. But the scientists are "very guarded" because in the past two years the ocean was cold in the winter, and then the winds that brought upwelling quit in May and June, reducing the zooplankton that feed the prey of the salmon. Peterson would like to see measures that would aid the salmon. "These fish are so resilient and tough," Peterson said. "We should be a little nicer to them." Graphic: How a combination of river and ocean events during the chinook salmon's life- cycle may have contributed to one of the lowest counts on record in 2007 of the returning Sacramento River run. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 4644 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5138 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 116309 bytes Desc: not available URL: From danielbacher at fishsniffer.com Mon Mar 24 09:15:19 2008 From: danielbacher at fishsniffer.com (Dan Bacher) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:15:19 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle March 24 In-Reply-To: <000801c88dc2$3d929e90$0201a8c0@optiplex> References: <000801c88dc2$3d929e90$0201a8c0@optiplex> Message-ID: Byron Very good article - many times better than the poorly done articles on the same issue in the Sacramento Bee! Thanks Dan On Mar 24, 2008, at 7:17 AM, Byron wrote: > Scientists try to explain dismal salmon run > > Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer > > Monday, March 24, 2008 > > > > > Amid growing concern over an imminent shutdown of the commercial > and sport chinook salmon season, scientists are struggling to > figure out why the largest run on the West Coast hit rock bottom > and what Californians can do to bring it back. > > The chinook salmon - born in the rivers, growing in the bay and > ocean, and returning to home rivers to spawn - need two essential > conditions early in life to prosper: safe passage through the > rivers to the bay and lots of seafood to eat once they reach the > ocean. > > Yet, the Sacramento River run of salmon that was expected to fill > fish markets in May didn't find those life-sustaining conditions. > And some scientists say that's the likeliest explanation for why > the number of returning spawners plummeted last fall to roughly > 90,000, about 10 percent of the peak reached just a few years ago. > > The devastating one-two punch happened as the water projects in the > Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pumped record amounts of > snowmelt and rainwater to farms and cities in Southern California, > degrading the salmon's habitat. And once the chinook reached the > ocean, they couldn't find the food they needed to survive where and > when they needed it. > > "You need good conditions in the rivers and ocean to get survival > and good returns for spawning," said Stephen Ralston, supervisory > research fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and > Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and a science adviser to the > Pacific Coast Fishery Management Council. > > Without those favorable conditions, the salmon run crashed. Five > years ago, the peak was 872,700 returning spawners. Roughly 90,000 > were counted in 2007, and only 63,900 are expected to return to > spawn in fall 2008. > > Helped by cool-water winter > > The fishery council, a regulatory body charged with setting fishing > limits, has recommended a full closure or a strict curtailment of > the commercial and sport season. A final decision will come in April. > > NOAA researchers say a cool-water winter will help the beleaguered > run in the future. An influx of cold Alaska waters, along with a > shot of nutrients from vigorous upwelling of deep waters, have been > fueling the food chain that feeds salmon, birds and marine mammals. > > But the scientists warn that chinook, which have swum through the > San Francisco Bay for thousands of years, have suffered human harm > over the past half-century and now also need human help. > > They've proposed a number of solutions, including sending more > water over the dams and reservoirs and down the tributaries where > salmon spawn; removing barriers to migration such as old dams; > screening the fish away from the pumps and diversion pipes that > suck them up, misdirect or kill them; controlling pesticide and > sewage pollution - and catching fewer fish while the populations > try to rebuild. > > Over the millennia, salmon have been born in the Central Valley > rivers. At about six months, they head through the delta. At 10 > months and only 4-inches long, they reach the ocean and start > feeding voraciously in the Gulf of the Farallones on small shrimp, > krill and young rockfish. > > From there they move to the open waters from Monterey to Vancouver > Island in British Columbia until 3 or 4 years of age or older. Then > they return home to their birth river to reproduce and die. The > young come down the rivers, and the cycle begins again. > > The problems for the troubled fall run began in 2004 and 2005, the > years the chinook were born and traveled to the ocean. In those two > years, the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water > Project exported record amounts of delta water to urban and > agricultural customers in Southern California. > > 2005 a bad year for chinook > > In 2005, a crucial year for the young salmon, 55 percent of natural > river flows never made it out to the bay, according to records of > the state Department of Water Resources. The water was either > exported by the water agencies, diverted upstream of the delta or > held back by dams. > > "The flows were less than what the salmon needed, and the > populations are collapsing," said Tina Swanson, senior scientist > with the Bay Institute. Even if water agencies are meeting minimum > standards, they are inadequate to protect the fish, she said. > > A network of nonprofits, including the California Sportfishing > Protection Alliance, filed a notice Tuesday with the State Water > Resources Control Board, saying it would sue if it doesn't curb > pumping. > > But when looking for an answer to the fall run collapse, Jerry > Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, > said there are many causes for the salmon's decline. > > "You can't just simply blame it on the pumps," he said. Ocean > conditions, a reduction of phytoplankton in the bay, the amount of > salmon fishing, natural die-off and other factors are part of the > broader picture, he said. > > There may have been increases in exports to water customers in > recent years, but the crucial point is whether there was also an > increase in rainfall and snowmelt, he said. That would mean there > was more water to divert. > > State and federal water project representatives say they follow > requirements put forth in their permits, which, among other things, > ensure a big enough water supply to protect endangered species and > provide certain minimum temperatures. They've aided the salmon by > removing dams, screening off diversion pipes and improving habitat. > > Biologists caution that salmon need generous flows of cold water at > almost every life stage. The fish also need the fresh river water > from the reservoirs at the right times, particularly in the fall > and summer. > > "The adults come upstream in the fall to spawn partly because > they're responding to cooler water temperatures," said Peter Moyle, > professor of fish biology at UC Davis. "If the females have to swim > through water that's too warm, their eggs don't mature as well. > Some don't hatch at all." > > Some females, Moyle said, just stop migrating and wait for cool > water. "They know from evolutionary perspective that if they don't > wait until the water gets cold, the young won't survive," he said. > In the end, they spawn or die before spawning. > > 'Squirrelly' ocean conditions > > According to Moyle, good ocean conditions can somewhat make up for > drought in the river systems and vice versa. But ocean conditions > have been "squirrelly" in the last several years with a number of > anomalies that produced abnormally warm conditions not good for > salmon, he said. > > "Usually, salmon populations are at their worst when conditions are > bad in both fresh water and salt water," Moyle said. Some > scientists think that is what happened to the 2007 fall run. > > Once in the ocean, salmon must gorge on small sea creatures to > survive. > > In 2005 and 2006, the years that the 2007 fall run needed food near > the shore in the Gulf of the Farallones, the upwelling of nutrients > apparently came too late to produce the small fish that feed the > salmon. > > Most of the scientists studying the ocean link the unexpected bouts > of rising temperatures to global warming. As the atmosphere and > oceans have warmed, researchers have had to discard the theory of > decades of warmer, then cooler, ocean temperatures. Now they expect > an unpredictability, which is projected in climate models. > > "What's happening is that the rockfish, the squid, the krill, the > anchovies and the community of critters that salmon feed on changed > dramatically in 2004 to the prey that is not as favorable to > salmon," NOAA's Ralston said. > > The distribution of the sea life also changed. Young rockfish moved > well to the north or to the south of Central California, he said. > > Ralston's hypothesis is that animals are adapted to finding food at > certain times and in certain locations. "When salmon arrive in the > ocean, they'll go to certain areas to find their food as they have > for millennia," he said. "If we have a major change, their fitness, > their ocean survival is compromised." > > Bill Peterson, a NOAA researcher in Newport, Ore., offered some > hope for a cooler offshore current, although he cautioned that > there would be a few years of hard times for chinook. > > "It's looking kind of good this year" with five months of cold > ocean currents, he said. But the scientists are "very guarded" > because in the past two years the ocean was cold in the winter, and > then the winds that brought upwelling quit in May and June, > reducing the zooplankton that feed the prey of the salmon. > > Peterson would like to see measures that would aid the salmon. > > "These fish are so resilient and tough," Peterson said. "We should > be a little nicer to them." > > Graphic: How a combination of river and ocean events during the > chinook salmon's life- cycle may have contributed to one of the > lowest counts on record in 2007 of the returning Sacramento River run. > > > > > > Byron Leydecker > > Friends of Trinity River, Chair > > PO Box 2327 > > Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 > > 415 383 4810 > > 415 519 4810 cell > > 415 383 9562 fax > > bwl3 at comcast.net > > bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) > > http://www.fotr.org > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > env-trinity mailing list > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Mar 24 12:24:52 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:24:52 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Eureka Reporter Op-Ed March 23 Message-ID: <003e01c88de4$bfb2b8c0$0201a8c0@optiplex> Guest Opinion: Why California farmers go with the flow Eureka Reporter - 3/23/08 By Amy Kaleita, public policy fellow for environmental studies at the Pacific Research Institute, San Francisco The water shortage in California is leading some farmers to sell their irrigation allotments to cities and other farmers in Southern California, according to an Associated Press story. It is well within their rights to do so, but while those farmers may benefit, the taxpayers will end up paying the price. California is currently experiencing one of the most severe periods of water shortage in the last decade, thanks to eight years of drought conditions along the Colorado River coupled with regulatory restrictions and increasing demand. This year's first survey of the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada, the spring snowmelt that provides another important source of water in the state, estimated a snow depth of less than 60 percent of normal for the season. Prices for water, normally around $50 an acre-foot (3.9 million gallons) of water, may rise to as much as $200 per acre-foot this year. As a result, farmers who grow annual crops such as rice, cantaloupes and tomatoes around Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valley, and who - thanks to state and federal subsidies - are paying only $30 to $60 per acre-foot of water, may make more money by selling their water than by growing and selling the crops that water would normally irrigate. A spokesperson for the State Water Contractor Association, which represents 29 water agencies, noted that "virtually every agricultural district in the Sacramento Valley is thinking about selling their water this year." Who can blame them? These farmers are just doing what makes the most economic sense for them. This situation, however, is less beneficial for taxpayers. Because the farmers' water is subsidized, when they, in turn, sell the water to a municipal supplier rather than using it to grow their crops, the taxpayers are paying for food security they aren't getting. While it's difficult to predict the precise impact the water situation will have on food prices, rising prices are a distinct possibility as planted acreage decreases. Further, when the subsidized water is sold on the open market, the cost of water reflects these artificial prices rather than the short supply and high demand. As this means that city water rates don't accurately reflect the shortage, the costs won't necessarily encourage consumers to conserve as much as they would if the water was appropriately priced. More regulation could address situations such as prohibitions on reselling irrigation water, for example. However, regulations on the water supply system are already complex, and in some cases, exacerbating the situation. A December federal court ruling has forced water managers to limit pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect the Delta smelt, an endangered fish. This situation illustrates why governments need to be extremely cautious in allocating subsidies and passing policy that supports one segment of the market over another. No industry exists in a vacuum, not even agriculture, and the ripple effect can cause unintended and negative consequences in times of stress. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Mar 24 12:28:37 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:28:37 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Westlands and San Joaquin Restoration Fresno Bee March 21 Message-ID: <004301c88de5$43336cd0$0201a8c0@optiplex> SAN JOAQUIN RIVER RESTORATION: Plan to restore river at risk; Water district demand threatens renewal deal for the San Joaquin Fresno Bee - 3/21/08 By Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- The politically muscular Westlands Water District is threatening to torpedo a San Joaquin River restoration deal unless the district gets its way on a separate and highly controversial irrigation drainage plan. The unexpected move means Westlands has raised its price for supporting restoration of the river, long after negotiators thought the district was already on board. The hardball tactic also further unsettles a deal that has already endured considerable tumult. Earlier this month, the Madera Irrigation District first voted to withdraw from the river settlement and then several days later agreed to stick with it. "We've had enough challenges moving the [river] legislation as it is," Friant Water Users Authority general manager Ron Jacobsma said Friday. "Having opposition doesn't help." On Wednesday, Westlands General Manager Tom Birmingham advised key San Joaquin Valley water officials of the district's new policy. Briefly put, Westlands wants the same contract concessions in an irrigation drainage plan that Friant farmers are supposed to get as part of the San Joaquin River restoration. The demand for equal treatment appears designed to pressure environmental groups, which support the river restoration deal but remain skeptical about the irrigation drainage plan. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," Birmingham said Friday. The Westlands board president, Los Banos farmer Jean Sagouspe, warned in a letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein that Westlands "would withhold its agreement" from the river deal and "expect other" water districts to do the same unless Westlands' irrigation drainage demands were met. "The linkage between the two is problematic, at least for us," Jacobsma said. The Westlands maneuver, for the first time, explicitly connects two ambitious but distinct water-related projects. The first is a proposal to restore water and salmon to the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam. The Natural Resources Defense Council and east-side farmers served by Friant irrigation water negotiated the settlement to end a lawsuit filed in 1988. Congress has not yet approved the necessary legislation. The second project addresses irrigation drainage problems afflicting the Valley's west side. The federal Bureau of Reclamation is legally responsible, because the government never built a promised drain. "These are two significant environmental problems in the San Joaquin Valley, and I think they certainly are related," Birmingham said. Westlands has proposed that it assume responsibility for fixing the drainage problem. In return, Westlands would pay off early $147 million for construction of San Luis Reservoir and other facilities. That is significantly less that the $270 million present value of what the water district owes the U.S. government. Until now, the river restoration and irrigation drainage problems have moved on separate tracks. "The Friant settlement is not the Westlands drainage issue; nor, I believe, should it be," Feinstein said Friday. "Each will either stand on its own merit or fall on its own merit." A $500 million river restoration bill authorizing levee repairs and other work passed the House Natural Resources Committee last fall. A companion Senate measure could move by April. The irrigation drainage plan is still being drafted. The general outlines, though, vex environmentalists. They worry about Westlands prepaying the $147 million to the federal government, and the district seeking exemption from tight acreage limits. Current federal law limits farmers from receiving subsidized water rates on more than 160 acres. Friant farmers would enjoy similar provisions for acreage limits and loan prepayment under the San Joaquin River restoration deal that environmentalists support, Westlands notes pointedly. "If [the provisions] are appropriate elements of a settlement of the Friant litigation, they are appropriate elements of a settlement of the drainage litigation," Sagouspe wrote. Technically, Westlands does not have a vote in the San Joaquin River deal. Politically, a defection by the 600,000-acre Westlands district with its coterie of Western political allies could prove problematic. Birmingham said Friday that he did not know whether Westlands' new position "will be an impediment or not" to resolving the San Joaquin River deal. He said Westlands simply wants the "same principles" applied to the Valley's various water problems. Jacobsma said Friday that "we're sorting through" Westlands' new demand. Environmental attorney Hal Candee could not be reached to comment Friday. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sat Mar 29 14:42:42 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:42:42 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] NEC Op-Ed in the Sacramento Bee on Klamath Dams Message-ID: <003701c891e5$d20ffaa0$3c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg King" To: "Greg King" Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2008 3:18 PM Subject: NEC Op-Ed in the Sacramento Bee > http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/820197.html Greg King: Any Klamath dam deal must provide water for fish By Greg King - Special to The Bee Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, March 29, 2008 Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B7 Print | E-Mail | Comments (2)| Not long ago my neighbor said he'd seen me on TV discussing the Northcoast Environmental Center's opposition to the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement. He seemed puzzled. "I thought you guys wanted dam removal," he said. My heart sank. Of course the NEC wants to tear down four dams on the Klamath River. The NEC is an original proponent of dam removal, as we've long worked to restore populations of fish and other wildlife along one of America's greatest rivers. We want the dams out to open up more than 300 miles of former salmon and steelhead habitat, and to improve the abysmal water quality currently released by the reservoirs behind the dams. But dam removal is only one step, however significant. The agreement's most controversial provision allocates to farmers 330,000 to 340,000 acre-feet of water during dry years, and 385,000 acre-feet in wet years. (An acre-foot is literally that: the amount of water it would take to cover an acre of land a foot deep.) This allocation can be renegotiated only during "extreme drought" years, but this "drought plan" will not be created until after the settlement agreement is completed, one of the many unsettling provisions of the agreement. Also, this allocation is about 10 percent more than farmers currently get during dry years under court-ordered Endangered Species Act protections. Two species of salmon (chum and pink) are already extinct on the Klamath. Spring Chinook runs are at dangerously low levels. Klamath Coho salmon are listed as "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act. Dam removal alone is not enough to prevent further declines. Scientists tell us that the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement may not provide enough water for salmon to avoid extinction, owing to significant allocations to farmers. The NEC supports farmers. They provide our nation with food, and in many places productive farmland can forestall development and preserve open space. So we hope farmers in the upper Klamath basin are able to secure adequate water supplies, but not at the expense of salmon. This occurred in 2002, when farmers received 400,000 acre-feet of water and 68,000 adult salmon died in the lower Klamath. Would the agreement prevent such an excessive allocation? Probably. Would an allocation of 330,000 acre-feet also be excessive even during very dry years? Good question. Last year, the NEC hired Bill Trush of McBain and Trush, and Greg Kamman of Kamman Hydrology, to examine the complex scientific modeling of flow allocations contained in the agreement. Trush's primary conclusion was that once the dams come out and agricultural interests get their water, there still might not be enough water in the river for fish. Last month the NEC again hired Trush, this time to create an alternative path that scientists working on the agreement could follow to better ensure fish recovery on the Klamath River. In that paper, Trush wrote, "The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement relegates salmon and the Klamath River ecosystem to the status of junior water users, while upper basin irrigators become the senior water users. This premise squarely places onto the salmon and the river ecosystem any risk inherent in the conclusion that flows contained in the agreement will actually provide enough water for recovery of the species." The Trush and Kamman reports are available at www.yournec.org. At the same time, the NEC's board of directors hosted a phone conference with Thomas Hardy, associate director of the Utah Water Research Laboratory at Utah State University. Hardy's analyses of Klamath River hydrology are considered to be the best available science for evaluating the river's fishery. Hardy confirmed Trush's conclusions: "Agriculture gets all the guarantees, and everything related to the environment is left to somewhat vague processes and committees." In dry years, said Hardy, agriculture in the upper basin will be "taking too much water from the system." An acceptable agreement, he said, would "guarantee flows for fish first, then other water uses." The NEC's rejection last month of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was intended to make it better and to aid the recovery of the entire Klamath River ecosystem. We are still negotiating. Already the NEC has spent about $60,000 to review the science and legalities contained in the 256-page agreement, and we're not done yet. If we agree to support the settlement it will be because dams will come down and fish will get the water they need to thrive. That's our promise to our members and to the fish. Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: button1-share.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1505 bytes Desc: not available URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Mon Mar 31 17:18:03 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:18:03 -0400 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity, Klamath compared to Bay-Delta In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20080304150040.036965c0@mail.snowcrest.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20080304150040.036965c0@mail.snowcrest.net> Message-ID: Friends up north: >From a couple of hundred miles away, it seems like restoration of the Trinity is going a lot more smoothly and is further along that our efforts in the beleaguered Delta. So I took the opportunity to blog about it a bit - http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/waterfront/ . Feel free to comment if I don't have it right. Spreck Rosekrans 415-293-6082 http://www.edf.org ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Tue Apr 1 10:52:03 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:52:03 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Scientists breed smelt in case species becomes extinct in Delta Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C686@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Scientists breed smelt in case species becomes extinct in Delta By Matt Weiser - mweiser at sacbee.com Last Updated 6:04 am PDT Monday, March 31, 2008 Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1 http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/823346.html Juvenile Delta smelt that are being bred as a refuge population of the endangered fish swim in a beaker at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory earlier this month near Byron. The fish will require several months of a steady diet of tiny shrimplike animals before they reach their adult size - about the length of a finger. Randy Pench / rpench at sacbee.com See additional images BYRON - Inside a makeshift collection of modified shipping containers lined up on a patch of asphalt, a system of gurgling pipes and buckets holds the Delta's future. Or, at least, one future. These faded steel boxes house the beginnings of a new refuge population of threatened Delta smelt. The fish, only finger-length at adulthood, could be used one day to restore the population if their wild kin go extinct. Unfortunately, extinction is all too likely after five years of steep population declines for the smelt and four other fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. All are known as "pelagic" fish because they live in the Delta's moving water column. Scientists have been unable to explain the decline, much less solve it. So the refuge smelt are intended as a last-ditch effort to save the species, long considered a bellwether for the health of the estuary as a whole. If the smelt disappear, scientists believe, other species will follow, along with a decline in water quality that could make Delta water undrinkable for the 25 million Californians who depend on it. Smelt, in other words, are the lead car in an ecological train that's in danger of derailing. "It's bigger than smelt," said Bradd Baskerville-Bridges, a marine biologist and co-director of the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory, where the smelt are being raised. "It's affecting all the pelagic species right now, and there's no easy solution." The lab has been breeding smelt for 15 years for research purposes, so scientists can learn more about how the fish respond to changing environmental conditions. But the new refuge population, which started breeding in December, has added new layers of rigor and importance to the operation. The process is like a very specialized fish hatchery, but miniaturized. And it's a hands-on process. Eggs and sperm are extracted by gently holding each tiny smelt in the fingertips and firmly squeezing the abdomen from head to tail. The female releases a nickel-sized puddle of eggs that resembles melted butter. The male excretes a droplet of clear sperm gathered up in a tiny suction device called a micropipette. After mixing, the fertilized eggs are held in clear tubes about 3 inches in diameter hanging inside one climate-controlled shipping container. Each tube holds layers of fine, sandy sediment through which water is constantly pumped from bottom to top. The eggs cling to the sediment with a flexible foot, not unlike a mushroom. After eight to 10 days, they hatch into tiny embryos to form a swirling cloud that, on first glance, resembles the foam in a mug of beer. Then you realize the cloud actually consists of about 5,000 baby smelt. Eventually the embryos respond to light and rise to the surface of each tube, where they are drawn off into buckets to grow into juvenile fish, each ghostly transparent and no longer than a fingernail. It then takes several months on a steady diet of tiny shrimplike animals - also raised at the lab - before the smelt reach adulthood. "They're dependent on you like babies," said Sophie Wan, a laboratory assistant supervising the juvenile smelt. "To be working with a fish that's so close to being extinct is really interesting. It's important. People don't know how important it is." The lab is creating the refuge population from a parent generation of just 500 smelt gathered from the Delta in December 2006. These are the last wild fish the lab was able to obtain before officials halted scientific collections in the Delta - another drastic step taken to protect the species. These parents will produce about 5,000 young for the first generation of refuge fish, which must be tracked as individuals to ensure their genetic diversity is maintained when they become parents of the next generation in 2009. That means more tubes, buckets and tanks. State agencies recently contributed $2.1 million toward the effort to hire more people for the project and expand the facility into a nearby warehouse, expected to be ready in April. There are currently no plans to reintroduce these fish. In fact, almost no one wants that to happen yet. At the moment, they represent only a backup plan. Yet it's vital to ensure diversity in the refuge fish so that if they are reintroduced, they will behave like wild fish and not compromise any remaining in the wild. So in addition to all the breeding steps, the lab now uses tiny scissors to take a fin clip from each male and female parent. These are stored in a color-coded vial for each fish - red for girls, green for boys - and shipped to researchers on the UC Davis campus for genetic analysis. Scientists believe a variety of factors have contributed to the smelt's decline, including excessive water exports from the Delta to Southern California, water pollution, and invasive species that outcompete smelt for food. Research using fish raised at the lab has shown that smelt feeding and movement depend on narrow salinity and water flow requirements. This is especially true when the fish are tiny juveniles, unable to control their own movement in the Delta's strong currents. The fish essentially evolved to thrive in the natural ebb and flow of the Delta's rivers and tides, a pattern dramatically altered by the dams and pumps that now govern the estuary. Before reintroducing refuge smelt, scientists also need to be sure the environment is ready for them. Otherwise, these fish might meet the same fate as their wild cousins, which appear unable to thrive in the altered water chemistry, temperature and runoff that exist now. "It's because of human influences that these changes have occurred, so it's up to us to rectify it," said Joan Lindberg, an ecologist and co-director of the lab. "We haven't been the best stewards of the Delta. So there should be a lot of effort to understand that and manage it so it's more like a natural system." About the writer: * Call The Bee's Matt Weiser, (916) 321-1264. Randy Pench / rpench at sacbee.com The eggs that will produce part of the refuge population of the endangered Delta smelt are gathered in a dish at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Lab near Byron earlier this month. Click on photo to enlarge -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 7179 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 18168 bytes Desc: image002.jpg URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Apr 1 16:35:17 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 16:35:17 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Board of Supervisors' Meeting April 2, 9 am on Floodplain Issues Message-ID: <00d101c89452$039a92b0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> The following items will be discussed by the Board of Supervisors on April 2, 2008 at 9 am at the Trinity County Library Meeting Room: Presentations AM Board of Supervisors 1.01 Discussion concerning the following topics: 1. Revised Hayfork Flood Insurance Rate Maps and Flood Insurance Study; 2. Adoption of the Trinity River Maximum Fishery Flow as the Best Available Information Under Trinity County's Floodplain Management Ordinance; 3. Trinity River Floodplain/Hydrology Study Subject to routing as to form and content. County Administrative Officer 1.02 Discussion and possible action concerning potential reorganization of County departments. Fiscal Impact: Potential savings to the General Fund Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1351, Press 2-2-1 FAX 623-1353 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Apr 2 11:14:40 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 11:14:40 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] AP and Eureka Times Standard - Salmon April 2 Message-ID: <003301c894ed$6c581110$0201a8c0@optiplex> Senate OKs funds to restore salmon habitat Associated Press - 4/2/08 The California Senate on Tuesday approved spending $5.3 million to restore salmon habitat, responding to a population decline that may end salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coasts this year. Lawmakers sent the bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on a 27-10 vote. Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Lisa Page said the governor has not taken a position on the bill. The money would come from a $5.4 billion water bond approved by voters in 2006. The bill's author, Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, said it would be used to match about $20 million the federal government has made available for salmon projects. The money would help remove barriers to salmon migration, restore spawning areas and monitor salmon populations. Four Republicans joined Democrats in approving the bill. It passed without debate, but Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta (Riverside County), later said he opposed the measure because the state should have a comprehensive plan for spending the 2006 bond money. The measure, Proposition 84, provides money for clean water, parks, flood control and conservation. "I don't think we ought to be parceling out bits and pieces of the Prop. 84 money based on one member's pet projects," Hollingsworth said in an interview. The federal Pacific Fishery Management Council is to decide this month whether to end the salmon season for the year. Salmon fishers show frustration Eureka Times Standard - 4/2/08 By John Driscoll, staff writer EUREKA -- Grim-faced fishermen and business owners faced fisheries managers at a packed meeting on Tuesday night, voicing anger, distrust and hopelessness over the gloomy salmon season promised this summer. Many pleaded with the Pacific Fishery Management Council at the Red Lion Inn to adopt the most liberal of three options it is considering, and even asked for more time on the ocean in the late summer. Some pushed the council to shut down fishing altogether this year, while pressing for solutions to prevent further affects of dams, water diversions, sea lions, hatcheries and other problems. Former Trinidad tackle dealer Thomas Richardson said that all three options -- ranging from no fishing to 10 days of fishing -- are unacceptable. He argued that the council has mismanaged the fishery, and fishermen are paying for it. "I think this whole situation has been a waste of time," he said. "You guys have had 30 years to get this straight." The council has blamed poor ocean conditions for the dramatic lack of salmon expected to return to the Sacramento River this fall. That's based on a meager run of 2-year-old salmon that came up the river last year, an indicator of what can be expected the following year. Biologists have also pointed to intensive water diversions and habitat problems in the Sacramento, which has been the bread-and-butter stock of the fishing industry. Several speakers warned about serious economic impacts from a closed or severely limited fishery just two years after heavy restrictions buckled the commercial and sport fishing industry. "The majority of our clients are here to fish for salmon only," said Brad McHenry from the View Crest Lodge and RV Park in Trinidad. The federal government could pass an emergency rule to allow fishing this year, although it has signaled its reluctance to do that. Eureka commercial fisherman Russell Miller said that the council's options for commercial fishing -- allowing 3,000 fish in each of three Northern California zones -- weren't realistic at all. "Don't throw us these crumbs," Miller said. "There are a whole lot of people who are going broke in the commercial industry." Some speakers said they weren't convinced that the council was making an accurate prediction of the abundance of salmon expected to run up the Sacramento. Eureka attorney Stephen Rosenberg said he has been following the council for decades, and claimed it is always wrong when it comes to anticipated highs and lows -- with serious consequences. He also brought up a simmering complaint that a program that brings young Sacramento River salmon to San Francisco Bay to be raised in pens was either shut down, or that the pens were damaged, in 2005. Rosenberg also argued that sport fishing should be allowed this year. "We can't really make a dent in this population," he said. The only option that allows fishing would spread 10 days over the three major summer holidays. Several people said that could prompt fishermen to head out to sea even if the weather is rough. It would also cause major traffic jams at boat launches, some said. Retired fisheries biologist Roger Barnhart advocated that a punch card be used to allow fishermen to take 10 or 20 salmon total, but at anytime during the season. The council will decide on the shape of the season next week in Seattle, and that will be forwarded to the National Marine Fisheries Service for approval or modification. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Apr 2 11:09:54 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 11:09:54 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: Salmon Restoration Bill Receives Final Approval from State Senate Message-ID: <002d01c894ec$c1cf4c40$0201a8c0@optiplex> _____ From: Dan Bacher [mailto:danielbacher at fishsniffer.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 10:31 AM Subject: Salmon Restoration Bill Receives Final Approval from State Senate Salmon Restoration Bill Receives Final Approval from Senate The State Senate gave final approval Tuesday to salmon restoration legislation sponsored by Senator Patricia Higgins. The bill designates $5.3 million in "urgent funding" for coastal salmon and steelhead restoration projects in California. The Central Valley Chinook population rise and fall graphic is courtesy of Dick Pool. chinook_rise_and_fall.pdf download PDF (125.4 KB) State Senate Gives Final Approval to Wiggins Salmon Restoration Bill by Dan Bacher The State Senate gave final approval on April 1 to Senate Bill 562, legislation by North Coast Senator Patricia Wiggins (D Santa Rosa) to designate $5.3 million in '"urgent funding" for coastal salmon and steelhead fisheries restoration projects. The Senate action takes place at a time when West Coast salmon fisheries are in their greatest crisis ever, due to the unprecedented collapse of the Sacramento River fall chinook population. Although poor ocean conditions have played a role in the collapse, fishing, tribal and environmental groups point to massive increases in water exports from the California Delta and declining water quality on Central Valley rivers as key factors in the sudden decline. Commercial and recreational fishermen face a salmon fishing closure off California and Oregon this year for the first time since commercial salmon fishing began in San Francisco Bay and the Delta in 1848, according to Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA). There are many factors that went into our salmon decline, but none as significant as the loss of freshwater flows to the Delta and San Francisco Bay that are essential for maintaining the biological function of this estuary and sustaining native salmon and other fish populations," said Grader at an historic press conference outlining solutions to the salmon collapse in Sacramento on March 14. SB 562 is supported by a diverse group, including the California Farm Bureau Federation, Association of California Water Agencies, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens Association, the Karuk Tribe, CalTrout, the Sonoma County Water Agency and the Sierra Club. "The Assembly approved SB 562 on March 24, so todays 27-10 Senate vote means the bill will soon be on the desk of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for his consideration," said David Miller, Press Secretary for Senator Wiggins. "SB 562 is an urgency measure, meaning the bill will take effect immediately upon signing by the Governor." If signed into law, the Wiggins bill would allocate $5.293 in Proposition 84 funds to the state Department of Fish and Game to be used for its coastal salmon and steelhead fishery restoration efforts. Voters approved Prop. 84 - the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act in 2006. Wiggins also said that enactment of SB 562 will allow the state to leverage up to $20 million federal dollars for salmon restoration this spring.Every week adds a new development to our burgeoning salmon crisis, Wiggins noted after the Senate floor vote. We have all seen the recent headlines regarding salmon in California: Fishermen fear lost salmon season; Officials warn of salmon population collapse; Regulators Could Close West Coast Salmon Fishing This Year'," said Wiggins in presenting SB 562 before her colleagues. This bill is about this legislature taking action to protect Californias $100 million dollar salmon industry, Wiggins added. She later stressed that the industry extends beyond fishermen to include tackle shops, processors, ice suppliers, restaurants and tourism. Although the bill is a good start, more legislation and aggressive measures are needed to save the embattled salmon of California's coastal and Central Valley rivers. Agricultural diversions on coastal rivers, declining water quality in the Sacramento, San Joaquin, American, Feather and other Central Valley rivers and massive water exports from the California Delta by the state and federal governments are problems that need to be immediately addressed to solve the salmon crisis. Also, all commercial, tribal and recreational fishermen and all related businesses must be compensated in full for any loss of income caused by the salmon collapse. While environmentally destructive agribusiness interests in drainage impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley have received massive federal subsidies for decades, salmon fishermen and related businesses have had to struggle for any type of significant relief. Fortunately, federal legislation sponsored by Representative Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) aims to provide disaster relief to businesses impacted by the salmon collapse. Senator Wiggins is Chair of the Joint Committee on Fisheries & Aquaculture. For more information, call (916) 651-1897 or Fax (916) 324-3036. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: chinook_rise_and_fall.pdf_600_.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 154484 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Fri Apr 4 10:45:58 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 10:45:58 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] AMERICAN RIVERS-NOAA PARTNERSHIP NOW ACCEPTING PROPOSALS FOR RIVER Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C68A@mail3.trinitycounty.org> AMERICAN RIVERS-NOAA PARTNERSHIP NOW ACCEPTING PROPOSALS FOR RIVER RESTORATION GRANTS American Rivers seeks proposals for river restoration project grants as part of its partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Community-based Restoration Program. Program funding is provided through NOAA's Open Rivers Initiative, which seeks to enable environmental and economic renewal in local communities through the removal of stream barriers. This Partnership funds stream barrier removal projects that help restore riverine ecosystems, enhance public safety and community resilience, and have clear and identifiable benefits to diadromous fish populations. "Diadromous" fish migrate between freshwater and saltwater during their life cycle. Examples include alewife, American eel, American shad, blueback herring, salmon, steelhead, shortnose sturgeon and striped bass. Projects in the Northeast (ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI), Mid-Atlantic (NY, NJ, PA, DE, VA, MD, DC), Northwest (WA, OR, ID), and California are eligible to apply. Projects located within the St. Lawrence/Great Lakes Basin are not eligible for funding in the April 2008 grant round. Eligible applications will be evaluated based upon four priority criteria: (1) ecological merits of the project, (2) technical feasibility of the project, (3) benefits provided to the local community, and (4) financial clarity and strength of the application. Grants are provided for three distinct project phases: Feasibility Analysis, Engineering Design and Construction. Average grants are $25,000 - $50,000. Successful applicants for one project phase will not be eligible to receive additional funding for that same project phase in future grant rounds. See the Funding Guidelines for additional details. Applications are currently being accepted for the second cycle of fiscal year 2008 with a deadline of April 1, 2008. Applications for projects must be postmarked by the deadline for consideration in this funding cycle. Potential applicants should contact American Rivers to discuss potential projects prior to submitting an application. Applicants can expect notification about funding decisions in early June 2008. Obtain the Application for Financial Assistance and Funding Guidelines on the American Rivers web site www.americanrivers.org/NOAAGrants . If you need additional specifics on this program please contact Serena S. McClain from American Rivers at rivergrants at americanrivers.org. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Apr 4 19:42:51 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 19:42:51 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: CSPA, CWINN Letter Opposing San Luis Drainage Settlement Act & Process Message-ID: <003401c896c6$c1938260$6f6c3940@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: DeltaKeep at aol.com To: Michael_Hoover at fws.gov ; caroleekrieger at cox.net ; mjatty at sbcglobal.net ; todey at earthlink.net ; JBeuttler at aol.com ; blancapaloma at msn.com ; cate1 at llnl.gov ; dfries at uop.edu ; izmirian at earthlink.net ; danielbacher at fishsniffer.com ; barbarav at becnet.org ; lcarter0i at comcast.net ; steve_Thompson at fws.gov ; JDAVIS at mp.usbr.gov ; FBARAJAS at mp.usbr.gov ; DFALASCHI at aol.com ; DRathmann at aol.com ; bobker at bay.org ; r.gilmore at bbid.org ; lshih at ccwater.com ; bjgeigle at comcast.net ; rdenton06 at comcast.net ; jtischer at csufresno.edu ; rstack at cvpwater.org ; ewc at davidnesmith.com ; wharrison at delpuertowd.org ; jrubin at diepenbrock.com ; tmberliner at duanemorris.com ; ghall at ebmud.com ; ahayden at ed.org ; Fujii.Laura at epamail.epa.gov ; Hagler.Tom at epamail.epa.gov ; Schwinn.Karen at epamail.epa.gov ; Yale.Carolyn at epamail.epa.gov ; rjacobsma at friantwater.org ; sottemoeller at friantwater.org ; John_Engbring at fws.gov ; jzolezzi at herumcrabtree.com ; mstearns at hughes.net ; hydrobro at ix.netcom.com ; ameliam at kcwa.com ; bwalthall at kcwa.com ; dohanlon at kmtg.com ; jsnow at kmtg.com ; vince.roos at mail.house.gov ; DTEGELMAN at mp.usbr.gov ; RMILLIGAN at mp.usbr.gov ; shirsch at mwdh2o.com ; duanegeorgeson at msn.com ; hcandee at nrdc.org ; royc at paramountfarming.com ; chodde at pcl.org ; JMinton at pcl.org ; mmcintyre at pcl.org ; gsawyers at sawyerslaw.com ; bryant_jeff at sbcglobal.net ; ccidwhite at sbcglobal.net ; jtoscano-sjrecwa at sbcglobal.net ; martin.m3653 at sbcglobal.net ; schedester at sbcglobal.net ; churley at slcc.net ; dan.nelson at sldmwa.org ; hlb at sti.net ; terlewine at swc.org ; tstokely at trinityalps.net ; MMAUCIERI at usbr.gov ; jmaher at valleywater.org ; kkennedy at valleywater.org ; lhurley at valleywater.org ; carlt at water.ca.gov ; jifaria at water.ca.gov ; charycet at water.ca.gov ; danders at water.ca.gov ; kkov at water.ca.gov ; rstein at water.ca.gov ; rtorres at water.ca.gov ; tbui at water.ca.gov ; rschnagl at waterboards.ca.goc ; DRiddle at waterboards.ca.gov ; EMahaney at waterboards.ca.gov ; Gkapahi at waterboards.ca.gov ; gcismowski at waterboards.ca.gov ; jmartin at waterboards.ca.gov ; lgrober at waterboards.ca.gov ; mgowdy at waterboards.ca.gov ; rharrington at westlandswater.org ; sramos at westlandswater.org ; tbirmingham at westlandswater.org ; econant at youngwooldridge.com ; kcwaadmin at kcwa.com ; RSCHLUETER at mp.usbr.gov ; dtegelman at sbcglobal.net ; susan.mussett at sldmwa.org ; MWALLACE at usbr.gov ; kclark at westlandswater.org ; mrlozeau at lozeaulaw.com ; andrew at packardlawoffices.com ; mtaugher at cctimes.com ; mweiser at sacbee.com ; abreitler at recordnet.com Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 4:50 PM Subject: CSPA, CWINN Letter Opposing San Luis Drainage Settlement Act & Process For Your Information: Attached are comments by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network faxed to Senator Dianne Feinstein opposing the Proposed San Luis Drainage Resolution Act and Settlement Process. Thank you. Bill Jennings, Chairman Executive Director California Sportfishing Protection Alliance 3536 Rainier Avenue Stockton, CA 95204 p: 209-464-5067 c: 209-938-9053 f: 209-464-1028 e: deltakeep at aol.com ************** Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: SenatorFeinstein4.04.08.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 142443 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Apr 7 16:33:43 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 16:33:43 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: E-mail from Rod Wittler Regarding Trinity - Normal Water Year Message-ID: <017701c89907$d31af840$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Deanna Jackson" To: "Steve Rothert" ; "Virginia Bostwick" ; "Jim Harp" ; "Gary Diridoni" ; "Steve Anderson" ; "Francis Berg" ; "James Spear" ; "Elizebeth Hadley" ; "James Feider" ; "Jill Geist" ; "Marcia Armstrong" ; "Leydecker, Byron" ; "Clair Stalnaker" ; "Dave Bitts" ; ; "Larry Hanson" ; "Mike Berry" ; "Currier, Monty" ; ; "Manji, Neil" ; "Robert Sullivan" ; "Sara Borok" ; "Sinnen, Wade" ; "Josh Korman" ; "Ann Hayden" ; ; "Mike Merigliano" ; "Ashton, Don" ; "Welsh, Hart" ; "Everest, Loren" ; "Margaret Boland" ; "Miller, Sherri" ; "Sharon Heywood" ; "Bill Brock" ; "Anthony Heacock" ; "Bill Pinnix" ; "Chamberlain, Charlie" ; ; "Jamie Bettaso" ; "Polos, Joe" ; "John Engbring" ; "Ken Nichols" ; "Long, Mike" ; "Hetrick, Nick" ; "Paul Zedonis" ; "Phillip Detrich" ; "Randy Brown" ; "Scott Foott" ; "Shaw, Tom" ; "Vina Frye" ; "Joanna Lessard" ; "Graham Matthews" ; "Wes Smith" ; "Aaron Martin" ; "Andrea Davis" ; "Orcutt, Mike" ; "Franklin, Robert" ; "Kautsky, George" ; "Petros, Paul" ; "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Tom Lisle" ; "CJ Ralph" ; "Joan Hartman" ; "Ron Reed" ; ; "Allen Foreman" ; "Bill Trush" ; "Fred Meyer" ; "John Bair" ; "Scott McBain" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Brandt Gutermuth" ; "Brian Person" ; "Christine Karas" ; "Cecil Lesley" ; "Diana Clifton" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Deanna Jackson" ; "Don Reck" ; "Doug Schleusner" ; "Ed Solbos" ; "John Klochak" ; "Joe Riess" ; "Nina Hemphill" ; "Priscilla Davee" ; "Rod Wittler" ; "Elizabeth Soderstrom" ; "Edgar Duggan" ; "Lagomarsino, Irma" ; "Margaret Tauzer" ; "Rogers, Rick" ; "Keith Marine" ; "Paul Uncapher" ; "Weseloh, Tom" ; "Whitridge, Arnold" ; "Hayden, Tim" ; "Belchik, Mike" ; "Richard Lorenz" ; "Dana Hord" ; "Dan Haycox" ; "Petey Brucker" ; "Birk, Serge" ; "Curt Melcher" ; "Patrick Frost" ; "Joe Neill" ; "Stokely, Tom" ; "Howard Freeman" ; "Allen, Josh" ; ; "David Steinhauser" ; "Josh Strange" ; "Ned Andrews" ; "Mary Ann Madej" ; "Teresa Connor" ; "Curtis Anderson" ; "Scott Kennedy" ; "Robert Klamt" ; "Jeff Morris" ; "Chuck Lydy" ; "Bonnie Smith" ; "Hillemeier, Dave" ; "Seth Naman" Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 3:44 PM Subject: E-mail from Rod Wittler Regarding Trinity - Normal Water Year > Good Afternoon, > > Indications I have from DWR via CVO indicate that at the 50% exceedance > level, the Trinity water year will be NORMAL. > > The Flow Scheduling Meeting is 9:30 a.m. in Weitchpec at the Yurok > offices. Lunch (pizza) will be provided for a nominal $5 fee. See you > then. > > Trinity Inflow forecast > breakdown > trinity.breakdown.04012008 > April 1, > 2008 > Probablility Water Yr > 90% 900 > 50% 1066 > 10% 1346 > > > Rodney J. Wittler, Ph.D., P.E. > Technical Modeling and Analysis Group > Trinity River Restoration Program > P.O. Box 1300 > or > 1313 S. Main St. > Weaverville, CA 96093 > > (530) 623-1800/1801 Office/Desk > (530) 262-3670 Mobile > (530) 623-5944 Fax > rjwittler at mp.usbr.gov > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Apr 8 10:42:17 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 10:42:17 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Deal Gives Money to Tribes to Drop Role in Fish Lawsuits Message-ID: <007c01c8999f$e417bd70$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> NY Times -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- April 8, 2008 Deal Gives Money to Tribes to Drop Role in Fish Lawsuits By WILLIAM YARDLEY SEATTLE ? The enduring battle over endangered salmon in the Northwest took a new turn on Monday with the announcement of a deal between the federal government and four Indian tribes. The agreement would give the tribes nearly $1 billion to manage fish habitat and hatcheries in exchange for abandoning their opposition to federal fish-management policies in the region. Indian tribes have long joined with environmental groups in their fight against federal agencies over the management of the Columbia and Snake Rivers and an extensive network of hydroelectric dams. The dams, which provide cheap electricity to the Northwest, have caused consistent declines in fish populations and generated court fights. Fishing and conservation groups and the State of Oregon have led court fights, with tribes often filing briefs in support of the plaintiffs. A federal district judge in Oregon, James A. Redden, has repeatedly sided with the plaintiffs, rejecting proposals by the Bush administration as insufficient to restore and protect salmon and other species that historically have migrated up the rivers to spawn. The deal has opened a rift between the tribes and environmental groups. In return for $900 million over the next 10 years, the tribes must agree to stop their involvement in the lawsuits. "The focus will turn to implementation rather than litigation," said Steve Wright, the administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, which would pay about $850 million of the settlement. Mr. Wright would not say if he expected electric rates to rise. The other $50 million would come from the Army Corps of Engineers. The four tribes are the Umatilla, Warm Springs, Yakama and Colville of Washington State and Oregon. A fifth involved in the litigation, the Nez Perce, has not joined the agreement. Mr. Wright said the Bonneville Power Administration, part of the Energy Department, would seek public input this month to refine the deal. But the agencies involved have authority to finalize it without outside approval. Environmental groups involved in the litigation said the agreement, which focuses heavily on restoring habitat and expanding fish hatcheries in tributaries of the Columbia, did not directly address the main cause of the declining fish population: hydroelectric dams. Some groups want the dams removed. Oregon wants more aggressive measures to help fish pass over the dams. "We're just saying keep your eye on the ball," said Todd True, a lawyer for Earthjustice, which represents some of the plaintiffs in the case before Judge Redden. "That is, what does the Endangered Species Act say needs to be done? And what does the science say needs to be done?" From bgutermuth at mp.usbr.gov Wed Apr 9 18:42:19 2008 From: bgutermuth at mp.usbr.gov (Brandt Gutermuth) Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:42:19 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fwd: NOP for Master TRRP EA/EIR available Message-ID: Sorry for any cross postings- Brandt Interested Trinity River Enthusiasts - The Notice of Preparation (NOP) for an EA/EIR to cover "Completion of Phase 1 Channel Rehabilitation Projects with Planned Phase 2 Channel Rehabilitation and Sediment Management Projects" was recently released by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, our CEQA lead for the environmental document. Completion of Phase 1 is the construction of the "Remaining 8 Group of Sites" that we have been planning over the last year. The NOP and additional project information are available at http://www.trrp.net/implementation/remaining8.htm. The TRRP will hold a public scoping meeting for the project on April 16, 2008 at the Douglas City Fire Hall. The Draft Master EA/EIR should be available in fall 2008 and the Remaining 8 construction started in 2009. If you have questions concerning the project, please give me a call. Best Regards- Brandt Below is a the official public announcement from the Trinity Journal: Notice of Preparation of a Master Environmental Assessment/ Environmental Impact Report April 16 Scoping Meeting for the Remaining 8 Group of Sites Under guidance of the Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP); the Bureau of Reclamation, the Federal lead agency, and the North Coast Region Water Quality Control Board, (Regional Water Board), State lead agency, announce the availability of a Notice of Preparation (NOP) for a Draft Master Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Environmental Assessment (EA) for the ?Completion of Phase 1 Channel Rehabilitation Projects with Planned Phase 2 Channel Rehabilitation and Sediment Management Projects.? The Master EA/EIR will be site specific for completion of Phase 1 Projects (the Remaining 8 Group of Sites) and programmatic for Phase 2 and Sediment Management Projects (which will cover future channel rehabilitation projects and will address fine and coarse sediment management needs between Lewiston and the N. Fork Trinity River). The Master EA/EIR will be a joint document prepared to meet California Environmental Quality Act and National Environmental Policy Act requirements. The Master EA/EIR will be site specific for the Remaining 8 Group of sites which is located between the Old Lewiston Bridge and BLM Douglas City campground. Within the Remaining 8 Group, fisheries habitat quality and complexity will be enhanced via construction of slow water refuge habitats, placement of structures (e.g., large woody debris), and introduction of gravel into the river?s floodplain. Construction of these sites, planned for 2009, will complete Phase 1 of the TRRP as described in the December 19, 2000, Record of Decision for the Trinity River Mainstem Fishery Restoration Environmental Impact Statement. Integration of the Remaining 8 Group with completed habitat work from other channel rehabilitation sites, increased Trinity River flows, and enhanced river processes, will work to maintain long-term fisheries habitat downstream of Lewiston Dam. A public scoping period will be held March 28 to May 12, 2008, to solicit comments to assist the lead agencies in identifying the range of actions, alternatives, mitigation measures, and significant effects to be analyzed in the Draft Master EA/EIR. A public scoping meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. at the Douglas City Fire Hall in Douglas City, CA. Project information will be presented and comments on the scope of the Draft Master EA/EIR will be accepted. Project information and a complete copy of the NOP is available at: http://www.trrp.net/implementation/remaining8.htm For further information or to receive a copy of the NOP, please contact Mr. Brandt Gutermuth, Bureau of Reclamation, at 623-1806. Comments may be sent to: Mr. Gutermuth, c/o Trinity River Restoration Program, P.O. Box 1300, Weaverville, CA 96093, or e-mail bgutermuth at mp.usbr.gov. ____________________________ Brandt Gutermuth Environmental Specialist Trinity River Restoration Program PO Box 1300 (mailing) 1313 S. Main Street (physical) Weaverville, CA 96093 530.623.1806 (voice) 530.623.5944 (fax) www.trrp.net (website) ___________________________ From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Apr 10 19:41:23 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:41:23 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] AP Salmon Fishing Season Message-ID: There clearly must be an error in this AP story." allow limited recreational fishing of coho salmon..." Salmon fishing canceled in Ore., Calif. Plummeting stocks force action on commercial fishery Bush awards Medal of Honor to Navy SEAL Worst skin cancer struggles for research funds GAO: Millions wasted on government cards Kyrgyz mothers catching HIV from babies Baby mammoth reveals ancient secrets Most viewed on msnbc.com At tax time, illegal immigrants are paying too Slaying sparks backlash against homeless McCain erases Obama 10-point national lead Grounded flights may pull down wider economy Teacher 'petrified' after being attacked by student Most viewed on msnbc.com SEATAC, Wash. - West Coast fisheries managers have voted to cancel all commercial salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coasts this year. The Pacific Fishery Management Council voted Thursday to allow limited recreational fishing of coho salmon on holiday weekends off the Oregon coast. Scientists and government officials are expecting this year's West Coast salmon season to be one of the worst in history. Although commercial salmon fishing off the Washington coast is scheduled to begin May 1, fisheries managers do not predict a good season off either the north or south Pacific coasts. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 693 bytes Desc: not available URL: From RJWITTLER at mp.usbr.gov Thu Apr 10 18:38:43 2008 From: RJWITTLER at mp.usbr.gov (Rod Wittler) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:38:43 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] 2008 Trinity River Flow Scheduling Work Group Recommendation Message-ID: Doug, Attached find the Flow Scheduling Work Group recommendation for WY2008 flows. Please present this recommendation to the Trinity Management Council (TMC) for their consideration. Please relay any action the TMC takes on this schedule to Reclamation Central Valley Operations (CVO) as soon as possible. Also, please let the TMC know that CVO may make minor adjustments to the schedule to meet their logistical or operational requirements. The Flow Scheduling Work Group deserves commendation for a job well done in 2008. Respectfully submitted, Rodney J. Wittler, Ph.D., P.E. Senior Scientist Technical Modeling and Analysis Group Trinity River Restoration Program P.O. Box 1300 or 1313 S. Main St. Weaverville, CA 96093 (530) 623-1800/1801 Office/Desk (530) 262-3670 Mobile (530) 623-5944 Fax rjwittler at mp.usbr.gov -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2008 Flow Scheduler Rev 6.xls Type: application/vnd.ms-excel Size: 431616 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2008 Flow Scheduling Work Group Recommedation.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 126410 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Seth.Naman at noaa.gov Fri Apr 11 07:55:56 2008 From: Seth.Naman at noaa.gov (Seth Naman) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:55:56 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] AP Salmon Fishing Season In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47FF7BFC.5030609@noaa.gov> Byron, You can fish for and keep coho salmon in Oregon. Seth Byron Leydecker wrote: > > > *There clearly must be an error in this AP story??* allow limited > recreational fishing of coho salmon...? > > > *Salmon fishing canceled in Ore., Calif.* > > > *Plummeting stocks force action on commercial fishery* > > *Bush awards Medal of Honor to Navy SEAL* > > > *Worst skin cancer struggles for research funds* > > > *GAO: Millions wasted on government cards* > > > *Kyrgyz mothers catching HIV from babies* > > > *Baby mammoth reveals ancient secrets* > > > *Most viewed on msnbc.com * > > > *At tax time, illegal immigrants are paying too* > > > *Slaying sparks backlash against homeless* > > > *McCain erases Obama 10-point national lead* > > > * * *Grounded flights may pull > down wider economy* > > *Teacher ?petrified? after being attacked by student* > > > *Most viewed on msnbc.com * > > > SEATAC, Wash. - West Coast fisheries managers have voted to cancel all > commercial salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coasts this year. > > The Pacific Fishery Management Council voted Thursday to allow limited > recreational fishing of coho salmon on holiday weekends off the Oregon > coast. > > Scientists and government officials are expecting this year's West > Coast salmon season to be one of the worst in history. Although > commercial salmon fishing off the Washington coast is scheduled to > begin May 1, fisheries managers do not predict a good season off > either the north or south Pacific coasts. > > //Byron Leydecker// > > //Friends of Trinity River, Chair// > > //PO Box//// 2327// > > //Mill Valley////, CA 94942-2327// > > //415 383 4810 // > > //415 519 4810 cell// > > //bwl3 at comcast.net // > > //bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org // > > //http://www.fotr.org// > > //// > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > env-trinity mailing list > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity > -- Seth Naman Fisheries Biologist NOAA Fisheries Southwest Region 1655 Heindon Rd. Arcata, CA 95521 707-825-5180 fax: 707-825-4840 From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Apr 11 09:23:13 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:23:13 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Salmon Message-ID: <001e01c89bf0$58779f30$0201a8c0@optiplex> Well, I was flat out wrong on the coho. I guess my focus on Trinity water affected my thoughts about other waters. They can be harvested north of California, I understand. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Apr 11 10:24:54 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:24:54 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Salmon shutdown sends shock waves Message-ID: <006b01c89bf9$18828cb0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_8887952 Salmon shutdown sends shock waves The Associated Press and The Times-Standard Article Launched: 04/11/2008 01:24:20 AM PDT SACRAMENTO -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Thursday after West Coast fisheries managers voted Thursday to cancel all commercial salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coasts this year. He also sought federal disaster assistance from President Bush, and immediately signed a fisheries bill by North Coast state Senator Pat Wiggins that had been on his desk. It appropriates about $5.3 million to begin coastal salmon and steelhead restoration projects. While banning commercial salmon fishing, the Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Seatac, Wash., decided to allow limited recreational fishing of coho salmon on holiday weekends off the Oregon coast, but no recreational fishing off California after several members of the panel argued that every salmon counts. Scientists and government officials are expecting this year's West Coast salmon season to be one of the worst in history, because of the collapse of Sacramento River chinook, one of the West Coast's biggest wild salmon runs. The California Department of Fish and Game, at Schwarzenegger's request, assessed the potential damage from the closure of the salmon season, and determined the loss to be $255 million and 2,263 California jobs. Although commercial salmon fishing off the Washington coast is scheduled to begin May 1, fisheries managers do not predict a good season off either the north or south Pacific coasts. ?For the entire West Coast, this is the worst in history,? Don McIsaac, executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said before several close votes led to the fisheries plan for 2008. The council's decision still must be confirmed by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency in charge of salmon management. Even before the vote, however, officials were on to the next step: disaster relief for fishermen, said Mariam McCall, an attorney with the fisheries service. In addition to Schwarzenegger, the governors of Washington and Oregon also signed letters seeking a disaster declaration. Congress will be asked to make a fast decision on money to alleviate the suffering of fishermen and any other negative effects the cutback might have, said Brian Gorman, a NOAA Fisheries spokesman. In March, North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson, along with 46 senators and representatives from California, Oregon and Washington called on Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to give Congress the authorization to distribute disaster funds to Pacific Coast commercial fishers and related businesses. ?California's salmon runs are a treasured state resource and provide significant contributions to our economy and our environment,? said Schwarzenegger. ?Today's decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council underscores our responsibility to quickly free up state and federal resources to help the fishing industry cope with the devastating economic impacts closing the season will have.? Scientists are studying the causes of the Sacramento River chinook collapse, with possible factors ranging from ocean conditions and habitat destruction to dam operations and agricultural pollution. But a proposal to allow limited fishing for scientific purposes was struck down by the panel. In 2006, the salmon season extending from Cape Falcon, Ore., about 30 miles south of the mouth of the Columbia River, south to the Mexican border, also was severely restricted. Congress granted disaster relief totaling $62 million for fishermen in Oregon and California. Although the nature of the problem is different this year, the impact will be at least as broadly felt, McCall said. ?This is such a difficult situation,? she said. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Apr 11 12:11:41 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:11:41 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chron April 11 Message-ID: <005e01c89c07$e06dde60$0201a8c0@optiplex> Battling Upstream; The tribes on the Klamath know that as the river goes, so go the salmon San Francisco Chronicle - 4/11/08 By Glen Martin, staff writer The Klamath River surges just below Merk Oliver's house. Right now, the water is slightly turbid, clouded and green - perfect for steelhead fishing. The Klamath is the second largest river in California, following the Sacramento, and its watershed encompasses a landscape that seems removed from the rest of the state by time as well as distance. Freeways, the digital economy, the entertainment industry, industrial agriculture - up here they seem like ill-recalled dreams. But what happens on this river affects Lower California greatly. It determines whether commercial fishermen and recreational anglers can take salmon - and whether there'll be fresh wild salmon in markets and restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Ultimately, it figures into the availability of water for the state's homes and farms. Oliver's home is several hundred yards from the river's mouth, and from his property you can hear the muffled reports of big combers breaking on the beach. A group of Yurok Indian youths are in the yard, grilling Pacific lampreys - anadromous, eel-like fish with circular mouths filled with sharp radula. Lampreys are highly esteemed by the Yurok, and are gaffed in the winter during low tides, when they skitter across flooded sandbars from the sea to the river. The close proximity to the big surf makes eel snagging a dangerous business, and fatalities from sleeper waves occur with some regularity. Inside the small, clapboard house, Oliver, a tribal elder, is eating strips of smoked salmon. Oliver is thin but not frail, an exceptionally handsome man with long iron-colored hair and dark eyes glimmering with humor. He is 78, and has lived in this home for 55 years. A wood stove provides radiant heat. On the walls are photos - of family and tribal members, but also of fish: big salmon arrayed on a plank, skewered salmon staked around a fire, a close-up of a lamprey in shallow water, a huge sturgeon hanging from a tree limb. The room smells pleasantly of smoke and fish. A few Yuroks are seated and standing around Oliver, who is ensconced in a comfortable chair near the stove. As he nibbles on the fish - symmetrical, long strips of blood orange chinook, translucent as stained glass - he uses a jack knife to carve a lamprey hook handle from yew wood. Lamprey hooks are the essential tool for eel fishing. The requisite technique is to chase an eel as it lunges across the sandbar, snag it with the hook, then flip it high up on the beach with a flip of the arm and wrist. Oliver's eel hooks are held in particularly high regard, a set of finished hooks hang on a wire above Oliver's chair, the golden yew wood handles glossy. They are carved with uncanny accuracy to represent a lamprey head, right down to the radula in the mouth and staring, inquisitive eyes. The lamprey is an intelligent fish, say the Yurok; when you run after them with the hook, you can see the alarm in their faces. Somehow, Oliver has captured that sentience in his carving. The talk is discursive, humorous and mildly chaffing. Oliver asks one of the young men if he is still seeing a Tlingit woman. Tlingits are a southeastern Alaska tribe, accomplished fishers and marine mammal hunters who have long... enjoyed must be the operative verb... a reputation for pride and aggressiveness. No, the young man says, a half-smile on his lips. She went back north. Oliver nods his head sagely, intent on his carving. "That was a tough woman," he says after a time. He looks around the room, fixes on a visitor sitting nearby on a stool. "That woman could've whipped three of you," he says. "She was fierce. Ate too much seal meat." There are gentle laughs, and heads nod in agreement. This is a conversation that has been going on for a long time - eight to ten thousand years, give or take a millennium. That's how long the Yurok, California's largest tribe, have occupied this reach of the Klamath River. The three main tribes inhabiting the Lower Klamath - the Yurok, Hupa and Karuk - all have maintained strong cultural identities, but the Yurok are perhaps most closely identified with the river. This is because of the location of the ancestral Yurok lands: From the Klamath's mouth and surrounding littoral territories to more than 50 miles upstream. All the Klamath tribes depended on the fish runs, but the river and its coastal nexus assumed particular significance for the Yurok. The Yurok had access to the migrating fish as soon as they left the sea, when they were at their fattest and brightest. Along with the river - and its salmon, steelhead, lampreys and candlefish - they also had the open ocean to exploit. Their food sources included Dungeness crabs, seaweed, mussels, abalone and periwinkles from the intertidal zone. They carved - still carve - elegant boats from redwood logs, and were redoubtable mariners, hunting marine birds, seals and sea lions and fishing for ling cod and rockfish in the rough inter-coastal waters. They had first rights to the dentalium and abalone shells that were the primary medium of exchange for the Klamath River tribes. The river was their source of food and wealth, and it was their highway, their means of establishing commerce with other tribes. They were a water people, and still are. The photos on Oliver's walls are religious icons - graphic representations of all that is sacred to the tribe: the fish. Fishing nets and implements. Boats. The River. Because in any conversation with a Yurok, it always comes back to the river. To a very significant degree, the river is the reservation: Tribal holdings extend 1 mile inland along each bank from the mouth of the Klamath more than 40 miles upstream. Most of the land is exceedingly steep, of little utility for anything except conservative and limited forestry. What the tribe has always had, and still has to a significant degree, is the Klamath. "The river gave us everything we needed to thrive," said Troy Fletcher, a tribal member and resource policy analyst. "It gave us food, wealth, beauty. This was paradise, and we knew it." But like most rivers in North America, the Klamath has suffered. Agricultural water diversions have depleted the river's once mighty flows; four moderately sized hydroelectric dams along the Klamath's main stem - plus a huge dam on its major tributary, the Trinity - have greatly reduced the spawning grounds for anadromous fish. Too, the main stem Klamath dams warm the river's water, encouraging destructive parasites and blooms of toxic blue-green algae. Increasingly, it is clear the Klamath can have the dams or it can have fish, but not both. For years, the Yurok have been at the vanguard in a battle to remove the dams. Allied with them are the other Klamath tribes, commercial fishermen and sport anglers. Opposing them are the dams' operators - which have shifted over the years, as the facilities have changed ownership - and farmers in the Upper Klamath Basin, who divert the river's water for potatoes, grain, alfalfa, horseradish and other crops. The Klamath always has been a major front in California's water wars, one that has waxed especially hot throughout the Bush administration. In 2001, increased downriver flows by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to sustain salmon were resisted by Basin farmers, who seized irrigation canal head gates in protest. Water availability already was a flashpoint issue on the Klamath because much of the Trinity's flow is diverted south for the state's cities and agricultural lands. The Upper Basin skirmishes heightened the sense among the tribes and their allies that the entire system was being drained, with no regard for the fisheries and the people who depended on them. In 2002, the Bush administration sided with the farmers and slashed the releases to the river, delivering the water up to the irrigation districts. A massive fish kill on the Klamath followed; the salmon never really recovered from the blow. The incident scarred the collective sensibility of the Yuroks, and it is a subject that still engenders deep anger on the reservation. The situation on the Klamath has far-reaching consequences - all the way down to Monterey. The scarcity of Klamath fish has resulted in multiple truncated commercial salmon seasons for California and Oregon, because the Klamath fish mingle with the nominally more plentiful Sacramento River salmon in the open ocean. As the Klamath goes, then, so go the fortunes of the West Coast's commercial fishing fleet - and the Bay Area availability of fresh wild local salmon. [Some fisheries biologists say it's already too late for salmon in the Lower 48 states. Development, logging, water diversions and dams, they claim, have compromised the spawning streams to an irreparable degree. Oceans warming due to climate change - and perhaps overfishing - are just additional nails in the coffin. As of this writing, the Pacific Fishery Management Council - the regulatory body that governs West Coast marine fisheries - is poised to proscribe all salmon fishing for the 2008 season. The reason: An unexpected collapse in Sacramento River salmon stocks, which up to now have been relatively robust. If the ban is enacted as expected, it will be the first complete salmon closure for the California coast since commercial fishing began more than 150 years ago. But many fisheries experts maintain Pacific salmon and steelhead can be revived in the continental United States. Further, they say, salmonid restoration will have ancillary benefits. Bill Kier is a Humboldt County consulting biologist who has designed computer programs to track fishery restoration efforts on the Klamath; they are so accurate they have been applied by scientists across the country. Kier acknowledges that the data on southern range Pacific salmon is a mixed bag. "But I still believe they have a very real fighting chance," he said. "The fact is that caring for salmon results in stabilized watersheds, better water quality, more wildlife - and in general terms, a cleaner environment. If you manage water and land for salmon, it doesn't matter if you're talking about the Klamath or the creek that flows through Mill Valley - life will be better not just for the salmon, but for the people who live in those watersheds, whether they're Native Americans, farmers or suburbanites." Dams are not the only thing winnowing the Klamath's salmon. A couple of years ago, fluctuating ocean conditions off western North America reduced the production of plankton, the basic building block for all marine food webs. Pacific salmon typically run in two-to-four year cycles, so many biologists think the plankton paucity had a deep and negative effect on the fish populations that are now returning - or rather, not returning - to the rivers. Oliver, who has been watching the fish runs all his long life, is convinced pollution also is a major factor in the decline. "Everywhere in the world, people are using these harmful chemicals to do everything, right down to cleaning their toilets and dishes," he said. "The timber companies are spraying their lands with herbicides, and it runs into our rivers. The farmers are using too many pesticides. The whole system is poisoned, and the fish can't take it." But for the Klamath, most biologists agree, the biggest problem is the dams. The battle over their disposition has raged in the courts, Congress and the media for two decades. Last year, the Yuroks and their allies caravanned to Omaha in an attempt to meet with Warren Buffett; his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, had recently purchased PacifiCorp Power, the company that owns the Klamath hydroelectric dams. Buffett declined to meet with tribal leaders to discuss possible dam removal, claiming he never interfered in the management of subsidiary companies. He may have been unnerved by a similar trip the Yuroks, Hupas and Karuks took to Scotland in 2004 to engage representatives of Scottish Power, the company that owned PacificCorp at the time. The Scots, who consider themselves a tribal and salmon-loving people, hailed the Indians as kindred souls and heroes, and reviled Scottish Power. Chagrined, Scottish Power executives promised to negotiate a solution with the Klamath tribes. Instead, they sold PacificCorp to Berkshire Hathaway. After getting stonewalled by Buffett, a certain level of depression settled in along the river. But it now appears that serious negotiations about dam removal and increased flows were not wholly undermined by Buffett's rebuff. Indeed, talks have continued - both with Upper Basin irrigators and PacificCorp. The negotiations, Fletcher said, are at a sensitive stage, and he won't discuss details. But other stakeholders who weighed in on the Klamath for this article indicated a deal is very close. Not everyone is completely thrilled by the prospect. Both commercial fishermen and the Hupa tribe - who live just upriver from the Yurok - have expressed concerns that the settlement now under consideration may not guarantee sufficient flows for the Klamath. "That worries us," said Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "On the other hand, we're not going to actively oppose a settlement. We have to have good cops and bad cops on this thing, and the Yuroks are the good cops. We understand that." Fletcher did say any settlement must be predicated on the removal of the main stem's four dams and adequate downstream flows for the fish. He also noted the tribe never really felt like its fight was with the farmers. "After (the) 2002 (fish kill), we reached out to them," Fletcher said. "They share a lot of our values. They're rural people, people who are tied to the land, who are spiritual and hard-working. And like us, they face an unstable future. When we started talking to them, we realized, hey - we have a lot in common with these guys." But there is still PacificCorp. The farmers aside, Fletcher acknowledges it is naive to think any corporation would sign an agreement that results in a significant financial loss simply because other parties consider it the right thing to do. "We understand this has to make sense for PacificCorp," he said. Fletcher is built like a logger: big shoulders and arms, and a torso like a keg. Arriving at tribal headquarters near the Klamath's mouth for a recent interview, he walks into the building with his hands blackened from grease and soot. He had just driven over a snowy mountain road from the hamlet of Weitchpec, about 40 miles upriver. En route, he had come across a car engulfed by fire, and had stopped to help its owner put it out. That kind of instinctive willingness to aid a neighbor in trouble is embedded in most rural cultures, but in Yurok society it extends to the landscape itself. "We believe we were given an obligation by the creator to restore and protect our land and our fisheries," Fletcher said. "It's spelled out in the preamble to the tribal constitution. For us, this goes back to the beginning of time. The challenge right now is extreme. But the obligation has always been there, and it will never change." As part of meeting that obligation, the tribe imposes fisheries closures and season quotas on its members, even though the Yuroks have the sovereign right to catch as many fish as they want. Not all members are happy with the strictures, though they comply. One tribal member who feels the regulations should loosen up a little is Tommy Wilson. Orphaned at 13, Wilson went to Atlanta to live with a married sister. "That big city," he said. "I couldn't hack it. After a couple of months, I came back here, lived on my own, and did what I had to do to stay alive." That included selling salmon, sturgeon, black bear parts and home-grown marijuana to a friendly man who later turned out to be an undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent. In court, Wilson argued that his sovereign rights allowed him to make a living from tribal lands through any reasonable means. "I said that we should be able to thrive, not just survive," he said. "That means when I catch a fish or kill a bear, or plant a seed and harvest the plant, I should be able to do with it what I want. We were once a wealthy people - and it was this river that made us rich. I didn't feel the federal government had the right to force bare subsistence on us." The judge agreed, and threw the case out of court. But despite his entrepreneurial views - by no means unusual among the Yurok - Wilson obeys the tribal fishery regulations without rancor. That, of course, is integral to being a Yurok tribe member in good standing. "Individually, we don't define ourselves first and foremost by our professions," said Maria Tripp, the tribal chairwoman. "To us, the most important thing is to be Yurok. Work is what you do - Yurok is what you are." Courtesy among tribal members and hospitality to visitors is written into the Yurok constitution. There isn't any emotive breast-beating or preaching, but everyone is expected to strive for right thinking and right acting. You see this manifest, especially, when it comes to boat building. The Yuroks have been carving redwood log boats for thousands of years; the craft are exquisite artifacts by any measure, and sacred to the tribe. All the boats are carved by hand without jigs or other mechanical aids, and a long apprenticeship is required before an artisan is allowed to create one without direct supervision. More than a steady hand is demanded of the carver: A clear mind and quiet heart also are requisite. "No one is allowed to approach a boat if he is angry or upset," said Fletcher. "We believe the boats are living things - we carve then with hearts, lungs and noses. They can be affected by bad thoughts and feelings." On a large, grassy lot in front of tribal headquarters, tribal member Dave Eric Severns has been carving a boat every day, up to 12 hours a day, since Thanksgiving. "It's not something you just - do," Severns said, slowly peeling away long strips of straight-grained wood with a gouge. He moves slowly and talks softly, seemingly out of deference to the boat. "You live it. I work on this boat all day, way into the night. And when I go to bed, I still see it in my thoughts. It stays with me in my dreams, and then I wake up early in the morning and come back out here." This is the first boat Severns has carved on his own, after working for six years under his mentor, George Wilson. It's about 20 feet long. The log it is carved from was more than 5 feet in diameter, and weighed about 1,600 pounds. When the boat is finished, Severns said, four men will be able to lift it and move it with ease. "This is a river boat," Severns said, moving his hand along the smooth, brick-red gunwales. "The ocean boats were up to 60 feet long and 12 feet wide. Eighty years ago, Yuroks used the ocean boats to deliver milk from Klamath dairies up to Crescent City (about 20 miles). They were incredibly seaworthy craft." There is a knob in the bow section of the boat that is meant to represent its heart; a small black stone rests on it. The stone, says, Severns, is a lock that keeps the boat secure. "Boats had primary owners, but anyone could use one if they needed it - unless there was a rock on the heart," Severns said. "Someone from the tribe comes by here and sees the rock on this boat's heart, they know it isn't supposed to be moved." Up at Oliver's house, the lampreys have finished cooking on the charcoal grill. Nearby, a couple of young men check conditions in a large smokehouse. It is full of lampreys; they hang like golden stalactites from racks near the rafters. One of the Yuroks cuts off a slab of grilled eel, rolls it in a slice of white bread and hands it to a visitor. The meat is dense, rich, oily and incredibly sweet. Oliver walks among the youths, evaluating the cooking techniques, sampling eel, essaying humorous comments. Sometimes he simply looks at the river for extended periods of time. Tripp says Oliver and other elders are the tribe's bedrock assets, keeping the people anchored to their place in the world. "When my friends and I were going to college (at nearby College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University), Merk was always coming around to feed us with traditional foods," she said. "He was out of time - connected to the old, old ways. He kept us grounded, made us understand who we are and where we came from." Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Apr 15 10:18:05 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:18:05 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Record Searchlight April 15 Message-ID: <001701c89f1c$ab643170$0201a8c0@optiplex> NORTHERN CALIFORNIA SNOWPACK: Snowpack shrinks in spring clime; Falling flakes have been above average, but below expectations Redding Record Searchlight - 4/15/08 By Dylan Darling, staff writer Since heavy snow blanketed the north state's high country in the first two months of the year, few flakes have fallen and the snowpack has shriveled. "Ever since mid February we have been falling behind fairly quickly," said Pat Titus, a fire battalion captain with the U.S. Forest Service in Mount Shasta who conducts snow surveys. Surveys at the end of March and beginning of April showed the snowpack to be above average for this time of year, but not as beefy as those waiting for its melt had hoped. "For the past six weeks we've been really dry," said Jeff McCracken, spokesman with the Bureau of Reclamation's Sacramento office. March was the driest in half a century for the north state, according to Western Regional Climate Center Figures. And with spring in full bloom, the snow isn't likely to start piling up again, Titus said. He said snowpack numbers usually don't go up much more after April. "It's not likely we would see any improvement," he said. With the dry, sunny weather the snowpack also dropped from 107 percent of average for the beginning of March to 85 percent of average for the start of April for the seven sites Titus oversees. The sites include Horse Camp and Sand Flat on the slopes of Mt. Shasta. Although the snowpack numbers have been dropping, flows into reservoirs around northern California haven't picked up yet, McCracken said. "There is still a fairly substantial amount of snow in the mountains, but it is just sitting there," McCracken said. Combined with the lack of rainfall, this had led water managers to crimp deliveries on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. McCracken said 600,000 acres of agricultural land where fruits, nuts and vegetables are grown will likely be getting only 45 percent of their water deliveries this year. "It's getting pretty tight down there," he said. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mdowdle at tcrcd.net Wed Apr 16 14:24:08 2008 From: mdowdle at tcrcd.net (Mark Dowdle - TCRCD) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:24:08 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Public Meeting - Statewide Watershed Program Public Advisory Committee Message-ID: <000a01c8a008$36ed4100$af00a8c0@Mark> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 12:27 PM Subject: Public Meeting - Statewide Watershed Program Public Advisory Committee Public Meeting - Statewide Watershed Program Public Advisory Committee From: Martha Davis and Robert Meacher Co-Chairs, Public Advisory Committee Statewide Watershed Program The California Statewide Watershed Program Public Advisory Committee (Committee) has scheduled a public forum to provide an update on progress in developing an initial draft framework for the Statewide Watershed Program. The public is invited to attend to discuss the update with the Committee members. California Resources Agency Secretary Mike Chrisman, appointed the 24-member Public Advisory Committee. They are to make recommendations to him on development and conduct of a new Statewide Watershed Program (Program). The Committee also provides guidance and feedback on Program development and implementation, and the members serve as liaison with their regions. The Committee has proposed in a draft purpose statement that the Program is "to advance sustainable watershed-based management of California's natural resources through community-based strategies." That statement and other elements of the Program are in response to the comments received in the dozens of regional conversations throughout the state. The Committee and Program staff have nearly completed an initial series of public meetings within the ten major hydrologic regions of the State. More than twenty-five public meetings have been held at which hundreds of individuals from a variety of interests have attended to enter comments and ideas. The Committee has also received individual oral, written comments, as well as survey responses regarding development of the Statewide Watershed Program. Friday, April 25, 2008 1:30 - 3:00 PM Main Auditorium Secretary of State's Office 1500 11th Street Sacramento, CA Please contact Dan Wermiel (dan.wermiel at conservation.ca.gov) or Dennis Bowker (dennisbowker at volcano.net) with questions. Thank you. Martha Davis and Robert Meacher Co-Chairs, Public Advisory Committee Statewide Watershed Program From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Apr 16 18:38:52 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:38:52 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Earthjustice Press Release April 16 Message-ID: <011601c8a02b$cf13d340$0201a8c0@optiplex> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 16, 2008 CONTACT: Mike Sherwood, Earthjustice at 510-550-6700 Craig Noble, NRDC at 415-875-6100 or 415-601-8235 (mobile) Zeke Grader, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations at 415-561-5080 ex 224 Christina Swanson, The Bay Institute at 530-756-9021 Gary Mulcahy, Winnemem Wintu Tribe at 916-991-8493 Sejal Choksi, Baykeeper at 925-330-7757 Judge Tosses Biological Opinion for Salmon and Steelhead in California Groups say delta water project operations must protect water supply for fish and people FRESNO, Calif. - A federal judge has invalidated a water plan that would have allowed more pumping from the San Francisco Bay Delta at the expense of five species of protected salmon and steelhead trout. Fishing and conservation groups and a California tribe called the ruling a victory for the millions of Californians who depend on the delta for drinking water, fishing jobs and agriculture. The ruling comes in the wake of federal fisheries managers' unprecedented April 10 decision to cancel this year's salmon fishing season because of a record decline in spawning fish. The decision is the second time the court has ruled that water export plans would harm the threatened estuary. The court scheduled a conference on April 25 for the parties to address developing interim remedies to protect the fish. In his opinion Judge Oliver W. Wanger relied on the National Marine Fisheries Services' (NMFS) own finding that diverting water from the bay-delta was killing huge numbers of salmon. He said, "This morbid projection is inconsistent, if not irreconcilable" with the agency's opinion that the project operations did not jeopardize the survival of the fish. He also faulted the agency for failing to analyze the effects of global warming on the fish, calling that failure "arbitrary and capricious." The court also cited NMFS' findings that "current operations result in the loss of 42 percent of the juvenile winter-run Chinook population, and proposed project effects are expected to result in an additional 3 to 20 percent loss of the juvenile population." NMFS also found that proposed water project operations would kill as many as 66 percent of Central Valley steelhead and 57 percent of juvenile spring run Chinook salmon - likely leading to the extirpation of the spring run in the Sacramento River and steelhead in the Central Valley. These findings, the court ruled, are the "diametric opposite" of the finding that the projects would not jeopardized listed salmon species. "When most of our native fish species are struggling to survive, the water project's plans to eliminate habitat, reduce cold water flow requirements and increase delta exports made no sense," said Dr. Christina Swanson, a biologist with The Bay Institute, a plaintiff in the case. "Ecological collapse in our rivers and in the delta is not just bad for fish, it's bad for the millions of people who depend on delta water for farming and drinking." The plaintiffs challenged a 2004 long-term water plan known as OCAP (Operating Criteria and Plan) that would have allowed increased exports south of the delta by reversing many of the decade-old protections credited with saving endangered winter-run Chinook salmon from extinction, including relaxing cold water flow requirements and eliminating nearly half of the available spawning habitat in the Sacramento River. These operational changes have corresponded with significant declines in protected Chinook salmon populations since 2004. This year's salmon run has largely failed to show up. "Salmon need cool, clean water," said Kate Poole, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a plaintiff in the case. "Meeting their needs can keep clean water flowing from our taps as well, without losing our salmon fishing industry." "We've never seen the Sacramento salmon return as bad as this year," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, a plaintiff in the case. "California's water projects must be operated in a way that helps protect these commercially important species, rather than driving them to extinction." The court's ruling follows an August 31, 2007 decision to protect the delta smelt. In that ruling the court ordered state and federal water managers to reoperate the giant pumps that draw water from the delta to supply farms and cities in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The fishing and conservation groups say keeping enough fresh water in the delta is vital to protecting the fragile ecosystem. Biologists have grown alarmed in recent years about a cascading series of crashing delta fish populations; salmon, steelhead, delta smelt, striped bass, longfin smelt, sturgeon and Sacramento splittail are all in trouble. "With his decision today, Judge Wanger has placed salmon survival back at the center of California's struggle to protect our natural heritage," said Mike Sherwood, an attorney from Earthjustice who represented the coalition of fishing and conservationists. "There are several man-made factors that have contributed to the collapse of salmon runs. One factor is pumping too much of our water from the delta and exporting it south. This ruling makes it clear that there are biological limits to the amount of water we can export south." The Delta's fragile ecosystem and drinking water supplies already face severe pollution threats from agricultural pesticides and dairy waste," said Sejal Choksi, program director for San Francisco Baykeeper. "Today's ruling is a huge step forward in restoring our Delta to a healthy state." The court will now schedule hearings to establish an interim salmon protection plan for project operations. Agencies predict that a new Biological Opinion for salmon will be complete by December 2008. Conservationists say water managers could restore the delta by following the advice of the state's own master water plan, which identifies conservation, water recycling and better groundwater management as the biggest, cheapest sources of untapped water supply. BACKGROUND Prior to construction of the state and federal delta water pumping systems, chinook (or "king") salmon and steelhead were abundant in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems. Sacramento River salmon were of great cultural and spiritual importance to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and remain a major economic contributor to northern California. As a part of the pumping projects, a necklace of dams was constructed up and down the western slope of the Sierra Nevada on every major river flowing into the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers blocking the upstream migration of chinook salmon and steelhead to and from their historic spawning grounds. Of the 6,000 miles of historic steelhead spawning grounds, today only 300 miles remain. Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River resulted in the extinction of the spring-run chinook salmon in that river. Shasta and Keswick Dams on the Sacramento River blocked the winter-run chinook salmon from their historic spawning grounds, forcing them to spawn in a 40-mile stretch of less favorable river habitat below those dams. Every year the pumping of huge volumes of fresh water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta sucks in and grinds up juvenile salmon and steelhead as they attempt migrate down the rivers and though the delta on their way to the ocean. As a result, Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead populations have plummeted from historic abundance and all three species are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. In August 2004, federal scientists charged with reviewing the plan to increase pumping to 8 million acre feet concluded that doing so would illegally jeopardize protected salmon. However, after political interference, the agency flip flopped and released a final opinion in October 2004 that concluded that the project operations plan would not harm listed salmon and steelhead species. But after several negative independent science reviews and widespread concern over inappropriate political influences on the opinion, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the State Department of Water Resources asked NOAA Fisheries to reconsider the plan in April/May 2006. Yet the agencies continued to implement the new plan without any lawful analysis of its impacts to listed fish species while a new opinion is written. The plaintiff coalition that launched the legal challenge includes: Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and the Institute for Fisheries Resources, The Bay Institute, Baykeeper, California Trout, Friends of the River, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern California Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers, and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Read the decision online here: http://www.earthjustice.org/library/legal_docs/salmon-decision-41608.pdf Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Apr 17 10:44:34 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:44:34 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Over-fished species go into evolutionary overdrive: study Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C6B2@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Over-fished species go into evolutionary overdrive: study Wed Apr 16, 2:39 PM ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/sciencegeneticsevolutionfishfoodbiodiversity PARIS (AFP) - Relentless commercial fishing can trigger rapid evolutionary changes when only smaller, younger fish are left behind, a study released Wednesday shows. Moreover, those changes among fish populations -- a desperate bid to adapt -- may be difficult or impossible to reverse. Boom-and-bust cycles in over-fished species can wreak economic havoc on fishing communities, and can trigger a downward spiral toward extinction. The study, experts say, could provide important clues on how to restore fish populations that have, in many cases, been reduced by 90 percent due to decades of industrial-scale fishing. Scientists have long puzzled over the fact that populations of heavily harvested fish, from sardines to tuna, fluctuate in size more erratically than species that are not plucked from the sea for food. To find out why, a team of researchers led by George Sugihara at the University of California in San Diego poured over a rare set of data tracking both fished and unfished species off the coast of California over a period of five decades. In considering three possible explanations, they found no evidence for the first: that fluctuations in population simply mirrored the intensity of commercial fishing. They did find that the young fish left behind as too small to bring to market were somewhat more vulnerable to the vagaries of the sea, whether changing sea surface temperatures, currents or winds. The critical factor, however, was not the impact of environmental conditions on these age-imbalanced populations, but an intrinsic lack of stability caused by such "juvenescence," as scientists call it. The disappearance of older, bigger fish from the population induced early maturation in the survivors in two ways, the study found. In some cases the smaller fish actually adapted physically to new conditions, changes that could be reversed. But the researchers also found evidence for a genetic impact, adding weight to a recent body of evidence suggesting that environmentally-driven evolutionary changes can occur far more quickly than once believed. "The implication is that fisheries management need to give priority to precautionary measures," said Nils Stenseth and Tristan Rouyer, both from the University of Oslo, in a commentary, also published in Nature. "When the ecological effects of fishing a particular population are observed, the evolutionary consequences may have already set it, and may be irreversible." Average (187 votes) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 523 bytes Desc: image001.gif URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Apr 17 13:40:17 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:40:17 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Don Koch to Head Fish and Game Dept. Message-ID: <00ee01c8a0cb$566b0a80$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> http://www.sacbee.com/102/story/870211.html Veteran of department will lead Fish and Game By Matt Weiser - mweiser at sacbee.com Last Updated 10:42 am PDT Thursday, April 17, 2008 Print | E-Mail | Comments (3)| Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday appointed Donald Koch of Redding to be California's new director of the Department of Fish and Game. Koch, 55, retired in December after a 30-year career with the department as a biologist and supervisor. Since 1998, he served as North Coast regional manager, where he represented the department in complex Klamath River water negotiations. As a biologist, he worked on black bear and elk programs, as well as wildlife surveys and habitat management. "I look forward to using my background to protect California's vast fish and wildlife population," Koch said in a statement. He replaces L. Ryan Broddrick, who resigned in August and now is executive director of the Northern California Water Association. Koch, a Democrat, has a master's degree in biological sciences from Cal State Sacramento and a bachelor's degree in zoology from UC Davis. The position requires Senate confirmation, and the pay is $142,965. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: button1-share.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1505 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Apr 18 09:02:35 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:02:35 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Hatchery fish greatly outnumber wild Chinook salmon in troubled fall run Message-ID: <001001c8a16d$9f467080$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Contact: Tim Stephens stephens at ucsc.edu 831-459-2495 University of California - Santa Cruz Hatchery fish greatly outnumber wild Chinook salmon in troubled fall run SANTA CRUZ, CA--A recent study indicates that wild salmon may account for just 10 percent of California's fall-run chinook salmon population, while the vast majority of the fish come from hatcheries. The findings are especially troubling in light of the disastrous decline in the population this year, which will probably force the closure of the 2008 season for commercial and recreational salmon fishing. The role of hatcheries in the management of salmon populations has been a contentious issue for many years. The new findings appear to support the idea that including artificially propagated fish in population estimates can mask declines in natural populations caused by a lack of suitable habitat. "Our finding that 90 percent of the fish are from hatcheries surprised a lot of people," said Rachel Barnett-Johnson, a fisheries biologist with the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Barnett-Johnson and her coworkers published their results in the December 2007 issue of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. The main focus of the paper is the development of a new technique for distinguishing between wild and hatchery-raised salmon. The researchers validated the technique and used it to estimate the percentage of wild fish among the fall-run chinook salmon caught by commercial fishing boats along the central California coast in 2002. "It's a one-time estimate for that year, and these things do change over time. But it's the most recent and perhaps best estimate we have," said Churchill Grimes, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service Santa Cruz Laboratory and a coauthor of the paper. In 2002, the fall run of chinook salmon in the Sacramento River was estimated at 775,000 adults returning to spawn, according to the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. Fewer than 60,000 are expected this year, even with no ocean fishing allowed. If the percentage of wild fish is the same this year as in 2002, it would mean fewer than 6,000 wild salmon in what has been the largest salmon run on the West Coast. The researchers were able to distinguish between wild and hatchery-raised fish by analyzing the banding patterns in fish ear bones, called otoliths. Like tree rings, characteristic light and dark bands in the otoliths reflect daily growth increments, and the width of the bands indicates growth rates. The differences observed between otoliths from wild and hatchery-raised fish are the result of differences in the availability of food at a critical transition in the salmon life cycle, when the young fish (called fry) have used up the food supply in their yolk sacs and must start feeding themselves, Barnett-Johnson said. "In the wild, they hide in the gravel until they use up the yolk sac, and then there is a period of slower growth while they learn to feed on aquatic insects. This abrupt transition and slow growth are captured in the growth bands of the otolith," Barnett-Johnson said. "In the hatchery, there is an abundant supply of food, so the transition is smoother and growth bands are wider." Every fish, therefore, carries an identifier of its origin as a natural tag in the earbone, which has significant advantages over techniques for tagging fish, she said. Coded wire tags (CWTs), for example, have been used to mark fish for some studies. But only a small fraction of hatchery fish and even fewer wild fish are tagged or marked in California, according to Barnett-Johnson. Some small hatchery operations clip the fins of all hatchery fish so they can be distinguished from wild fish, but fall-run chinook salmon are not marked that way. As a result, there have not been good estimates of the proportion of wild fish in the population until this study, she said. "The only other estimates out there pointed in the other direction--significantly more wild fish than hatchery fish," Barnett-Johnson said. "One study used CWT recoveries from hatchery fish and estimated that 33 percent of adults returning to rivers in the Central Valley were from hatcheries. The other number floating around comes from counting the number of fish returning to spawn in rivers versus returning to hatcheries, and this estimated the number of 'wild' fish to be 3.5 times higher than hatchery returns." One reason these figures are so important is that they could affect the listing of the fall run under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The question of whether hatcheries can help restore threatened and endangered salmon populations or if they actually harm wild populations has long been a controversial issue. It became a legal issue in 2001, when a federal judge revoked the ESA listing of Oregon coast coho salmon, ruling that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) should have included hatchery fish in the population counts. A more recent federal court ruling, however, concluded that the health and viability of natural populations should be used as the benchmark for ESA status determinations. That ruling has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. "The agency's policy on counting hatchery fish has flip-flopped as a result of these different legal decisions," Grimes said. "Now the focus is again on wild fish, and it doesn't appear there are many of them. That could be bad news for fishing because, if the fall run is listed under the Endangered Species Act, there would be no legal harvest." Fisheries experts blame unfavorable ocean conditions for the dismally low returns of chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams all along the West Coast this year. In 2005, when this year's returning salmon were juveniles just entering the ocean, food production in the California Current was much lower than usual due to a delay in the wind-driven upwelling of nutrient-rich water that sustains the food web along the coast. A similar disruption of the normal upwelling occurred the following year (see earlier press release at http://press.ucsc.edu/text.asp?pid=971). "We expect the returns to be as bad or worse next year as they were this year," Grimes said. "The years when those fish outmigrated into the ocean were the worst conditions that we've seen in over 25 years of observing spring conditions." Compounding the situation is the degradation of the freshwater habitat for salmon in the Sacramento River and the rest of the Central Valley drainage system, he said. "There is no question that the river basin's capacity to produce salmon--the quality of the habitat--has been degraded something awful, and it just doesn't produce like it used to," Grimes said. "We have these remnant populations--that's all it is really. We're trying to manage what's left." Barnett-Johnson said the otolith technique offers a new tool for monitoring the effectiveness of restoration efforts and tracking the numbers of wild fish over time. By estimating the numbers of hatchery and wild fish independently, the technique can help to differentiate between effects on the population due to ocean conditions and those due to freshwater conditions. That's because hatchery-raised fish don't face the same hazards in the initial freshwater phase of their life cycle that wild fish do, so they would be affected less by freshwater conditions. Not only are hatchery fish protected and artificially fed in the hatcheries, they also get a free ride downstream in tanker trucks. The hazards associated with migrating downstream to the ocean range from predators to the pumps that siphon water out of the rivers for human use. "Most of the hatcheries in the Central Valley put the fish in tanker trucks and release them into the lower San Francisco Bay Delta, so they bypass a lot of the mortality that occurs in the rivers," Barnett-Johnson said. "If freshwater mortality was a key factor in population declines, we would expect to see hatchery and wild populations responding differently." Barnett-Johnson plans to use the otolith technique to track changes in the composition of the salmon population over time. Unfortunately, because her research depends on a collaboration with commercial fishermen, the possible closure of the fishery this year may mean that she will not be able to get any salmon otoliths to analyze. "At a time when we really need more information on the status of wild populations, a complete closure would mean I can't conduct my research to provide this estimate," she said. ### In addition to Barnett-Johnson and Grimes, the coauthors of the paper are Chantell Royer of Humboldt State University and Christopher Donohoe of the NMFS Santa Cruz Laboratory. This research was supported by the UC Marine Council and the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Mon Apr 21 11:35:07 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:35:07 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release Change Message-ID: Please make the following release changes to the Trinity River: date time from to Wed Apr 23, 2008 01:00 am 300 cfs 400 cfs Wed Apr 23, 2008 03:00 am 400 cfs 500 cfs Wed Apr 23, 2008 05:00 am 500 cfs 750 cfs Thurs Apr 24, 2008 01:00 am 750 cfs 1000 cfs Thurs Apr 24, 2008 03:00 am 1000 cfs 1200 cfs Ordered by: Peggy Manza Note: Trinity River spring pulse flow ramp up From Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov Tue Apr 22 14:48:14 2008 From: Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov (Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:48:14 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Willow Creek Trapping Summary Message-ID: Willow Creek Downstream Migrant Trap Site 2008 In-Season Trapping Update ?April 22, 2008 Synopsis: The 2008 Downstream Migrant trapping season at the Willow Creek Trap Site (river kilometer 34) is being conducted jointly by the USFWS Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office (AFWO) and the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Program (YTFP) on the mainstem Trinity River near Willow Creek, California. The season began March 13, 2008 with the installation of one trap. A second trap was installed March 15, 2008, and a third trap was installed March 27, 2008. This summary includes data from March 13th, 2008 through April 16th, 2008 and is presented as raw catch. No expansions have been calculated at this time. Data entry is not complete for Julian Week 15 and 16, April 9th to April 22nd. Heavy debris load from floating algae have occasionally resulted in null sets, causing less than 21 trap days (3 traps x 7 days) in some weeks. This accumulation of algae in the rotary screw traps is a relatively new phenomenon for the Trinity River, and has necessitated increased trap checks at night as well as during the day. See attached catch summary for details of this narrative. Raw daily catches of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) have been captured each day sampling has occurred and most have been young-of-the-year (YOY), with a higher than normal catch of age 1+ natural Chinook salmon. Weekly mean Fulton?s K values of YOY Chinook salmon began the season lower than 1.0 with an increase in condition to greater than 1.0 in Julian Week 15. Age-0 Chinook salmon being captured are quite small (< 50mm) and many are just buttoning up. Raw daily catches of steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) smolts (age 1+) have been increasing as the season progresses. Steelhead smolts captured JW 11-16 had weekly mean Fulton?s K values slightly higher than 1.0. Steelhead YOY have not shown up yet in the catches, as they usually emerge from the gravel later in the season. Normal peaks in YOY steelhead catch occur in mid-June to early July. Raw daily catches of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) are low compared to the past 5 years, especially for natural smolts. Weekly mean Fulton?s K value of natural coho salmon smolts were higher than 1.0 in JW 11-16. If you have any questions regarding this summary, don't hesitate to contact Bill Pinnix at (707) 822-7201. (See attached file: WCT_CatchSummary_4_22_08.pdf) William Pinnix USFWS, AFWO 1655 Heindon Rd Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-7201 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WCT_CatchSummary_4_22_08.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 15685 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mdowdle at tcrcd.net Fri Apr 25 13:01:09 2008 From: mdowdle at tcrcd.net (Mark Dowdle - TCRCD) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:01:09 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Tenacity on "unreasonable use" Message-ID: <002101c8a70f$1d2f8260$af00a8c0@Mark> Opinion: Lloyd G. Carter: A California water story of individual tenacity Sacramento Bee - 4/25/08 By Lloyd G. Carter - Special to The Bee You have to give 75-year-old Felix Smith of Carmichael credit for tenacity. A quarter-century ago, Smith became the conscience of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when he blew the whistle on the selenium poisoning of the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in western Merced County. In the spring of 1983, Smith and another biologist discovered deformed bird embryos in nests at Kesterson, where 100-acre holding ponds were evaporating agricultural drainage water from the Westlands Water District. The drainage water contained selenium, a naturally occurring element in the soils of Westlands that was highly toxic to bird reproduction. Adult birds were dying by the thousands and some species had a complete reproductive failure. James Watt, then U.S. secretary of interior, ordered news of the discovery suppressed while an official press release was prepared. Several months later, with the press release still supposedly being formulated, a frustrated Smith leaked the story to Deborah Blum, when she was a reporter for the Fresno Bee. Within 18 months, the New York Times, the Washington Post and CBS' "60 Minutes" all gave major coverage to the unfolding debacle, pitting a politically powerful federal irrigation district against environmentalists and adjacent Kesterson landowners, who had seen their cattle die. In February 1985, the State Water Resources Control Board, responding to a complaint from Kesterson neighbors Jim and Karen Claus, ordered Kesterson cleaned up or closed. The following month, the Interior Department, its options dwindled, ordered Kesterson closed, an action that left the Westlands Water District without drainage, a problem that exists to this day. After 34 years as a federal scientist, Smith retired in 1990, but not into quiet obscurity. In 1995, Smith, as a private citizen, filed a complaint with the water board contending irrigation of high selenium soils in the western Valley was an unreasonable use of water under state law. Smith warned that even though the Kesterson ponds had closed, selenium-loaded drainage from federal irrigation districts north of Westlands was still being funneled untreated into the lower San Joaquin River. Studies had revealed that levels of selenium as low as 2 to 5 parts per billion in the drainage water could impact fish reproduction. That's equivalent to one drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. However, the water board ignored Smith, claiming work was being done on the drainage problem by state and federal agencies. In 2000, the water board dismissed Smith's complaint without taking action. Smith knew that funding a private lawsuit to force the water board to act was simply far more than he could afford. Smith could have given up and gone fishing with his grandchildren. But in January this year, with the Delta fishery facing catastrophic collapse, he refiled his complaint. In a Jan. 10 letter to water board Chairwoman Tam Doduc, Smith wrote, "Many of the impacts documented in my past letters/complaints continue today. In addition, there are other more ominous concerns and environmental impacts coming to the forefront." This is a reference to the current Delta fishery crisis and the collapse of the salmon runs. Last month, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network also filed a complaint with the water board again alleging unreasonable use of precious Delta water. The sportfishing alliance and the water network, in an April 15 letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also warned of the perils of irrigating soils loaded with selenium. Feinstein is attempting to broker a drainage "solution" with Westlands (and adjacent water districts) that would keep at least 300,000 acres of high-selenium soils in production. Feinstein has drawn much criticism from California's environmental community for her closed-door, limited-access negotiations with Westlands growers, who claim they have a drainage solution (limited land retirement, recycling and sprinkler evaporation), a solution that environmental scientists say is highly problematic and almost certainly unworkable. Where the millions of tons of salts ultimately accumulated would go is still undetermined. If Feinstein wants to learn something about drainage and selenium, she should sit down with Felix Smith. After a half-century in the water wars, he could give her an earful.# http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/888598.html From bwl3 at comcast.net Sat Apr 26 12:00:17 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:00:17 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Steve Thompson CA-NV Mgr USF&WS Mgr Retirement Message-ID: <000301c8a7cf$c5c94530$0201a8c0@optiplex> Retirement 04/25/2008 03:22 PM I would like to take this opportunity to let my friends and colleagues know that after 32 years of working for the Fish & Wildlife Service, I will retire on August 2, 2008. It is difficult to express my appreciation for the opportunities I?ve been given: the chance to work as a biologist at Malheur, Nisqually, and Stillwater National Wildlife Refuges; as a Refuge Manager at Laguna Atascosa in South Texas; and in DC, Atlanta and CNO/Region 8. Throughout my career, I?ve worked with people I respect and admire ? both within and outside of the Service ? and value deeply the importance of working together to protect wildlife and conserve our natural resources. Thank you for the help and support you?ve given so freely, and for encouraging me to strive ever harder to put forth my personal best. I will miss you more than I can say. With gratitude, Steve Thompson Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mdowdle at tcrcd.net Tue Apr 29 11:15:02 2008 From: mdowdle at tcrcd.net (Mark Dowdle - TCRCD) Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:15:02 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] West's record, computer modeling indicate prolonged droughts likely again Message-ID: <004501c8aa24$f4974cc0$af00a8c0@Mark> Opinion: Learning from our arid past More droughts, less water -- our future depends on adapting to scarcity. Los Angeles Times - 4/29/08 By Brian Fagan - emeritus professor of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and the author of "The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations One of the downsides to global warming is drought. About 11 million people in northeast Africa alone were in serious danger of starvation in 2006 as a result of drought. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria estimates that about 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa -- nearly a third of the population -- will suffer from malnutrition because of intensifying drought by 2010. With continued warming and more droughts on the horizon, we need to learn how to better live with our natural world and its cycles. Here in the Western United States, it's tree rings that tell us that cycles of wet and dry, warm and cool are the historical reality. In California, the source is tree stumps in Sierra lake beds. Owens Lake once covered more than 115 square miles at the mouth of the Owens River. The mountain runoff that fed the lake varied dramatically in cycles of wet and dry years. In drier periods, trees grew in the still-moist soil of the receding lake. When the rains came, the trees drowned, leaving stumps as a chronicle of aridity: An epochal drought began before AD 910 and ended about 1100; a wetter century then ensued, when rainfall was higher than in modern times. A second drought started before 1210 and ended 140 years later. As for the wider West, a grid of more than 600 tree-ring sequences from throughout the region, compiled by a team at the Lamont-Doherty Tree Ring Laboratory at Columbia University, puts today's droughts in perspective. The centuries between AD 900 and 1253 witnessed long dry spells. After 1300, an abrupt change to wetter conditions lasted for 600 years, then gave way to today's aridity. Some people refer to a "mega-drought epoch" 1,000 years ago, when cool, dry La Ni?a conditions persisted for decades over the eastern Pacific and the winter jet stream stayed well north of what is now California. None of today's droughts approach the intensity and duration of the medieval ones. The six-year California drought that began in 1987 resulted in Sierra Nevada runoff that was only 65% of normal. During the great medieval droughts, inflow to Owens Lake is estimated to have been 45% to 50% lower than usual. Why did the medieval droughts persist so long? Gradually accumulating climatic evidence from around the world is showing that the mega-drought epoch experienced significant warming on a global level, similar to recent conditions. During the 20th century, increased Northern Hemisphere temperatures and unusual warming of the western Pacific and Indian oceans contributed to drought formation over middle latitudes. How did people survive? A thousand years ago, California's human population was tiny, a scattering of hunters, gatherers and fishermen who adapted effortlessly to long-term drought. They tapped rare permanent water supplies, changed their diet and moved to higher ground. Acorns were a staple; so were sea fish in places such as the Santa Barbara Channel. Survival in some of the toughest landscapes on Earth depended on cooperation, intelligence about water supplies, mobility and flexibility, knowledge of their environment and on taking advantage of all kinds of food resources when they became available. Nevertheless, prolonged aridity must have killed thousands of people in medieval times, from the American West to the Saharan Sahel. Although today's droughts are minuscule compared with the dry spells of 1,000 years ago, the future is truly frightening. Sophisticated computer models by Britain's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research predict a 3% to 18% increase in the amount of the Earth's surface that will be exposed to extreme drought by 2100; 40% of the world will suffer from severe drought, up from the current 18%; 50% will suffer from moderate drought. California and other Western states, at the very least, will suffer from severe drought. By 2025, an estimated 2.8 billion of us will live in arid areas like California. Today, we harvest water on an industrial scale -- from rainfall, from rivers and lakes and from rapidly shrinking water tables. Many of us in California live off what are, effectively, looted water supplies, brought by canal from Owens Lake or the Colorado River or drained from aquifers. But at best we have accommodated ourselves to nature's fickle realities. Our greatest asset is not necessarily our technology but our opportunism and endless capacity to adapt to circumstances. We must learn from the history of the great droughts and begin to think of ourselves as partners with, rather than potential masters of, the changing natural world. Brian Fagan is emeritus professor of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and the author of "The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations."# http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-fagan29apr29,0,4871853.story From truman at jeffnet.org Tue Apr 29 21:25:25 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:25:25 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Its an Earthquake! Message-ID: <001601c8aa7a$43ba1620$6401a8c0@HAL> we be rockin' in Trinity County! http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X40216664/ciim_display.html http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X40216664/ciim_stats_1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Tue Apr 29 15:18:01 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:18:01 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release Change - Corrections Message-ID: Please make the following release changes to the Trinity River: date time from to Fri May 2, 2008 22:00 pm 1200 cfs 1450 cfs Sat May 3, 2008 00:00 am 1450 cfs 1700 cfs Sat May 3, 2008 02:00 am 1700 cfs 1950 cfs Sat May 3, 2008 04:00 am 1950 cfs 2200 cfs Sat May 3, 2008 06:00 am 2200 cfs 2500 cfs Mon May 5, 2008 01:00 am 2500 cfs 3000 cfs Mon May 5, 2008 03:00 am 3000 cfs 3500 cfs Mon May 5, 2008 05:00 am 3500 cfs 4000 cfs Ordered by: Peggy Manza Note: Ramp up to Trinity River Spring Pulse Flow From JKlochak at mp.usbr.gov Thu May 1 14:39:31 2008 From: JKlochak at mp.usbr.gov (John Klochak) Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 14:39:31 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River High Flow Gravel Injection Message-ID: Attention All Trinity River Boaters and Fishermen in Lewiston: The Trinity River Restoration Program will be performing high flow gravel injections at two locations in Lewiston along the Trinity River between May 6 and May 10, 2008. Approximately 2,500 tons of gravel will be put into the river at the Diversion Pool site just upstream of the new Lewiston bridge on Trinity Dam Boulevard and 1,000 tons of gravel will be put into the river at the California Department of Fish and Game Saw Mill Wildlife Area site at the end of Cemetery Road just downstream of the Cemetery Side Channel. The gravel is being placed into the river to replace gravel that is now trapped behind Trinity Dam. As the gravel moves downstream with the high spring river flows, it creates the juvenile rearing and adult spawning habitat that is crucial to salmon and steelhead. These injections will be accomplished by a truck mounted conveyor system that is able to extend up to 130 feet across the river. The rock being conveyed into the river will range in size from 3/8? to 5?. It will not be safe to pass through the river at these locations during the injection activities. The contractor is allowed to work between the hours of 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM during this period. If you are planning to be near the river at this time, please keep a safe distance from the gravel augmentation activities. John R. Klochak Restoration Ecologist Technical Analysis and Modeling Group Trinity River Restoration Program P.O. Box 1300 Weaverville, CA 96093 jklochak at mp.usbr.gov (530)623-1810 FAX: (530)623-5944 From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri May 2 14:23:55 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 14:23:55 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SalmonAid Message-ID: <006301c8ac9a$d4122880$0201a8c0@optiplex> SalmonAid is having a Festival May 31-June 1 at Jack London Square in Oakland. You can go to http://www.salmonaid.org/event.html for more information, but included are: 2 days of Salmon barbecues 2 days of live music, 20 great bands on 2 stages, MC'd by KFOG's Big Rick Stuart. commercial fishing boats with fresh wild salmon for sale gourmet food court and beer garden information booths by a multitude of salmon-related organizations Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 7859 bytes Desc: not available URL: From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Fri May 2 14:42:19 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Fri, 02 May 2008 14:42:19 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release Change Message-ID: Please make the following release changes to the Trintiy River: date time from to Tues May 6, 2008 0100 4000 cfs 5000 cfs Tues May 6, 2008 0300 5000 cfs 6000 cfs Tues May 6, 2008 0500 6000 cfs 6175 cfs Hold releases at 6175 cfs until further notice. Ordered by: Peggy Manza Note: Trinity River Spring Pulse Flow From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri May 2 15:40:59 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 15:40:59 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Donald R. Glaser Named Mid-Pacific Regional Director Message-ID: <00e901c8aca5$ac3bf150$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> 92-4000 May 1, 2008 ADM-1.10 VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL ONLY MEMORANDUM To: All Bureau of Reclamation Employees From: Robert W. Johnson /s/ Commissioner Subject: Donald R. Glaser Named Mid-Pacific Regional Director It is my pleasure to announce that Donald Glaser has accepted the position as the Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific Regional Director. Don?s experiences are varied and include 20 years with Reclamation in several positions throughout the West and in Washington, D.C., including Assistant Commissioner for Resources Management and Deputy Commissioner. Don has spent the past 7 years managing several non profits engaged in water education, open space preservation, and fish and wildlife conservation and restoration. Prior to that, he was a water resource consultant, the Executive Director for the Presidential Commission on Western Water Policy and the State Director for the Bureau of Land Management in Colorado. His experience with Reclamation along with all that he has accomplished since he left Reclamation make him the ideal person to fill this important position as part of Reclamation's leadership team. Don was born in Long Beach, California, and graduated from Santa Barbara High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Economics from Eastern Montana College (now Montana State University-Billings). He will be moving with his wife Sandi to Sacramento from their current home in Denver, Colorado, in the near future. I have every confidence that Don Glaser will help make the Mid-Pacific Region responsive to its customers and effective in carrying out Reclamation's mission. Please join me in welcoming Don back to the Bureau of Reclamation. Distribution E -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon May 5 13:50:16 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 13:50:16 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: The 4th Annual California Water Symposium, Saturday 10 May 8:45a-2p Message-ID: <00bf01c8aef1$a1c1e790$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kristen Podolak" To: Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 1:41 PM Subject: The 4th Annual California Water Symposium, Saturday 10 May 8:45a-2p > > The 4th Annual California Water Symposium > Saturday 10 May 8:45a-2p, Wurster Hall Auditorium, UC Berkeley > > This symposium presents results from graduate student research in > hydrology applied to environmental restoration and conservation in > California. It includes a panel discussion by experienced professionals > who comment on the student research papers and the broader themes raised > by their results. The symposium begins with a talk by a well-known > authority on water issues, this year BJ Miller presents "Science and > Activism: Fish Protection in the Bay-Delta of California". > > Symposium Schedule > 845a Welcome and Keynote: > Science and Activism: Fish Protection in the Bay-Delta of California > BJ Miller > > 930a Graduate Student Research Presentations: > Impacts of Urbanization on Peak Flow Using Remote Sensing > John Dingman > > A Watershed Approach to Urban River Restoration: A Conceptual Restoration > Plan for Sausal Creek > Teresa Ippolito, Kristen Podolak, Katie Jagt, Tiago Teixeira, Eike Flebbe > > Unpaving the Way to Creek Restoration: EU Water Framework Directive in a > US Urban Watershed > Hong Li and Jane Wardani > > A Decade of Changes in the Wildcat Creek Flood Control Channel, North > Richmond > Ben Ginsberg > > Comparing Perspectives on Dam Removal: York Creek Dam and the Water > Framework Directive > Justin Lawrence, Josh Pollak and Sarah Richmond > > 11a Coffee Break > > River Restoration for a Socially and Ecologically Devastated Border City > Noah Friedman > > Land Cover and Channel Form Change Detection in the Okavango River > Watershed > Yu-Ting Huang > > Mercury and methylmercury in the San Francisco Bay area: land-use impacts > and indicators > Hyojin Kim > > Accountability in Emerging Forms of Governance: A Comparison of the > California Bay-Delta Process and the Water Framework Directive > Noelle Cole, Tamar Cooper, Sarah Bickel Di Vittorio, Nuno Oliveira > > When the levees break: Relief cuts and flood management in the > Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta > Lindsey Fransen, Jessica Ludy, and Mary Matella > > 1245p Panel Discussion: Lauren Hammack (Prunuske Chatahm), Sarah Minick > (San Francisco PUC), BJ Miller > > The symposium is free and open to the public but to insure there will be a > program and coffee for you, please RSVP to kpodolak at berkeley.edu. Program > and abstracts will be posted at > http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/WRCA/222_08.html > > > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon May 5 13:54:31 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 13:54:31 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Earthjustice Press Release on Court Decision on Salmon Message-ID: <00d601c8aef2$4e9b5320$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 16, 2008 CONTACT: Mike Sherwood, Earthjustice at 510-550-6700 Craig Noble, NRDC at 415-875-6100 or 415-601-8235 (mobile) Zeke Grader, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen?s Associations at 415-561-5080 ex 224 Christina Swanson, The Bay Institute at 530-756-9021 Gary Mulcahy, Winnemem Wintu Tribe at 916-991-8493 Sejal Choksi, Baykeeper at 925-330-7757 Judge Tosses Biological Opinion for Salmon and Steelhead in California Groups say delta water project operations must protect water supply for fish and people FRESNO, Calif. ? A federal judge has invalidated a water plan that would have allowed more pumping from the San Francisco Bay Delta at the expense of five species of protected salmon and steelhead trout. Fishing and conservation groups and a California tribe called the ruling a victory for the millions of Californians who depend on the delta for drinking water, fishing jobs and agriculture. The ruling comes in the wake of federal fisheries managers? unprecedented April 10 decision to cancel this year?s salmon fishing season because of a record decline in spawning fish. The decision is the second time the court has ruled that water export plans would harm the threatened estuary. The court scheduled a conference on April 25 for the parties to address developing interim remedies to protect the fish. In his opinion Judge Oliver W. Wanger relied on the National Marine Fisheries Services? (NMFS) own finding that diverting water from the bay-delta was killing huge numbers of salmon. He said, ?This morbid projection is inconsistent, if not irreconcilable? with the agency?s opinion that the project operations did not jeopardize the survival of the fish. He also faulted the agency for failing to analyze the effects of global warming on the fish, calling that failure ?arbitrary and capricious.? The court also cited NMFS? findings that ?current operations result in the loss of 42 percent of the juvenile winter-run Chinook population, and proposed project effects are expected to result in an additional 3 to 20 percent loss of the juvenile population.? NMFS also found that proposed water project operations would kill as many as 66 percent of Central Valley steelhead and 57 percent of juvenile spring run Chinook salmon ? likely leading to the extirpation of the spring run in the Sacramento River and steelhead in the Central Valley. These findings, the court ruled, are the ?diametric opposite? of the finding that the projects would not jeopardized listed salmon species. ?When most of our native fish species are struggling to survive, the water project?s plans to eliminate habitat, reduce cold water flow requirements and increase delta exports made no sense,? said Dr. Christina Swanson, a biologist with The Bay Institute, a plaintiff in the case. ?Ecological collapse in our rivers and in the delta is not just bad for fish, it?s bad for the millions of people who depend on delta water for farming and drinking.? The plaintiffs challenged a 2004 long-term water plan known as OCAP (Operating Criteria and Plan) that would have allowed increased exports south of the delta by reversing many of the decade-old protections credited with saving endangered winter-run Chinook salmon from extinction, including relaxing cold water flow requirements and eliminating nearly half of the available spawning habitat in the Sacramento River. These operational changes have corresponded with significant declines in protected Chinook salmon populations since 2004. This year?s salmon run has largely failed to show up. ?Salmon need cool, clean water,? said Kate Poole, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a plaintiff in the case. ?Meeting their needs can keep clean water flowing from our taps as well, without losing our salmon fishing industry.? ?We?ve never seen the Sacramento salmon return as bad as this year,? said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, a plaintiff in the case. ?California?s water projects must be operated in a way that helps protect these commercially important species, rather than driving them to extinction.? The court?s ruling follows an August 31, 2007 decision to protect the delta smelt. In that ruling the court ordered state and federal water managers to reoperate the giant pumps that draw water from the delta to supply farms and cities in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The fishing and conservation groups say keeping enough fresh water in the delta is vital to protecting the fragile ecosystem. Biologists have grown alarmed in recent years about a cascading series of crashing delta fish populations; salmon, steelhead, delta smelt, striped bass, longfin smelt, sturgeon and Sacramento splittail are all in trouble. ?With his decision today, Judge Wanger has placed salmon survival back at the center of California?s struggle to protect our natural heritage,? said Mike Sherwood, an attorney from Earthjustice who represented the coalition of fishing and conservationists. ?There are several man-made factors that have contributed to the collapse of salmon runs. One factor is pumping too much of our water from the delta and exporting it south. This ruling makes it clear that there are biological limits to the amount of water we can export south.? The Delta?s fragile ecosystem and drinking water supplies already face severe pollution threats from agricultural pesticides and dairy waste,? said Sejal Choksi, program director for San Francisco Baykeeper. ?Today?s ruling is a huge step forward in restoring our Delta to a healthy state.? The court will now schedule hearings to establish an interim salmon protection plan for project operations. Agencies predict that a new Biological Opinion for salmon will be complete by December 2008. Conservationists say water managers could restore the delta by following the advice of the state?s own master water plan, which identifies conservation, water recycling and better groundwater management as the biggest, cheapest sources of untapped water supply. BACKGROUND Prior to construction of the state and federal delta water pumping systems, chinook (or ?king?) salmon and steelhead were abundant in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems. Sacramento River salmon were of great cultural and spiritual importance to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and remain a major economic contributor to northern California. As a part of the pumping projects, a necklace of dams was constructed up and down the western slope of the Sierra Nevada on every major river flowing into the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers blocking the upstream migration of chinook salmon and steelhead to and from their historic spawning grounds. Of the 6,000 miles of historic steelhead spawning grounds, today only 300 miles remain. Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River resulted in the extinction of the spring-run chinook salmon in that river. Shasta and Keswick Dams on the Sacramento River blocked the winter-run chinook salmon from their historic spawning grounds, forcing them to spawn in a 40-mile stretch of less favorable river habitat below those dams. Every year the pumping of huge volumes of fresh water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta sucks in and grinds up juvenile salmon and steelhead as they attempt migrate down the rivers and though the delta on their way to the ocean. As a result, Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead populations have plummeted from historic abundance and all three species are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. In August 2004, federal scientists charged with reviewing the plan to increase pumping to 8 million acre feet concluded that doing so would illegally jeopardize protected salmon. However, after political interference, the agency flip flopped and released a final opinion in October 2004 that concluded that the project operations plan would not harm listed salmon and steelhead species. But after several negative independent science reviews and widespread concern over inappropriate political influences on the opinion, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the State Department of Water Resources asked NOAA Fisheries to reconsider the plan in April/May 2006. Yet the agencies continued to implement the new plan without any lawful analysis of its impacts to listed fish species while a new opinion is written. The plaintiff coalition that launched the legal challenge includes: Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and the Institute for Fisheries Resources, The Bay Institute, Baykeeper, California Trout, Friends of the River, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern California Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers, and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Read the decision online here: http://www.earthjustice.org/library/legal_docs/salmon-decision-41608.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Tue May 6 16:55:19 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 16:55:19 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath River Tribes and Fishermen Disrupt Berkshire Hathaway Meeting in Omaha Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C6D4@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Klamath River Tribes and Fishermen Disrupt Berkshire Hathaway Meeting in Omaha This is my report on the trip to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha that I made with members of Klamath River Indian Tribes, commercial fishing groups and conservation organizations from May 1-4. The group, stepping up their protest tactics from last year's meeting, delivered a clear message on the urgent need to remove Klamath River dams to Buffett, the shareholders, the media and the public. Photo of Banner Display over freeway by the Klamath Salmon Media Collective -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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URL: From Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov Wed May 7 09:43:00 2008 From: Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov (Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov) Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 09:43:00 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Willow Creek Trap Summary Message-ID: Hello Everyone, Here is the latest trapping summary for the Willow Creek Trap site on the mainstem Trinity River Willow Creek Downstream Migrant Trap Site 2008 In-Season Trapping Update ?May 07, 2008 Synopsis: The 2008 Downstream Migrant trapping season at the Willow Creek Trap Site (river kilometer 34) is being conducted jointly by the USFWS Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office (AFWO) and the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Program (YTFP) on the mainstem Trinity River near Willow Creek, California. The season began March 13, 2008 with the installation of one trap. A second trap was installed March 15, 2008, and a third trap was installed March 27, 2008. See attached catch summary for details of this narrative. This summary includes data from March 13th, 2008 through April 24th, 2008 and is presented as raw catch. No expansions have been calculated at this time. Data entry is not complete for Julian Week 17, April 23rd to April 29th. Heavy debris load from floating algae have occasionally resulted in null sets, causing less than 21 trap days (3 traps x 7 days) in some weeks. This accumulation of algae in the rotary screw traps is a relatively new phenomenon for the Trinity River, and has necessitated increased trap checks at night as well as during the day. Raw daily catches of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) have been captured each day sampling has occurred and most have been young-of-the-year (YOY), with a higher than normal catch of age 1+ natural Chinook salmon. Weekly mean Fulton?s K values of YOY Chinook salmon began the season lower than 1.0 with an increase in condition to greater than 1.0 in Julian Week 16. Age-0 Chinook salmon being captured are larger than the beginning of the season, but still small in size compared to the same time period in previous years. Raw daily catches of steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) smolts (age 1+) have been increasing as the season progresses. Steelhead smolts captured JW 11-17 had weekly mean Fulton?s K values slightly higher than 1.0. Steelhead YOY have not shown up yet in the catches, as they usually emerge from the gravel later in the season. Normal peaks in YOY steelhead catch occur in mid-June to early July. Raw daily catches of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) are low compared to the past 5 years, especially for natural smolts. Weekly mean Fulton?s K value of natural coho salmon smolts were higher than 1.0 in JW 11-17. If you have any questions regarding this summary, don't hesitate to contact Bill Pinnix at (707) 822-7201. (See attached file: WCT_CatchSummary_5_07_08.pdf) William Pinnix USFWS, AFWO 1655 Heindon Rd Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-7201 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WCT_CatchSummary_5_07_08.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 15890 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed May 7 09:46:46 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 09:46:46 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] The ROD in action: Gravel Introduction Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C6D6@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Attached are a few pictures of the gravel introduction taking place at the Lewiston weir. The pictures were taken yesterday and provided by Diana Clifton, Realty Specialist at TRRP, and I made this reduced size PDF for those of you who can't make it out to the site to see it for yourself. Enjoy! Joshua Allen Associate Planner PO Box 2819 60 Glen Road Weaverville, CA 96093 Phone: (530)623-1351 ext. 222 Fax: (530)623-1353 E-mail: jallen at trinitycounty.org Website: http://www.trinitycounty.org/Departments/Planning/natresources3.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2008 Gravel Intro_Lew_Weir.pdf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1252869 bytes Desc: 2008 Gravel Intro_Lew_Weir.pdf URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed May 7 14:04:35 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 14:04:35 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Flow Reduction?? Message-ID: <002101c8b085$f62359f0$0201a8c0@optiplex> Feds weigh Trinity water shift The Times-Standard - 5/6/08 BY John Driscoll Federal water managers are considering a midstream move to cut water releases to the Trinity River during a year when points south are bracing for drought. The unusual shift would have the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation downgrade flows on the Trinity to what's released in a dry year instead of a normal year. The difference is 630 billion gallons, some of which has already flowed downstream. Northern California river advocates see the move as a sign that the Sacramento River water system -- to which nearly 50 percent of Trinity water is exported -- has been badly mismanaged, and they worry that the Trinity River's salmon and steelhead fisheries could suffer for it. Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said that the possible decision just accounts for the exceptionally dry conditions the state experienced in March and April. "There are people rationing around this state," McCracken said. Any decision will be based on information the bureau gets this week from the California Department of Water Resources, McCracken said. The groundwork for a reduction in flows to the Trinity was set by a Friday directive from the bureau's Mid-Pacific Regional Director Donald Glaser, appointed to the post just last week. In a Saturday e-mail to the multi-agency, tribal and stakeholder council that helps manage the river, Bureau Area Manager Brian Persons laid out the direction to develop a transition from a normal to a dry year if needed. The bureau has used April 1 as the cutoff date to get snowpack information for the Trinity. It then sets the releases meant to help restore the river's fisheries, with high flows in April, May and June. Those increased flows have already started, and now the bureau is considering cutting back as soon as this week. Trinity County Principal Planner Tom Stokely said reclamation may blame the shortfall on nature, but the reality is that increased pumping from the Sacramento delta in recent years is unsustainable. It's led to a crisis for the endangered delta smelt and the collapse of salmon stocks that led to a federal decision to shut down salmon season this year, Stokely said. "We're next if we keep this up," he said. U.S. Judge Oliver Wanger recently ruled in a scalding decision that the National Marine Fisheries Service's blessing of the bureau's 2004 delta plan was "inexplicably inconsistent" with the agency's charge to protect threatened salmon. He also ruled that the agency completely failed to consider the effects climate change might have on fish. The criteria for Trinity River water releases was set in a 2000 decision signed by former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and was entered into the federal register. The decision was litigated by San Joaquin water interests, and the suit was decided in favor of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and other Trinity River parties. That record of decision does not allow for changing the flows after April 1. But Persons wrote in the e-mail that the operating plan for the Central Valley Project does consider such a shift. Environmental Defense Fund analyst Spreck Rosekrans said that the bureau wants to reserve the additional water for uses other than Trinity fisheries, which would be a significant breach of trust. "We've got a deal and we're in the middle of the game," Rosekrans said, "and they're trying to change the rules." Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Wed May 7 16:06:48 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Wed, 07 May 2008 16:06:48 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release Change Message-ID: Mr. Kautsky It is normal for there to be variations in the observed gaged flow for a couple of reasons. One is a stage shift owing to scouring from the higher flows, and another is stage shift owing to the gravel injection program. The releases to the Trinity River have not changed, they are being held at 6175 cfs. I do not believe that we have anything to be concerned about. Yours Peggy Manza From srosekrans at edf.org Thu May 8 10:50:24 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 13:50:24 -0400 Subject: [env-trinity] EDF take on pending Trinity River flow re-allocation - Playing by the rules Message-ID: > For those interested in EDF's take on the pending Trinity River > re-allocation, and what it portends in terms of environmental > assurances, click on the link below to visit our blog. Leave a comment > if you like, letting us know whether you agree or disagree with our > view. > > http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/waterfront/2008/05/08/playing-by- > the-rules/#more-69 > > Spreck Rosekrans > Environmental Defense Fund > 415-293-6082 > http://www.edf.org > http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/waterfront/ > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu May 8 14:37:52 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 14:37:52 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Water Returns/Flows Message-ID: <003901c8b153$c5e0dff0$0201a8c0@optiplex> I understand from informed sources that the Bureau's solicitors have decided to maintain the April 1 water type year forecast for Trinity River. That means returns of water to the river and flows will be as determined originally by Program participants - daily flows and graphs of which I've provided to you previously. Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sat May 10 16:26:27 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 16:26:27 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Watershed Coordination Grants.gov Message-ID: <002001c8b3b2$dcb85e40$766c3940@trinitycounty.org> DOI Department of the Interior U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Shasta River CRMP Coordinator Modification 1 http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=41615 DOI Department of the Interior U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Scott River Watershed Council Coordinator Grant http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=41616 DOI Department of the Interior U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Salmon River Community Restoration Program Grant http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=41617 DOI Department of the Interior U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Lower Klamath Sub-basin Coordination and Planning Grant http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=41618 DOI Department of the Interior U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mid-Klamath River Sub-basin Planning Grant http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=41619 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon May 12 11:27:58 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 11:27:58 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: Trinity River Release changes Message-ID: <002b01c8b45d$e81caa10$0201a8c0@optiplex> Following are flow release changes to the Trinity River: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) Wed May 14, 2008 0001 6175 5850 Wed May 14, 2008 0400 5850 5450 Thurs May 15, 2008 0001 5450 5100 Thurs May 15, 2008 0400 5100 4950 Fri May 16, 2008 0001 4950 4600 Fri May 16, 2008 0400 4600 4450 Sat May 17, 2008 0001 4450 4100 Sat May 17, 2008 0400 4100 4000 From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Mon May 12 11:22:36 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 11:22:36 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release changes Message-ID: Please make the following release changes to the Trinity River: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) Wed May 14, 2008 0001 6175 5850 Wed May 14, 2008 0400 5850 5450 Thurs May 15, 2008 0001 5450 5100 Thurs May 15, 2008 0400 5100 4950 Fri May 16, 2008 0001 4950 4600 Fri May 16, 2008 0400 4600 4450 Sat May 17, 2008 0001 4450 4100 Sat May 17, 2008 0400 4100 4000 Ordered by: Peggy Manza Note: Trinity River Pulse flow ramp down From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon May 12 15:16:43 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 15:16:43 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Feds pull plug on Trinity water shift Message-ID: <00ac01c8b47d$def9e590$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Feds pull plug on Trinity water shift Eureka Times Standard ? 5/10/08 By John Driscoll, staff writer The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has backed away from a proposal to take more water from the Trinity River this year, citing a 2000 Interior Secretary decision on fisheries restoration. Reclamation was considering a shift from a normal year to a dry year, which would have stifled releases from Lewiston Dam to the river. Water managers were looking to possibly adjust the seasonal forecast used to craft the flows to reflect conditions in May, instead of the April 1 date called for in the 2000 record of decision. ?It's what the record of decision calls for,? said bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken. Much of the state is headed for drought, and snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is poor. Conditions have been dry in the northern part of the state as well, after substantial precipitation earlier in the year. Trinity River advocates protested the possible decision by reclamation, saying the river should not suffer because of what they called mismanagement of the Sacramento River delta water system in recent years. Half of the Trinity River's water is diverted to the Sacramento, then pumped from the delta to farms and cities to the south. Flows meant to aid fisheries restoration are released beginning in April. A shift in the water year type would have crimped releases to the river. The Hoopa Valley Tribe wrote in a May 6 letter to reclamation that such a move would be patently illegal. ?There is no legal justification for such a 'transition' and the Hoopa Valley Tribe urges you to refrain from taking such a damaging action,? wrote tribal counsel Tom Schlosser. Schlosser also pointed out that the addition of spawning gravel into the upper river is occurring now, and requires high flows to move the material effectively. Reclamation officials met with members of the council that sets policy for the river this week, and on Thursday informed the group that the issue was now settled. # http://www.times-standard.com/ci_9216302?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com Trinity River water flow running at normal level despite drier weather http://www.redding.com/news/2008/may/11/trinity-river-water-flow-running-at-normal-level/ By Dylan Darling (Contact) Sunday, May 11, 2008 Even though it's been relatively dry for the last 2? months, water flows down the Trinity River are running as strong as they would in a normal year. That means 647,000 acre-feet of water will be allowed to flow in the river this year, rather than the reduced flow of 453,00 acre-feet that would have followed a "dry" year declaration, said Jeff McCracken, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Sacramento. An acre-foot is enough water to flood an acre of land with a foot of water. "It's going to take more water out of Trinity" Lake, McCracken said. The flow schedule was established in early April and the bureau considered reducing it last week. But a review of a 2000 federal court ruling guiding management of the river showed that such a change would be illegal, said Brian Person, manager of the bureau's Northern California Area Office. "So we are staying with the normal year hydrograph," he said. A hydrograph is a chart that plots reservoir releases down a river over time. Although Person said the higher flows this summer on the Trinity will help the fish in the river, reducing the water level in Trinity Lake could pose a problem down the road, said Tom Stokely, Trinity County planner and river advocate. "If we have another dry year after this we are going to have some serious temperature problems on the Trinity and Sacramento rivers," he said. About half of the releases from the Trinity Lake go to the Trinity River, while the other half is diverted into the Sacramento River system, McCracken said. Critics of the bureau's failed plan to lower flows on the Trinity said that reducing the flows likely would mean increased diversions to the Sacramento and irrigators whose acres are south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. "That would have been a bonanza for the south-of-the-delta folks," said Tom Scholosser, an attorney for the Hoopa Valley Tribe who has been involved with debates over Trinity water for years. Tom Birmingham, manager of Westlands Water District, declined to comment on the Trinity flows. The district encompasses more than 600,000 acres of farmland in western Fresno and Kings counties. When the Trinity River was dammed in the 1960s, much of its water was diverted into the Sacramento River. But the Trinity River experienced a major decline in its fishery, said Spreck Rosekrans, senior analyst with the Environmental Defense Fund's San Francisco office. In 2000, a federal judge ordered the bureau to put more water down the river each year in an effort to restore the fish habitat. The flows each year are based on declarations of "normal" or "dry" years, which are declared after a review of inflow forecasts made in early April. Rosekrans said that leaves room for the weather to change after the year is declared, but it shouldn't be changed because things will even out. In 2005, the scenario was opposite of this year, with a dry year turning wet after April. "They didn't change (the year type) then and they shouldn't change it now," he said. Reporter Dylan Darling can be reached at 225-8266 or at ddarling at redding.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed May 14 11:02:41 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 11:02:41 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] May 22 Kiosk Celebration Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C6E1@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Good morning, This is a reminder that at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 22, we will be celebrating the newly refurbished and updated interpretive kiosk at the Trinity River Hatchery. I know this is a busy time of year, but I hope as many of you as possible will be able to attend. In particular, I hope that many of the TMC and TAMWG principals will be there to share in the "ribbon cutting". The Forest Service has graciously arranged for refreshments and other logistics. They are also sending out a press release to news outlets, so we may get some very positive media coverage. Once again, thanks to the members of the Core Design Team and Review Team for their great efforts who have made this event possible. Looking forward to seeing you on May 22, Doug ___________________________________ Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director Trinity River Restoration Program P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. Weaverville, CA 96093 (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov ___________________________________ From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri May 16 09:12:46 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 09:12:46 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] River Safety on North Coast Rivers Message-ID: <002801c8b76f$b0628a80$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> NEWS Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture Six Rivers National Forest http://www.r5.fs.fed.us/sixrivers 1330 Bayshore Way Eureka, CA 95501 Contact: Julie Ranieri 707-441-3673 For Immediate Release May 15, 2008 River Safety on North Coast Rivers EUREKA ? With above normal snow pack this year, North Coast rivers are remaining high and cold this spring. River enthusiasts enjoying the unseasonably warm weather are reminded this will be an extraordinary year for water flows on nearly all rivers within the Six Rivers National Forest. With this year?s high water, many river channels have changed bringing new dynamics to certain stretches of river. ?When you venture to the river this year, you may find drastic changes, from new beaches to no beaches, to a completely different location of the river channel,? stated Bob Hemus, River Manager for the Six Rivers National Forest. Annual high water levels often create new river hazards such as submerged trees and debris to totally changing a rapid?s location. By following some simple safety guidelines you can make your trek to the river a safe one. Some safety tips to keep in mind while in and around the water: ? Know the stretch of river. Honestly assess your boating ability and avoid a run that is beyond your skills. Overconfidence can quickly get you into trouble. When in doubt, stop and scout! ? Never go out alone. Let someone know your trip plans before you leave. ? Remember ? cold water can drain your mental and physical strength quickly. Dress appropriately for the weather and water conditions and always wear safety equipment. ? Parents should keep a watchful eye on kids and always have them wear a life jacket ? Everyone, including adults, should wear a life jacket. ?With a wide selection of professional whitewater outfitter guides in our area, you are encouraged to use them to enjoy your favorite river safely this year,? said Hemus. Most outfitter guides operate under permit from National Forests. Have fun while recreating on and around the river, but do so in a safe manner. Contact Bob Hemus at 530-627-3291 or the Forest Service office closest to where they?ll be recreating to find out the latest river conditions and any other safety information. For additional safety tips, visit the Water Safety Coalition of Northwest California website at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sixrivers/recreation/water-safety/ . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri May 16 12:14:45 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 12:14:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Co. Nat Resources Phones down Message-ID: <005901c8b789$1c740ff0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Our county departments have been re-organized and there have been many physical changes. Consequently, we just lost our phone service a little while ago. We are not sure exactly when we will have it again, but I am told that we should have it back by/on Monday. Our new number should be 530.623.1458. We will keep you posted. There should be no interruption of email however and that will be the best way to communicate in the interim. We apologize for any inconvenience. Our new fax number will be 623-1646 and it is operational. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources PO Box 2819 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1458 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri May 16 17:08:21 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 17:08:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] BA on CVP OCAP out for Review Message-ID: <015c01c8b7b2$51bece60$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Mid-Pacific Region Sacramento, Calif. Media Contact: Jeffrey McCracken (916) 978-5100 Released On: May 16, 2008 Reclamation and California DWR Requesting Formal Consultation with USFWS and NMFS on the Continued Long-Term Operation of the CVP and SWP; Biological Assessment is Released A key point has been reached in the process to address current and future operations of the State Water Project (SWP) and the Central Valley Project (CVP) to divert, store, and convey CVP and SWP water consistent with applicable laws and contractual obligations. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) are requesting consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on species listed under the Endangered Species Act. These species consist of the delta smelt, winter-run and spring run Chinook salmon, coho salmon, green sturgeon, steelhead, and killer whales. With the formal request, Reclamation and DWR provided a Biological Assessment, which is intended to provide a thorough analysis of the continued long-term operations of the two projects and the effects of the projects' operations on listed species and designated Critical Habitat. The document can be viewed on Reclamation's website at http://www.usbr.gov/mp/. If you encounter problems accessing the Biological Assessment online, please contact Ms. Lynnette Wirth at 916-978-5102 or lwirth at mp.usbr.gov. # # # Reclamation is the largest wholesale water supplier and the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the United States, with operations and facilities in the 17 Western States. Its facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits. Visit our website at www.usbr.gov. Relevant Links: Document Source Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Accessibility | FOIA | Quality of Information | FAQ | Notices DOI | Recreation.gov | USA.gov -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon May 19 11:14:20 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 11:14:20 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Flow Changes Message-ID: <001501c8b9dc$2cb03bf0$0201a8c0@optiplex> Following are changes in water returns to Trinity River: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) May 22, 2008 0100 4000 3857 May 23, 2008 0100 3857 3717 May 24, 2008 0100 3717 3583 May 25, 2008 0100 3583 3453 May 26, 2008 0100 3453 3328 May 27, 2008 0100 3328 3208 May 28, 2008 0100 3208 3092 May 29, 2008 0100 3092 2980 Ordered by: Peggy Manza USBR Note: Trinity River Pulse Flow Ramp-down Byron Leydecker Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue May 20 08:52:33 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 08:52:33 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Still no phones at Natural Resources Message-ID: <002b01c8ba91$8665c560$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> There are still no phones or photocopy machine at the Trinity County Natural Resources Division. We have no idea when we will have operational phones, so if you need to talk to anybody, please send an e-mail with your phone number. All e-mail addresses are firstinitiallastname at trinitycounty.org We also have a new PO Box, which is 1445. We have a new phone number which is 530-623-1458 that will be operational eventually We have a new fax number which is 530-623-1646. It works now. Sincerely, Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 530-623-1458 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Mon May 19 10:17:21 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 10:17:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release changes Message-ID: Please make the following release changes to the Trinity River: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) May 22, 2008 0100 4000 3857 May 23, 2008 0100 3857 3717 May 24, 2008 0100 3717 3583 May 25, 2008 0100 3583 3453 May 26, 2008 0100 3453 3328 May 27, 2008 0100 3328 3208 May 28, 2008 0100 3208 3092 May 29, 2008 0100 3092 2980 Ordered by: Peggy Manza Note: Trinity River Pulse Flow Ramp-down From John.McKeon at NOAA.GOV Tue May 20 11:00:31 2008 From: John.McKeon at NOAA.GOV (John McKeon) Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 11:00:31 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] env-trinity Digest, Vol 52, Issue 13 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <483311BF.2040405@noaa.gov> Tom, The usbr link for the ocap BA says it is still under review- available soon env-trinity-request at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us wrote: > Send env-trinity mailing list submissions to > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > env-trinity-request at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > > You can reach the person managing the list at > env-trinity-owner at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of env-trinity digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Trinity Co. Nat Resources Phones down (Tom Stokely) > 2. BA on CVP OCAP out for Review (Tom Stokely) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 12:14:45 -0700 > From: "Tom Stokely" > Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Co. Nat Resources Phones down > To: "Trinity List" > Message-ID: <005901c8b789$1c740ff0$2a28a8c0 at trinitycounty.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" > > Our county departments have been re-organized and there have been many physical changes. Consequently, we just lost our phone service a little while ago. We are not sure exactly when we will have it again, but I am told that we should have it back by/on Monday. Our new number should be 530.623.1458. We will keep you posted. There should be no interruption of email however and that will be the best way to communicate in the interim. We apologize for any inconvenience. Our new fax number will be 623-1646 and it is operational. > > Tom Stokely > Principal Planner > Trinity Co. Planning/Natural Resources > PO Box 2819 > 60 Glen Rd. > Weaverville, CA 96093-2819 > 530-623-1458 > FAX 623-1646 > tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20080516/40cc0010/attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 17:08:21 -0700 > From: "Tom Stokely" > Subject: [env-trinity] BA on CVP OCAP out for Review > To: "Trinity List" > Message-ID: <015c01c8b7b2$51bece60$2a28a8c0 at trinitycounty.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" > > Mid-Pacific Region > Sacramento, Calif. > Media Contact: > Jeffrey McCracken > (916) 978-5100 > > > Released On: May 16, 2008 > > Reclamation and California DWR Requesting Formal Consultation with USFWS and NMFS on the Continued Long-Term Operation of the CVP and SWP; Biological Assessment is Released > A key point has been reached in the process to address current and future operations of the State Water Project (SWP) and the Central Valley Project (CVP) to divert, store, and convey CVP and SWP water consistent with applicable laws and contractual obligations. > > The Federal Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) are requesting consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on species listed under the Endangered Species Act. These species consist of the delta smelt, winter-run and spring run Chinook salmon, coho salmon, green sturgeon, steelhead, and killer whales. With the formal request, Reclamation and DWR provided a Biological Assessment, which is intended to provide a thorough analysis of the continued long-term operations of the two projects and the effects of the projects' operations on listed species and designated Critical Habitat. > > The document can be viewed on Reclamation's website at http://www.usbr.gov/mp/. If you encounter problems accessing the Biological Assessment online, please contact Ms. Lynnette Wirth at 916-978-5102 or lwirth at mp.usbr.gov. > > > > > # # # > Reclamation is the largest wholesale water supplier and the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the United States, with operations and facilities in the 17 Western States. Its facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits. Visit our website at www.usbr.gov. > Relevant Links: > Document Source > > > > Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Accessibility | FOIA | Quality of Information | FAQ | Notices > DOI | Recreation.gov | USA.gov > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20080516/9cc2e509/attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > env-trinity mailing list > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity > > > End of env-trinity Digest, Vol 52, Issue 13 > ******************************************* > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed May 21 12:36:09 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 12:36:09 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] CVP OCAP BA available Message-ID: <00b901c8bb7a$3bf70db0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> The Biological Assessment for the Central Valley Project Operations Criteria and Plan is now located at the following website http://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/ocapBA_051608.html , contrary to prior e-mails. Please note new contact information (but the phones still don't work): Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Vina_Frye at fws.gov Wed May 28 10:35:43 2008 From: Vina_Frye at fws.gov (Vina_Frye at fws.gov) Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 10:35:43 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Federal Register June 2008 Message-ID: Hi Folks, The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG) meeting notice for June 9-10, 2008, was published in the Federal Register today. Best regards, Vina Vina Frye U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Arcata FWO 1655 Heindon Road Arcata, CA 95521 Telephone: (707) 822-7201 Fax: (707) 822-8411 vina_frye at fws.gov [Federal Register: May 28, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 103)] [Notices] [Page 30625] >From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr28my08-58] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Fish and Wildlife Service [FWS-R1-FHC-2008-N00133; 81331-1334-8TWG-W4] Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. ACTION: Notice of meeting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG) affords stakeholders the opportunity to give policy, management, and technical input concerning Trinity River (California) restoration efforts to the Trinity Management Council (TMC). This notice announces a TAMWG meeting, which is open to the public. DATES: TAMWG will meet from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, June 9, 2008 and from 8:30 to 1 on Tuesday, June 10, 2008. ADDRESSES: The meeting will be held at the Weaverville Victorian Inn, 1709 Main St., 299 West, Weaverville, CA 96093. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Randy A. Brown of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1655 Heindon Road, Arcata, CA 95521; telephone: (707) 822-7201. Randy A. Brown is the TAMWG Designated Federal Officer. For background information and questions regarding the Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP), please contact Douglas Schleusner, Executive Director, Trinity River Restoration Program, P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main Street, Weaverville, CA 96093; telephone: (530) 623- 1800; E-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.), this notice announces a meeting of the (TAMWG). Primary objectives of the meeting will include discussion of the following topics: Reservoir operations, minimum pool criteria, and carryover storage policies, Steelhead population trends and Trinity River Hatchery steelhead production, TRRP decision making/CDR situation assessment, Updates on TRRP budget, flow schedule, monitoring activities, and TAMWG membership appointments. Completion of the agenda is dependent on the amount of time each item takes. The meeting could end early if the agenda has been completed. Dated: May 13, 2008. Joseph Polos, Supervisory Fishery Biologist, Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office, Arcata, CA. [FR Doc. E8-11837 Filed 5-27-08; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4310-55-P From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Wed May 28 13:11:13 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 13:11:13 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release changes Message-ID: Please make the following release changes to the Trinity River: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) May 30, 2008 0100 2980 2872 May 31, 2008 0100 2872 2768 June 1, 2008 0100 2768 2668 June 2, 2008 0100 2668 2572 June 3, 2008 0100 2572 2479 June 4, 2008 0100 2479 2389 June 5, 2008 0100 2389 2303 June 6, 2008 0100 2303 2219 June 7, 2008 0100 2219 2139 June 8, 2008 0100 2139 2062 June 9, 2008 0100 2062 2000 hold releases at 2000 cfs through July 9, 2008 Ordered by: Peggy Manza Note: Trinity River Pulse Flow Ramp-down From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu May 29 08:57:03 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 08:57:03 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Spring Chinook Symposium and Coho Confab Message-ID: <008901c8c1a6$41877f30$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Tracy Katelman, ASJE To: ncrji ncrji Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 7:40 PM Subject: [NC Rest Jobs] Spring Chinook Symposium and Coho Confab Hello, SRF has two exciting events this summer: the 3rd Annual Spring-run Chinook Symposium and the 11th Annual Coho Confab. I have pasted our updated event announcements below. Please feel free - even encouraged! - to share these PSAs with your co-workers, constituents, list-serves, Events calendars, or other organizations you think might find these events useful and enjoyable. Thank you for your help in spreading the word! 3rd Annual Spring-run Chinook Symposium July 10-12, Nevada City, CA The Salmonid Restoration Federation's 3rd Annual Spring-run Chinook Symposium will be held in Nevada City on July 10 followed by field tours on the Yuba River and Butte Creek on July 11 & 12. Symposium presentations include Ecological Perspectives on Spring-run Chinook salmon. Session topics will highlight status of populations and specific recovery opportunities for Central Valley Rivers, and recovery challenges including FERC relicensing, climate change, and resurrecting the Klamath run. Afternoon panels will representatives from DFG, NOAA Fisheries, SYRCL, State Water Board and Conservation Groups will discuss recovery through habitat expansion, water supply, and water quality improvements. Field tours will include a Yuba River float, site visits to the Bear-River Feather Set-back Project by way of the Lower Yuba, a Restoration thru Relicensing Driving Tour, Snorkeling Investigations of the South Yuba River, and a Butte Creek tour of Spring-run Fish Populations. Symposium and field tour costs are $105-135 depending on advanced registration which closes on June 15. Click here to see the registration form. 11th Annual Coho Confab: Dates Changed September 26-28 on the Smith River SRF, Trees Foundation, Smith River Advisory Council, and the Smith River Alliance will host the 11th Annual Coho Confab featuring tours of Mill Creek restoration projects, road decommissioning and fish passage projects, underwater fish identification, macro-invertebrate sampling, native plant revegetation, and instream structures. Participants can explore the South Fork of the Smith River, Redwood Parks, and Yontucket Slough and the estuary. Fee $100-125, includes all food and lodging. Limited scholarships and work trade positions are available. For more info, please call (707) 923-7501 or visit the SRF web site. Heather Reese Project Coordinator Salmonid Restoration Federation PO Box 784 Redway, California 95560 (707) 923-7501 heather at calsalmon.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu May 29 16:38:33 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 16:38:33 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Journal News Article re: Interpretive Kiosk Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C6F7@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Hi All - I've attached the news article that followed our opening ceremony/re-dedication of the fish hatchery kiosk on May 22nd. I was very pleased to see that they named all the core team members without whom this exhibit may never have happened. Once again, I'd like to thank you all for your contributions. For those unable to attend the opening, I hope next time you're in the area you find time to visit the kiosk. R/Diana Diana Clifton Realty Specialist Trinity River Restoration Program NC-155C (530) 623-1804 (530) 623-5944 FAX dclifton at mp.usbr.gov -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: TrinityJournal_May28_2008_Kiosk.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 554763 bytes Desc: TrinityJournal_May28_2008_Kiosk.pdf URL: From awhitridge at snowcrest.net Tue Jun 3 09:03:49 2008 From: awhitridge at snowcrest.net (Arnold Whitridge) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 09:03:49 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] TAMWG agenda for June 9-10 Message-ID: <01B0AC88C36D4A6398BB78F635745957@arnold7c7zvi7i> Here's the proposed agenda for the June 9-10 meeting of the Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group. Arnold Whitridge, TAMWG chair Proposed Agenda TRINITY ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT WORKING GROUP Victorian Inn (large room), 1709 Main Street, Weaverville, CA June 9 and 10, 2008 Time Presentation, Discussion, and/or Action on: Presenter Monday, June 9 1. 1:00 pm Adopt agenda; approve March minutes 2. 1:10 Open forum; public comment 3. 1:20 Steelhead goals, trends, and hatchery production Wade Sinnen, DFG 4. 2:30 Reservoir minimum pool and carryover storage policies BOR Central Valley Operations Office (invited) 5. 4:00 Flow-related monitoring activities Rod Wittler 6. 4:30 Integrated Assessment Plan update Rod Wittler 5:00 Adjourn for the day Tuesday, June 10 7. 8:30 Designated Federal Officer topics Randy Brown 8. 8:45 TRRP 2008 and 2009 budget update Doug Schleusner 9. 9:15 Executive Director's Report Doug Schleusner 10. 9:45 CDR Situation Assessment; TRRP decisionmaking group discussion 11. 11:45 Tentative date and agenda topics for next meeting 12:00 Adjourn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jun 3 09:11:58 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 09:11:58 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] U.S. EPA Watershed Funding Opportunities: CA Coast and SFBay Message-ID: <003501c8c594$c64fcf50$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> >>> 6/2/2008 9:29 AM >>> U.S. EPA Announces Two Watershed Funding Opportunities - http://www.epa.gov/region09/funding/rfps.html West Coast Estuaries Initiative - CA Coast: http://www.epa.gov/region09/funding/west-coast-estuaries.html U.S. EPA seeks proposals under this announcement for projects that conserve, restore and protect the water quality, habitat and environment of California coastal waters, estuaries, bays and near shore waters through comprehensive approaches to water quality management. The emphasis is on supporting implementation activities based on existing plans, such as Comprehensive Conservation Management Plans (Clean Water Act Section 320), State programs such as Integrated Regional Water Management Plans, and local watershed plans. Three to five grants or cooperative agreements will be awarded. The federal share of the awards will range from approximately $250,000 to no more than $1,000,000 each with project periods of three to five years. Proposals are due by August 25, 2008. Contact: Ephraim D. Leon-Guerrero, leon-guerrero.ephraim at epa.gov, (415) 972-3444. Please forward this email to others who may be interested. ThankYou! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sam Ziegler Chief, Watersheds Office (WTR-3) U.S. EPA Region 9, Water Division 75 Hawthorne Street San Francisco, CA 94105 (415) 972-3399 (phone) (415) 947-3537 (fax) ziegler.sam at epa.gov (email) From jallen at trinitycounty.org Tue Jun 3 09:55:20 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 09:55:20 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: lecturer position at HSU Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C6FB@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Hi Tom and Josh, I hope your summer is beginning well. You may have heard that Mike Smith has left HSU for the bright lights of D.C. We are trying to find suitable teachers for next year - and possibly the year after. So, in case you feel like sharing some of your expertise...on a part time basis - or know someone else who might: Below is a job announcement we are circulating. Please post and forward to anyone interested. Thank you. We are seeking Part-time lecturers to teach any or all of the following courses beginning August 2008: ? Introduction to Environmental and Natural Resources Planning, ? Environmental Impact Assessment, ? Grant Proposal Writing. B.A./B.S. required; M.A./M.S. preferred. For full qualification and application information, go to: http://www.humboldt.edu/~aps/employment/pool.html See our listing under Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences. Please submit all application materials by June 12, 2008 to: Dr. Steven R. Martin, Department Chair Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences Humboldt State University 1 Harpst Street, Arcata, CA 95521-8299 Ph: (707)826-4147 Fax: (707) 826-4145 steven.martin at humboldt.edu HSU is an EO/Title IX/ADA Employ?er. Dr. Yvonne Everett, Associate Professor NR Planning Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences Department 1 Harpst St. Humboldt State University Arcata, CA 95521-8299 (707) 826-4188; fax (707) 826-4145 yvonne.everett at humboldt.edu From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jun 3 14:10:34 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 14:10:34 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Northcoast Journal Dialogue on Klamath Settlement and NEC Response Message-ID: <002b01c8c5be$4903e7f0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> http://www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2008/05/22/drying/ Drying Up By Hank Sims Is the Klamath Settlement Agreement dying? Not yet, but the proposal to end years of one of the West's most vitriolic water wars isn't looking too healthy right now. For the last couple of years, fishermen and environmentalists and Indians and farmers sat around a table, trying to reach an agreement that would share Klamath water, and to improve the overall health of the river. They wanted to avoid the water shutdown of 2001, in which upstream farmers were deprived of the ability to irrigate their crops in order to save fish. And they wanted to avoid the fish kill of 2002, in which as many as 70,000 salmon died in the river in order to save the crops. Given all the vitriol that preceded the settlement talks, it is remarkable that two of the major antagonists in the battle ? the farmers and (most of) the Native Americans ? were able to find common ground. The settlement they came to would institute an on-the-ground management team that would control river flows at any given moment, within certain bounds set up by the agreement. It seeks to account for nearly all of the species and interest groups that use the river ? not only the coho and chinook salmon and the people who depend on them, but the upstream sturgeon, suckerfish and farmers as well. The agreement is supposed to go to Congress with the support of all the interest groups, who will be vigorously lobbying to make its provisions law. Now, though, there are two hold-ups. For one, the agreement hinges on another agreement. The groups involved are petitioning investor Warren Buffett, the world's richest man, to agree to remove the four hydropower dams his PacifiCorp company owns on the Klamath. PacifiCorp is under a court order to provide for fish passage past the dams, and studies have shown that it would be cheaper in the long run to remove them altogether and return much of the Klamath to the wild. But PacifiCorp is nowhere to be seen. The settlement group has been waiting two months for a promised PacificCorp status report on the dams, and many are giving up hope that it will ever arrive. Just as troubling, parts of the coalition that sat around the table, hammering out that agreement, are now crumbling. Unlike the Karuk, the Yurok and the upstream Klamath tribes, the Hoopa Valley Tribe has refused to sign on, concerned that the agreement does not offer enough guaranteed protection for salmon. Two Oregonian environmental groups departed company from the settlement coalition last year, saying that the Bush administration had hijacked the process and guaranteed farmers too much. Now, the local Northcoast Environmental Center has dropped out, and with the stakes this high that's led to some immense frustration. "I just felt like the NEC has shot from the hip, and they became critical of the agreement before they did their homework," said Karuk Tribe spokesperson Craig Tucker last week. After the agreement was published, the NEC hired two scientists to review it. The conclusion they came to was that it contained insufficient protections for salmon runs. After the group received the scientists' report, they pulled out of the agreement. But that seemed to fly in the face of the science that had gone into drafting the report, and earlier this month the parties to the agreement held a "science summit" to address the NEC scientists' concerns. One of the two scientists recanted, especially after Dr. Thomas Hardy, widely acknowledged as the most knowledgeable person on the Klamath system, endorsed the settlement. The other of the NEC's scientist had not yet changed his view, and the NEC is holding out for his follow-up report before reconsidering its position. There's a lot of hard feelings right now. NEC Executive Director Greg King said last week that the stakes are too high not to be absolutely certain. "We can't have the fish on the brink of extinction year after year," he said. He said that his organization, like Hoopa Valley, would like to see guaranteed amounts of water for salmon, and also an end to farming in wildlife refuges in the upper basin. But Tucker ? while insisting that he still respects the NEC ? said that the group had plenty of opportunities to bring any concerns to the table while the agreement was being hashed out, and failed to do so. Now time has run out, and the stakes on the river are too high for quibbling. "I wouldn't say it's not their place to bring up a concern," Tucker said. "But, shit, they had two years." http://www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2008/05/29/kings-salmon/ King's Salmon By North Coast Journal Readers Editor: The Karuk Tribe?s representative Craig Tucker has been making the rounds, both on the media front and in the rumor mill, to discredit the Northcoast Environmental Center?s position on Klamath dam settlement talks. (?Town Dandy,? May 22) Tucker?s pitch is unfortunate. He contends that the NEC has had ?two years? to bring up our concerns. He says we ?shot from the hip? and ?didn?t do (our) homework? before stating our position. Tucker knows these statements are untrue. First, two years is a short time to craft an agreement of this magnitude. The settlement group has been through 11 drafts of the agreement, and we?ve been waiting three months for draft 12 to see what, if any, of the NEC?s proposed changes ? the result of real homework ? have actually made it into the Agreement. Obviously the NEC has not ?dropped out? of the settlement process, as I made clear to Hank Sims when we spoke on this point. We attend every three-day meeting held by the settlement group, and we continue to stretch our budget to pay scientists and lawyers to identify and correct some of the potentially devastating elements of the settlement agreement. This effort has resulted in a thorough vetting of the scientific assumptions contained in the agreement, in essence compelling federal scientists to do more of their own homework to provide the settlement group with a full set of environmental documents, which has occurred during the last month. Problems remain. The only water guarantee in the Settlement Agreement goes to Upper Basin farmers. Water for fish? Sorry, no guarantees. There?s no minimum flow requirement to protect fish. Meanwhile, under the agreement the ag allocation in dry years could reach 40,000 acre feet more than the amount currently allowed under a court-imposed biological opinion issued to protect Coho salmon. Even if we had a dam removal deal in front of us today those dams wouldn?t come down for another 15 to 20 years, quite possibly longer. (And of course we still have no agreement with PacifiCorp.) What will happen in the interim? The guaranteed allocation for farmers with dams still in could result in another disastrous fish kill. In addition, the agreement insists that all parties support chemical-intensive farming in the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, something the NEC has always opposed. Last year two settlement parties that objected to these provisions ? Oregon Wild and WaterWatch ? were ejected from the negotiations. (They didn?t ?depart company,? as Sims wrote.) This is not some kumbaya moment. Klamath settlement has been a hardcore negotiating process, often dominated by upriver irrigators, their skillful (and well-paid) Sacramento attorney and the Bush administration. The NEC has hung in there and insisted on good science and water for fish, as our 6,000 members expect. We do not appreciate Craig Tucker?s almost daily issuance of misinformation about our work. We need to work together to get those dams out, and to provide fish with the water they need. Greg King, Executive Director, Northcoast Environmental Center -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed Jun 4 09:47:04 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 09:47:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Website updated with kiosk photos Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C703@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Good morning, For those of you who were unable to attend the "ribbon cutting" for the newly renovated interpretive kiosk at the Trinity River Hatchery, we've just updated our homepage on the website with a series of photos of the completed project. I think you'll agree that the Core Team of Josh Allen (Trinity County), Diana Clifton (TRRP), Sheri Harral (Reclamation), Leslie Hunt (HVT), Mike Odle (USFS), and Dana Wullenwaber (DFG) did a great job. Thanks also go to the many others who reviewed or otherwise contributed to the effort. I hope many of you will have the chance to visit the site this summer. Doug ___________________________________ Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director Trinity River Restoration Program P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. Weaverville, CA 96093 (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov ___________________________________ From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jun 4 10:24:08 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:24:08 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Judge Rules Against TriMet in Free Speech Case over Klamath Dams Ad Message-ID: <011801c8c66b$728c5960$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 5:27 PM Subject: Judge Rules Against TriMet in Free Speech Case over Klamath Dams Ad Judge Rules Against TriMet in Free Speech Case over Klamath Dams Ad? Judge Henry C. Breithaupt ruled Monday that Trimet Bus Company's refusal of a ?political? advertisement urging PacifiCorp ratepayers to support Klamath River dam removal was unconstitutional, on both state and federal grounds. This is a big victory for both free speech and river restoration. I greatly commend the Karuk Tribe, Friends of the River and the ACLU for standing up for free speech in a time of increasing restrictions on freedom of expression by the federal, state and local governments and in this case, a public bus company! David Fidanque, Executive Director of the ACLU of Oregon, said, "No public transit system should be able to put itself above the state or federal constitution.? I wholeheartedly agree!? 640_trimet_rejected_ad.jpg original image ( 2400x1029) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE? Contacts:? David Fidanque, Executive Director, ACLU of Oregon, (541) 954-7731? S. Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign Coordinator, Karuk Tribe of California? (530) 627-3446 Ext. 3027 (office) or (916) 207-8294 (cell)? Kelly Catlett, Hydropower Reform Policy Advocate, Friends of the River? (916) 442-3155 Ext. 223? Judge Rules Against TriMet in Free Speech Case? JUNE 3, 2008 ? Judge Henry C. Breithaupt ruled Monday that TriMet?s refusal of a ?political? advertisement was unconstitutional, on both state and federal grounds. The ACLU of Oregon?s victory on behalf on the Karuk Tribe of California and the Friends of the River Foundation makes clear that TriMet cannot violate free speech protections as it picks and chooses what ads to accept or deny.? Judge Breithaupt ruled that TriMet does not have to make its buses available for advertisements, but that if it does ?it places itself in the same position as a government ? (and) may not ? violate the Oregon Constitution.? TriMet?s decision to deny an ad, the judge ruled, may not be based on the content of that ad.? ?This is an important victory for free speech in Oregon,? said David Fidanque, Executive Director of the ACLU of Oregon. ?No public transit system should be able to put itself above the state or federal constitution.?? The Karuk Tribe and Friends of the River had sought to place an ad on TriMet buses regarding the damage done to salmon runs by electricity-generating dams, owned by Portland-based Pacific Power, on the Klamath River. The ad depicts three salmon facing a wall of electrical sockets, along with the caption, ?Salmon shouldn?t run up your electric bill. They should run up the Klamath River.? The ad then directs the public to a website ? http://www.salmonforsavings.com ? for more information. (A copy of the ad is attached.)? TriMet?s Advertising Standards Committee rejected the proposed ad on the grounds that it did not constitute an ?advertisement? and that the public transit agency did not want its buses or property ?to become a public forum for the dissemination, debate, and/or discussion of public issues.? The ACLU appealed the committee?s decision to TriMet?s general manager, who in a letter dated Jan. 18, 2008, upheld the rejection.? The ACLU argued that both rejections represent an unlawful restriction on speech in violation of Article 1, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The judge agreed with the ACLU on both counts. TriMet may appeal the decision to the Oregon Court of Appeals.? The Karuk Tribe and Friends of the River seek to restore healthy salmon populations to the Klamath River. Their objective is the removal of PacifiCorp?s lower four Klamath River dams, allowing salmon to access more than 300 miles of their historic habitat.? The Karuk Tribe and Friends of the River cite economic studies by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission that show removing the dams and purchasing renewable replacement energy would save Pacific Power ratepayers about $100 million.? ?We are pleased that the judge upheld the rights of Pacific Power?s customers to hear that dam removal can save them a significant amount of money,? said Kelly Catlett, Hydropower Reform Policy Advocate for Friends of the River.? Thomas M. Christ of Cosgrave Vergeer Kester LLP is the ACLU?s cooperating attorney on this case.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 640_trimet_rejected_ad.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 164344 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed Jun 4 12:19:06 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 12:19:06 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] We live in Bigfoot Country Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C706@mail3.trinitycounty.org> The Bushnell, Field & Stream magazine $1,000,000 Sasquatch Photo Challenge: http://www.fstrailcamcontest.com/Rules/MillionDollarGiveaway/ Roger Patterson Bigfoot, 1967 Bluff Creek, Six Rivers National Forest -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 13082 bytes Desc: image002.jpg URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed Jun 4 14:50:18 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 14:50:18 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: We live in Bigfoot Country Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C709@mail3.trinitycounty.org> -----Original Message----- From: Dennis Garrison [mailto:dgarrison at fs.fed.us] Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 2:43 PM To: Josh Allen Subject: Re: [env-trinity] We live in Bigfoot Country I have a picture of Loren Everest. Is that close enough? Dennis Garrison Wildlife Biologist Paonia Ranger District Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests Paonia, Colorado 970-527-4131 x 4259 From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 5 08:46:36 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 08:46:36 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: Governor Schwarzenegger Proclaims Drought, Calls For New Dams Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C70C@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Governor Schwarzenegger Proclaims Drought, Calls For New Dams Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used his press conference at the on Tuesday at the State Capitol, where he signed an executive order proclaiming a drought in California, as yet another opportunity to campaign for his plan to build more dams and improve "conveyance"- a euphemism for the construction of the peripheral canal. unknown-2.jpg Governor Uses Drought Proclamation As Opportunity to Push for Dams by Dan Bacher Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a drought proclamation and called for "immediate action" at a press conference at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Tuesday, using the event to campaign for his plan to build more dams and "improve conveyance"- a euphemism for the construction of the peripheral canal - to increase water exports from the California Delta to agribusiness and southern California. For the areas in Northern California that supply most of our water, this March, April and May have been the driest ever in our recorded history, Governor Schwarzenegger said. As a result, some local governments are rationing water, developments cant proceed and agricultural fields are sitting idle." The final snow survey of 2008 in May by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) showed snowpack water content at only 67 percent of normal and the runoff forecast at only 55 percent of normal. Before gathered members of the press and the governor's staff including DWR Director Lester Snow, and Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, the Governor signed an Executive Order proclaiming a "statewide drought" and directing the Department of Water Resources and other entities to take "immediate action" to address the situation. The Executive Order does not mandate water rationing, but relies on voluntary measures, so it is largely symbolic. The order directs the DWR "to facilitate water transfers to respond to emergency shortages across the state and work with local water districts and agencies to improve local coordination and help local water districts and agencies improve water efficiency and conservation." The order also directs DWR "to coordinate with other state and federal agencies and departments to assist water suppliers, identify risks to water supply and help farmers suffering losses, and expedite existing grant programs to help local water districts and agencies conserve." The document also encourages local water districts and agencies to voluntarily promote water conservation."They are encouraged to work cooperatively on the regional and state level to take aggressive, immediate action to reduce water consumption locally and regionally for the remainder of 2008 and prepare for potential worsening water conditions in 2009," according to Schwarzenegger. After touting voluntary measures as the way to supply water to Californians in a drought year, Schwarzenegger used the drought declaration to highlight "the states need for infrastructure improvements to capture excess water in wet years to use in dry years like this one." This drought is an urgent reminder of the immediate need to upgrade Californias water infrastructure," Schwarzenegger stated. "There is no more time to waste because nothing is more vital to protect our economy, our environment and our quality-of-life. We must work together to ensure that California will have safe, reliable and clean water not only today but 20, 30 and 40 years from now. The Governor then renewed his call for more dams and conveyance as proposed in his $11.9 billion water bond boondoggle for "water management investments" that he claimed will "address population growth, climate change, water supply reliability and environmental needs." The proposal includes $3.5 billion dedicated to the development of additional storage, including the controversial Sites Dam in the Sacramento Valley and the Temperance Flat Dam on the San Joaquin River that a coalition of recreational fishing groups, commercial fishing organizations, Indian Tribes and environmental groups are opposing. The Governor said he would prefer to get his infrastructure plan passed through the Legislature, but did not rule out putting it on the ballot as an initiative "if that's what it takes." "But let me tell you, I prefer to do the same thing as we have done successfully in 2006, where we sat down and we negotiated and we worked together and out came $37 billion of infrastructure. And now we are rebuilding our roads and we are building extra classrooms, expanding our universities, building career-tech educational facilities and also fixing our levees," he said. He emphasized, " And I don't see water as a political issue. I think that there are Democrats that want to drink safe and reliable water and there are Republicans that want to drink safe and reliable water and they want to have a guarantee that they'll have water 20, 30 years from now. So I think it shouldn't be a party issue, it should be a people's issue and it should be an issue that is facing farmers and business people. Ordinary people, everybody is suffering when we have no water. So this is why I think Democrats and Republicans must get together and solve this problem once and for all." Traci Sheehan Van Thull, Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, criticized Schwarzenegger for using "outdated strategies" to deal with the water crisis. "Governor Schwarzenegger's drought proclamation offers up a challenge - and an opportunity - for all Californians to conserve water and to work together to find new solutions to solve our water problems," she said. "Unfortunately the Governor's executive order relies heavily on outdated strategies that have created the very problems we now seek to solve." She encouraged the Governor to embrace measures that will allow California to grow without increasing demand on already over-allocated water sources. "We need strong policies that can decrease water demand, provide climate-resilient water supplies, and truly provide relief for the communities, fisherman, businesses and ecosystems that are suffering from lack of reliable water," noted Sheehan. "More and more residents and businesses are facing severe water rationing in California, while water demands and communities continue to grow. While the Governor's proclamation references the need to provide water for our growth, his executive order relies heavily on the same sources of water that are now in decline," she said. She urged the passage of measures such as Assembly Member Krekorian's Water Efficiency Security Act, co-sponsored by the Planning and Conservation League, that would help prevent rationing by ensuring growing California communities have the water they need without further increasing water demand on over-burdened water resources. However, this measure failed to gain traction in the State Assembly. "Ensuring that new growth in California will not lead to increased rationing and exacerbate the pending water crisis is a critical step to solving California's water crisis," Sheehan said. " I found it revealing that Schwarzenegger failed to mention the impact of the salmon fisheries disaster now ravaging California and Oregon coastal and inland communities, the result of abysmal water management by the state and federal governments, in his press conference, press releases and the executive order. While agribusiness, industry and municipalities face water shortages this year, Central Valley fall run chinook salmon and California Delta fish species have faced a "man made" drought, in spite of some good water years, since 2002. The Sacramento River fall run chinook population has declined from over 800,000 fish in 2002 to less than 60,000 this year, prompting the complete closure of salmon fishing off the Oregon and California coast for the first time in history, along with the closure of Central Valley rivers to the take of salmon except for one small stretch of the Sacramento River in November and December. Some of the largest annual water export levels in history occurred in 2003 (6.3 million acre feet), 2004 (6.1 MAF), 2005 (6.5 MAF and 2006 (6.3 MAF). Exports averaged 4.6 MAF annually between 1990 and 1999 and increased to an average of 6 MAF between 2000 and 2007, a rise of almost 30 percent, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. For the fish, this massive diversion of water from the Delta amounts to a manufactured drought, engineered by the same state and federal governments that are supposedly are entrusted with protecting fish and other natural resources. The sudden and unprecedented decline of Sacramento River fall chinook salmon parallels the collapse of delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile shad and threadfin shad. These Delta "pelagic" - open water - species have declined because of three reasons (1) increases in water exports, (2) toxic chemicals and (3) invasive species, according to a team of state and federal scientists. More recently, studies point to high levels of ammonia in Sacramento River water as a factor in the collapse of salmon and other California fish species. There is no doubt we are in a drought. However, we need to use this crisis as an opportunity to mandate increased water conservation and to consider retiring drainage impaired land on the West side of the San Joaquin Valley. Sheehan's characterization of the Governor's water plans as "outdated strategies" is absolutely correct. Rather than relying on outdated strategies such as new dams and "improving" conveyance - building the peripheral canal- we need to adopt new strategies based around water conservation, sustainable agriculture and developing new sources of water such as desalination, provided it is done in an environmentally friendly and energy efficient manner. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: unknown-2.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 35469 bytes Desc: unknown-2.jpg URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jun 6 11:42:34 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 11:42:34 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] PCL Statement on Supreme Court CALFED Decision Message-ID: <00bf01c8c805$2ccb93f0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Mindy McIntyre, 916 541-8825 June 5, 2008 Planning and Conservation League Issues Statement on California Supreme Court Bay Delta Decision (SACRAMENTO) - The Planning and Conservation League, a leading statewide conservation advocacy coalition, today issued the following statement from Mindy McIntyre, Water Program Manager regarding the California Supreme Court decision validating the CALFED Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Environmental and farming groups challenged the 2000 CALFED EIR based on the failure of water agencies to examine reduced water exports from the Delta. "Today's decision is a blow to the crumbling Delta ecosystem. The decision is a result of the limited scope of information considered by the Court which excluded recent scientific evidence documenting the dramatic decline in Delta health related to increasing water diversions. As a result, today's decision condones business-as-usual management practices, which have created the Delta crisis in the first place. "Today's unfortunate decision relied on the out-dated information on the health of the Bay Delta and the relationship to water exports that was available in 2000. The Court specifically excluded consideration of scientific findings developed since 2000 that demonstrate the link between increased exports and declining fish populations. The legacy of CALFED clearly demonstrates that increased water exports without regard for the environment produces disaster for both the environment and water supply reliability. We must build on what we have learned from that experience and move forward with new Delta management and water policies that avoid disasters such as the current water crisis." "In the eight years since the CALFED EIR was prepared, we have seen the crash of the Delta smelt and other Delta dependent species, the unprecedented closure of the California salmon fishing season, and a dramatic decline in water supply reliability for those who rely on Delta water. This tragic history clearly dispels the myth that Delta ecosystem restoration can be achieved alongside ever increasing levels of freshwater export. We fully expect that the updated science and lessons learned since 2000 will lead to reduced exports, more sustainable water policies, and better management of the Bay Delta. "California must act now to secure a water future that is not as heavily dependent on the fragile Bay Delta Estuary. Water legislation introduced this year, including AB 2153 (Krekorian/Hancock) and AB 2175 (Laird/Feuer), support increased development of water recycling, water efficiency, groundwater protection and restoration, and stormwater capture and provide a path to water security for California. "This Court decision should not be used as an excuse to ignore the impacts of our flawed water policies. We look forward to working with the Governor, legislators, water agencies, businesses, and environmental and environmental justice organizations to implement water policies and actions that are capable of sustaining our people, economy and environment." ### The Planning and Conservation League, www.pcl.org, partners with hundreds of California environmental organizations to provide a voice in Sacramento for sound planning and responsible environmental policy. PCL | PCL FOUNDATION | DONATE NOW! Please add pclmail at pcl.org to your address book to ensure delivery to your inbox. 1107 9th Street, Suite 360, Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone (916) 444-8726 ? Fax (916) 448-1789 ? pclmail at pcl.org Copyright, 2008 The Planning and Conservation League. All rights reserved. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: pcl_letterhead_logo_breaking_news.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 56943 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jun 6 11:52:04 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 11:52:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] More News on the CALFED Decision Message-ID: <011601c8c80c$8d4a2af0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Water plan can proceed, high court rules The San Francisco Chronicle- 6/6/08 Bob Egelko, Staff Writer The state and federal governments can form a long-range plan for managing water shipments through the bay and delta region without examining the option of reducing exports to Central and Southern California, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Environmentalists had argued that the plan favored dams over conservation, and farmers said they feared they might be bypassed in favor of city dwellers. But the court ruled unanimously that CalFed, the state-federal consortium drawing up the long-range plan, had balanced water supply needs against ecological and other concerns. The decision upheld an environmental review of the plan, which the agency developed between 1995 and 2000 to try to address urban and agricultural water needs while protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where river diversions, development and pollution have damaged water quality and wildlife habitat. The CalFed proposal includes increased shipments through the delta, with the goal of assuring reliable supplies for water users to the south. A state appeals court ruled in 2005 that the environmental review was inadequate because it failed to include the option of reduced water shipments, which would avoid the need for additional dams, and did not identify where the extra water to be shipped south would come from. Although the justices cleared the way for a planning process for dams, reservoirs and other projects contemplated in the 30-year program, the ruling may not have much impact. CalFed, a group of 18 federal and state agencies formed in 1994 to work on long-term solutions to delta water problems, has made little headway and is being bypassed by combatants in the water wars. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed a task force to take another look at the issues, and a group of major water users, state and federal regulators and other interested parties is working separately on habitat protection. The state Senate passed legislation last month to dissolve the state agency that manages CalFed. A federal judge, meanwhile, has ordered a reduction in water exports from the delta to protect a fish called the delta smelt and has scheduled a hearing in Fresno today to consider additional protective measures for salmon and steelhead. "The debate has moved on in terms of fixing the delta," said Chris Scheuring, a lawyer with the California Farm Bureau and a member of Schwarzenegger's task force. He said CalFed "collapsed under its own weight." An attorney for environmental groups said the ruling set a bad legal precedent but probably wouldn't have any immediate effect on the bay-delta region. "The parts of CalFed haven't come together" and the program is "all but moribund," said Antonio Rossmann, lawyer for the Planning and Conservation League, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense. The group of state and federal agencies "hasn't provided environmental protection, and water agencies and farmers haven't seen the reliability (of supplies) they thought they were getting," he said. But Keith Coolidge, spokesman for the state's CalFed bay-delta program, said the court had validated the program's environmental planning process and provided a road map for future efforts to improve both water delivery and ecological protection. Lisa Page, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the ruling "reinforces our delta restoration effort." The state Supreme Court said CalFed was entitled to conclude that reducing shipments would not ensure a reliable water supply for Central and Southern California. # http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/05/BACE1145IV.DTL CALFED wins ruling on Delta: But wording may help losing side defeat canal The Stockton Record ? 6/6/08 By Alex Breitler, Staff Writer SACRAMENTO - The government was legally justified when it did not consider cutting water exports as one way to solve the Delta's problems, the state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. But one attorney said language in the ruling may actually help Delta farmers and environmentalists in their renewed fight against a peripheral canal. In 2000, the state-federal partnership known as CALFED released a major environmental plan that listed three broad alternatives to improving the Delta. None of those alternatives included reducing the amount of water that is exported from giant pumps near Tracy to portions of the Bay Area, the southern San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. Delta farmers sued. They lost in Sacramento County Superior Court, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision. That court said the state's population would eventually adjust to the new realities of less available water. The state Supreme Court decided the matter once and for all Thursday, saying CALFED's entire purpose was to reduce conflicts over water, and that the agency was justified in deciding that slashing water exports from the Delta would only make things worse. Much has changed since that original plan was issued. CALFED is widely considered a failure - a bill pending in the state Legislature would eliminate it altogether. Meanwhile, officials have moved on to new planning processes in the Delta, including consideration of a peripheral canal. But the court's decision Thursday is not moot. CALFED's plan is still the foundation for many studies that are under way in the Delta, said CALFED spokesman Keith Coolidge. And the ruling will be looked to by those who are crafting new strategies. That's why Stockton attorney Dante Nomellini, although on the losing end, was encouraged. The court acknowledged that federal and state law means water exports must be "subordinated" to environmental needs, he said. CALFED was based on the theory that it's possible to restore the Delta's ecology while maintaining or even increasing water exports. "If practical experience demonstrates that the theory is unsound, Bay-Delta water exports may need to be capped or reduced," the ruling says. Good news, said Nomellini, who represents Delta farmers. "I think it's a very important statement that will have an impact" on current Delta planning, he said. The State Water Contractors, which represents 27 agencies that receive Delta water, praised Thursday's ruling, calling ecosystem and water supply "co-equal goals." But an environmental group, the Planning and Conservation League, called it an "unfortunate" decision that relied on an outdated understanding of the relationship between water exports and the Delta's ecosystem, including fish species whose numbers have plummeted under CALFED's watch.# http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080606/A_NEWS/806060324/-1/A_NEWS03 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jun 6 13:19:24 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 13:19:24 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Court to consider further steps to curtail water deliveries, help salmon Message-ID: <015a01c8c812$b33c5020$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Court to consider further steps to curtail water deliveries, help salmon Contra Costa Times ? 6/5/08 By Mike Taugher A federal judge today will begin considering whether to further restrict the flow of water to California farms and cities in a state already parched by drought. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger has already ruled that permits meant to prevent water managers from driving fish extinct are failing and illegal. Last year, he ordered Delta pumping reductions of as much as 30 percent because Delta smelt are vanishing. The hearing in Fresno, which may extend into next week, could lead to further restrictions to protect salmon and steelhead, which are also in decline. "This isn't going to solve the salmon crisis but it can help quite a bit," said Zeke Grader, who represents commercial salmon fishers who joined with environmentalists to bring the lawsuit. Most observers do not expect a court order as dramatic as the one Wanger issued last year. In part, that is because salmon and steelhead do not appear to be as threatened as Delta smelt, which are facing the possibility of imminent extinction. "There was common agreement with the Delta smelt that it was disappearing from the system," said Chris Scheuring, a water lawyer for the California Farm Bureau. "The salmon and steelhead are in a little more hopeful situation than the Delta smelt." Instead, environmentalists and anglers are asking water managers to maintain colder temperatures in spawning beds, save more water behind dams and take other measures that would have a more subtle effect on water supplies. Today's testimony will focus on the status of salmon and steelhead runs and whether court intervention is needed. If so, it will likely take several days of testimony before the judge reaches decisions on what protective measures to order. At issue is a permit issued in 2004 by the National Marine Fisheries Service that controls cold water releases from dams, Delta water pumping and many other pieces of California's plumbing system. Federal investigators earlier found the permit was approved under unusual circumstances. Although biologists concluded water deliveries could threaten fish with extinction, they were overruled by a manager, James Lecky, who gave the water plan the agency's blessing and was later promoted to become the Bush administration's top official overseeing marine endangered species. In April, Wanger found the permit did not meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. Last year, he made a similar ruling on a permit issued by another federal wildlife agency that was supposed to protect Delta smelt. Wanger was not alone. An Alameda County judge ruled last year that the state water resources department's Delta pumps were running illegally because state regulators never issued a permit or certified the federal permit, as required by the state endangered species law. The multiple violations of endangered species laws in the two major water delivery systems ? one of which is run by the state water resources department and the other by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ? come at a time when Delta fish are in deep peril. Delta smelt are believed near extinction and longfin smelt are being considered for endangered species status. Winter-run salmon, which rebounded during the 1990s from extremely low population levels, dropped sharply last year to the point where fewer than 2,500 fish returned to the Sacramento River to spawn. That represents a decline of two-thirds from the previous generation, which spawned three years earlier. Spring-run salmon and steelhead also are foundering, and even previously abundant fall-run salmon ? the backbone of the state's commercial salmon fishery ? have collapsed to the point where regulators took the unprecedented step of closing the entire California coast to salmon fishing this year. In all cases, most researchers say there are other contributing factors to the fish declines, including pollution, invasive species and fluctuations in ocean conditions.# http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_9493504 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jun 10 15:23:26 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:23:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Reclamation is providing a zebra/quagga mussel seminar on June19 Message-ID: <011401c8cb48$9b942400$0100007f@trinitycounty.org> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Basia Trout [mailto:btrout at mp.usbr.gov] Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 4:33 PM To: Tom Stokely Subject: Reclamation is providing a zebra/quagga mussel seminar on June19 The Bureau of Reclamation is presenting a zebra/quagga mussel informational seminar for interested persons. The training is to be held on Thursday, June 19 from 1-2 p.m. at the Shasta Dam Visitor Center Auditorium, 16349 Shasta Dam Blvd, Shasta Lake, CA. This free training is directed at state, federal and local natural resource and boating agency personnel, water users of all types, lawmakers and border/access area inspection personnel. The seminar will entail an education and training video and a question and answer session. This training program gives a good overview of the species and problems caused and includes information on outreach and education programs, basic mussel biology, distribution, transport vectors, and mussel impacts. The instructor is Todd Pederson, Reclamation's dreissenid task force coordinator out of Sacramento, CA. If you are interested in attending this training please call me with the number and names of the people attending, and if you have any questions. Basia Trout Natural Resource Specialist (530) 528-0512 btrout at mp.usbr.gov -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jun 10 15:44:35 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:44:35 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Cotton versus salmon Message-ID: <01b401c8cb56$b2c52670$0100007f@trinitycounty.org> http://www.times-standard.com/ci_9527353?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com Cotton versus salmon Aldaron Laird/My Word/The Times-Standard Article Launched: 06/09/2008 01:34:16 AM PDT The governor has declared that California is in a drought. Generally, there are two solutions: Build more dams to store water (one of the governor's proposals) or reduce our use of water. But it takes a long time to build new dams, so that plan will do nothing to help us during this drought. We need to prioritize water use. Of all the usable water behind dams, urban water users consume 20 percent and agricultural users 80 percent. The governor would like to see a 20 percent reduction in urban water use; this would yield only a 4 percent savings in the amount of water now being consumed. Much more water can be saved by achieving a similar 20 percent reduction in agriculture water use. That saving would be 16 percent! California needs its agriculture, but farmers need to become much more efficient water users. California can no longer afford the water demands of the status quo. Our climate is changing, and how we use water must change, too. It is now popular to consider the carbon footprint generated by the energy demands of our way of life and the goods we consume. We need to do the same for water by accounting for how much water is used when we live wherever we choose, and when we grow whatever and wherever we choose. The water we Californians consume also requires lots of energy to pump, filter, clean and deliver. Depending on where and how we secure that energy, water use has a significant carbon footprint. For example, it takes much more water and energy to keep a 100-square-foot lawn green in Anaheim than it does in Arcata. Where you grow plants matters. Hotter and drier areas evaporate more water from the soil, the irrigation system and the plant. Cotton, one our state's major crops, needs a lot of water to grow, yet one of the largest cotton-growing areas in California is located in the hot, dry, southern portion of the Central Valley, an area called Westlands. The water imported to raise cotton in Westlands comes from the Trinity River, which is a major tributary of the Klamath River. If water used to raise cotton was instead allowed to remain in the Trinity, the recovery chances of the threatened salmon fisheries of the Klamath would be much improved. In this age of climate change, we have our priorities wrong. Perhaps the water in the Trinity should be used to recover and raise a bountiful crop of salmon on the North Coast, not cotton in the Westlands desert. Raising cotton in a hot dry environment can waste as much as 41 percent of the irrigation water due to evaporation (www.waterfootprint.org). How many salmon could have been raised with that water? Reassessing our water use priorities will be difficult, but the status quo cannot be maintained and with our climate changing right now, we have no choice. We have no time or water to waste, and California needs leaders with the vision to face the water crisis of the 21st century. Aldaron Laird is on the board of directors for the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. He lives in Arcata. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Tue Jun 10 17:34:40 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:34:40 -0400 Subject: [env-trinity] Cotton versus salmon Message-ID: Cotton has been in steep decline in CA for the last few years due to foreign competition, but more water goes to alfalfa and pasture alone than to our cities with 38 million people. Spreck Rosekrans -----Original Message----- From: Tom Stokely [mailto:tstokely at trinityalps.net] Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 08:02 PM Eastern Standard Time To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Cotton versus salmon http://www.times-standard.com/ci_9527353?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com Cotton versus salmon Aldaron Laird/My Word/The Times-Standard Article Launched: 06/09/2008 01:34:16 AM PDT The governor has declared that California is in a drought. Generally, there are two solutions: Build more dams to store water (one of the governor's proposals) or reduce our use of water. But it takes a long time to build new dams, so that plan will do nothing to help us during this drought. We need to prioritize water use. Of all the usable water behind dams, urban water users consume 20 percent and agricultural users 80 percent. The governor would like to see a 20 percent reduction in urban water use; this would yield only a 4 percent savings in the amount of water now being consumed. Much more water can be saved by achieving a similar 20 percent reduction in agriculture water use. That saving would be 16 percent! California needs its agriculture, but farmers need to become much more efficient water users. California can no longer afford the water demands of the status quo. Our climate is changing, and how we use water must change, too. It is now popular to consider the carbon footprint generated by the energy demands of our way of life and the goods we consume. We need to do the same for water by accounting for how much water is used when we live wherever we choose, and when we grow whatever and wherever we choose. The water we Californians consume also requires lots of energy to pump, filter, clean and deliver. Depending on where and how we secure that energy, water use has a significant carbon footprint. For example, it takes much more water and energy to keep a 100-square-foot lawn green in Anaheim than it does in Arcata. Where you grow plants matters. Hotter and drier areas evaporate more water from the soil, the irrigation system and the plant. Cotton, one our state's major crops, needs a lot of water to grow, yet one of the largest cotton-growing areas in California is located in the hot, dry, southern portion of the Central Valley, an area called Westlands. The water imported to raise cotton in Westlands comes from the Trinity River, which is a major tributary of the Klamath River. If water used to raise cotton was instead allowed to remain in the Trinity, the recovery chances of the threatened salmon fisheries of the Klamath would be much improved. In this age of climate change, we have our priorities wrong. Perhaps the water in the Trinity should be used to recover and raise a bountiful crop of salmon on the North Coast, not cotton in the Westlands desert. Raising cotton in a hot dry environment can waste as much as 41 percent of the irrigation water due to evaporation (www.waterfootprint.org). How many salmon could have been raised with that water? Reassessing our water use priorities will be difficult, but the status quo cannot be maintained and with our climate changing right now, we have no choice. We have no time or water to waste, and California needs leaders with the vision to face the water crisis of the 21st century. Aldaron Laird is on the board of directors for the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. He lives in Arcata. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov Wed Jun 11 10:50:49 2008 From: Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov (Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:50:49 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Willow Creek Juvenile Salmonid Outmigrant Monitoring In-Season Update Message-ID: Willow Creek Downstream Migrant Trap Site 2008 In-Season Trapping Update ?June 10, 2008 Synopsis: The 2008 Downstream Migrant trapping season at the Willow Creek Trap Site (river kilometer 34) is being conducted jointly by the USFWS Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office (AFWO) and the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Program (YTFP) on the mainstem Trinity River near Willow Creek, California. The season began March 13, 2008 with the installation of one trap. A second trap was installed March 15, 2008, and a third trap was installed March 27, 2008. See attached catch summary for details of this narrative. This summary includes data from March 13th, 2008 through June 5th, 2008 and is presented as raw catch. No expansions have been calculated at this time. Data entry is not complete for Julian Weeks 21 and 23, May 21st to May 27th, and June 4th to June 10th Heavy debris load from floating algae have occasionally resulted in null sets, causing less than 21 trap days (3 traps x 7 days) in some weeks. This accumulation of algae in the rotary screw traps is a relatively new phenomenon for the Trinity River, and has necessitated increased trap checks at night as well as during the day. Raw daily catches of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) have been captured each day sampling has occurred and most have been young-of-the-year (YOY), with a few age 1+ natural Chinook salmon. Weekly mean Fulton?s K values of YOY Chinook salmon began the season lower than 1.0 with an increase in condition to greater than 1.0 in Julian Week 16 which has continued through Julian Week 23. Efficiency calibrations at high flow benches were conducted May 8th (~10,500 cfs measured at Hoopa Gauge; initial efficiency estimate of 0.93 %), May 16th (~10,000 cfs; initial efficiency estimate of 0.79 %), May 29th (~5,800 cfs; initial efficiency estimate of 3.8%), and June 5th (~2,500 cfs; initial efficiency estimate of 3.7%). Natural Chinook salmon catches show bimodal peaks in raw catch, both of which are coincident with a dropping of flow, this is consistent with past year?s catches Raw daily catches of steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) smolts (age 1+) have been increasing as the season progresses. Steelhead smolts captured JW 11-23 had weekly mean Fulton?s K values slightly higher than 1.0, with a steady drop over time (indicating that the smolting process is underway). Steelhead YOY have begun to increase in the catches, but still at low levels. Normal peaks in YOY steelhead catch occur in mid-June to early July. Raw daily catches of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) are low compared to the past 5 years, especially for natural smolts. Weekly mean Fulton?s K value of natural coho salmon smolts were higher than 1.0 at the beginning of the season and have steadily dropped over time, again indicating that the smolting process is underway. A peak in coho smolt catch occurred coincident with the high dam releases in early May, this is consistent with past year?s catches. If you have any questions regarding this summary, don't hesitate to contact Bill Pinnix at (707) 822-7201. (See attached file: WCT_CatchSummary_6_10_08.pdf) William Pinnix USFWS, AFWO 1655 Heindon Rd Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-7201 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WCT_CatchSummary_6_10_08.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 29657 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ara.azhderian at sldmwa.org Wed Jun 11 12:37:31 2008 From: ara.azhderian at sldmwa.org (Ara Azhderian) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:37:31 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Cotton versus salmon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And most of those 38 million people, and tens of millions more, rely on the milk, butter, cheese, meat, and other products those forage crops sustain. Be well, Ara Azhderian ________________________________ From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Spreck Rosekrans Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 5:35 PM To: Tom Stokely; Trinity List Subject: Re: [env-trinity] Cotton versus salmon Cotton has been in steep decline in CA for the last few years due to foreign competition, but more water goes to alfalfa and pasture alone than to our cities with 38 million people. Spreck Rosekrans -----Original Message----- From: Tom Stokely [mailto:tstokely at trinityalps.net] Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 08:02 PM Eastern Standard Time To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Cotton versus salmon http://www.times-standard.com/ci_9527353?IADID=Search-www.times-standard .com-www.times-standard.com Cotton versus salmon Aldaron Laird/My Word/The Times-Standard Article Launched: 06/09/2008 01:34:16 AM PDT The governor has declared that California is in a drought. Generally, there are two solutions: Build more dams to store water (one of the governor's proposals) or reduce our use of water. But it takes a long time to build new dams, so that plan will do nothing to help us during this drought. We need to prioritize water use. Of all the usable water behind dams, urban water users consume 20 percent and agricultural users 80 percent. The governor would like to see a 20 percent reduction in urban water use; this would yield only a 4 percent savings in the amount of water now being consumed. Much more water can be saved by achieving a similar 20 percent reduction in agriculture water use. That saving would be 16 percent! California needs its agriculture, but farmers need to become much more efficient water users. California can no longer afford the water demands of the status quo. Our climate is changing, and how we use water must change, too. It is now popular to consider the carbon footprint generated by the energy demands of our way of life and the goods we consume. We need to do the same for water by accounting for how much water is used when we live wherever we choose, and when we grow whatever and wherever we choose. The water we Californians consume also requires lots of energy to pump, filter, clean and deliver. Depending on where and how we secure that energy, water use has a significant carbon footprint. For example, it takes much more water and energy to keep a 100-square-foot lawn green in Anaheim than it does in Arcata. Where you grow plants matters. Hotter and drier areas evaporate more water from the soil, the irrigation system and the plant. Cotton, one our state's major crops, needs a lot of water to grow, yet one of the largest cotton-growing areas in California is located in the hot, dry, southern portion of the Central Valley, an area called Westlands. The water imported to raise cotton in Westlands comes from the Trinity River, which is a major tributary of the Klamath River. If water used to raise cotton was instead allowed to remain in the Trinity, the recovery chances of the threatened salmon fisheries of the Klamath would be much improved. In this age of climate change, we have our priorities wrong. Perhaps the water in the Trinity should be used to recover and raise a bountiful crop of salmon on the North Coast, not cotton in the Westlands desert. Raising cotton in a hot dry environment can waste as much as 41 percent of the irrigation water due to evaporation (www.waterfootprint.org). How many salmon could have been raised with that water? Reassessing our water use priorities will be difficult, but the status quo cannot be maintained and with our climate changing right now, we have no choice. We have no time or water to waste, and California needs leaders with the vision to face the water crisis of the 21st century. Aldaron Laird is on the board of directors for the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. He lives in Arcata. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jun 11 23:05:55 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:05:55 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] USGS critiques feds' water deal with Westlands farmers Message-ID: <009701c8cc52$617a51d0$0c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> The report below was authorized for release to the public today by Senator Feinstein. It was requested from US Geological Survey and it is attached for your information. Tom Stokely Board Member, California Water Impact Network http://www.c-win.org/ USGS critiques feds' water deal with farmers Associated Press FRESNO (AP) - A new report by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the federal government's plans to clean up thousands of acres of polluted cropland could repeat the same environmental problem that caused the death or deformation of thousands of birds in the 1980s. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been brokering negotiations over the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's proposal, which is intended to fix a botched federal drain project that left fields in California's San Joaquin Valley too salty to grow crops. Two weeks ago, Feinstein met in San Francisco with bureau officials and USGS scientists who wrote the internal report. A copy obtained by The Associated Press Wednesday critiques proposals previously floated by the bureau. Feinstein's office did not immediately comment.# http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_9552327 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: USGS-ADMIN-REPORT-5-16-2008b.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 730960 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: feinsteinltr0001-from-Director on usgs drainage report june 2008.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 26096 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Jun 12 09:17:32 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:17:32 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SacBee- USGS critiques feds' water deals with farmers Message-ID: <011b01c8cca7$d32e49d0$0c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> http://www.sacbee.com/114/story/1006091.html USGS critiques feds' water deals with farmers By GARANCE BURKE, The Associated Press 2008-06-12 02:09:16.0 Current rank: # 445 of 8,995 FRESNO, Calif. - A new report by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the federal government's plans to clean up acres of polluted croplands where thousands of birds died in the 1980s could, if poorly managed, put shore birds at risk again. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been brokering negotiations over the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's proposals, which are intended to fix a botched federal drain project that left fields in California's San Joaquin Valley too salty to grow crops. Two weeks ago, Feinstein met behind closed doors in San Francisco's Ferry Building with bureau officials and the two USGS scientists who wrote the internal report the senator requested. A copy obtained by The Associated Press Wednesday critiques a proposal previously floated by the bureau. That plan would give a group of wealthy farmers a perpetual contract for irrigation water if they took on the cost of the clean up, which is estimated at more than $2.6 billion. The bureau is considering using a new technology - a solar evaporation system - to separate harmful selenium concentrations from the runoff. "However, at this concentration there still may be a potential for selenium risk to wildlife, if performance does not meet specific criteria," the report said. Feinstein's staff said on Wednesday the Democratic senator had since written the bureau's Sacramento director to ask how the agency planned to reduce threats to birds. She cited data in the report showing that eggs of two shore birds collected in 2006 at a pilot facility that recycles the runoff contained more than nine times the level of selenium the government says represents a high risk for deformity. "The USGS presents data that pilot projects ... have caused instances of selenium in bird eggs substantially above the 10 parts per billion threshold for substantive risk," Feinstein wrote in a letter dated Tuesday. "This is a very serious concern." Mike Finnegan, an area manager for the bureau's central California area office, said he could not comment on concerns about the contaminated eggs. Once managers at the Panoche Drainage District discovered the eggs, they immediately, permanently closed the open drains where avocets and stilts were nesting, state officials said. Finnegan said the agency was developing a flexible approach to safeguard waterfowl in its official proposal, as well as in a second, competing proposal drawn up by the Westlands Water District, a coalition of giant lettuce, citrus and tomato growers in the fertile valley. The pilot recycling projects are slated to be expanded in both, and designs are still being finalized. "We want be responsive to ensure we have an effective, adaptive approach and make sure we're not causing undue damage to the environment," he said. "We also acknowledge that treatment at this scale has not be totally tested or proven." Westlands' general manager and general counsel Tom Birmingham said Wednesday that the agency was prepared to spend the $700 million he estimated it would cost the private sector to fix the vexing problem, and would keep a close watch to ensure wildlife was protected. "These techniques can work to manage drain water in an environmentally responsible way," Birmingham said. "With adaptive management, if you discover a problem you can take immediate action to correct it." Farmers and the federal government have been fighting over the drainage mess since the 1980s, when thousands of birds died and were born without limbs after nesting in ponds of contaminated irrigation water. After the disaster, land managers at the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge, some 80 miles northeast of Fresno, covered up the evaporation ponds with dirt, and wild birds flocked back to the region, a popular stopover on the Pacific flyway. Powerful agribusinesses sued, claiming the federal government was responsible for cleaning up the cropland polluted by the runoff. Decades later, the bureau - which runs a massive irrigation complex that makes farming possible in the arid Central Valley - remains under a federal court order to dispose of the tainted water. Biologists, water districts and growers alike have tried dozens of innovative approaches to get rid of the runoff that collects after farmers irrigate their crops. In May, Feinstein requested that the USGS comment on the contractors' proposal, but didn't publicly release the results until the AP's story. Growing crops on fewer acres of land is one option explored in the USGS report. But growers say fallowing fields would rob them of their livelihoods and cause major job losses throughout the region. Given the huge expense required to fix the drainage problem, farmers say they need a permanent water contract to ensure their financial viability, and to keep growing the fruits and vegetables the nation relies on. Westlands and other water districts propose to fix the problem by shooting the polluted runoff through a sprinkler system that would allow the salts to solidify and be collected. The report critiqued that proposal, and another to build the solar evaporation systems, calling them untested options that had not been proven to work at the scale required. If necessary, Finnegan said the government would complete additional environmental reviews of the reuse projects, the sprinklers and other new techniques. The study also suggested farmers boost the water they draw from underground aquifers to lower the amount of selenium brought into the environment. Several retired federal scientists and environmental groups excluded from the San Francisco meeting hailed the report as an important step toward broadening the scientific debate. "The science doesn't add up. They government doesn't have the answers," said Edgar Imhoff, a former top drainage official at the Department of Interior who also served as a hydrologist at the USGS. "If they go ahead with their plan, this report shows there are a lot of uncertainties that it will ever work out." Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 12 13:09:21 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:09:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: Bush Tries to Raid Salmon Disaster Funds! Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C71B@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Bush Tries to Raid Salmon Disaster Funds! by Dan Bacher West Coast Representatives and leaders of fishing groups are outraged by an attempt by the White House to yank $70 million in disaster funding from commercial and recreational fishermen in order to pay for the census. The Bush Administration's Office of Management & Budget (OMD) on Monday, June 9 sent a proposal to Congress to amend the President's budget to take $70 million of the $180 million that West Coast Representatives put into the farm bill for disaster assistance for fishermen devastated by fishing closures off the coast of California and Oregon and in Central Valley rivers. West Coast Democrats reacted to the proposal by sending an angry letter to President Bush calling his proposal to take the disaster funding from fishermen in order to pay for a failed contract to the Harris Corporation assigned to do the 2010 Census as "unconscionable." "This proposal is especially egregious when you consider that your administration's water policies on all of the Pacific Northwest's major salmon rivers are the reason this disaster funding is needed in the first place," the letter said. The Representatives noted that three different courts have found the administration's water plans for the Sacramento, Klamath and Columbia/Snake Rivers to be illegal and in violation of the Endangered Species Act. "These failed policies have resulted in over 80,000 dead adult salmon in the Klamath River, record low returns to the Sacramento and Columbia/Snake River systems, two fishery disaster declarations issued by the Secretary of Commerce and two years of fishing closures impacting thousands of families and small business," the letter continued. "The states of California, Oregon and Washington estimated this year's closure alone will have a $290 million impact on these fishing communities. Scientists expect similar low returns to the Sacramento next year and another closed season for most of the West Coast." Representatives Mike Thompson, Peter DeFazio, Darlene Hooley, Anna Eshoo, Jim McDermott, Brian Baird, Doris Matsui, Lois Capps, Lynn Woolsey, Earl Blumenauer, David Wu, Rick Larson, Sam Farr and Jay Inslee signed the letter. "To suggest that the money to pay for this contract mistake is diverted from emergency disaster payments is yet another blow delivered by your administration to the fishing families and small businesses in the Pacific Northwest," they stated. "It is a clear sign that your administration is not committed to protecting these river systems and has no interest in helping the fishing communities and economies reliant on them." Dick Pool, president of Pro-Troll Fishing Products and coordinator of Water for Fish (www.water4fish.org), said news of the attempted raid of the disaster relief was "very distressing considering the devastating financial impact that the salmon fishing closure is having on the recreational and commercial fishing industries of California." "I'm not surprised to see Bush trying to take away needed money from our community," said Mike Hudson, president of the Small Boat Commercial Fisherman's Association and coordinator of the SalmonAid Festival that took place in Oakland on May 31 and June 1. "Through his actions over the last few years, he has told us time and again that we don't matter to him. What would you expect from a man who wants to declare dams as natural structures and lets rivers run dry? That he would allow a dime to find it's way into the pockets of hard working people who oppose these dams, diversions and pollution of our waters?" The Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations continue to blame "ocean conditions" for the sudden and unprecedented collapse of Sacramento River fall run chinook salmon, while a broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes and conservationists contends that increased water exports from the California Delta and declining water quality play a major role in the collapse. The Central Valley fall chinook population has declined from over 800,000 fish in 2002 to under 60,000 this year. The decline of the Central Vallley fall run chinook parallels the collapse of four pelagic (open water) species - delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad - in recent years. A panel of state and federal scientists has pinpointed changes in water exports as the number one reason for the collapse, followed by toxics and invasive species. More recently, two studies conducted by Richard Dugdale, a San Francisco State University oceanographer, contend that ammonia from Sacramento's treated sewage discharge may be killing Delta smelt and other species (Stockton Record, June 11). Fortunately, it is unlikely that the White House will be able to push his proposal through Congress, based on strong opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. "This request is a slap in the face to the scores of salmon fishermen in Oregon who are struggling to make ends meet in the wake of the largest salmon closure in West Coast history," said Senator Gordon H. Smith (R-Oregon). "Rest assured there will be a strong bipartisan effort to ensure that these cuts don't go through." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jun 13 12:30:10 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:30:10 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Drought News Message-ID: <026d01c8cd8b$e7fe73a0$0c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> Letters to the Editor Fresno Bee June 3, 2008 Dear Sir or Madam, Westlands Water District manager Tom Birmingham predicted in the Bee June 3 that some Westlands growers would go broke this year as a result of cutbacks in Northern California water supplies due, mostly, to a very dry spring. Perhaps Birmingham can get the hard luck Westlands growers jobs at the exclusive Bollibokka fishing resort in Northern California which the Westlands district purchased a few months ago for $35 million. Lloyd Carter 2863 Everglade Ave. Clovis, CA 93619 (559) 304-5412 Farmers vs. Fish Amid the California Drought TIME- 6/12/08 By Kristine Kloberdanz Todd Diedrich watches a lone tractor churn up dust as it lumbers down rows of still-green plants. "We're trying to patch up the cracks," the farmer explains, referring to his desperate effort to retain what little moisture remains in the ground, now that he has been forced to turn down his irrigation drip. Diedrich says the California drought could cost him 750 acres, which he estimates to be worth $3 million. He gestures to the land that his family has been farming for decades. "This will all be gone," he says. "And there may not be a 'next year.' " Diedrich's farm is located on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, traditionally a cornucopia of tomatoes, almonds, cantaloupe, pistachios and lettuces. The area around Firebaugh has been hit hard by a severe drought caused by two years of below-average rainfall, a diminished Sierra Nevada snowpack and new court-ordered environmental restrictions on pumping. Despite having officially recognized the drought on June 4, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has yet to declare a state of emergency that would lift some of the environmental restrictions on providing relief to the farmers ? although he is pushing the state legislature to approve issuing an $11.9 billion bond for water management investments such as additional reservoirs, water recycling programs and better means of transfer. Californians across the state are voluntarily cutting down on sprinkler use and dealing with curbs on development and high fire hazards. But the farmers around Firebaugh have more to lose. "This is the first time water has ever been rationed like this," says Sarah Clark Woolf, spokeswoman for Westlands Water District, which has been forced to cut irrigation supplies to hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land. California Farm Bureau Federation President Doug Mosebar estimates that Fresno County could lose 20% to 30% of its agricultural output this season. The area is in trouble because its water is piped in from the beleaguered Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Last August, a Federal court set limits on pumping from the Delta, in an attempt to help endangered smelt fish. In a further measure to protect smelt, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced just last week it would cut San Joaquin Valley farm water supplies to 40% of the contracted amount. Many of the farmers in the region have been alloted only one sixth of the water supply they need to sustain their crops through the crucial summer months. "This is a death sentence," says almond and wine farmer Shawn Coburn. And the local farmers are particularly bitter at the environmental priorities governing water use. "We're looking after fish, and yet we're losing crops," says almond farmer Cort Blackburn. "You cannot put the fish in front of all the people." Chris Cardella, a farmer on the east side of Firebaugh, agrees: "We need legislature to overrule all our environmental impacts because humans come first over fish." Mosebar dismisses such "myopic" thinking: "If we're assisting the fish, we're also assisting our food production." He hopes this crisis will spawn better infrastructure for moving and storing water. "We're at a crossroads right now," he says. "This is a wakeup call." "The operations we've done for some of the endangered fish species did have an initial affect on our allocation earlier this year," says Paul Fujitani of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. "But in the past few months, our biggest problem is with the dryness." Protecting endangered species, he says, is simply "something we've got to do." Field after field in this fertile valley has been abandoned, either left unplanted this year or with seedlings withering in the sun. A swath of young green cotton has an inky black stripe running through its middle; as the field becomes more stressed from the lack of water, the black will spread. Safflowers, which should be a brilliant gold this time of year, are limp and brown. Farmers pace the dusty fields, eyeing their almond trees and grape vines, both heavy with unripe fruit, trying to decide which ones to allow to die. "It's like which kid to keep and which to get rid of," Coburn says. The stricken farmers face another wrenching decision: which of their long-time employees to send home. Diedrich has just laid off 25 employees, and he is hardly unique. The impact is noticeable in Firebaugh's community of some 7,500, mostly Latino farm workers. At noon on a Monday, the small town's streets are full of pick-up trucks and vans that would normally be in the fields this time of year. Butch Fleming, who owns the town's Ag & Industrial Supply, gestures at his empty store, which he says is usually packed with customers. "Farmers don't know what they're going to do ? you don't just let orchards die," he says, adding that business in his store is down at least 25% from last year because people are afraid to invest in equipment. Fleming has had to lay off all of his full-time employees. Down the street, Jack Minnite, owner of Jack's Prime Time restaurant, says: "We all are going to suffer from this. And it will escalate from the community to the state to the nation." In the meantime, farmers are scrambling to find water anywhere they can. Some are cleaning the moss out of old wells, or drilling new ones. Others are bargaining with neighbors to give up on "road crops" such as tomatoes and sell their water to desperate owners of permanent crops like almond trees and grape vines. Most are bracing for the worst: "I'm sweating it," says almond farmer Blackburn. "I've never been down this road before, but we're going to take a hit financially. If this drought continues, we'll lose it all."# http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1814128,00.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From akrause at mp.usbr.gov Tue Jun 17 09:04:26 2008 From: akrause at mp.usbr.gov (Andreas Krause) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:04:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Call in information for next barfly meeting Message-ID: Denver Office Teleconference Confirmation Date: July 01, 2008 Time: 3:00 PM Mountain Time Duration (hh:mm): 2:00 Non-FTS Users: (888) 808-5103 Password: 1432 Total # of ports: 05 Name of Chairperson: Andreas Krause Name of Conference: Barfly From erobinson at kmtg.com Tue Jun 17 09:10:26 2008 From: erobinson at kmtg.com (Robinson, Eric N.) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:10:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Call in information for next barfly meeting In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44769DDD2CF0CC48BA74D1681D8C7FEE05A854F4@mail.kmtg.kmtgnt.com> What is the subject of the Barfly call? -----Original Message----- From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Andreas Krause Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 9:04 AM To: Susannah Erwin; Chuck Podolak; Peter Wilcock; Env-Trinity List Server Cc: Dave Gaeuman Subject: [env-trinity] Call in information for next barfly meeting Denver Office Teleconference Confirmation Date: July 01, 2008 Time: 3:00 PM Mountain Time Duration (hh:mm): 2:00 Non-FTS Users: (888) 808-5103 Password: 1432 Total # of ports: 05 Name of Chairperson: Andreas Krause Name of Conference: Barfly _______________________________________________ env-trinity mailing list env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity From darlena-domrrajf at PKSInvest.com Mon Jun 16 21:20:38 2008 From: darlena-domrrajf at PKSInvest.com (Howkins) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:20:38 +1000 Subject: [env-trinity] Top 10 methods for picking up hotties Message-ID: <44878568-0E7F-3562-11E2-5CCBA16AC3A7@PKSInvest.com> Gain more satisfaction with an extra inch http://www.miableke.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jun 18 13:28:26 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:28:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Alaska salmon may bear scars of global warming Message-ID: <00b301c8d181$dde7c700$6c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> Alaska salmon may bear scars of global warming The Los Angeles Times- 6/15/08 By Kenneth R. Weiss, Staff Writer TANANA, ALASKA -- With a sickening thud, another hefty and handsome salmon lands in the waste barrel, headed for the dogs. "See, it's all of the biggest, best-looking fish," said Pat Moore, waving a stogie at the pile of discards. "It breaks my heart. My dogs cannot eat all that. The maggots will get them first." More Alaskan salmon caught here end up in the dog pot these days, their orange-pink flesh fouled by disease that scientists have correlated with warmer water in the Yukon River. The sorting of winners and losers at Moore's riverbank fish camp illustrates what scientists have been predicting will accompany global warming: Cold-temperature barriers are giving way, allowing parasites, bacteria and other disease-spreading organisms to move toward higher latitudes. "Climate change isn't going to increase infectious diseases but change the disease landscape," said marine ecologist Kevin D. Lafferty, who studies parasites for the U.S. Geological Survey. "And some of these surprises are not going to be pretty." The emergence of disease in Alaska's most prized salmon has come as a shock to fishermen and fisheries managers. Alaskan wild salmon has been an uncommon success story among over-exploited fisheries, with healthy runs and robust catches that fetch ever higher prices at fish markets and high-end restaurants in Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo and London. Fishermen and regulators who have cooperated to save species from overfishing and local environmental hazards have been caught unprepared to deal with forces beyond their control: how to manage a fishery for climate change. The return of the king -- or chinook -- salmon is eagerly anticipated along the Yukon. The biggest of the salmon species, these kings arrive with a muscular flash of the tail, sun glinting off a speckled palette of blues and greens fading to silver and red. Savvy buyers from Japan converge on the docks near the river's mouth to purchase these fish that have bulked up with extra fat to swim more than 2,000 miles, across Alaska, to spawn in the stream of their birth. As a fierce defender of the fish's reputation, Gene Sandone, a regional supervisor for Alaska's Fish and Game Department, was less than receptive to complaints from Tanana fishermen such as Moore that something was wrong. The chinook salmon they pulled from the Yukon River about 700 miles inland didn't smell right. It wasn't an instant, gag-inducing stench. It was more subtle but grew into an unpleasant odor of fruit rotting in the hot sun. More important, the flesh turned mealy. The salmon didn't dry right in smokehouses either. Instead of turning into rich red strips of salmon jerky, they turned black and oily like strips of greasy rotten mango. "If you don't weed out the bad ones, it'll stink up the whole smokehouse," Moore said, wielding a knife on his cutting table. "I only want the good stuff. I don't want second-rate fish." Salmon jerky strips are a staple among the Native Americans and subsistence fishermen in rural outposts such as Tanana, a village of 270 people. "It'll keep you warm in the winter," said Lorene Moore, Pat's wife and a native of the village. In Alaska's bigger cities, these strips are a prized delicacy, fetching $20 or more a pound. When Bill Fliris, another Tanana fisherman, first noticed the problem in the late 1980s, he bundled up some salmon jerky strips and shipped them to a state Fish and Game biologist. A few weeks later, the biologist said it was "the damnedest thing -- they disappeared out of the freezer. You know: free strips." The next year, Fliris shipped more samples, and this time they were tested. But the state Fish and Game lab found nothing amiss. A friendly federal biologist advised the local fishermen to send samples, including hearts and organs that were covered with tiny pimples, to the Center for Fish Disease Research at Oregon State University. The Oregon lab quickly identified it as "white spot disease," caused by a microscopic parasite called Ichthyophonus hoferi. Ich (pronounced "ick") is a well-known disease, harmless to humans, that was blamed for devastating losses in the herring fishery in Scandinavia. A similar parasite can infect aquarium fish. The portion of Yukon salmon with Ich grew each year. Fishermen were throwing away as much as 30% of their catch, forcing them to catch more fish to fill their cache for the winter. "The Alaskan Department of Fish and Game wasn't interested," Fliris said. "They said, 'There's no money to study this. It's a natural disease. There's nothing we can do about it.' " So Fliris contacted an outsider: Richard M. Kocan, a fish disease expert at the University of Washington. Lining up a federal grant, Kocan began to test the fish in 2000, the same year the king salmon run suffered an unexpected temporary collapse that forced the closure of the river's commercial fishery. At the mouth of the Yukon, where the commercial gill netters operate, 25% to 30% of the chinook salmon were infected, Kocan found. But the fish usually did not show signs of the disease. The same proportion were infected at midriver near Tanana, about halfway to the Canadian border. But here, nearly a third of the fish showed the salt-like flecks on their hearts and other organs, and their mealy flesh released the telltale smell of putrid fruit. Kocan went upstream to the spawning grounds near Whitehorse, Canada, and found that the proportion of infected fish dropped dramatically. But why? It didn't seem logical that the fish were recovering during the last part of their stressful 2,200-mile swim, accomplished over many weeks without eating. "The working hypothesis," Kocan said, "is that they died before they made it to the spawning grounds." Tracking what happens to these fish is difficult. The Yukon turns mocha-brown in the summer, when its swift waters carry a load of rock flour released by rock-pulverizing glaciers and other sediment. Salmon that perish sink out of sight. To test his theory, Kocan set up a laboratory experiment that compared the swimming stamina of infected rainbow trout with that of healthy trout. He used a chamber with water swift enough to exhaust a healthy fish in about 10 minutes. The infected fish lasted about two minutes. "It's like asking someone with heart disease to run a 10K race," Kocan said. "He's not going to do very well." That left a question: Why did the previously undetected disease show up in the late 1980s and resurface every year since? Kocan and his students scrutinized all the potential variables and found only one significant change: Average river water temperatures had been rising over the last three decades. The warming began earlier each spring, following an earlier breakup of the river's ice. The June temperatures showed the greatest increase, about 6 to 8 degrees warmer, and June is when king salmon return from the ocean and begin their long upriver migration to spawn. Unlike warm-blooded animals, the body temperature of salmon fluctuates with the temperature of surrounding waters. Laboratory studies of Ich infections in trout, a close cousin, have revealed that the incidence of disease and death rises as water warms, especially above 59 degrees. Kocan spent five summers on the Yukon River studying the parasite, creating an uproar among fishermen by sharing his findings directly with them, rather than allowing state Fish and Game officials to review the data first. He suddenly found his funding drying up after objections from Alaskan representatives on the committee that doles out research dollars. "I've essentially been blackballed from working on the Yukon," said Kocan, whose work has since been accepted and published in peer-reviewed journals. "There's one fellow specifically who does not like our results: Gene Sandone. He doesn't want to hear the story and change his management practices." Sandone denied playing any part in this: "I didn't blackball Richard Kocan. Dr. Kocan is free to put in a proposal and argue his point. He just has to get it through the technical committee." The clash comes over the implications of Kocan's thesis. He believes that as much as 20% of king salmon are dying en route to the spawning grounds. If so, fisheries managers would have to cut back the commercial catch by at least that amount to keep the run healthy. Sandone has an alternative theory, which has not been tested. He believes that the sick fish, weakened by the parasite, swim along the slower-moving edge of the river, where a disproportionate number get caught by fishing nets and fish wheels that line the banks. In other words, subsistence fishermen like Pat Moore are simply catching most of the sick fish. The healthy ones swim just out of reach, deeper in the river, headed straight for Canada. "That's my theory -- that they are not dying on the way," Sandone said. "Even if they are dying on the way, so what?" His department limits the catch based on how many fish escape all the nets and make it to the spawning grounds to reproduce. That's been going well, he said, except for last year, when the number of fish that made it to Canada fell 50% below the minimum spelled out in a U.S.-Canadian agreement. Sandone is retiring later this year, after 26 years as a state official. The fishermen in Tanana, who scoff at his theory, say they are delighted to see him go. They hope the state will be less hostile to studying the disease and trying to figure out what to do about it. Besides supporting fishermen, salmon are a keystone species in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, supporting wildlife from birds to bears and orcas. A crash could cripple dependent creatures. Mary Ruckelshaus, a federal biologist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, has been running climate models to peer into the future for Pacific Northwest salmon. Those models predict that salmon will become extinct without aggressive efforts to preserve the clear, cool streams needed for spawning, such as planting trees to shade streams and curtailing the amount of water siphoned off by farmers. "It's sort of a time bomb," Ruckelshaus said. "If people don't have a plan for it, it can be disastrous when it hits." Her models didn't factor in the potential for emerging diseases, such as the one that Kocan, her former professor, has been studying. Kocan views Ichthyophonus as a classic emerging disease. He pointed out that salmon, a lucrative catch, had been scrutinized by scientists and fishermen for decades, and the disease had never before been reported. In the last decade, it has shown up in salmon on the Yukon, Kuskokwim and Taku rivers in Alaska and on various rivers in British Columbia and Russia. It has also been detected in recent years in rockfish and smaller noncommercial fish in Puget Sound and elsewhere off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, and in freshwater trout on Idaho farms. It's the kind of redistribution of disease that can be expected with climate change, Kocan said: "Everything is getting warmer, and that's how climate change is going to redistribute all kinds of disease. Parasites have their optimum conditions -- upper and lower limits. We'll notice where they show up but not necessarily where they disappear." Ichthyophonus is among a class of ancient parasitic microbes that can move fast, taking advantage of new niches using age-old tricks that have kept them around for billions of years. None of this comforts Pat Moore, a musher with dozens of dogs, and others who rely on the bounty of the Yukon River to make their living. It's a culture that lives on the edge and cannot stomach waste. "I don't want to kill fish for the sake of killing them," said Moore, as he expertly sliced a king into narrow strips. "I want to use the damned things."# http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-ichfish15-2008jun15 ,0,2020280.story?page=1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jun 18 14:19:42 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:19:42 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Two Opinions on the Drought Message-ID: <013501c8d194$d70875c0$6c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> Editorial Paul H. Betancourt: Planning, more storage would have prevented this year's water shortages The Sacramento Bee- 6/15/08 By Paul H. Betancourt - Special to The Bee The governor's drought declaration this month is official acknowledgment of what we have known out here in farm country since at least last fall. It is dry out here. You could see it out there first in the rolling hills of the Coast Range and the Sierra foothills. The grass for cattle is a lot shorter than it should be. Last fall there was talk of severe cuts in water for this year. Farmworkers started to get laid off, not just for the winter season, but permanently. Farmers in our area started selling off cotton-harvesting equipment. They weren't just going to cut back on cotton plantings this year, they were cutting back permanently. I farm with my in-laws, who have been in the area since about 1916. At VF Farms, we farm 765 acres of almonds and row crops in the Kerman and Tranquillity area of Fresno County. This year we cut our cotton acreage in half. We planted half the 640-acre ranch to wheat and half to cotton. We can't make a living on wheat, but we figured we could make the land payment in a year when we do not get our full allocation of water due to low rainfall. I didn't lay off any of the four men who work for me because I don't know how long this problem will last. We have a good team of men who work well together. They know our fields and our equipment. There isn't going to be much overtime and probably no bonuses this year, but they will keep their jobs this season. Our farm should make it this year, if the well and our groundwater supply hold out. We have a well that can pump enough water, if we get 25 percent of our allotment from the federal Central Valley Project, and if we are very careful. We have never had any water to waste. I time irrigations with a tool that measures actual plant moisture so we know what the plant needs, not just what the soil moisture is, so we water when the plants need it. We water every other row, on short runs in 12-hour sets most of the time, to be as efficient as possible with the water we do have. But, there is an important disclaimer here ? wells and ground- water are only a temporary solution. Even in good years we pump more water from the ground than is naturally replenished ? and that is not sustainable. We need to have surface water ? water from snowpack and rivers. The fact is, two-thirds of California's rainfall occurs in the northern third of the state and two-thirds of the people live in the southern third of the state. In his 1952 novel "East of Eden" John Steinbeck refers to a 30-year cycle of wet, dry and normal years. I have looked at the historic records back to the mid-1860s. We know in California there have been wet and dry years. We need to catch the water from the wet years and save it for the dry years ? that would be worthwhile conservation. The lesson from Hurricane Katrina is that we should have been better prepared. We don't have dramatic weather disasters like hurricanes in California. A drought is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You would think slow motion would allow us to prepare. Redefining conservation There are those who think we can solve all of our water problems with conservation. Of course we should be careful with all the natural resources we utilize. I have two responses for those who believe that if we conserve the water we have developed already we will get by. First, there are not enough low-flow toilets in California to solve this problem. We have more people using more water all the time. Second, let's look at what water conservation really means. My dictionary includes "preservation from loss" in the definition of conservation. Here are the facts: In 2006, Calif- ornia water managers released 27 million acre-feet of water to flow out to sea when they were convinced that the state's reservoirs would fill during the rainy season. That is enough water for all of California's urban and agricultural needs for a whole year. We let it run out into the ocean. What if we had conserved 10 percent of that water?# http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1012764.html Editorial Lloyd G. Carter: Much of California is a desert, we should live in it as such The Sacramento Bee- 6/15/08 By Lloyd G. Carter - Special to The Bee That dreaded word drought has again intruded into the California public consciousness following Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's June 4 declaration that a drought is officially under way. Because the governor's executive order failed to declare a state of emergency or impose rationing, it appears his real motive in declaring a drought was simply to drum up more support for the nearly $12 billion water bond infrastructure measure he wants to put on the November ballot. That plan includes a peripheral canal to funnel Northern California water around the Delta and $3.5 billion for two controversial dams. He has chosen to try to engineer our way out of the current dry spell instead of adapting to the fact most Californians live in a desert. The gubernatorial declaration states that 2007 was a below-normal rainfall year and that this spring was the driest spring on record in California, with total river water supplies this year 59 percent of normal. During the 1986-1992 drought, six dry years passed before Gov. Pete Wilson issued a similar declaration in 1991. The technical definition of drought is a deficiency of "normal" precipitation over an extended period of time, usually more than one season, resulting in a shortage of water for some activity, group or environmental sector. Drought is a temporary aberration. It differs from aridity, which is a permanent feature of low rainfall climates. Aridity typifies the Southern California climate and has resulted in the annual transfer of enormous volumes of water from the usually wet north state to the almost-always-dry south. With 1,400 dams and thousands of miles of canals, California has always engineered solutions. Although the governor urges conservation, tying it to his pharaonic construction plan will further polarize Northern California and Southern California over what critics call his hydro-illogical boondoggles. At any rate, those massive public works projects, even if approved by overburdened taxpayers, are probably 15 to 20 years away from completion and of no immediate benefit. It might be wiser for the deficit-plagued governor to focus on policy before plumbing and sort out a raft of statewide water problems, which have festered for decades and don't require billions in cash to fix. I suggest he take the following actions: ? Demand an explanation from the State Water Resources Control Board about why current water- rights permits and contract allocations exceed available supplies by several times. This phantom supply, known as "paper water," is being used to justify more urban sprawl throughout the state. The State Water Project promises contractors 4.2 million acre-feet annually (an acre-foot is 325,851 gallons) but can safely deliver only 1.2 million acre-feet. ? Ask the state water board to declare irrigation of hundreds of thousands of acres of high-selenium soils in the western San Joaquin Valley an unreasonable use of water. Retirement of all these alkali soils, which generate a pollutant-laden drainage that cannot be safely disposed, could free up more than a million acre-feet of water. Discourage planting of low-value, water-thirsty crops such as cotton. ? Demand a halt to urban waste. While some cities have excellent conservation records, others are dragging their feet. Sacramento and Fresno still sell water at a flat rate, meaning urban customers pay the same monthly bill whether they use 1 gallon or 1 million gallons. ? Be honest in educating the public that drought conditions do not exist everywhere in agriculture. Thousands of Central Valley farmers will be getting a full supply of federal water this year. Only the massive Westlands Water District, with 500 to 600 growers on 1,000 square miles, and a few other western San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts, will get reduced supplies. And they are free to purchase water on the open market. The governor's declaration will make such water transfers easier. ? Insist on reducing or halting the use of rivers and Delta drinking supplies as sewers for agricultural, municipal and industrial wastewater. Future generations will wonder why we allowed the Delta, drenched in urine-based ammonia, to literally be used as a toilet. ? Remember that agriculture still uses 80 percent of the state's river water supplies and a lot is wasted through flood irrigation and evaporation. Virtually all of Israel's agriculture is irrigated by drip systems. A new Israeli underground drip system uses 30 percent to 50 percent less water for growing rice, a major crop in the Sacramento Valley. Give growers tax breaks to convert to drip. Before fields in the western San Joaquin Valley are planted each spring, growers use large amounts of imported water to drive the soil salts down below the root zone, a water-guzzling practice known euphemistically as "pre-irrigation." This is further proof these salty lands should be retired. ? Recognize that the federal Central Valley Project has a priority system for delivering irrigation water, and Westlands has always been at the end of the bucket line. When the senior federal water districts have all received their allotments, the junior contractors, including Westlands, get what is left. Westlands growers knew this when they signed their water-delivery contracts decades ago. It's a risk they willingly assumed. Now, Westlands is negotiating with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein for a guaranteed supply of 1 million acre-feet a year, enough for a city of 10 million. This deal would be terrible news for the Delta ecosystem. In her 2007 book "Managing Water, Avoiding Crisis in California," Dorothy Green, a respected Los Angeles environmentalist, writes: "We can meet the future of a growing California if water is used much more efficiently, if the management of that resource is better integrated and holistic, and if land-use policies are tied to water availability." Let us hope that when the current drought fades, Green's advice doesn't.# http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1012762.html Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Jun 19 07:47:04 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:47:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: "today in history" Message-ID: <00b701c8d21b$57d3fe00$736c3940@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Greg King To: Tom Stokely Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 10:34 PM Subject: "today in history" 1958 Dam workers threw auto bodies into the Trinity River to turn the rambunctious stream from its natural channel into a new manmade channel. -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From enimraco_1980 at FriendshipHaven.org Thu Jun 19 04:10:37 2008 From: enimraco_1980 at FriendshipHaven.org (muslum) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:10:37 +0100 Subject: [env-trinity] Larger is better - wonder pills Message-ID: The ultimate solution you have been waiting for. http://www.taokkher.com/ -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 19 09:22:04 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:22:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] : "today in history" In-Reply-To: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C723@mail3.trinitycounty.org> References: <00b701c8d21b$57d3fe00$736c3940@trinitycounty.org> <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C723@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C724@mail3.trinitycounty.org> How the Trinity River Lost Its Water By Dane J. Durham, J.D. Page 42 On June 11, 1958, the final diversion of the Trinity began under the left abutment of the dam.45 Later that week, crews finished damming the river by dumping old car bodies and huge rocks into the narrows of the coffer dam.46 Since then, the river has followed a man-made course. Two weeks later, construction of the Trinity Dam started.47 Within a month, crews were working 18-hour days covering the floor of the river with earthen material delivered from Pettyjohn Mountain by a two-mile long conveyor belt.48 The conveyor carried 2000 cubic yards of earth an hour to DW-20's that hauled 32 yard lifts to the dam site where bulldozers and sheepfoot tampers spread and tamped the material.49 By January 1959, the Trinity Dam backed up water 74 feet deep at the crest of its first flood with a flow of 38,000 cfs.50 How the Trinity River Lost Its Water E-Book Available for free at: http://www.trinitycounty.org/Departments/Planning/natresources3.htm ________________________________ From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Tom Stokely Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 7:47 AM To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: "today in history" ----- Original Message ----- From: Greg King To: Tom Stokely Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 10:34 PM Subject: "today in history" 1958 Dam workers threw auto bodies into the Trinity River to turn the rambunctious stream from its natural channel into a new manmade channel. -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 19 09:41:44 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:41:44 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SalmonAid Festival Puts Spotlight on Need For Fish Restoration Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C725@mail3.trinitycounty.org> SalmonAid Festival Puts Spotlight on Need For Fish Restoration Photo: Murkie Oliver, Yurok Tribal Elder, cooks salmon over an open fire the traditional way in the kick off event to the SalmonAid Festival. Photo by Dan Bacher. 640_img_1342_1_1_1.jpg original image ( 864x576) SalmonAid Festival Puts Spotlight on Urgent Need For Fish Restoration by Dan Bacher A unique coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fisherman, members of Indian Tribes and conservationists came together from throughout California and the West Coast to sponsor the SalmonAid Festival on May 31 and June 1 in Jack London Square in Oakland. The event aimed to draw attention to the ongoing salmon fisheries disaster on the Klamath, Sacramento, Columbia and other West Coast rivers. This year, due to record low numbers of salmon expected to return to the Central Valley Rivers because of increases in California Delta water exports and other factors, all commercial and recreational ocean fishing is banned off the California and most of Oregon. The event was the brainchild of Mike Hudson, a commercial salmon fisherman and president of the Small Boat Commercial Fishermens Association. Hudson wanted to use the event as a venue to highlight the economic, cultural, and culinary value of salmon and to bring diverse groups together to work for their restoration. This really all came together, didnt it? said a very happy Hudson as we watched Les Claypool, Bay Area alternative rock royalty and Primus front-man, start playing before the largest crowd gathered before any act in the square on Saturday. The festival, advertised as a family-style event, drew over 20,000 people during the two days. Big Rick Stuart, KFOG disk jockey, emceed SalmonAid. It was a total smashing success, observed Hudson, a blues musician who performs with Mike and the Sea Kings. It was a giant first step in educating people about the need to save our salmon and other fisheries. With all of the favorable press we received in newspapers, TV and radio outlets, I feel that we won our first battle in a long drawn out war to restore our salmon and our rivers. Claypool, whose thumping bass lines and unique worldview have become the calling cards for a number of wildly successful and influential albums in the last two decades, high lined a diverse roster of twenty bands on two live outdoor stages at the event. "The Pacific salmon is an icon and inspiration for a lot of us on the West Coast and it's one of my favorite foods," said Claypool, who regularly sport fishes for salmon off the northern California coast. "But today we're in danger of losing this incredible fish. The bands at SalmonAid played to help ensure that wild Pacific salmon will always be around and to help protect the rivers where salmon live." Members of three Klamath River Indian Tribes - the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley - hosted a traditional salmon bake for the public at Ocean Beach in San Francisco the night before to show support for the festival. Murkie Oliver, Yurok Tribal Elder, and Earl Aubrey, Karuk Tribal Elder, carefully cooked the big strips of freshly caught Klamath River spring chinook salmon on redwood sticks next to an open fire. Ken Brink, Rabbit Brink, J.J Reed, Tuffy Tims, and David Goodwin of the Karuk Tribe helped with the cooking. The salmon was delicious, with everybody going back for seconds and thirds. Salmon cooked in the traditional manner like they did is the absolute best way to prepare it. Rabbit and Ken Brink also perfumed traditional songs with drum accompaniment after the bake. "The time has come for real solutions like curtailing pumping freshwater from the Bay-Delta and the removal of Warren Buffett's lower four Klamath River dams," said Ron Reed, Karuk cultural biologist and traditional dip net fisherman, drawing the close connection between fishery failures on the Klamath and Sacramento. Musical acts featured at the event included the Zydeco Flames, Stacy Kray, Sizemo, Saul Kaye, Captain Zohar, Tia Carroll, Manaleo, Captain Mike and The Sea Kings, Asheba, John Craigie, The Bobby Young Project, Eliyahu and Qadim. Congressman Barbara Lee (CA-9) showed her support for the event by issuing a statement that included the following: "The economic stability of our local fishing industry affects the financial health of our entire community, and the environmental conditions fish and wildlife face certainly affect the human population directly. We cannnot separate public health, economic health, and environmental health. To take care of one, we must take care of them all. SalmonAid 2008 shines as a much needed light on this important and urgent issue." The Coastside Fishing Club, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens Associations, Institute for Fishery Resources, American Fishing Association, Water for Fish, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Trout Unlimited, Alameda Creek Alliance, Klamath Riverkeeper, SPAWN, Save Our Wild Salmon, Friends of Butte Creek and other fishery conservation and environmental organizations set up tables and displays. A dedicated crew of anglers, including Gary Adams of the California Striped Bass Association, Bob Mellinger of Cloverdale, John Webb of Sacramento and George Sacsa of Berkeley, gathered thousands of signatures for water4fish during the event. The festival also featured educational forums, children's activities, speakers and a chance for the public to enjoy wild king salmon served by some of the West Coast's finest restaurants. Restaurants including Fish. in Sausalito, The Basin in Saratoga, CA, Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park, and Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport, OR, banded together for the event. Alaskan commercial fishermen donated the wild salmon served at the festival. For more information about this or next years event, call Mike Hudson, Organizer of Salmon Aid, (510) 407-2000, or go to http://www.salmonaid.org . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 640_img_1342_1_1_1.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 214568 bytes Desc: 640_img_1342_1_1_1.jpg URL: From mbelchik at snowcrest.net Thu Jun 19 14:01:31 2008 From: mbelchik at snowcrest.net (Michael Belchik) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:01:31 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Alaska salmon may bear scars of global warming In-Reply-To: <00b301c8d181$dde7c700$6c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> References: <00b301c8d181$dde7c700$6c6c3940@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <010f01c8d24f$a78c7ab0$8600a8c0@yuroktribe.nsn.us> Please be aware, that this is a different kind of "ich" than what caused the fish kill in the lower Klamath in 2002. The article is incorrect in calling it whitespot or "ich". The disease that these Alaskan fish have (Ichthyophonus hoferi) is a marine fungal disease that causes the fish to become inedible. It is incorrect to call it whitespot disease or "ich". Please see the following link: http://www.aquaworldnet.com/awmag/diseases.htm . It often infects herring in marine waters. The disease that the Klamath fish had was Ichthyopthirius multifiliis, which is a protozoan parasite. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA006 These two diseases are not closely related. This is important because the "true" ich that we had on the Klamath did not result in noticeable degradation of the quality of the fish, while the fungal disease in the Yukon did. Mike Belchik Senior Fisheries Biologist Yurok Tribe _____ From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Tom Stokely Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 1:28 PM To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Alaska salmon may bear scars of global warming Importance: High Alaska salmon may bear scars of global warming The Los Angeles Times- 6/15/08 By Kenneth R. Weiss, Staff Writer TANANA, ALASKA -- With a sickening thud, another hefty and handsome salmon lands in the waste barrel, headed for the dogs. "See, it's all of the biggest, best-looking fish," said Pat Moore, waving a stogie at the pile of discards. "It breaks my heart. My dogs cannot eat all that. The maggots will get them first." More Alaskan salmon caught here end up in the dog pot these days, their orange-pink flesh fouled by disease that scientists have correlated with warmer water in the Yukon River. The sorting of winners and losers at Moore's riverbank fish camp illustrates what scientists have been predicting will accompany global warming: Cold-temperature barriers are giving way, allowing parasites, bacteria and other disease-spreading organisms to move toward higher latitudes. "Climate change isn't going to increase infectious diseases but change the disease landscape," said marine ecologist Kevin D. Lafferty, who studies parasites for the U.S. Geological Survey. "And some of these surprises are not going to be pretty." The emergence of disease in Alaska's most prized salmon has come as a shock to fishermen and fisheries managers. Alaskan wild salmon has been an uncommon success story among over-exploited fisheries, with healthy runs and robust catches that fetch ever higher prices at fish markets and high-end restaurants in Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo and London. Fishermen and regulators who have cooperated to save species from overfishing and local environmental hazards have been caught unprepared to deal with forces beyond their control: how to manage a fishery for climate change. The return of the king -- or chinook -- salmon is eagerly anticipated along the Yukon. The biggest of the salmon species, these kings arrive with a muscular flash of the tail, sun glinting off a speckled palette of blues and greens fading to silver and red. Savvy buyers from Japan converge on the docks near the river's mouth to purchase these fish that have bulked up with extra fat to swim more than 2,000 miles, across Alaska, to spawn in the stream of their birth. As a fierce defender of the fish's reputation, Gene Sandone, a regional supervisor for Alaska's Fish and Game Department, was less than receptive to complaints from Tanana fishermen such as Moore that something was wrong. The chinook salmon they pulled from the Yukon River about 700 miles inland didn't smell right. It wasn't an instant, gag-inducing stench. It was more subtle but grew into an unpleasant odor of fruit rotting in the hot sun. More important, the flesh turned mealy. The salmon didn't dry right in smokehouses either. Instead of turning into rich red strips of salmon jerky, they turned black and oily like strips of greasy rotten mango. "If you don't weed out the bad ones, it'll stink up the whole smokehouse," Moore said, wielding a knife on his cutting table. "I only want the good stuff. I don't want second-rate fish." Salmon jerky strips are a staple among the Native Americans and subsistence fishermen in rural outposts such as Tanana, a village of 270 people. "It'll keep you warm in the winter," said Lorene Moore, Pat's wife and a native of the village. In Alaska's bigger cities, these strips are a prized delicacy, fetching $20 or more a pound. When Bill Fliris, another Tanana fisherman, first noticed the problem in the late 1980s, he bundled up some salmon jerky strips and shipped them to a state Fish and Game biologist. A few weeks later, the biologist said it was "the damnedest thing -- they disappeared out of the freezer. You know: free strips." The next year, Fliris shipped more samples, and this time they were tested. But the state Fish and Game lab found nothing amiss. A friendly federal biologist advised the local fishermen to send samples, including hearts and organs that were covered with tiny pimples, to the Center for Fish Disease Research at Oregon State University. The Oregon lab quickly identified it as "white spot disease," caused by a microscopic parasite called Ichthyophonus hoferi. Ich (pronounced "ick") is a well-known disease, harmless to humans, that was blamed for devastating losses in the herring fishery in Scandinavia. A similar parasite can infect aquarium fish. The portion of Yukon salmon with Ich grew each year. Fishermen were throwing away as much as 30% of their catch, forcing them to catch more fish to fill their cache for the winter. "The Alaskan Department of Fish and Game wasn't interested," Fliris said. "They said, 'There's no money to study this. It's a natural disease. There's nothing we can do about it.' " So Fliris contacted an outsider: Richard M. Kocan, a fish disease expert at the University of Washington. Lining up a federal grant, Kocan began to test the fish in 2000, the same year the king salmon run suffered an unexpected temporary collapse that forced the closure of the river's commercial fishery. At the mouth of the Yukon, where the commercial gill netters operate, 25% to 30% of the chinook salmon were infected, Kocan found. But the fish usually did not show signs of the disease. The same proportion were infected at midriver near Tanana, about halfway to the Canadian border. But here, nearly a third of the fish showed the salt-like flecks on their hearts and other organs, and their mealy flesh released the telltale smell of putrid fruit. Kocan went upstream to the spawning grounds near Whitehorse, Canada, and found that the proportion of infected fish dropped dramatically. But why? It didn't seem logical that the fish were recovering during the last part of their stressful 2,200-mile swim, accomplished over many weeks without eating. "The working hypothesis," Kocan said, "is that they died before they made it to the spawning grounds." Tracking what happens to these fish is difficult. The Yukon turns mocha-brown in the summer, when its swift waters carry a load of rock flour released by rock-pulverizing glaciers and other sediment. Salmon that perish sink out of sight. To test his theory, Kocan set up a laboratory experiment that compared the swimming stamina of infected rainbow trout with that of healthy trout. He used a chamber with water swift enough to exhaust a healthy fish in about 10 minutes. The infected fish lasted about two minutes. "It's like asking someone with heart disease to run a 10K race," Kocan said. "He's not going to do very well." That left a question: Why did the previously undetected disease show up in the late 1980s and resurface every year since? Kocan and his students scrutinized all the potential variables and found only one significant change: Average river water temperatures had been rising over the last three decades. The warming began earlier each spring, following an earlier breakup of the river's ice. The June temperatures showed the greatest increase, about 6 to 8 degrees warmer, and June is when king salmon return from the ocean and begin their long upriver migration to spawn. Unlike warm-blooded animals, the body temperature of salmon fluctuates with the temperature of surrounding waters. Laboratory studies of Ich infections in trout, a close cousin, have revealed that the incidence of disease and death rises as water warms, especially above 59 degrees. Kocan spent five summers on the Yukon River studying the parasite, creating an uproar among fishermen by sharing his findings directly with them, rather than allowing state Fish and Game officials to review the data first. He suddenly found his funding drying up after objections from Alaskan representatives on the committee that doles out research dollars. "I've essentially been blackballed from working on the Yukon," said Kocan, whose work has since been accepted and published in peer-reviewed journals. "There's one fellow specifically who does not like our results: Gene Sandone. He doesn't want to hear the story and change his management practices." Sandone denied playing any part in this: "I didn't blackball Richard Kocan. Dr. Kocan is free to put in a proposal and argue his point. He just has to get it through the technical committee." The clash comes over the implications of Kocan's thesis. He believes that as much as 20% of king salmon are dying en route to the spawning grounds. If so, fisheries managers would have to cut back the commercial catch by at least that amount to keep the run healthy. Sandone has an alternative theory, which has not been tested. He believes that the sick fish, weakened by the parasite, swim along the slower-moving edge of the river, where a disproportionate number get caught by fishing nets and fish wheels that line the banks. In other words, subsistence fishermen like Pat Moore are simply catching most of the sick fish. The healthy ones swim just out of reach, deeper in the river, headed straight for Canada. "That's my theory -- that they are not dying on the way," Sandone said. "Even if they are dying on the way, so what?" His department limits the catch based on how many fish escape all the nets and make it to the spawning grounds to reproduce. That's been going well, he said, except for last year, when the number of fish that made it to Canada fell 50% below the minimum spelled out in a U.S.-Canadian agreement. Sandone is retiring later this year, after 26 years as a state official. The fishermen in Tanana, who scoff at his theory, say they are delighted to see him go. They hope the state will be less hostile to studying the disease and trying to figure out what to do about it. Besides supporting fishermen, salmon are a keystone species in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, supporting wildlife from birds to bears and orcas. A crash could cripple dependent creatures. Mary Ruckelshaus, a federal biologist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, has been running climate models to peer into the future for Pacific Northwest salmon. Those models predict that salmon will become extinct without aggressive efforts to preserve the clear, cool streams needed for spawning, such as planting trees to shade streams and curtailing the amount of water siphoned off by farmers. "It's sort of a time bomb," Ruckelshaus said. "If people don't have a plan for it, it can be disastrous when it hits." Her models didn't factor in the potential for emerging diseases, such as the one that Kocan, her former professor, has been studying. Kocan views Ichthyophonus as a classic emerging disease. He pointed out that salmon, a lucrative catch, had been scrutinized by scientists and fishermen for decades, and the disease had never before been reported. In the last decade, it has shown up in salmon on the Yukon, Kuskokwim and Taku rivers in Alaska and on various rivers in British Columbia and Russia. It has also been detected in recent years in rockfish and smaller noncommercial fish in Puget Sound and elsewhere off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, and in freshwater trout on Idaho farms. It's the kind of redistribution of disease that can be expected with climate change, Kocan said: "Everything is getting warmer, and that's how climate change is going to redistribute all kinds of disease. Parasites have their optimum conditions -- upper and lower limits. We'll notice where they show up but not necessarily where they disappear." Ichthyophonus is among a class of ancient parasitic microbes that can move fast, taking advantage of new niches using age-old tricks that have kept them around for billions of years. None of this comforts Pat Moore, a musher with dozens of dogs, and others who rely on the bounty of the Yukon River to make their living. It's a culture that lives on the edge and cannot stomach waste. "I don't want to kill fish for the sake of killing them," said Moore, as he expertly sliced a king into narrow strips. "I want to use the damned things."# http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-ichfish15-2008jun15 ,0,2020280.story?page=1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danielbacher at fishsniffer.com Thu Jun 19 17:15:43 2008 From: danielbacher at fishsniffer.com (Dan Bacher) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:15:43 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Karuk Tribe and Fishing Groups Call on Schwarzenegger to Limit Gold Mining To Save Struggling Fisheries Message-ID: Karuk Tribe ? California Trout P R E S S R E L E A S E For Immediate Release: June 18, 2008 For more information: Craig Tucker, Spokesperson Karuk Tribe cell 916-207-8294 Severn Williams, California Trout 510-336-7566 Karuk Tribe and Fishing Groups Call on Schwarzenegger to Limit Gold Mining To Save Struggling Fisheries In Wake of Fisheries Closures, Tribe, Fishermen, and Conservationists Urge Governor to protect critical habitats from Suction Dredge Mining Sacramento, CA ? A Native Tribe along with commercial and recreational fishermen called on Governor Schwarzenegger today to restrict the controversial gold mining technique known as suction dredge mining. The groups? call to limit the recreational mining technique comes as California faces the worst fisheries collapse in history. ?In April, the state and federal government took unprecedented emergency actions to completely close California?s coast to recreational and commercial salmon fishing, something that is causing severe economic harm to businesses and communities,? said Brian Stranko, CEO of California Trout. ?This is why it is inappropriate and unacceptable for state government to allow recreational suction dredge mining operations to continue to harm fish, particularly endangered species like coho salmon.? Suction dredges are powered by gas or diesel engines that are mounted on floating pontoons in the river. Attached to the engine is a powerful vacuum hose which the dredger uses to suction up the gravel and sand (sediment) from the bottom of the river. The stream bed passes through a sluice box where heavier gold particles can settle into a series of riffles. The rest of the gravel and potentially toxic sediment is simply dumped back into the river. Depending on size, location and density of these machines they can turn a clear running mountain stream or river segment into a murky watercourse unfit for swimming. ?Dredging disturbs spawning gravels and kills salmon eggs and immature lamprey that reside in the gravel for up to seven years before maturing. In a system like the Klamath where salmon can be stressed due to poor water quality, having a dredge running in the middle of the stream affects the fishes ability to reach their spawning grounds,? according to Toz Soto, lead fisheries biologist for the Karuk Tribe. Soto adds, ?there is a lot of mercury settled on the bottom of these rivers from gold smelting operations from the 1800?s. Dredging reintroduces mercury to the stream creating a toxic hazard for fish and people.? Exposure to mercury can lead to mental retardation and birth defects. The groups are hoping that the Governor will agree to a provision added by the Legislature to the 2008 Budget Bill that would establish a temporary moratorium on suction dredge mining in areas that represent the most important habitat for salmon and trout while the Department of Fish and Game revises (DFG) its regulations in compliance with a 2006 court order. ?The 2.2 million Californians that buy fishing licenses every year expect the Governor to protect both our natural resources as well as our rural economies,? said Stranko. According to the American Sportfishing Association, licensed anglers in California contribute $4.9 billion annually to the state?s economy This includes 43,000 jobs amounting to $1.3 billion in wages and salaries annually. Commercial salmon fishing contributes $255 million and 2,263 jobs to the California economy. By comparison, DFG only issues 3,000 permits for suction dredging each year. For the Karuk Tribe the threat is even greater. ?Suction dredge mining is nothing more than recreational genocide. The first gold rush killed more than half our people in 10 years.This modern gold rush continues to kill our fish and our culture,? says Leaf Hillman of the Karuk Tribe. ?While we cannot harvest enough salmon for our ceremonies or to meet our families? food needs, miners are allowed to rip and tear our river bottoms to shreds. We need the Governor to take a stand with Native People and the 2.2 million anglers in California - not 3,000 recreational gold miners,? added Hillman. In coming weeks the Governor will have to consider the groups? proposal to limit mining as part of the 2008 Budget Bill to provide interim safeguards while DFG conducts a two-year effort to overhaul statewide regulations covering instream mining. # # # Editor?s note: for a picture of a suction dredge in action, email request to ctucker at karuk.us S. Craig Tucker, Ph.D. Klamath Campaign Coordinator Karuk Tribe of California NEW NUMBER home office: 707-839-1982 Tribal office in Orleans: 530-627-3446 x3027 cell: 916-207-8294 ctucker at karuk.us www.karuk.us -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Sat Jun 21 12:02:45 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:02:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Sacto Loses Water Meters Message-ID: <002801c8d3d1$63ec5f40$0300a8c0@HAL> http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1029562.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Jun 22 10:15:15 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:15:15 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fire Information Message-ID: <009d01c8d48b$8ab21b50$0f6c3940@trinitycounty.org> We had lots of lightning strikes yesterday and the night before. You can get updates on the status of the Iron and Lime Complex fires west of Hayfork and Weaverville, respectively at http://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf Lime Complex, Shasta-Trinity NF. IMT 2 (Kaage). IMT 1 (Opliger) ordered. Fourteen miles west of Hayfork, CA. Timber. Fuel-driven fire activity. Residences and a lookout tower threatened. 1,000 acres Iron Complex, Shasta-Trinity NF. IMT 2 (Swartzlander). Six miles west of Weaverville, CA. Timber. Moderate to extreme fire behavior. Residences threatened. 150 acres Siskiyou Complex, Klamath NF. IMT 2 (Paul). Eighteen miles southwest of Happy Camp, CA. Conifer and hardwood overstory with heavy timber litter. Active backing fire with rapid uphill runs. Historical and cultural resources threatened. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Mon Jun 23 09:05:28 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:05:28 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fire Incident Report Message-ID: <003801c8d54a$f62fc0c0$6401a8c0@HAL> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: sitreprt 23 Jun 08.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 377519 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Jun 23 10:21:20 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:21:20 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Announcing Upcoming State Water Resources Control Board CALFED Watershed Program Grant Solicitation Message-ID: <021c01c8d555$8ed37ba0$0f6c3940@trinitycounty.org> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Wermiel, Dan [mailto:Dan.Wermiel at CONSERVATION.CA.GOV] Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 9:54 AM To: CBDA_WATERSHED_SUB at LISTSERV.CAHWNET.GOV Subject: Announcing Upcoming State Water Resources Control Board CALFED Watershed Program Grant Solicitation Announcing Upcoming State Water Resources Control Board CALFED Watershed Program Grant Solicitation The State Water Resources Control Board will issue a focused grant solicitation to implement a suite of priority actions identified in an established watershed management plan, and to measure and analyze the effectiveness within the watershed to determine and illustrate the value of collaborative community-based watershed management. Emphasis will be placed on determining the effectiveness of community-based efforts by measuring improvements in natural resource conditions of the selected watershed(s). More information about the upcoming solicitation is available to assist in your planning efforts. Additional information about the Watershed Program can found at http://www.conservation.ca.gov/dlrp/wp/Pages/Index.aspx -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Jun 23 13:07:22 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:07:22 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Peace on the Klamath Message-ID: <026301c8d56c$c1592bd0$0f6c3940@trinitycounty.org> From: "Craig Tucker" Date: June 23, 2008 9:42:28 AM PDT To: Cc: "Steve Evans" , "'Jeff Mitchell'" , "'Larry Dunsmoor'" , "'David Nesmith'" , "'Julia McIver'" , , "'Kathy McCovey'" , "'Katie Ulvestad'" , "'Diana Cohn'" Subject: FW: Peace on the Klamath Probably the most accurate account of the effort to restore the Klamath?. S. Craig Tucker, Ph.D. Klamath Campaign Coordinator Karuk Tribe of California NEW NUMBER home office: 707-839-1982 Tribal office in Orleans: 530-627-3446 x3027 cell: 916-207-8294 ctucker at karuk.us www.karuk.us Begin forwarded message: www.hcn.org To receive two free issues of High Country News call 1-800-905-1155, or visit:http://www.hcn.org/freepapersubscription.jsp Peace on the Klamath Feature article - June 23, 2008 by Matt Jenkins The enemies in the West's most vicious water war have finally reached a ceasefire. This is the story of how it happened. On an April afternoon alive with light, Troy Fletcher -- an imposing Yurok Indian who could pass for a bouncer -- is knocking together tuna-salad sandwiches in the kitchen of his new house, a doublewide that got trucked in from the coast three days ago. He's wearing Hawaiian shorts and a T-shirt that says "The Future is Ours." A flat-panel TV drones on in the living room, and a hot tub sits out back, waiting to be hooked up. Fletcher, who is 46, pads to the fridge for a Budweiser and says: "I've been waiting forever for this." The reference is only partly to the house. Here, where the lower Klamath River winds down into the gorges of California's North Coast, the river is a world unto itself. This is an isolated and truly wild piece of country, a place that seems to live by its own rules. It is Bigfoot's reputed stomping ground. It is also home to several tribes of coastal Indians whose cultures revolve around the river's salmon and steelhead, and who can smoke a fish into sublimity. Not just this stretch of the river but the entire basin -- which reaches several hundred miles inland into the Oregon high desert and covers an area about the size of Denmark -- is known for something else. No other corner of the West has seemed so determined to live up to the maxim, endlessly misattributed to Mark Twain, that "whiskey's for drinkin' and water's for fightin' over." That attitude has attained a triple-distilled kick here, in a running battle between Indians, environmentalists, fishermen and a notoriously combative band of farmers 200 miles up the river. Fletcher has variously served as the Yurok's executive director, fisheries director and now, policy advisor, and he has been as deep in the fight as anyone. The Klamath River was once home to the third-largest salmon run on the West Coast. But fish populations plunged when dams blocked salmon and steelhead from the upper reaches of the river, where they spawn, and irrigation drained off much of the river's water. For decades, the situation somehow wobbled clear of a full-blown crisis. Then, in 2001 a severe drought hit. To save fish protected by the Endangered Species Act, the federal government shut off the farmers' irrigation water -- and incited an insurrection that brought death threats, a shooting spree and the intervention of federal marshals. A year later, the government made sure the farmers got their water -- and caused a massive salmon die-off that enraged the river's Indians. From a distance, the situation has seemed irredeemable. But for the past three years, Fletcher and his erstwhile enemies have been trying to negotiate the shape of their future together. They have sought to keep all their communities going, and the effort has forced everyone to tackle the most volatile parts of the river's rip-roarin' politics. "We've been in the fight for ages," Fletcher says. "But we can't afford to litigate for decades and watch our fish continue to die." The negotiation process has been as tortuous as the river's run through the canyons, and it has been tightly wrapped in secrecy. But after 90 years, salmon will soon be bound once more for the river's upper reaches. And the long-warring parties say they have laid the groundwork to sustain native fish, farming and Indian communities, creating a peace on the river that can last. "We turned the traditional alliances upside-down," Fletcher says. "Now you've got the deck shuffled, and it makes no rhyme or reason who's out or who's in." Two hundred miles up the river, not far from Mount Shasta's snowy flanks, the farms of the Upper Klamath Basin fit together in an awkward jigsaw with the remnants of Tule Lake and lower Klamath Lake. This was originally the land of the Klamath and Modoc Indians, who were hunted down, rounded up, and deposited on a reservation that was subsequently dissolved. In their place came Czech and Irish immigrants and, later, veterans returning from the First and Second World Wars, who drew lots for homesteads out of a pickle jar in the town of Tulelake. The area is unabashed meat-and-potatoes farm country. No frisee gets grown here, and no mache, either. The main crops on the roughly 1,200 farms here are alfalfa for dairy and beef cattle, wheat, and potatoes, which usually end up sliced and fried and Frito-Lay'd. Some farmers do a middling commerce in things like mint, horseradish, and strawberry seedlings. Like much of the West's farm country, the Klamath has suffered from a surfeit of optimism running all the way back to the days of Theodore Roosevelt. The crusade to irrigate the desert parceled out too much water to too many people, leaving the region's native fish and wildlife to go, quite literally, belly-up. Nothing has done more to tilt the scales back toward something like balance than the Endangered Species Act. The 1973 law effectively grants a water right to endangered species like coho salmon -- though only enough for minimum "survival" flows, and only when species are in imminent peril of extinction. But many farmers here saw even that as regulatory overkill: Flows to preserve endangered species supersede all existing water rights, upending the Western water hierarchy in which farmers typically have first place. The tension between water priorities for farming and those for wildlife had long been growing throughout the region, but it was in 2001 in the Klamath Basin that things finally blew up more spectacularly than anywhere else. That year, the Klamath Basin received just a third of its average annual precipitation. On April 6, the federal government announced that it needed to keep water in the river for coho salmon -- which are classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act -- and in Upper Klamath Lake for the endangered Lost River and shortnose sucker fish. The Bureau of Reclamation cranked the headgate on the farmers' canal closed and locked it down. Many farmers had already planted their crops when the water was shut off; all told, Klamath farmers lost between $27 million and $47 million that year. Some were literally ruined, and the headgate in the town of Klamath Falls quickly became the stage for some hard-core political theater. Farmers organized a protest there that dragged on throughout the summer. Armed with cutting torches and power saws, they reopened the headgate four times. "You're dealing with farmers: They can handle anything," says Bill Ransom, who helped organize the protest. "(The federal agencies) were gonna have to do a lot more than they did to keep it closed." In between assaults on the headgate, the farmers grilled salmon. The fish weren't from endangered runs, but still, the point was clear. Finally, in July, the federal government deployed law-enforcement agents from around the region to guard the headgate. The whole affair took on the feel of a tent revival -- or, in its own weird way, a civil-rights march. "The day they came, the people there linked arms around the headgate and started singin' hymns," Ransom says. "It kind of dumbfounded them, I think." The FOX News satellite trucks weren't far behind the marshals -- and a growing din from the right proclaimed that environmentalists and the federal government were using the Endangered Species Act as a weapon for "rural cleansing." The drama was very consciously stage-managed, but the situation was truly volatile. And emotions eventually came uncorked. In December, three local men in their 20s terrorized the town of Chiloquin, the center of the Klamath Indian tribes, firing a shotgun at buildings and signs and taunting the Indians as "sucker lovers." The farmers themselves were far more methodical. They hired the most notorious private-property rights lawyer in the country to seek a billion-dollar indemnity from the feds (that case still lingers in the courts, with uncertain prospects). And they begged Karl Rove to get their water back. In 2002, with the help of Dick Cheney, they succeeded -- only to cause the die-off of tens of thousands of salmon. That fish kill seemed a sort of desecration for all the Indian tribes on the Klamath -- not to mention the hundreds of commercial fishermen who were shut out by subsequent, last-ditch government fishing bans meant to protect the increasingly beleaguered salmon runs. The entire situation seemed to be wobbling more wildly than ever before. At the eastern edge of Klamath Falls, not far past the county fairgrounds, the Klamath Water Users Association's office is tucked into a spartan mini-mall that's also home to a custom boot shop and a pizza joint. Greg Addington, a Carhartts-and-Skoal kind of guy, runs the association; essentially, he was deputized by the farmers to defend their water rights. When Addington started in early 2005, he says, "I only knew, 'Troy Fletcher: He's a bad guy.' He was Public Enemy #1 here." That was before Addington spent three years negotiating with Fletcher. After 2002, there were several attempts to talk about resolving the problems, but they went nowhere: The wounds were too raw. Sometime in the fall of 2004, however -- after the farmers lost several key legal fights -- things started to change. The Bureau of Reclamation had sponsored a series of several-day "listening sessions" meant to initiate some kind of dialogue. It was a woo-woo, pass-the-talking-stick sort of deal that the farmers and Indians normally wouldn't be caught dead at. "They were really painful," says Troy Fletcher. "It's hard to sit through two days of 'talk about your feelings.' It really sucked." Yet as long as any one of the warring parties attended the sessions and spoke out, none of the others could afford to stay home. Then, in March 2005, at a listening session in the town of Tulelake, the microphone came around to Fletcher. For reasons he still struggles to fully explain, he took a deep breath and said: "I don't know all the answers here, but I do know that what we've been doing just isn't working. Let's do a ceasefire and start trying to work on some stuff together." For a lot of veterans of the water fight -- even people on Fletcher's side -- it sounded like some sort of setup. "This is a very long war. My entire life, all I've known is the fight with the irrigators," says Leaf Hillman, the vice-chairman of the Karuk Tribe, whose members live downstream near the Yurok Reservation. Hillman, who has a congenital disdain for happy talk, and a thick braided ponytail you could ring a bell with, didn't attend the Tulelake meeting. He sent one of the tribe's biologists instead. "My guy, as part of reporting back, said, 'You know, Troy stood up and said we need a ceasefire.' He said it was a genuinely moving moment," Hillman recalled. "I looked at him and I laughed. I said, 'You don't know Troy. That sounds like a brilliant damn Troy moment where he's hooked some people into believing that he actually believes this shit.' " But that moment signaled the first real thaw in relations. "About a week or two later we set a meeting, where we brought Greg and a bunch of people down," says Fletcher. "And that's where I think we really started zeroing in. Us and the Karuk kind of jointly reached out to these guys, and fumbled through a couple meetings." They met in a room at the back of the Karuk tribal housing office in Yreka and "spent about four hours hashing it out," Hillman says. "We started laying stuff out there honestly, away from any audience, where we didn't have to posture for the media. It was the first attempt to bring the tribes and the irrigators in a room by themselves, away from the spotlight, to say, 'Look, we all are in bad shape here.' " Imagine that you are a mama coho in ... oh, say, 1918. Halfway around the world, the Great War is winding down. And here you are, chugging in from the sea to lay your eggs, following your nose up the Klamath back to the creek where you were born. Swim on, old girl, swim home! You struggle hard. And then, 210 miles up the river, in a narrow, rocky gorge where the water comes sluicing down, you wriggle through the rapids and -- bonk! -- smack face-first into the toe of a brand-new dam called Copco 1. Behind it, you smell 350 miles of river and streams and creeks beckoning, but they are no longer yours. That dam was the first of four on the river that now spin out electricity for PacifiCorp, a utility owned by investor Warren Buffet's company Berkshire Hathaway. It is only because of a pair of fish hatcheries that the Klamath salmon runs have persisted into the 21st century. Tribes like the Yurok, not surprisingly, have long thought that the dams need to come down. The farmers, on the other hand, saw PacifiCorp as an ally. For one thing, the company's dams keep salmon -- and at least some of the regulatory headaches that trail endangered fish -- from making it as far up the river as the irrigation project. It didn't hurt that PacifiCorp kept the irrigators flush in cut-rate power, either. As it happened, negotiations over the dams' future had just gotten under way at about the same time the Indians and farmers began talking. The operating licenses for the dams -- issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC -- were up for renewal. And PacifiCorp, hoping to head off lawsuits, began gathering practically everyone who had a stake in the river to negotiate the terms and conditions of its new licenses. Ultimately, that included the Klamath farmers; the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa and Klamath tribes; commercial salmon fishermen; several federal agencies; and a number of environmental groups -- altogether, some 28 different governments and organizations. Throughout 2005, their representatives holed up in hotels in various towns in Northern California and southern Oregon to negotiate. At first, the talks focused narrowly on the dams' licenses. But in the evenings, after negotiations ended for the day, Addington and Fletcher occasionally shared a beer in hotel bars and had what Addington refers to as "off-line conversations." In the beginning, they stuck to safe subjects, like their kids. But eventually, they edged back toward the conversation that began in the back room in Yreka. In one sense, the early talks were a way to run through some of the rumor and rhetoric that dominated each side's pronouncements in the wake of the water showdown. "I got to a point where I just trusted Troy, and I knew he wouldn't be offended by me asking stupid questions," Addington says. (Exempli gratia, "Troy, are you sure that fish kill in 2002 wasn't caused by meth-lab leakage somewhere down on your end of the river?") For Fletcher, it was a chance to remonstrate gently about the way the farmers had framed their plight. "You're telling me how bad off you are, that you're gonna go bankrupt," he says. "My people can't afford to go bankrupt. If you wanna talk about the poorest of the poor, we're gonna win that one, alright? So let's just not go there." But the thaw had begun, and it was starting to reach all the way to Fletcher and Addington's respective communities. Bob Gasser is a Klamath Basin fertilizer dealer who sits on the board of the water users' association. He helped fund the headgate protests in 2001, and to this day keeps a FEED THE FEDS TO THE FISH bumper sticker in his office. But earlier this year he acknowledged, "Everybody's tired of the fight. We've got every enviro out there beatin' on us -- we're fighting people we don't even know. And we don't have the funds to do it. How long can we put millions of dollars into a fight that we just aren't winning?" And even blunt-spoken Indians like Hillman felt that the time had come to break free of the see-sawing legal wars. "That shit's been going on forever, and it's very unsatisfying," Hillman says. "(Winning) is exhilarating, for a moment: You can sit around and have a beer and say, 'Yeah! We kicked their ass.' But when you go back to work on Monday morning, you better look behind you, because the other side has already set to work figuring out how to undermine that." The Klamath Irrigation Project is an intensively plumbed system; farmers delight in pointing out that a drop of water may get re-circulated up to seven times on its trip through the project. Addington once remarked -- alluding to the old saw "water flows uphill toward money" -- that "if water can go uphill anywhere, it's here." It's not much of an exaggeration: At one point in the system, the farmers' water is literally pumped through a mountain. But it takes a lot of electricity to keep that system running. And in 2004, as PacifiCorp's dam licenses neared expiration, the company announced that it was going to end the super-cheap, half-cent-per-kilowatt-hour power rate it had charged irrigators for the past 50 years. The new rate would be about a thousand percent higher. That "brought the farmers face to face with imminent disaster," says Hillman. "If you can't switch on a pump and move water in the Upper Basin from point A to point B, you don't have an irrigation project." A year earlier, that would have seemed a heaven-sent opportunity for the tribes to pound a stake through the farmers' collective heart. Now, though, the Indians agreed to do something that appeared to border on self-destruction: help keep their old adversaries in business. "Nothing brings two people together like a common enemy," says Troy Fletcher -- and both sides realized that "we had a common opponent through this FERC negotiation, and that was PacifiCorp." The farmers planned an appeal to the Oregon and California Public Utility Commissions to block the hike, and quietly made it known that they could use all the help they could get. And, Hillman says, "Troy Fletcher and myself stood up after they made that plea and said very publicly, in front of God and everybody, 'We acknowledge (the farmers') right to exist in this basin.' " The Karuk and Yurok tribes agreed to support the farmers' quest for rate relief. That was a turning point -- and it suddenly put many of the negotiators in an uneasy relationship with the people they represented. When they returned home from the meeting, Hillman says, "we kept it low profile. Our respective communities were still not very hip on this whole notion of holding hands with our enemies." But soon after, the Indians had to make their own "ask" of the farmers: clearing the path for salmon to get all the way back up the river. "The basin is basically cut in half," says Hillman. "To restore runs, we need that untapped productivity that fish aren't able to access anymore -- all that spawning habitat" beyond the dams. For the farmers who'd been symbolically barbecuing salmon with such gusto, the prospect of having the fish back in their own backyard was disconcerting. As Addington put it, "C'mon, a fish is a fish. If you need more salmon, just make more in a hatchery." But card trading is a curious sport. The farmers realized that, after passing junk to the Indians in 2002, it might be time to kick an ace their way. At a February 2006 meeting in Sacramento, federal fish and wildlife managers asked Addington about the farmers' position on re-opening the upper river to salmon. When Addington said that the farmers would stand with the tribes, "they were like, 'Holy shit.' " Fletcher says. "You could hear their jaws drop on the table." On a bluebird afternoon six weeks ago, Scott Seus was in the cab of a tractor, planting onion seed not far from Tulelake. His tractor and another worked their way in tandem across the field while a crew of men followed, laying irrigation pipe. "When I pull this planter out of there, and the pipe's on the ground, we are already 90 percent invested into this onion crop," he said. "All my money's laying out here on the table, and I've got no way to try to recoup any of it if they shut the water off mid-season." That was exactly what happened to farmers in 2001. And, Seus said, many of them realized that if they didn't wind up victims the next time things got tight, someone else -- whether tribes or fishermen -- would. And when that happened, the rest of the world was sure to hear about it. "It's unpredictable, and it's a dangerous game," Seus said. "Everybody's playing Russian roulette." The challenge for Addington -- and everyone else -- was immense. After going back and forth with former enemies to come to incremental agreements, Addington now had to sell it to people like Scott Seus -- who, along with about 1,200 other farmers in the basin, had been footing his salary for the past three years. Addington tried to make it clear that he hadn't succumbed to a cowboys-and-Indians version of Stockholm syndrome. "When you disappear for a week at a time and you're talking to people who have not been your friends, you better hustle back and let people know what's going on," he says. "You kind of got to a point with these guys where you just really wanted to make this thing happen. But you can only go so far out on a limb before it breaks." In the settlement negotiations -- which by this point had ranged through practically every government-rate frontage-road hotel in Northern California and southern Oregon -- a comprehensive package was emerging. It included the creation of a council to coordinate the agreement and day-to-day operations of the river; removal of the four PacifiCorp dams; an ambitious fisheries restoration program that would go beyond minimum survival for the coho and suckers, and restore non-endangered fish like chinook, steelhead and lamprey; a formal water right for the area's national wildlife refuges; reduced-rate electricity for the irrigators; and a provision enabling the Klamath Tribes to buy 90,000 acres of their homeland. The cornerstone of the entire deal was the question of how to divvy up the river's water. During a string of back-to-back meetings in Sacramento in December 2006, the negotiating group agonized over how to balance the competing demands. Biologists from the tribes and an engineering consultant for the farmers ran a seemingly endless series of computer models to find a workable compromise. The farmers needed enough water to continue farming -- and yet the tribes and environmentalists saw removing the dams as a hollow victory if there wasn't enough water for the fish. Ultimately, they closed in on a plan that would limit irrigators to 10 to 25 percent less than they'd used historically. The upside for the farmers was a greatly reduced threat of their water being completely shut off again to protect fish. In about half the years, farmers will have to get by on less water than they've used in the past. When there's not enough water for the river and the lake, they will either have to pump groundwater, or fallow -- temporarily dry up -- some farmland for the year. The nearly $1 billion budget for the settlement includes money for a one-time upfront payment to farmers willing to fallow their land when necessary to free up water for the lake and river. That money will, in theory, cover the cost of fixed expenses like land payments, taxes and yearly operation and maintenance costs for the irrigation system -- all of which farmers have to pay whether they farm a particular piece of ground or not. With clearer rules in place, farmers like Seus can plan smarter: During years when water will be tight, they can shift their crop mix from low-value crops like alfalfa to higher-value crops to maximize their return on the reduced amounts of water. Gasser, the fertilizer dealer, pointed out that in a drought year, "if you can farm 50 percent, you can probably hold things together. You may not make anything, but you can keep your operation alive." Still, it was a serious thing to commit to. "A lot of (the settlement) is very important, but that was locking in less water than we knew we needed in at least 50 percent of the years," Addington says. "We knew that once we committed to that, we weren't going back." Crossing that threshold caused so much heartburn that Addington, together with several federal and state officials in the negotiatons, requisitioned a plane and flew to Klamath Falls in a snowstorm to meet with the water users' board. "It was raining, and spittin' snow, and it was just horrible. It went all night long," says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional director Steve Thompson. For several hours, the water users' board deliberated in closed session; with nowhere else to go, Thompson says, the government contingent "sat out in one of the ranchers' Suburbans, with snowflakes falling and the windshield wipers going. It was a tough, tough night." Finally, at some point late in the night, the entourage flew back to Sacramento, and started negotiating again the next morning. "It was just painful. It was terrible," says Addington. "You're having to make a call that is gonna affect everybody up here, and you can't foresee every possibility. There's things you're just having to make a gut call on, and hope you're right." During the first two weeks of January 2007, the pace of the negotiations peaked. Even with the linchpin of the settlement in place -- at least in rough form -- many other issues remained unresolved, and the pressure was rising. Then something cracked. And suddenly the Indians and farmers had yet another common enemy: two of the environmental groups in the negotiations. The Tule Lake and Lower Klamath national wildlife refuges are important layovers for birds traveling the Pacific Flyway. And about one-tenth of the farming in the Klamath Irrigation Project takes place on the two refuges, on about 22,000 acres that Scott Seus and other farmers lease from the federal government. In recent years, the lease-land program has been retooled to be more bird-friendly, most notably by the creation of a "walking wetlands" program in which farmers flood parcels of leased land in a rotating schedule to provide habitat for waterfowl. But two environmental groups, Water Watch and Oregon Wild, have long insisted that farming has no place on the refuges. Bob Hunter, a Water Watch attorney, is fond of taking visitors to Tule Lake -- which is often the scene of a veritable blizzard of snow geese in the winter -- and asking, "Is this a refuge for ducks, or potatoes?" Hunter says that the only real way to reduce water demand in the basin is to take farmland out of production permanently. And, his reasoning goes, it makes sense to do away with the refuge lease-land program first. "If you're gonna try to reduce irrigation demand, maybe the best place to start is on lands already owned by the public," he says. "There's a dozen farm families that have farms around here that are situated to do (lease-land farming) and they kind of trade 'em around. But why should a couple dozen people be holding hostage some of the most valuable refuges in the nation so they can make money off of them?" For the farmers, though, the idea of downsizing farming was a non-starter. "What we, quite honestly, have told people at the table is: If you want to reduce the project permanently, we'd be glad to take that back and see what our people say," Addington says. "But we can tell you what they're gonna say" -- he starts to mouth an "f" and then thinks better of it -- " 'Hell, no!' " The details of the negotiations remain hidden behind a confidentiality agreement, and various participants give differing versions of what ultimately happened. During the fall of 2006, in side discussions, Oregon Wild and Water Watch apparently broached the possibility of phasing out lease-land farming. But as the strands of the agreement began tightening in January 2007, the two groups insisted on a provision to phase out farming on the refuges. The reaction from the farmers -- and the Yurok and Karuk tribes -- was decisive. Hillman says that he wasn't himself averse to the idea of downsizing farming, but he knew that an insistence on ending the lease-land program would break the entire deal. "(Oregon Wild and Water Watch) foreclosed an opportunity that all of us had been looking at and working on in little incremental bits and pieces for years," he says. "But (you have to) work with your allies and be strategic about the pace you address it at, instead of going nuclear and all the rest of us having to deal with the fallout. "There was no question from that day forward that they had to get out, or we were done," he says. "It put us in a bad position. And we led the charge to throw them out of the damn room." On April 6, the settlement group was dissolved. Then, within a matter of hours, the farmers and the two tribes created a new one and invited back all the parties except Oregon Wild and Water Watch. Both Hunter and Steve Pedery, the conservation director for Oregon Wild, give a different version of events: They say the politically connected Klamath farmers wanted to reach an agreement that could be put into effect in the final year of George Bush's presidency. "The Bush administration," Pedery says, "(came) in with a settlement outline and demand(ed) that everyone in the process sign on." "This," Hunter says, "was just another settlement process that got hijacked by the Bush administration to deliver some key things to a politically connected ally." But the participants still inside the process -- including representatives of the environmental groups Trout Unlimited and American Rivers -- say that simply isn't true. "The intensity of some of our meetings and discussions was just incredible. And I think it came to a point where the deadline (arrived), and the compromise was just too much for Oregon Wild and Water Watch," says Thompson, the Fish and Wildlife Service regional manager. "It was pretty obvious that they couldn't get to a resolution with us, and that they were not going to be supportive of any resolution. They said that. So then it was a matter of, 'Well, OK: We need to move on with those parties that can.' " "They just ran into issues that they weren't willing to go any further on," says Larry Dunsmoor, a biologist with the Klamath Tribes. "Those of us who committed to the process worked our butts off, and we worked it out with the irrigators, and they worked it out with us. It was one of the hardest things we've ever done." In January, the agreement was finally released to the public. It was the first time that most of the people the negotiators represented got to see it for themselves, and Fletcher and Addington & Co. have since been busy campaigning to win the support of their communities. The settlement is still far from being a done deal. The federal government has decreed that PacifiCorp must add ways for fish to get around its dams, which is usually done by adding water-filled ramps called fish ladders -- so salmon, steelhead and lamprey will soon be headed all the way up the Klamath. But PacifiCorp still has not agreed to take its dams out, and a separate negotiation on that issue continues. The settlement will also certainly face challenges from its opponents, who say the farmers are attempting to teleport themselves back to the good old days, before there were such things as endangered species laws. "The Endangered Species Act flipped things to where fish come first, and you have to have some minimum survival flows for them," says Bob Hunter. "This agreement's just trying to turn things back to the way it's been for 100 years, where project irrigators get theirs first, and the fish get what's left over. You're putting the risk back on fish." But Fletcher says the agreement could ultimately lead the way into a new world, where fish can prosper beyond mere survival levels. "We're talking about getting away from Endangered Species Act management -- which means the population is (just) maintaining -- to something more," Fletcher says. "We want a boatload of fish. Because we want to catch those fish. That's what we do." Fletcher, who started the Yuroks' fisheries department in the early 1990s, says he struggled with how to integrate the tribe's traditional view of the world with the river's complicated politics. "The tribe and tribal people have an obligation to protect the river and do what we can to restore it," he said. "And we have a challenge of expressing that in today's world, and in the complexities that are out there right now." "I think one part of how to express the obligation is to know your stuff," he said. "It's not good enough to be good enough: You've gotta be better." That led to a big tribal investment in people and expertise for its fisheries program, and the sorts of computer modeling that makes Fletcher think the settlement agreement will get fish -- and not just endangered suckers and threatened coho, but chinook and lamprey, too -- the water they need. "I think a lot of people trust environmental groups, and they trust tribes, and it's confusing when you see people who typically are on the same side start to line up on different sides," Fletcher said. But the tribe's quest to uphold its obligations has forced it to break with traditional allies and strike out on its own. "Everybody's for tribal sovereignty," Fletcher said, "until you start thinking for yourselves, and make your decision that you wanna go a different way." The most surprising thing about the Klamath Basin is that for all the rancor here, this is, ecologically speaking, an extremely promising spot for river restoration. "It's huge and complicated and complex," Hillman says, "(but) it's still probably the one single place on the continent that still has an opportunity to restore an entire river basin." At the same time, there is no shortage of places in the West that are having their own water crises -- which is to say, their own Klamath moments. It's tempting to see the Klamath settlement as a harbinger for the rest of the region: If bitter enemies can bargain their way to peace here, they can do it anywhere, right? But Fletcher isn't so sure that's the take-home message. "I went and testified before the (California) fisheries committee last year, and they wanted me to talk a little bit about the Klamath experience," he says. "I was thinking, 'I don't know if you want to repeat the Klamath experience.' We're at a point where we can almost reach a settlement that can resolve a lot of things. But you don't even wanna go through what it takes to get there. "Have you litigated enough? Are you beating each other up enough? You gotta reach that point where everybody's felt enough pain," he said. "You have to check off all those things, and if you haven't got 'em all, then you're not ready. You're not ready to go through it." If the Klamath experience proves anything, then, it may only be that in the end -- and even in the Klamath -- water politics is not warfare so much as perpetual negotiation. The same week this spring that Troy Fletcher had taken delivery of his doublewide, Scott Seus was planting onions. Midway through the afternoon, Seus stopped his tractor when his wife, Sara, pulled up with their year-and-a-half-old son, Spencer, and Seus' lunch. As he ate out of the back of Sara's Suburban, Seus said, "There's a whole bunch of guys that have just learned to hate, and they can't see beyond that. This is my third year of farming on my own, and there's my young wife and my son. I'd love to see him farm, too, and I see (the agreement) as the only way to provide enough certainty that I can make this farm go forward. "And honestly," he added, "to be able to think that far forward, you gotta let go of some of the past." Matt Jenkins is a contributing editor of High Country News. This article was made possible with support from the William C. Kenney Watershed Protection Foundation and the Jay Kenney Foundation. To receive two free issues of High Country News call 1-800-905-1155, or visit: http://www.hcn.org/freepapersubscription.jsp HIGH COUNTRY NEWS www.hcn.org 119 Grand Avenue PO Box 1090 Paonia, CO 81428 (970) 527-4898 ? 2007 High Country News. www.hcn.org a.. About HCN b.. Support HCN c.. Contact HCN d.. Intern w/ HCN e.. Submission Guidelines f.. Advertising Info -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Tue Jun 24 13:43:06 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:43:06 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] New Photo & Map Site Message-ID: <002001c8d63a$e8334320$0300a8c0@HAL> for a truly mind boggling experience go to: http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/shastatrinity/conditions/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Mon Jun 23 17:41:40 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:41:40 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] New USFA Fire Map Message-ID: <000b01c8d593$131aee60$6401a8c0@HAL> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FireMap0623_1400.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 300146 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed Jun 25 15:03:12 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:03:12 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Ironside Mountain Picture Link Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C72B@mail3.trinitycounty.org> http://www.trinitycountymountainproperties.com/fire/iron/iron.htm Joshua Allen Associate Planner, Trinity County Department of Long Range Planning & Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Road Weaverville, CA 96093 Phone: (530)623-1458 Fax: (530)623-1646 E-mail: jallen at trinitycounty.org Website: http://www.trinitycounty.org/Departments/Planning/natresources3.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed Jun 25 15:05:26 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:05:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Good site with all the fire links for Trinity County Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C72C@mail3.trinitycounty.org> http://users.snowcrest.net/wb6fzh/tcfire1.html Joshua Allen Associate Planner, Trinity County Department of Long Range Planning & Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Road Weaverville, CA 96093 Phone: (530)623-1458 Fax: (530)623-1646 E-mail: jallen at trinitycounty.org Website: http://www.trinitycounty.org/Departments/Planning/natresources3.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Wed Jun 25 17:50:01 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:50:01 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Resigning from Trinity County Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C732@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Trinity River Enthusiasts, It is with both great sadness and excitement that I inform you that my last day working for the County of Trinity under Tom Stokely on Trinity River restoration will be July 11th. I have been offered, and accepted, a position as an Environmental Analyst with EDAW Inc. in Sacramento. (http://www.edaw.com/) I will be working on implementing a variety of large projects as a member or their Ecosystem Restoration Practice Group preparing CEQA documents, assisting with regulatory permitting issues, performing project coordination and assistant project management duties, and participating in other natural resources tasks on a wide variety of projects, including flood management, water supply, land management, and ecosystem restoration projects. This is an excellent opportunity for me that I can't pass up. My time here working on Trinity River restoration has allowed for growth and experience within my career field that would not been available had I began it in a much larger area. In October 2004 my career began here after graduating Humboldt State University with a B.S in Natural Resources Planning with the replacement of the Poker Bar, Salt Flat, and Bigger's bridges. Since that time I have been involved in many of the rehabilitation projects, most recently with the Indian Creek Rehabilitation Project in which I wrote grants bringing in $700k for that project from DFG's Fishery Restoration Grant Program and EPA's Targeted Watershed Grant program (coordinated with the Yuroks & TCRCD). Also noteworthy is my management of the Potable Water & Sewage Assistance Program working with the Trinity River restoration Program to replace landowners wells & septic systems affected by Fishery Flows, which I am buttoning down to ensure its completion after my departure. But the project I think I will have the fondest memories of working on is the Lewiston Hatchery Interpretative Kiosk with a panel of multi-agency representatives. I shall miss working on the Trinity River and with the great agency staff working on the same objective. But this is a step in the right direction for my career and I can only look at the last 3.5 years as a dream job working on a subject matter that I studied while in college. Though I shall be up here in the spring to make use of the Fishery Flow for whitewater rafting - so if you see a 10' SOTAR on the water at 4,000cfs; it's probably me. I hope to keep in touch with many of you that I have met and worked with here in Trinity over the years. Who knows, I may be back here marketing my firm's services to the area and bidding on projects. And for those of you living in the Bay-Delta area I hope to meet you, talk about California's water problems, and do some fishing out on the Delta! Therefore, I bid you adieu', and take my exit stage left... Joshua Allen Associate Planner, Trinity County Department of Long Range Planning & Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Road Weaverville, CA 96093 Phone: (530)623-1458 Fax: (530)623-1646 E-mail: jallen at trinitycounty.org Website: http://www.trinitycounty.org/Departments/Planning/natresources3.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Fish.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 111308 bytes Desc: Fish.jpg URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 10:34:16 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:34:16 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity County Fire Emergency Operations Center Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9663@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Just an FYI. The County of Trinity is setting up an Emergency Operations Center in conjunction with the Governor's Office of Emergency Services which is located at the Weaverville Veteran's Hall. The Board of Supervisors and the Governor have declared an emergency. We are working on centralizing and coordinating with all of the agencies working on fighting the multitude of fires currently raging within the county. Updates about fires, community evacuations, and other pertinent information will be posted when I hear about it and have time to post. More to come... Joshua Allen Associate Planner Trinity County Natural Resources From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 11:02:39 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:02:39 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity County Emergency Operations Center Contact Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9665@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Just FYI or in case your an agency needing to contact us. The Trinity County Emergency Operations Center is beginning to be up and running. Please only contact the following numbers should you have any important information that may be useful or need to coordinate operations. Operations (530)623-4758 Planning & Intelligence (530)623-4778 Logistics (530)623-4765 EOC Director (530)623-4185 FAX (530)623-4708 From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 11:39:26 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:39:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] 299 Road Closure Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9668@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Highway 299 is closed 8 miles west of Weaverville and at Big Bar due to the Iron Complex fire and debris. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 11:45:14 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:45:14 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Junction City Mandatroy Evactuations Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A966A@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Just FYI Due to the potential risk of fire, the Junction City area has a mandatory evacuation that has been put into place within the last hour. Should you live in the area, please take your loved ones and non-replaceable items with you, and evacuate. Staying at your home not only places you at risk, but also those who may have to come rescue you. Thanks and be safe. Joshua Allen Associate Planner Trinity County Natural Resources From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 11:53:04 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:53:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Junction City Evacuation Areas Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A966B@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Areas in Junction City under mandatory evacuation: Valdor Gulch Coopers bar Canyon Creek Powerhouse Red Hill Dutch Creek Helena Bigfoot Trailer Park From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 12:09:08 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:09:08 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Evacuation Center in Weaverville Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A966E@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Should you require evacuation, an emergency shelter has been set up at the Weaverville Elementary School located on Highway 3 one-half mile north of 299 in Weaverville. Please make use of it should you need to. Thanks and be safe. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 12:48:13 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:48:13 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Animal Shelter for Evacuees Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9671@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Should you require evacuation and have livestock, the Weaverville Lowden Park has an animal shelter in place. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 16:22:29 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:22:29 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity County Evacuation Shelter Info and Map Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9675@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Attached is an evacuation and animal shelter map that includes contact and road information. Please pass it on to anybody who may need it. Joshua Allen -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Trinity County Fire Evacuation Shelter Locations.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 138311 bytes Desc: Trinity County Fire Evacuation Shelter Locations.pdf URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 17:08:59 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:08:59 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fire Weather Watch in Trinity Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9677@mail3.trinitycounty.org> FIRE WEATHER WATCH NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MEDFORD OR 259 PM PDT THU JUN 26 2008 http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/warnings.php?wfo=eka&zone=CAZ282&pil=XXXRFWMFR&productType=Fire+Weather+Watch CAZ280>282-270600- /O.NEW.KMFR.FW.A.0001.080628T1200Z-080630T1200Z/ WESTERN KLAMATH NATIONAL FOREST- CENTRAL SISKIYOU COUNTY INCLUDING SHASTA VALLEY-SHASTA- TRINITY NATIONAL FOREST IN SISKIYOU COUNTY- 259 PM PDT THU JUN 26 2008 ...FIRE WEATHER WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH LATE SUNDAY NIGHT FOR SCATTERED TO NUMEROUS THUNDERSTORMS.. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MEDFORD HAS ISSUED A FIRE WEATHER WATCH FOR SCATTERED TO NUMEROUS THUNDERSTORMS...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM LATE FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH LATE SUNDAY NIGHT FOR ZONES 280. ..281. ..AND 282 IN CALIFORNIA. MOIST AND UNSTABLE AIR WILL SPREAD OVER THE AREA AS A MONSOONAL FLOW PATTERN DEVELOPS. ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED LATE FRIDAY NIGHT...WITH INCREASING COVERAGE OF STORMS SATURDAY AND SUNDAY. THESE STORMS ARE EXPECTED TO BECOME WETTER AS THE WEEKEND PROGRESSES. A FIRE WEATHER WATCH MEANS THAT CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE FORECAST TO OCCUR. LISTEN FOR LATER FORECASTS AND POSSIBLE RED FLAG WARNINGS. Tonight: Widespread haze. Widespread smoke. Mostly clear, with a low around 52. Calm wind. Friday: Widespread haze. Widespread smoke, mainly before 11am. Mostly sunny, with a high near 95. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph. Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 11pm. Widespread haze. Areas of smoke. Partly cloudy, with a low around 56. Calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph. Saturday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 11am. Widespread haze. Areas of smoke. Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 97. Southeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm. Saturday Night: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Widespread haze. Areas of smoke. Partly cloudy, with a low around 56. Light and variable wind. Sunday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Widespread haze. Areas of smoke. Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 97. Sunday Night: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm. Widespread haze. Areas of smoke. Partly cloudy, with a low around 55. Monday: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Widespread haze before 11am. Areas of smoke before 11am. Sunny and hot, with a high near 96. Monday Night: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 95. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 17:09:33 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:09:33 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity County Evacuation Shelter Info and Map References: <1214525259_197203@gwa2> Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9678@mail3.trinitycounty.org> George, As of right now, 299 is closed due to the fire being adjacent to the highway in Cooper's Bar and is heading towards the community of Junction City. Mandatory evacuations are in place in that area and you will not be able to get through unless something drastic changes tomorrow. If you absolutely need to get here and can't reschedule for another time when travel is safer, then I suggest taking the 299 to 101 to 36 to 3 to 299 to Weaverville. So your best bet is just to sit tight and work from where you are until the fire is under further control. Josh -----Original Message----- From: George Kautsky [mailto:hupafish at hoopa-nsn.gov] Sent: Thu 6/26/2008 5:07 PM To: Josh Allen Subject: RE: [env-trinity] Trinity County Evacuation Shelter Info and Map Hey Josh, Do you happen to know a proposed reopening time for 299? I need to get to Weaver tomorrow AM. Thanks, Geo. -----Original Message----- From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Josh Allen Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 4:22 PM To: env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity County Evacuation Shelter Info and Map Attached is an evacuation and animal shelter map that includes contact and road information. Please pass it on to anybody who may need it. Joshua Allen From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 17:20:25 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:20:25 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Yolla Bolly Wilderness Info Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9679@mail3.trinitycounty.org> As per a phone call received today by Trinity County from the US Forest Service: Yolla Bolly Wilderness is closed until further notice. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 18:00:12 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:00:12 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Shasta-Trinity Lightning Complex Incident Information Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A967A@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Shasta-Trinity Lightning Complex Incident Information: http://www.fire.ca.gov/index_incidents_shasta.php Last Updated: June 26, 2008, 3:50 pm Date/Time Started: June 21, 2008, 5:00 pm Administrative Unit: CAL FIRE Shasta-Trinity Unit County: Shasta and Trinity County Location: Various locations through Shasta and Trinity County Acres Burned: 22,000 acres Containment: 5% contained - 22,000 acres Structures Threatened: Evacuations: Evacuations have been ordered at Junction City, Platina, and Corman Ranch. Precautionary evacuations are in place at Corum. Highway 299 is closed at Junction City 8 miles west of Weaverville to Big Bar 25 miles west of Weaverville. Highway 36 is closed at Dry Creek (23 miles west of Red Bluff) to junction of highway 3 and 36. Cause: Lightning Cooperating Agencies: CAL FIRE, US Forest Service, State of California Office of Emergency Services, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, California Highway Patrol, Shasta County Sherriff Department, American Red Cross, Bureau of Land Management, California Conservation Corps, Salvation Army. Total Fire Personnel: 1,055 Fire crews: 14 Engines: 113 Helicopters 5 Airtankers 4 Dozers: 29 Water tenders: 63 Costs to date: $ 3 million Conditions: The Shasta-Trinity Lightning Complex consists of 158 fires. The approaching weather system for the weekend will challenge control lines and potentially cause new fires. Phone Numbers: 530-225-2510 (Shasta-Trinity Lightning Complex Information) From jallen at trinitycounty.org Thu Jun 26 18:37:53 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:37:53 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Highway 299 Potentially to be opened tomorrow Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A967B@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Just FYI: Word is being spread that there MAY be controlled one-way traffic on 299 in the Junction City are beginning tomorrow morning. However, this is not a guarantee, it MAY not occur, and you may not be able to get back. If you don't have to travel in the area, then its advisable to just wait until another day. Thank you for your consideration in this matter From jallen at trinitycounty.org Fri Jun 27 08:42:57 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:42:57 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Highway 299 Open Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A967C@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Traffic restrictions on Highway 299 have lifted and the roads is now open. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Fri Jun 27 11:04:28 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:04:28 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Lime & Iron Complex Info Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A967D@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Summary - 8am on June 27 Lime Complex: Incident Command Post is at Hayfork, CA. Evacuations are in effect for the Platina area due to growth on the Noble Fire. Pre-evacuation notices have been issued along the Platina Road, including for Ono and Igo. Wildwood is under a voluntary evacuation. A section of Hwy 36, from Hwy 3 to approximately 15 miles east of Platina, has been closed by the Telephone and Noble Fires. This complex includes about 70 fires ranging from small spots to over 4,000 acres. The community of Hyampom may be threatened by fires in the vicinities. Iron Complex: Incident Command Post is at Junction City, CA. The Canyon Creek area and Helena were evacuated due to activity on the Eagle Fire. Cooper's Bar subdivision, Slattery Pond housing area, and Red Hill Road received pre-evacuation notices. Portions of Hwy 299 may be closed as needed due to the fire activity; travel between Junction City and Big Bar is not advised. The Iron Complex is managing 36 fires with some over 2,000 acres. Twenty-seven of these fires are active and 9 have been contained. Due to activity on the Ziegler Fire, there will be a community public meeting tonight at 6 pm at the Hawkins Bar Grange behind Simon Legree's. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Fri Jun 27 14:07:23 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:07:23 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fires in Grass Valley Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A967F@mail3.trinitycounty.org> just FYI: Currently there are two fires located within the Grass Valley watershed, one that is 100ac+ and another that is 150+ acres. I have informed those in charge of fire fighting that there has been tens of millions of dollars spent within that watershed to reduce erosion and increase salmonid habitat, making it a watershed/fishery issue. Currently that fire is unstaffed and rated as a 6 on the priority list. Therefore, there may be future restoration work to be done after this year's fires. When I find out more information regarding this fire, I'll let you know. Joshua Allen Associate Planner Trinity County Natural Resources From jallen at trinitycounty.org Sat Jun 28 08:29:11 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:29:11 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Northern California firefight stretched thin Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9683@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Northern California firefight stretched thin By Bobby Caina Calvan - bcalvan at sacbee.com Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, June 28, 2008 Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A18 http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1046371.html WEAVERVILLE ? Flashes of light, the groan of gears and the constant din of fire crews disrupted the darkness, and there was not much time for sleep. In the Friday morning light, the haze was thick, the air soured by the stench of smoke. There was fire all around, and Matt Lingenfelter's squad was waging war against a formidable blaze that threatened as many as 850 homes as it marched across 10,700 acres in some of Northern California's most beautiful and rugged terrain. "It's been a physical drain, a mental drain," said Lingenfelter, who readied his U.S. Forest Service crew for another round of battle against fires known as the Iron Complex near Junction City. It will take the collective stamina of thousands of firefighters to keep up with the Trinity County blaze, one of more than a thousand lightning-sparked fires ? some now burning for a week ? that have sent crews chasing flames across the state's northern mountains. "It's tough country. You have to keep your focus," said Lingenfelter, 29. The U.S. Forest Service and state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection have deployed some 11,300 people, some arriving from as far as Hawaii, Florida and North Carolina ? 21 states in all ? with more firefighters coming. Of the 1,200-plus fires recently ignited, only a fifth have been contained ? with no end in immediate sight. More lightning is expected, heightening worries that fire crews could be spread thin so early in the fire season. The state's fire chief, acknowledging staffing challenges, said he is considering canceling the vacations of thousands of Cal Fire employees to keep them available for what he worries will be a long fire season. "We are pacing ourselves. Absolutely," said the chief of Cal Fire, Del Walters. "The numbers game has been a real challenge for us," Walters told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who visited Shasta County on Friday. "We're still unsure how many fires there are, and how many were caused by lightning." Schwarzenegger issued a call for help Friday when he asked President Bush for a federal declaration of emergency, aimed at providing more resources to combat the fires that have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres. U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne joined Schwarzenegger at Whiskeytown Lake west of Redding at a news conference to commend the thousands of firefighters who have been kept busy by the wildfires, many of them ignited by a lightning storm a week ago. "These conditions are very, very stark," Kempthorne said. The fires have been unusual for not only the high number, but their occurrence so early in the fire season. "Well, I tell you, that it was quite a shock for me, waking up on Sunday morning, to hear about how many fires there are all over the state of California," the governor said. "It started out with 500, then later on in the day it was 700 and then, all of a sudden, by Monday it was 1,000 fires." As he spoke, occasional flecks of ash drifted from the hazy sky. In the nearby mountains, the Whiskeytown fire continued to rage out of control. While most of the state's fires are concentrated in Northern California, the most high-profile blaze is burning along the fabled Pacific Coast Highway near Big Sur, where 900 homes were threatened by the lightning-caused fire. The 26,763-acre fire was 3 percent contained Friday. In his letter to President Bush, the governor requested direct federal assistance, including debris removal and support for evacuation operations and sheltering displaced residents. "I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments," he wrote, "and that supplementary federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property (and) public health." The governor already has declared states of emergencies in Butte, Mendocino, Monterey, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta and Trinity counties. Huge swaths of forestland were under siege by flames in Trinity County, where as many as 850 homes were at risk from the Iron fires. Another conflagration south of it threatened 1,500 homes in Shasta and Trinity counties. State highways and local roads are closed, or subject to major delays, throughout the north state. Evacuation orders are in place of parts of Butte, Shasta and Trinity counties, and precautionary evacuation orders are in place in Lassen, Modoc and Mendocino counties. With limited resources, Chief Walters said, the state's fire crews "must pick their battles, performing what amounts to firefighting triage by going after fires that pose risk to life and property while being less aggressive on fires that pose no immediate threat to communities." In addition to possibly revoking already approved summer vacations, Cal Fire is considering extending the rotation periods from two weeks to three weeks before crews can take a respite from the front lines. "It's a real struggle," he said. "We struggle with staffing, but we have to give people a rest so we don't burn them out." The U.S. Forest Service will likely maintain its current policies that require time off after 14 days of front-line service. For Lingenfelter and his crew, it's been a week of 16-hour days of grueling and dangerous work. On some days, firefighters dangle from a helicopter to reach hot zones too forbidding to reach by foot. On other days, they hike up into burning mountains. "There's times when I'm just sitting back and thinking about being with family," said Marcel Gomez, 25, of Wheatland. "I'm just tired by the end of the day. Sometimes you can't sleep. You try to get used to the all the noise, all the lights from the trucks." From jallen at trinitycounty.org Sat Jun 28 08:37:13 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:37:13 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fire map and info Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9684@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Morning, I'm at work today compiling info to make a county-wide map of the fires; attached is a preliminary draft. As you can see, there are many areas burning within the county, which are known about. We'll have a better idea of what is going on later this afternoon when info is updated. Also, Highway 299 is still closed between Junction City and Big Bar/Del Loma. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: list serve fire map_62708.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 144362 bytes Desc: list serve fire map_62708.pdf URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Sat Jun 28 09:08:03 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:08:03 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Grass Valley Fire Update Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E0A9685@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Just FYI: The fire within Grass Valley Creek watershed here in Trinity is on BLM land, is of low intensity, and so far is being looked at as being beneficial. From jallen at trinitycounty.org Mon Jun 30 15:13:41 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:13:41 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] July 4th Festivities and Fire Activity Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C734@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Good Afternoon, I was directed by Board Chairman Roger Jaegel to notify all County personnel that the Board has not taken any action to limit/cancel the annual Fourth of July Festivities in the County. We have been advised that the fireworks, scheduled for the 4th have been cancelled by the Weaverville Chamber of Commerce, but all other events are proceeding as scheduled. If you have any questions, please call the Chamber Office at 623-6106. Thank you Wendy Tyler Clerk of the Board/Administrative Analyst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Mon Jun 30 15:14:10 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:14:10 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] 4th of July Fireworks Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C735@mail3.trinitycounty.org> The following communities have also cancelled their fireworks for the holiday weekend. - Red Bluff - Anderson - Burney - Redding All other 4th of July activities planned for the weekend in Weaverville are still scheduled. For times and dates please pick up a 4th of July schedule at the Trinity Chamber of Commerce on Main St. in Weaverville or call 623-6101. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jallen at trinitycounty.org Tue Jul 1 09:41:35 2008 From: jallen at trinitycounty.org (Josh Allen) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 09:41:35 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity County Fires Message-ID: <8DB773F7046960499DFAABF71D3C3B1E29C73D@mail3.trinitycounty.org> Just FYI: Attached is a current map of the fires within Trinity County. I apologize about the size; it's the smallest I can make it while still printing out in poster format. Joshua Allen Associate Planner, Trinity County Department of Long Range Planning & Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Road Weaverville, CA 96093 Phone: (530)623-1458 Fax: (530)623-1646 E-mail: jallen at trinitycounty.org Website: http://www.trinitycounty.org/Departments/Planning/natresources3.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 6-30-08_TrinityCo_Fire Map_web.pdf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 2652213 bytes Desc: 6-30-08_TrinityCo_Fire Map_web.pdf URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jul 1 11:24:05 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:24:05 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Incredible Sockeye Run on Columbia River- Message-ID: <008301c8dba9$a9714d70$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Does anybody know if this is this the same "poor ocean conditions" that have allegedly devastated the Central Valley salmon stocks? Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org > > Surprising sockeye salmon run hits river > Jun. 30, 2008 > McClatchy Newspapers > > BOISE, Idaho - Ten times as many sockeye salmon are returning to the > Columbia River as last year, which could mean the highest return for > Idaho's most endangered fish in more than 30 years. The Columbia River > sockeye run has already doubled initial predictions and is on track to > be the highest return since the 1950s. Officials expected a > larger-than-average sockeye run due in part to improved river migration > and ocean conditions and more young fish migrating from Idaho, but they > could not explain the surprise abundance. The sockeye count at > Bonneville Dam east of Portland, Ore., was 157,486 fish through Thursday > compared with 15,427 at the same time last year. Last year's entire run > was 26,700 sockeye at Bonneville Dam. Officials originally predicted > 75,600, but upgraded it last week to at least 210,000. > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jul 2 09:23:10 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 09:23:10 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] California Trout Rescues Fishing License Funds From Schwarzenegger's Raid Message-ID: <007201c8dc65$b8296f70$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 9:01 AM Subject: California Trout Rescues Fishing License Funds From Schwarzenegger's Raid Conservation Organization Stops Schwarzenegger's Raid on License Fees As President G.W. Bush attempted to raid salmon disaster relief funds to pay for the U.S. census, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was defeated in his move to transfer $4 million California fishing license fees to the general fund. Schwarzenegger's move is unconscionable in the light of the collapse of the Central Valley salmon fishery and California Delta food chain that his abysmal environmental policies have created. California Trout Rescues Fishing License Funds From Schwarzenegger's Raid by Dan Bacher California Trout, a statewide fishery conservation organization, recently defeated an underhanded attempt by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to raid fishing license funds. On May 30, California Trout issued a statement release calling for a freeze on California fishing license fees in the face of a Schwarzenegger administration proposal to transfer $4 million from the Hatchery and Inland Fisheries Fund (HIFF) to the state's General Fund. Fortunately, the State Legislature?s Budget Conference Committee rejected the transfer on June 13, in large part because the administration officially withdrew the proposal. ?This is an important victory for fishing enthusiasts and conservation advocates across California,? said Brian Stranko, CEO of California Trout. ?Trying to raid funds that support state fish hatchery operations and protection of wild trout stocks was a bad idea from the start. We?re pleased that these funds remain secure.? As consequence of June 13?s action by the Committee, California Trout dropped its call for a freeze on fishing license fees. The conservation group adopted its call after The Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Natural Resources approved the Schwarzenegger Administration fund transfer proposal. ?The HIFF is funded exclusively through license fees paid by anglers who fish in California,? explained Stranko. ?If included in the final version of the 2008 Budget Bill, the loan would not be repaid until 2013.? Although CalTrout opposed the raid on HIFF, the budget subcommittee approved the loan but made it contingent on a freeze on fishing license fees. "It is unfair to the two million anglers who annually buy fishing licenses in this state to continue to see their fees raised year after year by the Department of Fish and Game when it is simultaneously cutting back fish hatchery operations, wild trout protection, and programs for recovery of endangered species like salmon," said Stranko. "We believe it is inappropriate to divert these revenues to address chronic problems in the state's General Fund if DFG is allowed to continue increasing the cost of a sport fishing license." The Hatchery and Inland Fisheries Fund was created in 2005 through Assembly Bill 7 in order to ensure that at least some of the $60 million collected annually through fishing licenses in California goes to improve fishing opportunities. The law specifies that at least 30% of the monies collected through fishing licenses be dedicated to upgrading hatcheries and funding the state's wild trout program. I commend California Trout for raising the level of public outrage over this proposal by Schwarzenegger At a time when we are faced with devastating fishing closures, including the salmon closure on the ocean and draconian no fishing zones funded by a private organization, the Resource Legacy Fund, Schwarzenegger attempted a despicable raid on OUR money. Bush Tries Raid on Salmon Disaster Relief Funds to Pay for Census! West Coast representatives and leaders of fishing groups are outraged over an attempt by the White House to yank $70 million in disaster funding from commercial and recreational fishermen in order to pay for the 2010 US Census. The Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Monday, June 9, sent a proposal to Congress to amend the president's budget and take back $70 million of the $180 million West Coast representatives had put into the farm bill for disaster assistance for fishermen devastated by fishing closures off California and Oregon and in Central Valley rivers. West Coast Democrats reacted to the proposal by sending an angry letter to President Bush. They called "unconscionable" his proposal to deny the disaster funding to fishermen and use it to pay for a failed contract with the Harris Corporation. Harris, assigned to do the 2010 Census, was forced due to serious mismanagement to abandon its plans for using handheld computers to conduct the census and will have to conduct a costly paper census. "This proposal is especially egregious when you consider that your administration's water policies on all of the Pacific Northwest's major salmon rivers are the reason this disaster funding is needed in the first place," the letter said. The representatives noted that three different courts have found the administration's water plans for the Sacramento, Klamath and Columbia/Snake Rivers to be illegal and in violation of the Endangered Species Act. "These failed policies have resulted in over 80,000 dead adult salmon in the Klamath River, record low returns to the Sacramento and Columbia/Snake River systems, two fishery disaster declarations issued by the secretary of commerce and two years of fishing closures impacting thousands of families and small businesses," the letter continued. "The states of California, Oregon and Washington estimated this year's closure alone will have a $290 million impact on these fishing communities. Scientists expect similar low returns to the Sacramento next year and another closed season for most of the West Coast." California Representatives Mike Thompson, Anna Eshoo, Doris Matsui, Lois Capps, Lynn Woolsey and Sam Farr; Oregon Representatives Peter DeFazio, Darlene Hooley, Earl Blumenauer and David Wu, and Washington Representatives Jim McDermott, Brian Baird, Rick Larsen and Jay Inslee signed the letter. "To suggest that the money to pay for this contract mistake is diverted from emergency disaster payments is yet another blow delivered by your administration to the fishing families and small businesses in the Pacific Northwest," they stated. "It is a clear sign that your administration is not committed to protecting these river systems and has no interest in helping the fishing communities and economies reliant on them. Dick Pool, president of Pro-Troll Fishing Products and coordinator of Water for Fish [http://www.water4fish.org], said news of the attempted raid of the disaster relief was "very distressing considering the devastating financial impact that the salmon fishing closure is having on the recreational and commercial fishing industries of California." "I'm not surprised to see Bush trying to take away needed money from our community," said Mike Hudson, president of the Small Boat Commercial Fisherman's Association and coordinator of the SalmonAid Festival that took place in Oakland on May 31 and June 1. "Through his actions over the last few years, he has told us time and again that we don't matter to him. What would you expect from a man who wants to declare dams as natural structures and lets rivers run dry? That he would allow a dime to find its way into the pockets of hard-working people who oppose these dams, diversions and pollution of our waters?" The Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations continue to blame "ocean conditions" for the sudden and unprecedented collapse of Sacramento River fall run chinook salmon, while a broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes and conservationists contends that increased water exports from the California Delta and declining water quality play a major role in the collapse. The Central Valley fall chinook population has declined from over 800,000 fish in 2002 to under 60,000 this year. The decline of the Central Valley fall run chinook parallels the collapse of four pelagic (open water) species - delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad - in recent years. A panel of state and federal scientists has pinpointed changes in water exports as the No. 1 reason for the collapse, followed by toxics and invasive species. More recently, two studies conducted by Richard Dugdale, a San Francisco State University oceanographer, contend that ammonia from Sacramento's treated sewage discharge may be killing Delta smelt and other species (Stockton Record, June 11). Fortunately, it is unlikely that the White House will be able to push Bush's proposal through Congress, based on strong opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. "This request is a slap in the face to the scores of salmon fishermen in Oregon who are struggling to make ends meet in the wake of the largest salmon closure in West Coast history," said Senator Gordon H. Smith (R-Oregon). "Rest assured there will be a strong bipartisan effort to ensure that these cuts don't go through." Ironically, Smith and the Bush administration, in order to secure rural southern Oregon votes in 2001, overrode the Endangered Species Act by cutting off water to fish in order to curry favor with agricultural interests. The result was the Klamath fish kills of 2002, where hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon died in the spring and 68,000 salmon perished in September in low, warm, disease-infested water conditions. Bush's attempted raid was even too much for Governor Schwarzenegger. On June 17, Schwarzenegger, Oregon Governor Theodore Kulongoski and Washington Governor Christine Gregoire sent a joint letter to President George Bush expressing strong opposition to the Administration?s proposal to remove $70 million in emergency disaster assistance for fishing families, communities and businesses impacted by the closure of the salmon season, and they urged President Bush to reconsider his opposition to helping these families in need. "Mr. President, we disagree with your Administration?s assessment that these funds constitute 'lower-priority federal programs and excess funds," they stated. "We believe that it should be a high federal priority to provide the $70 million of needed assistance to fishing families, communities, and businesses that depend upon salmon fishing, instead of directing this amount to fix the underestimated cost of the 2010 census. We urge you to instead stand with fishing families and communities who rely on this industry for their livelihood." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jul 2 09:49:15 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 09:49:15 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Journal- Fire Threat Diminished Message-ID: <007401c8dc65$b9b6c630$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> http://www.trinityjournal.com/News/2008/0625/Front_Page/0001.html June 25, 2008 Fire threat diminished By AMY GITTELSOHN Lightning-sparked fires drove Trinity County residents in several communities from their homes last week, but as of Tuesday all the evacuations had been lifted--with no homes lost. "They're making good progress on those fires and adjusting to the weather conditions as things are changing," Shasta-Trinity Forest fire information officer Kent Romney said Tuesday. "Fortunately, we didn't have any impact from forecasted electrical storms this past weekend, so that allowed us to get a handle on these fires." Romney said that fire activity picked up on both the Lime and Iron fire complexes in Trinity County when the temperature inversion that was holding smoke in lifted. However, he said, the two complexes were not now raising alarms for populated areas, although firefighters are working to protect isolated structures. Although portions of highways 299 and 36 were closed, they are open now. Highway 299 on top of Buckhorn Summit has had one-way controlled traffic. The Six Rivers National Forest also has acreage afire in Trinity County. At the Hells Half Complex southwest of Burnt Ranch, fire information officer Gary Hoshide said work was focused on the eastern flank of the largest fire in the group, the Half Fire with 82 personnel assigned. This fire is the closest to Burnt Ranch and a quarter-mile west of Underwood Mountain Road. The road is a primary access and escape route for Hyampom, he said. Last week was a chaotic one for Trinity County residents Downriver as the Eagle Fire, one of the 21 fires in the 19,178-acre Iron Complex of blazes, caused evacuations at Coopers Bar Estates, the Canyon Creek and Helena areas, and west of Junction City. There were voluntary evacuations recommended for Slattery Pond, Senger Road and Red Hill Road east of Senger Road. The evacuations affected 119 homes, and the American Red Cross opened a shelter at Weaverville Elementary School. It closed after a few days. As the Eagle Fire moved eastward to threaten Junction City last week, resident Brad Riddle witnessed the firefighting effort as the blaze approached his home on three sides. Riddle, 28, his mother and girlfriend rent a home across Highway 299 from Bigfoot Campground. The sheriff's department came by their place Wednesday evening. "They said it wasn't mandatory but we should get out," Riddle said. They packed their things in preparation to evacuate, but wound up staying and helping to prepare the property for the siege ahead. Riddle's friend, Vince Hubbell, came from Douglas City to help. "We stood there for about four hours watching the fire rip through trees and brush," Hubbell said, adding that at one point fire crews that had been setting up at the campground across the highway vanished. It turned out they'd been called away to protect Coopers Bar, but they returned. Fire crews cut a fire line around the house and lit a back burn, Riddle said. He noted that one Forest Service firefighter lives in the Canyon Creek area that was evacuated. "He was in my front yard working on my fire," Riddle said. He was impressed by the work of Shasta-Trinity Hotshots crew C-506 that cut the initial fire lines. Cal Fire crews also worked on fire lines. "I could hear them cutting timber 'til like 1 in the morning," Riddle said of the crews. The fire came within 100 to 150 feet of the house, he said. Also last week, a fire in the 35,445-acre Lime Complex caused recommendations for voluntary evacuations at Wildwood affecting about 40 homes. That evacuation has also ended. The North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District issued an air quality alert Tuesday warning that smoke levels were very unhealthy in the areas of Junction City, Helena, Hayfork, Hyampom, Wildwood, Ruth, and all areas around the fires. It is recommended that individuals in those areas limit their activity and stay indoors. Currently, there are five complexes of fires burning in Trinity County: the Lime, Iron, Alps, Hells Half, and Mad complexes. As of Tuesday, their status was: - Lime Complex on the Shasta-Trinity Forest, affecting the areas of Hyampom, Hayfork, Wildwood, and, in Shasta County, Platina - 70 fires, 35,445 acres, 36 percent contained. - Iron Complex on the Shasta-Trinity Forest, affecting Downriver areas from Junction City to Burnt Ranch and extending north - 21 fires, 19,178 acres, 25 percent contained. - Alps Complex on the Shasta-Trinity Forest within and adjacent to the Trinity Alps Wilderness, 13 fires, 2,650 acres, 2 percent contained. - Hells Half Complex on the Six Rivers Forest, about three miles southwest of Burnt Ranch, 2,440 acres, 20 percent contained with estimated full containment date of July 31. - Mad Complex on the Six Rivers Forest, Mad River Ranger District, 2,644 acres. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jul 2 12:48:41 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 12:48:41 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: PIT Tagged Sturgeon Recovered Message-ID: <016b01c8dc7d$588b5c50$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Kautsky" To: "'Trinity List'" Cc: "'Tom Stokely'" Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 11:15 AM Subject: PIT Tagged Sturgeon Recovered > Has anyone been tagging sturgeon in Klamath-Trinity Basin using PIT > (Passive Inductive Transponder) tags? A Hoopa fisher has returned a > PIT tag collected off a sturgeon captured yesterday. It squawks code > # 4135376C67. > > Thanks, > George Kautsky > Hoopa Tribal Fisheries > 530.625.4267 ext 15 > > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Jul 2 16:22:40 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 16:22:40 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] USFWS initial review of new Biological Assessment for CVP/SWP Message-ID: <022701c8dc9b$62e2c710$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> All, Below are links to the sufficiency review from USFWS to BOR in response to the new CVP/SWP Biological Assessment. Please note that item 4 on page 4 states as follows: "The Section on Trinity River Mainstream Fishery Restoration Program (TRRP) describes an adjustment to flow allocation occurring, based on revisions to the forecasts that occur subsequent to the April 1 forecast. This is inconsistent with the ROD for Trinity and the TRRP. This must be corrected and the modeling assumptions must reflect what is used in the Trinity ROD." Links: The BA itself: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/ocapBA_051608.html (appendices still unavailable) The sufficiency review: http://www.fws.gov/sacramento/es/documents/OCAP%20status%20report/6-27-08--OCAP--30day--more_info_required_memo.pdf Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Wed Jul 2 20:14:37 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 23:14:37 -0400 Subject: [env-trinity] USFWS initial review of new Biological Assessment forCVP/SWP Message-ID: Thanks for remembering, Tom. I think they key point here is that the Trinity River allocation must be set be late April so it is a bit different from ag and urban customers that can wait longer for specificity. Spreck Rosekrans -----Original Message----- From: Tom Stokely [mailto:tstokely at trinityalps.net] Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 07:29 PM Eastern Standard Time To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] USFWS initial review of new Biological Assessment forCVP/SWP All, Below are links to the sufficiency review from USFWS to BOR in response to the new CVP/SWP Biological Assessment. Please note that item 4 on page 4 states as follows: "The Section on Trinity River Mainstream Fishery Restoration Program (TRRP) describes an adjustment to flow allocation occurring, based on revisions to the forecasts that occur subsequent to the April 1 forecast. This is inconsistent with the ROD for Trinity and the TRRP. This must be corrected and the modeling assumptions must reflect what is used in the Trinity ROD." Links: The BA itself: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/ocapBA_051608.html (appendices still unavailable) The sufficiency review: http://www.fws.gov/sacramento/es/documents/OCAP%20status%20report/6-27-08--OCAP--30day--more_info_required_memo.pdf Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Jul 3 11:12:34 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:12:34 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Salmonid Restoration Federation Conference March 2009 Message-ID: <001701c8dd38$5f1dba70$0301a8c0@optiplex> Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Salmonid Restoration Federation SRFLogo 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference Save the Date: March 4-7, 2009 Santa Cruz, CA The 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference will include a plenary session, field tours, workshops, and concurrent sessions focused on biological, physical, and policy issues that affect salmonids. Workshops will include fish passage and dam removal techniques. SRF will post the Call for Abstracts in August. Feel free to email srf at calsalmon.org with your suggestions for topics. _____ EPA Announces Two Watershed Funding Opportunities Proposals due August 25, 2008 U.S. EPA Announces Two Watershed Funding Opportunities West Coast Estuaries Initiative - CA Coast: U.S. EPA seeks proposals under this announcement for projects that conserve, restore and protect the water quality, habitat and environment of California coastal waters, estuaries, bays and near shore waters through comprehensive approaches to water quality management. The emphasis is on supporting implementation activities based on existing plans, such as Comprehensive Conservation Management Plans (Clean Water Act Section 320), State programs such as Integrated Regional Water Management Plans, and local watershed plans. Three to five grants or cooperative agreements will be awarded. The federal share of the awards will range from approximately $250,000 to no more than $1,000,000 each with project periods of three to five years. Proposals are due by August 25, 2008. Contact: Ephraim D. Leon-Guerrero, leon-guerrero.ephraim at epa.gov, (415) 972-3444. San Francisco Bay Area Water Quality Improvement Fund: U.S. EPA seeks proposals for projects that restore and protect the water quality, habitat and environment of the San Francisco Bay and its watersheds through comprehensive approaches to water quality management. U.S. EPA is soliciting proposals for demonstration projects and studies of approaches that will focus on the effectiveness of an integrated approach for the following water quality priorities: Invasive species management; Reduction of trash in our waterways; Innovative wetlands restoration; Stormwater management including impacts to urban streams; Reductions of pollutants identified in draft or completed Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs); and Climate change impacts on water quality. Emphasis should be on activities that demonstrate practical and efficient models that can be adapted to other places in the San Francisco Bay region and across the country. Emphasis should also be on supporting studies and demonstrations based on existing resource protection plans, such as the SFEP Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) and local watershed plans. Proposals are due by August 25, 2008. Contact: Luisa Valiela, valiela.luisa at epa.gov, (415) 972-3400. _____ SRF Enewsletter July 2008 In this eNewsletter you will find: * 3rd Annual Spring-run Chinook Symposium * 11th Annual Coho Confab * SRF Central Coast Bioengineering Field School * 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference * EPA Announces Two Watershed Funding Opportunities _____ 3rd Annual Spring-run Chinook Symposium July 10-12, Nevada City, CA The Salmonid Restoration Federation's 3rd Annual Spring-run Chinook Symposium will be held in Nevada City on July 10 followed by field tours on the Yuba River and Butte Creek on July 11 and 12. Symposium presentations include Ecological Perspectives on Spring-run Chinook salmon. Session topics will highlight status of populations and specific recovery opportunities for Central Valley Rivers, and recovery challenges including FERC relicensing, climate change, and resurrecting the Klamath run. Afternoon panels will representatives from DFG, NOAA Fisheries, SYRCL, State Water Board and Conservation Groups will discuss recovery through habitat expansion, water supply, and water quality improvements. Field tours will include a Yuba River float, site visits to the Bear-River Feather Set-back Project by way of the Lower Yuba, a Restoration thru Relicensing Driving Tour, Snorkeling Investigations of the South Yuba River, and a Butte Creek tour of Spring-run Fish Populations. To attend the symposium is $35 and each field tour day is $50. Please call or email srf at calsalmon.org or call SYRCL at (530) 265-5961 if you are planning on camping and have not yet registered to do so. There are also lots of great lodging options in the Nevada City area including the Northern Queen that will honor the government rate on weekdays and would be $99 on weekend nights. To make reservations, please call (530) 265-5824 or visit www.northernqueeninn.com _____ 11th Annual Coho Confab September 26-28, 2008 on the Smith River The 11th Annual Coho Confab will be held on the South Fork of the Smith River in the far northwestern corner of California. This dynamic event is sponsored by Salmonid Restoration Federation, Trees Foundation, Smith River Alliance, Smith River Advisory Council, and Cal Trout. Orientation presentations will focus on fire ecology and fisheries, coho salmon recovery, and the significance of the Mill Creek watershed acquisition in protecting and restoring a salmon stronghold. This year's Confab will feature restoration tours in the Mill Creek watershed, tributaries of the South Fork, Yontucket Slough and the Smith River estuary. Randy Lew of Pacific Watershed Associates will lead a tour of road decommissioning and erosion control projects in Dominie and Rowdy Creeks. State Park geologist Rocco Fiori will discuss experimental wood loading designs to enhance stream function and salmonid habitats. A full-day tour of Mill Creek restoration projects will include presentations by Dan Burgess of Rural Human Services who will lead a tour of the native plant nursery for Mill Creek restoration, Lathrope Leonard of Redwood National and State Parks will lead a forestry tour focused on restoring late seral forests and Brian Merrill of California State Parks will discuss backcountry road management in North Coast Redwoods State Parks and rehabilitating watershed function. Rod McLeod of the Mill Creek Monitoring Program will lead a hands-on workshop assessing juvenile coho summer abundance estimation in Mill Creek. Zack Larson, watershed coordinator of the Smith River Advisory Council, will facilitate a Smith River fish identification workshop. Antonio Llanos of Mike Love and Associates will lead a tour of fish passage projects and will co-lead a tour of Yontocket Slough and the Smith River estuary with Zack Larson, Watershed Coordinator for the Smith River Advisory Council. Other workshops include instream fish identification, and macro-invertebrate sampling and stream health assessment. There will be an open forum entitled "Stories and Songs of Salmon" with native stories from Frank Lake and river troubadour Alice di Micele. and there will be an open forum and resource workshops. Saturday night will culminate with a wild salmon feast, and a cabaret. Advanced registration fees are $100 that includes all camping, food and lodging. After September 5, registration is $125. For more information about the Confab, please visit www.calsalmon.org or www.treesfoundation.org. To register online and obtain logistical info please click here. To see the agenda or download a registration form to fax or mail, click here. _____ SRF Central Coast Bioengineering Field School October 20-23, 2008 in the Santa Ynez Valley SRF, with the support of the Department of Fish and Game, will sponsor a Bioengineering Field School on the Central Coast. Instructor Evan Engber, of Bioengineering Associates, will teach techniques to restore riparian habitat, control erosion and stabilize banks. Participants will tour projects in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties and learn how to build willow matresses and live siltation baffles. Due to state budget freezes for agency travel, SRF has selected a more affordable location to host the field school. The dates are now October 20-23 at Camp Whittier. These are lodge accommodations with four to a room. The fees for the course are $300 which includes all instruction, materials, food and lodging. For more information, please see the registration form at www.calsalmon.org. Additional lodging can be found in the closest town of Solvang. The Solvang Gardens boutique hotel will honor the government rate for participants. Please see their web site: www.solvanggardens.com/reservations.html. _____ Members subscribe through SRF website at www.calsalmon.org Unsubscribe ewc at davidnesmith.com from this list. Our mailing address is: Salmonid Restoration Federation PO Box 784 Redway, CA 95560 Our telephone: (707) 923-7501 Copyright (C) 2007 Salmonid Restoration Federation All rights reserved. Forward this email to a friend -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jul 4 13:40:32 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 13:40:32 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity County Fire Update Message-ID: <002501c8de16$389a6b30$406c3940@trinitycounty.org> General Entertainment Health Home Real Estate Business Directory http://www.trinityjournal.com:80/News/2008/0702/Front_Page/0001.html News Front Page News Opinion Calendar Arts Community Sports Outdoors Obituaries Classifieds Legals Archive Links Contact Us Subscribe Advertising Rates Advertisers Index Copyright? 2008 The Trinity Journal All Rights Reserved Newspaper web site content management software and services July 2, 2008 Search Archives: The giant Martin Mars air tanker drops fire retardant. Photo by Dave Welch. FIRE UPDATE, FRIDAY, July 4 Highways 299 and 36 continue to have periodic closures. The Trinity County Public Health Department says residents are urged to limit outdoor activity because of wildfire smoke. Masks are available at the Health Department in Weaverville, the Hayfork Health Clinic, Junction City Store, and Hawkins Bar Store. Masks will be distributed to the Mad River Ranger Station and by Post Mountain Fire Department. These masks may or may not help and should be used with caution by people with respiratory conditions because masks may make breathing more difficult. Call the Health Department at 530-623-1265 or your physician. Trinity County Animal Control will be accepting small animals at the Animal Shelter in Weaverville in the event of more evacuations. For large animals, call the Animal Shelter at 530-623-1370 to make arrangements for sheltering. After business hours, call the Sheriff?s Office at 530-623-8126. IRON COMPLEX Several fires have merged. There are five uncontained fires on the complex. Ten fires have been contained. The 5,098 acre Eagle Fire is 50% contained and continues spreading slowly to the south and west. This resulted in an advisory to the people of Big Flat to be prepared to leave if necessary. The Cedar Fire is at 600 acres with no estimated containment date. The Ironside Fire, consisting of several merged fires, is at 11,559 acres with 50% containment. The Zeigler Fire is 581 acres and at 30% containment. It is growing to the East. The 20 acre Denny Fire is at zero percent containment. Fire handlines and dozer lines continue to be constructed on the fires. Many of them are being prepared for perimeter burn-outs when weather conditions permit. Containment of the Cedar Fire is the highest priority. Mop-up will continue on the west and north sides of the Eagle Fire near Junction City with several miles of fireline remaining open south of the Trinity River. Line construction efforts will continue on the Zeigler and Ironside Fires to keep them away from the communities of Hawkins Bar and Trinity Village. LIME COMPLEX (5 miles south of Hyampom) Crews made good progress on several fires, including Lime, Noble, Miners and Rainbow. The Trough Fire crossed the South Fork Trinity River and made a short run Thursday. The Martin Mars water-based air tanker, which is capable of delivering 7,200 gallons of water, and two additional air tankers were used in the wilderness Thursday, assisting firefighters on the ground. With a total of 70 fires originally in the complex, 31 are now contained, 32 are staffed, and 8 remain unstaffed. TRINITY ALPS FIRES Visibility limitations continue to hamper fire fighting efforts. Crews are holding the Granite Fire using the Granite Creek Trail as a fireline. Crews will continue efforts to hold the fire along Canyon Creek. The objective in the wilderness area is to use fire fighting techniques that are low impact on the land. The crews on the Granite Fire have been clearing existing hiking trails and using the cleared trails as containment lines. One crew will be clearing 7 miles of the Salmon Summit trail so that they can hike in to the unstaffed 186-acre Carey Fire. * Within the South Fork Management Unit (Hayfork and Yolla Bolly) of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, all Forest Service roads and trails are closed. The closure does not include state and county roads or private lands. * For road closure information, contact Caltrans at http://www.dot.ca.gov/ or call 1-800-427-7623. * Additional Fire Information: Call the Shasta-Trinity National Forest fire information line at (530) 226-2500 (press 2), or online at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/shastatrinity. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: logo.gif Type: image/gif Size: 14140 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: OHTLogo.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1623 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: dmca.gif Type: image/gif Size: 406 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 0001p1_lg.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 7102 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Jul 7 10:23:50 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 10:23:50 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Farewell Party for Joshua Allen Friday, 7/11, 4:30 LaGrange Message-ID: <00b801c8e056$39a17130$106c3940@trinitycounty.org> > There is a farewell gathering for my able and soon-to-be former Associate > Planner Joshua Allen this Friday, July 11 at 4:30 pm at LaGrange > Restaurant in Weaverville. > > If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. > > Sincerely, > > Tom Stokely > > > > Tom Stokely > Principal Planner > Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources > PO Box 1445 > 60 Glen Rd. > Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 > 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 > FAX 623-1646 > tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Jul 7 16:56:30 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 16:56:30 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity county e-mail is down Message-ID: <000401c8e10f$3bdb5c90$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Folks, The county's computer center's air conditioning has broken down, so some of the county servers have been shut down until further notice. So, if you are trying to contact a county employee at a trinitycounty.org address, you should call instead. E-mail may not be successful. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Tue Jul 8 10:36:20 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:36:20 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release Changes Message-ID: Please make the following release changes to the Trinity River: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) Thurs Jul 10, 2008 0100 2000 1900 Thurs Jul 10, 2008 0500 1900 1800 Thurs Jul 10, 2008 0900 1800 1750 Thurs Jul 10, 2008 2100 1750 1650 Fri Jul 11, 2008 0100 1650 1550 Fri Jul 11, 2008 0500 1550 1500 Fri Jul 11, 2008 2100 1500 1400 Sat Jul 12, 2008 0100 1400 1300 Sat Jul 12, 2008 0500 1300 1250 Sat Jul 12, 2008 2100 1250 1150 Sun Jul 13, 2008 0100 1150 1050 Sun Jul 13, 2008 0500 1050 1000 Sun Jul 13, 2008 2100 1000 900 Mon Jul 14, 2008 0100 900 800 Mon Jul 14, 2008 0500 800 700 Sat Jul 26, 2008 0100 700 675 Sun Jul 27, 2008 0100 675 600 Mon Jul 28, 2008 0100 600 550 Tues Jul 29, 2008 0100 550 500 Wed Jul 30, 2008 0100 500 450 Hold 450 cfs through Sep 30, 2008. Ordered by: Peggy Manza Note: completing Trinity River summer ramp down. From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Jul 10 08:30:21 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:30:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FWS to consider uplisting delta smelt, FWS Press Release, 7.9.08 Message-ID: <001801c8e2a1$ddff7ea0$0301a8c0@optiplex> U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office News Release Fish and Wildlife Service to Consider Uplisting Delta Smelt Service seeks useful information for analysis during 60-day comment period July 9, 2008 Contacts: Al Donner, (916) 414-6566 al_donner at fws.gov Q&A-Questions and Answers Federal Register Notice Reading Room draft copy (PDF 54KB) (Check here on 7/10/2008 for a link to the official notice.) As the first step in a process that could change the listing category of the delta smelt from "threatened" to "endangered," the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) today asked for submittal of all relevant information about the delta smelt. The request is contained in a Service 90-day finding that a petition to upgrade the listing contains substantial information that current threats to the delta smelt may be greater than in 1993 when the smelt received protection as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The notice opens a 60-day comment period, which ends Sept .8. During that period, as specified by the ESA, the Service encourages all parties to submit relevant scientific or commercial information about the species to help the Service complete the best analysis possible of the small fish. The 90-day finding, the first step in the process of providing protection for a species under ESA, is based on information in the petition about habitat loss, water diversions, inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms and low population size. Recent surveys have shown a substantial decline in delta smelt abundance from 2002 through 2007, indicating that the threats may be of higher magnitude or imminence than was thought at the time of listing. The finding comes at a particularly busy time in the regulatory effort to assist the small species, but is unrelated to those other activities. One is a federal court order last December for protective actions to help reduce the killing of delta smelt at two major water export pumps in the South Delta. The court also ordered the Service to complete a new biological opinion, in effect a permit, for the pumps by Sept. 15. Other efforts under way to improve the Delta ecosystem include the Delta Vision Plan, the Ecosystem Restoration Plan, CalFed, a Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), proposals for hatcheries to breed more delta smelt, and a research effort into the causes of the decline in delta smelt and other species. "Endangered" is the term in the ESA for a species which is in danger of extinction, while "threatened" means a species that is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future. A change in listing category for the delta smelt would not by itself trigger any immediate actions on behalf of the species. While both categories protect species from unauthorized destruction (take), endangered status also prohibits issuing permits for incidental take in some situations that can be allowed for threatened species. The public is encouraged to submit any scientific or commercial information that will help it conduct a complete evaluation and determine the correct classification of the species. Information may be submitted in two ways, either through www.regulations.gov or by mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R8-2008-0067; Division of Policy and Directives Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, suite 222; Arlington, VA 22203. General statements of support or opposition may be submitted, but are not part of the informational analysis. The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit www.fws.gov. Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office www.fws.gov/sacramento 2800 Cottage Way, Room W-2605 Sacramento, CA 95825 (916) 414-6600 Last updated: July 9, 2008 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greg at yournec.org Thu Jul 10 16:19:25 2008 From: greg at yournec.org (Greg King) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:19:25 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Important Klamath 401 Hearings -- but not in Eureka Message-ID: <07EA87DC-4DA5-480B-A1EA-56B45AEA8B48@yournec.org> PLEASE FORWARD Dear Friends, PacifiCorp, owner of four salmon-killing dams on the mainstem of the Klamath River, is applying to the California Water Resources Control Board for a "401" clean water certification, required under the federal Clean Water Act. The shallow, warm reservoirs behind the dams create massive plumes of blue-green algae, which produce the highly toxic microcystis aeruginosa at levels that sometimes reach 4,000 higher than the World Health Organizations considers a "moderate" risk to human health. The microcystis is so toxic it can actually kill a person. Many of us fighting for removal of these dams consider the 401 process one of the most powerful tools available for removing the four dams. How can PacifiCorp receive a "clean water" certification when their dams produce some of the worst water quality in the world? Without such certification there is a strong chance the dams would have to be torn down. The Water Resources Control Board needs to hear from the public on this issue, both in person and in writing. Please try to attend one of the four upcoming "scoping" hearings on the Environmental Impact Report for PacifiCorp's 401 application: July 22nd in Sacramento (time tba) There will be a major "friendly" rally in front of the state building prior and during the hearing. July 31 in Klamath at the Yurok offices 11-1pm July 31, in Orleans at the Karuk Department of Natural Resources, 6 to 8 p.m. August 1st in Yreka at the Yreka Grange 11-1 pm Written comments should be sent to: Ms. Dorothy Rice Executive Director State Water Resource Control Board 1001 I Street, 151h Floor Sacramento, CA 95814 The NEC is pressuring the state to include a hearing in Eureka. This would be a good thing to ask of Ms. Rice, along with a request that the agency deny PacifiCorp's 401 certification. The Eureka area contains the largest population base immediately connected to the Klamath basin, and should therefore be the site for a hearing on this critical application. Rice's phone and email: (916) 341-5615 drice at waterboards.ca.gov Many thanks, Greg King NEC -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jul 11 12:52:05 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:52:05 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Reminder- Farewell for Joshua Allen at LaGrange Today Message-ID: <003001c8e38f$fa264660$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> This is a reminder that we are having a farewell gathering for Joshua Allen this afternoon after 4:30-5 at LaGrange Restaurant in Weaverville. Please come to wish Josh well in his new job. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jul 15 09:15:37 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:15:37 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Restoration Program Executive Director Job Announcement Now Available Message-ID: <003e01c8e696$ed8bbca0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Schleusner" To: ######## Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 2:36 PM Subject: Executive Director Job Announcement Now Available > Good afternoon, > > I just received word that the job announcement for Executive Director > of the TRRP has been posted at USAJobs. As most of you already know, we > are actively recruiting qualified applicants, with the goal of filling > the position by mid-October 2008 to allow for a two to three month > transition period prior to my retirement. Please forward the following > summary to individuals who might be interested in the position. Similar > information will be posted on the TRRP website in the near future. > thank you, > ds > > > TRRP Announces Search for New Executive Director > > Doug Schleusner, the Executive Director of the Trinity River > Restoration Program (TRRP), recently announced his retirement effective > January 3, 2009. The TRRP is currently searching for qualified > applicants, with the goal of filling the position by mid-October 2008 to > allow for a two to three month transition period. > > As Executive Director, the incumbent is responsible for operations of > the TRRP office, and plays a key role in administering the program > designed to restore and maintain anadromous fishery resources of the > Trinity River in Northern California. Components of this multi-agency > restoration program include increased instream flows, channel > rehabilitation, sediment management, watershed restoration, and flood > plain infrastructure improvements. An Adaptive Environmental Assessment > and Management (AEAM) program is an integral part of ensuring that the > best available scientific information and analysis is obtained and > utilized in implementing program goals. For more information, view other > pages at the program website (http://www.trrp.net), or call the program > office at 530-623-1800. > > This Program Manager position within the Bureau of Reclamation has a > duty station of Weaverville, CA and a salary range of $91,781.00 to > $119,314.00. It is being advertised both internally - current federal > employees: Announcement Number BR-MP-2008-206 (MPP-JR), and all U.S. > citizens: Announcement Number BR-MP-2008-207 (DEU-JR). The > announcement (posted at www.usajobs.opm.gov ) opened on Monday, July 14, > 2008 and closes on Friday, August 8, 2008. Applications must be > submitted online. Open the USAJobs website and use the appropriate > announcement number to access the announcement for more information and > instructions on how to apply. For more information, view other pages > in this program website ( http://www.trrp.net ), or call the program > office at 530-623-1800. > > The historic mining town of Weaverville (population 3,500) is the > County Seat of Trinity County, and is located on State Highway 299 about > 50 miles from Redding and 90 miles from the Pacific coast. The economy > is based on tourism, timber, and local/state/federal government agency > employment. The Trinity River, Whiskeytown/Shasta/Trinity National > Recreation area, and the Trinity Alps Wilderness provide a wide variety > of outdoor recreation opportunities. > > ___________________________________ > > Douglas P. Schleusner, Executive Director > Trinity River Restoration Program > P.O. Box 1300, 1313 South Main St. > Weaverville, CA 96093 > (530) 623-1800 Fax: (530) 623-5944 > e-mail: dschleusner at mp.usbr.gov > ___________________________________ > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jul 15 14:14:38 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:14:38 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Another Retirement Announcement Message-ID: <008501c8e6bf$e179d860$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> From: Tom Stokely Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 2:46 PM To: Susan Price Subject: Announcing My Retirement Susan, I am announcing my retirement from Trinity County November 1, 2008. It has been an honor and pleasure to serve the people of Trinity County for over 22 years on the staff of the Planning and Natural Resources Departments (1986-2008), and a year and a half as District 3 Planning Commissioner (1985-86). I feel that I have contributed greatly to restoration of the Trinity River?s fishery and Trinity County?s economic and environmental well-being. To the best of my knowledge, the only growth industries we have are whitewater boating and steelhead fishing- both of which are directly related to our work on the Trinity River. I do not consider myself to be ?going into retirement?. I will just be pursuing other career options as a consultant and with non-profit organizations. I?m way too young to not work. Respectfully submitted, Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Natural Resources and Long Range Planning PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Tue Jul 15 15:15:30 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:15:30 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Another Retirement Announcement References: <008501c8e6bf$e179d860$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <004201c8e6c9$df706840$0300a8c0@HAL> As a friend and a mentor Tom, you will be sorely missed. I look forward to working with you in the NGO sector. Take good care... ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Stokely To: Trinity List Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:14 PM Subject: [env-trinity] Another Retirement Announcement From: Tom Stokely Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 2:46 PM To: Susan Price Subject: Announcing My Retirement Susan, I am announcing my retirement from Trinity County November 1, 2008. It has been an honor and pleasure to serve the people of Trinity County for over 22 years on the staff of the Planning and Natural Resources Departments (1986-2008), and a year and a half as District 3 Planning Commissioner (1985-86). I feel that I have contributed greatly to restoration of the Trinity River?s fishery and Trinity County?s economic and environmental well-being. To the best of my knowledge, the only growth industries we have are whitewater boating and steelhead fishing- both of which are directly related to our work on the Trinity River. I do not consider myself to be ?going into retirement?. I will just be pursuing other career options as a consultant and with non-profit organizations. I?m way too young to not work. Respectfully submitted, Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Natural Resources and Long Range Planning PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ env-trinity mailing list env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov Wed Jul 16 10:54:04 2008 From: Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov (Bill_Pinnix at fws.gov) Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:54:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Willow Creek Juvenile Salmonid Outmigrant Monitoring In-Season Update Message-ID: Willow Creek Downstream Migrant Trap Site 2008 In-Season Trapping Update ?July 16, 2008 Synopsis: The 2008 Downstream Migrant trapping season at the Willow Creek Trap Site (river kilometer 34) is being conducted jointly by the USFWS Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office (AFWO) and the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Program (YTFP) on the mainstem Trinity River near Willow Creek, California. The season began March 13, 2008 with the installation of one trap. A second trap was installed March 15, 2008, and a third trap was installed March 27, 2008. See attached catch summary for details of this narrative. This summary includes data from March 13th, 2008 through July 9th, 2008 and is presented as raw catch. No expansions have been calculated at this time. Data entry is not complete for Julian Week 28, July 9th to July 15th. Heavy debris load from floating algae have occasionally resulted in null sets, causing less than 21 trap days (3 traps x 7 days) in some weeks. In addition, the traps were not fished a couple of days due to heavy smoke and unhealthy conditions for trap crews. Raw daily catches of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) have been captured each day sampling has occurred and most have been young-of-the-year (YOY), with a few age 1+ natural Chinook salmon. Weekly mean Fulton?s K values of YOY Chinook salmon began the season lower than 1.0 with an increase in condition to greater than 1.0 in Julian Week 16 which has stayed relatively stable through Julian Week 28. Efficiency calibrations at flow benches were conducted May 8th (~10,500 cfs measured at Hoopa Gauge; initial efficiency estimate of 0.93 %), May 16th (~10,000 cfs; initial efficiency estimate of 1.02 %), May 29th (~5,800 cfs; initial efficiency estimate of 3.7%), and June 5th (~2,500 cfs; initial efficiency estimate of 3.8%). Natural Chinook salmon catches show bi-modal peaks (mid-April, and mid-June) in raw catch, both of which are coincident with a dropping of flow; this is consistent with past year?s catches. Raw daily catches of steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) smolts (age 1+) have been dropping off since the beginning of June. Steelhead smolts captured JW 11-23 had weekly mean Fulton?s K values slightly higher than 1.0, with a steady drop over time (indicating that the smolting process is underway). Steelhead YOY numbers have increased in the catch, and have yet to show signs of a peak. Raw daily catches of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) are low compared to the past 5 years, especially for natural smolts. Weekly mean Fulton?s K value of natural coho salmon smolts were higher than 1.0 at the beginning of the season and have steadily dropped over time, indicating that the smolting process is underway. A peak in hatchery coho smolt catch occurred coincident with the high dam releases in early to mid May; this is consistent with past year?s catches. The peak in natural coho smolt catch occurred during Julian week 24 during the down ramp of flow; this is not consistent with past year?s catches. If you have any questions regarding this summary, don't hesitate to contact Bill Pinnix at (707) 822-7201. (See attached file: WCT_CatchSummary_7_16_08.pdf) William Pinnix USFWS, AFWO 1655 Heindon Rd Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-7201 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WCT_CatchSummary_7_16_08.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 30339 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jul 18 10:30:02 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:30:02 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Young fish die as water laws go unenforced Message-ID: <04a901c8e8fd$659f5590$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/22/MN158255.DTL Young fish die as water laws go unenforced Ranchers' cooperation threatened Glen Martin, Tom Stienstra, Chronicle Staff Writers Friday, June 22, 2001 Irrigation by ranchers is decimating salmon and steelhead populations on California's second biggest river system, and Department of Fish and Game officials acknowledge they are not implementing a tough state law that could stop the diversions. Ranchers have diverted most of the flow of the Scott and Shasta Rivers in Siskiyou County to irrigate alfalfa fields and pastures, leaving thousands of young salmon and steelhead without enough water and facing imminent death. State game wardens generally are disposed to citing the diverters under Fish and Game Code 5937, which requires dam owners to maintain water in state streambeds sufficient to keep fish healthy. But agency officials say they are being told not to cite offenders out of concern that cooperative restoration projects between the state and ranchers on the Scott and Shasta Rivers would end instantly if the law were enforced. The controversy points out difficulties with cooperative programs between government agencies and private parties. Though such agreements can help resolve thorny environmental problems, they may also inhibit agencies from cracking down on private sector partners. Warden Renie Cleland said he was told to back off from citing ranchers on the Scott and Shasta rivers. "This has gone all the way to Sacramento," said Cleland. "It's extremely politically sensitive. I was told to take no enforcement action on it. These fish are dying. We've got five or six thousand steelhead trout dead on the Scott, and (dead juvenile steelhead) everywhere on the Shasta." MAJOR KLAMATH TRIBUTARIES The Scott and Shasta are major tributaries of the Klamath River, which is second only to the Sacramento River in its dimensions and the number of fish it supports. The Klamath and its tributaries once supported hundreds of thousands of chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead trout. Their numbers began declining in the mid-20th century from dams, agricultural irrigation and timber harvesting. By the mid-1980s, only a few thousand fish were left -- mostly on the Scott and Shasta. During the past decade, efforts to screen agricultural pump intakes, reduce soil erosion, restore riparian forests and transport fish trapped in "dewatered" streambeds have bolstered the fish populations somewhat. WATER RIGHTS FROM THE 1930S But conflict between environmentalists and ranchers over diversions has simmered for years. Ranchers exercising water rights adjudicated in the 1930s typically lower the rivers through irrigation during the summer. This year, a severe local drought has greatly increased the degree of the problem. The Scott has been sucked dry, and the Shasta reduced to a trickle at its juncture with the Klamath. Temperatures in the river have reached or exceeded the level considered lethal for salmon species, which favor cold water. Thousands of fish have died, and thousands of others face imminent death, making the pumping a clear violation of Code 5937. "Everything has died," said Fish and Game Captain Chuck Konvalin of the Scott River. "The system has been dried up." Konvalin, who heads a team of wardens who operate in the north state, says their superiors are reigning them in. "This thing is out of whack," said Konvalin. "I get my orders." Gary Stacey, a fisheries program director for Fish and Game who oversees projects in the Klamath area, said enforcing Code 5937 would "slam the door" on meaningful restoration programs along the Scott and Shasta, which cost $25 million a year. "All our current programs depend on landowner cooperation," he said. "That would all stop immediately if we pulled the trigger. And the process involved in filing and prosecuting a case like this could take years -- years the fish don't have. "By taking strong law enforcement action, we could simply be assuring that the (fish) populations would wink out." COOPERATIVE EFFORTS Ranchers confirm they would scrap all cooperative ventures with the state if they were cited by game wardens, and say they are guaranteed diversion rights by court rulings made decades ago. Gary Black, who diverts Scott River water to irrigate alfalfa and wheat on his 240-acre farm, said ranchers would respond to voluntary incentives to improve fish populations but would resist government fiat. "We're looking for win-win situations," said Black, who helps direct a local resource conservation district that promotes fish-friendly agricultural methods. "I've worked with more than half the farmers in the Scott Valley. Everyone is willing to do their part for fishery protection -- the question becomes how far is too far." Still, "flows remain the number one issue, and this is a good time to sit down and talk," Black said. "That will work better around here than getting out the citation book." E-mail the writers at glenmartin at sfchronicle.com and tstiesntra at sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sari at sisqtel.net Fri Jul 18 11:35:44 2008 From: sari at sisqtel.net (Sari Sommarstrom) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:35:44 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Young fish die as water laws go unenforced In-Reply-To: <04a901c8e8fd$659f5590$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20080718102523.02c9ce08@pop.sisqtel.net> Why did this 2001 old article get sent out today?? At 10:30 AM 7/18/2008 -0700, Tom Stokely wrote: > >http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/22/MN158255.DTL > > > > > >Young fish die as water laws go unenforced > > > > > >Ranchers' cooperation threatened > > > >Glen Martin, Tom Stienstra, Chronicle >Staff Writers > >"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Friday, June 22, 2001 > >Irrigation by ranchers is decimating salmon and steelhead populations on >California's second biggest river system, and Department of Fish and Game >officials acknowledge they are not implementing a tough state law that >could stop the diversions. > >Ranchers have diverted most of the flow of the Scott and Shasta Rivers in >Siskiyou County to irrigate alfalfa fields and pastures, leaving thousands >of young salmon and steelhead without enough water and facing imminent death. > >State game wardens generally are disposed to citing the diverters under >Fish and Game Code 5937, which requires dam owners to maintain water in >state streambeds sufficient to keep fish healthy. > >But agency officials say they are being told not to cite offenders out of >concern that cooperative restoration projects between the state and >ranchers on the Scott and Shasta Rivers would end instantly if the law >were enforced. > >The controversy points out difficulties with cooperative programs between >government agencies and private parties. Though such agreements can help >resolve thorny environmental problems, they may also inhibit agencies from >cracking down on private sector partners. > >Warden Renie Cleland said he was told to back off from citing ranchers on >the Scott and Shasta rivers. > >"This has gone all the way to Sacramento," said Cleland. "It's extremely >politically sensitive. I was told to take no enforcement action on it. >These fish are dying. We've got five or six thousand steelhead trout dead >on the Scott, and (dead juvenile steelhead) everywhere on the Shasta." > > >MAJOR KLAMATH TRIBUTARIES > > > >The Scott and Shasta are major tributaries of the Klamath River, which is >second only to the Sacramento River in its dimensions and the number of >fish it supports. > >The Klamath and its tributaries once supported hundreds of thousands of >chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead trout. Their numbers began >declining in the mid-20th century from dams, agricultural irrigation and >timber harvesting. By the mid-1980s, only a few thousand fish were left -- >mostly on the Scott and Shasta. > >During the past decade, efforts to screen agricultural pump intakes, >reduce soil erosion, restore riparian forests and transport fish trapped >in "dewatered" streambeds have bolstered the fish populations somewhat. > >WATER RIGHTS FROM THE 1930S > >But conflict between environmentalists and ranchers over diversions has >simmered for years. Ranchers exercising water rights adjudicated in the >1930s typically lower the rivers through irrigation during the summer. > >This year, a severe local drought has greatly increased the degree of the >problem. The Scott has been sucked dry, and the Shasta reduced to a >trickle at its juncture with the Klamath. > >Temperatures in the river have reached or exceeded the level considered >lethal for salmon species, which favor cold water. Thousands of fish have >died, and thousands of others face imminent death, making the pumping a >clear violation of Code 5937. > >"Everything has died," said Fish and Game Captain Chuck Konvalin of the >Scott River. "The system has been dried up." Konvalin, who heads a team of >wardens who operate in the north state, says their superiors are reigning >them in. > >"This thing is out of whack," said Konvalin. "I get my orders." > >Gary Stacey, a fisheries program director for Fish and Game who oversees >projects in the Klamath area, said enforcing Code 5937 would "slam the >door" on meaningful restoration programs along the Scott and Shasta, which >cost $25 million a year. > >"All our current programs depend on landowner cooperation," he said. "That >would all stop immediately if we pulled the trigger. And the process >involved in filing and prosecuting a case like this could take years -- >years the fish don't have. > >"By taking strong law enforcement action, we could simply be assuring that >the (fish) populations would wink out." > > >COOPERATIVE EFFORTS > > > >Ranchers confirm they would scrap all cooperative ventures with the state >if they were cited by game wardens, and say they are guaranteed diversion >rights by court rulings made decades ago. > >Gary Black, who diverts Scott River water to irrigate alfalfa and wheat on >his 240-acre farm, said ranchers would respond to voluntary incentives to >improve fish populations but would resist government fiat. > >"We're looking for win-win situations," said Black, who helps direct a >local resource conservation district that promotes fish-friendly >agricultural methods. "I've worked with more than half the farmers in the >Scott Valley. Everyone is willing to do their part for fishery protection >-- the question becomes how far is too far." > >Still, "flows remain the number one issue, and this is a good time to sit >down and talk," Black said. "That will work better around here than >getting out the citation book." > >E-mail the writers at >glenmartin at sfchronicle.com and >tstiesntra at sfchronicle.com. > > > >This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle >_______________________________________________ >env-trinity mailing list >env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Jul 18 12:46:25 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:46:25 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Young fish die as water laws go unenforced References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080718102523.02c9ce08@pop.sisqtel.net> Message-ID: <054d01c8e90e$f7f71c00$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> My apologies for the rather untimely article. Somebody sent it to me and I failed to notice that the date was June 22, 2001. It's very old news. Regretfully, Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org ----- Original Message ----- From: Sari Sommarstrom To: Tom Stokely ; Trinity List Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 11:35 AM Subject: Re: [env-trinity] Young fish die as water laws go unenforced Why did this 2001 old article get sent out today?? At 10:30 AM 7/18/2008 -0700, Tom Stokely wrote: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/22/MN158255.DTL Young fish die as water laws go unenforced Ranchers' cooperation threatened Glen Martin, Tom Stienstra, Chronicle Staff Writers Friday, June 22, 2001 Irrigation by ranchers is decimating salmon and steelhead populations on California's second biggest river system, and Department of Fish and Game officials acknowledge they are not implementing a tough state law that could stop the diversions. Ranchers have diverted most of the flow of the Scott and Shasta Rivers in Siskiyou County to irrigate alfalfa fields and pastures, leaving thousands of young salmon and steelhead without enough water and facing imminent death. State game wardens generally are disposed to citing the diverters under Fish and Game Code 5937, which requires dam owners to maintain water in state streambeds sufficient to keep fish healthy. But agency officials say they are being told not to cite offenders out of concern that cooperative restoration projects between the state and ranchers on the Scott and Shasta Rivers would end instantly if the law were enforced. The controversy points out difficulties with cooperative programs between government agencies and private parties. Though such agreements can help resolve thorny environmental problems, they may also inhibit agencies from cracking down on private sector partners. Warden Renie Cleland said he was told to back off from citing ranchers on the Scott and Shasta rivers. "This has gone all the way to Sacramento," said Cleland. "It's extremely politically sensitive. I was told to take no enforcement action on it. These fish are dying. We've got five or six thousand steelhead trout dead on the Scott, and (dead juvenile steelhead) everywhere on the Shasta." MAJOR KLAMATH TRIBUTARIES The Scott and Shasta are major tributaries of the Klamath River, which is second only to the Sacramento River in its dimensions and the number of fish it supports. The Klamath and its tributaries once supported hundreds of thousands of chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead trout. Their numbers began declining in the mid-20th century from dams, agricultural irrigation and timber harvesting. By the mid-1980s, only a few thousand fish were left -- mostly on the Scott and Shasta. During the past decade, efforts to screen agricultural pump intakes, reduce soil erosion, restore riparian forests and transport fish trapped in "dewatered" streambeds have bolstered the fish populations somewhat. WATER RIGHTS FROM THE 1930S But conflict between environmentalists and ranchers over diversions has simmered for years. Ranchers exercising water rights adjudicated in the 1930s typically lower the rivers through irrigation during the summer. This year, a severe local drought has greatly increased the degree of the problem. The Scott has been sucked dry, and the Shasta reduced to a trickle at its juncture with the Klamath. Temperatures in the river have reached or exceeded the level considered lethal for salmon species, which favor cold water. Thousands of fish have died, and thousands of others face imminent death, making the pumping a clear violation of Code 5937. "Everything has died," said Fish and Game Captain Chuck Konvalin of the Scott River. "The system has been dried up." Konvalin, who heads a team of wardens who operate in the north state, says their superiors are reigning them in. "This thing is out of whack," said Konvalin. "I get my orders." Gary Stacey, a fisheries program director for Fish and Game who oversees projects in the Klamath area, said enforcing Code 5937 would "slam the door" on meaningful restoration programs along the Scott and Shasta, which cost $25 million a year. "All our current programs depend on landowner cooperation," he said. "That would all stop immediately if we pulled the trigger. And the process involved in filing and prosecuting a case like this could take years -- years the fish don't have. "By taking strong law enforcement action, we could simply be assuring that the (fish) populations would wink out." COOPERATIVE EFFORTS Ranchers confirm they would scrap all cooperative ventures with the state if they were cited by game wardens, and say they are guaranteed diversion rights by court rulings made decades ago. Gary Black, who diverts Scott River water to irrigate alfalfa and wheat on his 240-acre farm, said ranchers would respond to voluntary incentives to improve fish populations but would resist government fiat. "We're looking for win-win situations," said Black, who helps direct a local resource conservation district that promotes fish-friendly agricultural methods. "I've worked with more than half the farmers in the Scott Valley. Everyone is willing to do their part for fishery protection -- the question becomes how far is too far." Still, "flows remain the number one issue, and this is a good time to sit down and talk," Black said. "That will work better around here than getting out the citation book." E-mail the writers at glenmartin at sfchronicle.com and tstiesntra at sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle _______________________________________________ env-trinity mailing list env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danielbacher at fishsniffer.com Fri Jul 18 16:00:05 2008 From: danielbacher at fishsniffer.com (Dan Bacher) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:00:05 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Young fish die as water laws go unenforced In-Reply-To: <054d01c8e90e$f7f71c00$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080718102523.02c9ce08@pop.sisqtel.net> <054d01c8e90e$f7f71c00$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: Hey, but you got to admit, it was a hell of an article! Thanks Dan On Jul 18, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Tom Stokely wrote: > My apologies for the rather untimely article. Somebody sent it to > me and I failed to notice that the date was June 22, 2001. It's > very old news. > > Regretfully, > > > Tom Stokely > Principal Planner > Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources > PO Box 1445 > 60 Glen Rd. > Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 > 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 > FAX 623-1646 > tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Sari Sommarstrom > To: Tom Stokely ; Trinity List > Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 11:35 AM > Subject: Re: [env-trinity] Young fish die as water laws go unenforced > > Why did this 2001 old article get sent out today?? > > At 10:30 AM 7/18/2008 -0700, Tom Stokely wrote: > >> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/22/MN158255.DTL >> >> >> >> >> Young fish die as water laws go unenforced >> >> >> >> >> Ranchers' cooperation threatened >> >> >> >> Glen Martin, Tom Stienstra, Chronicle Staff Writers >> >> > com:office:smarttags" />Friday, June 22, 2001 >> >> Irrigation by ranchers is decimating salmon and steelhead >> populations on California's second biggest river system, and >> Department of Fish and Game officials acknowledge they are not >> implementing a tough state law that could stop the diversions. >> >> Ranchers have diverted most of the flow of the Scott and Shasta >> Rivers in Siskiyou County to irrigate alfalfa fields and pastures, >> leaving thousands of young salmon and steelhead without enough >> water and facing imminent death. >> >> State game wardens generally are disposed to citing the diverters >> under Fish and Game Code 5937, which requires dam owners to >> maintain water in state streambeds sufficient to keep fish healthy. >> >> But agency officials say they are being told not to cite offenders >> out of concern that cooperative restoration projects between the >> state and ranchers on the Scott and Shasta Rivers would end >> instantly if the law were enforced. >> >> The controversy points out difficulties with cooperative programs >> between government agencies and private parties. Though such >> agreements can help resolve thorny environmental problems, they >> may also inhibit agencies from cracking down on private sector >> partners. >> >> Warden Renie Cleland said he was told to back off from citing >> ranchers on the Scott and Shasta rivers. >> >> "This has gone all the way to Sacramento," said Cleland. "It's >> extremely politically sensitive. I was told to take no enforcement >> action on it. These fish are dying. We've got five or six thousand >> steelhead trout dead on the Scott, and (dead juvenile steelhead) >> everywhere on the Shasta." >> >> MAJOR KLAMATH TRIBUTARIES >> >> >> >> The Scott and Shasta are major tributaries of the Klamath River, >> which is second only to the Sacramento River in its dimensions and >> the number of fish it supports. >> >> The Klamath and its tributaries once supported hundreds of >> thousands of chinook salmon, coho salmon and steelhead trout. >> Their numbers began declining in the mid-20th century from dams, >> agricultural irrigation and timber harvesting. By the mid-1980s, >> only a few thousand fish were left -- mostly on the Scott and >> Shasta. >> >> During the past decade, efforts to screen agricultural pump >> intakes, reduce soil erosion, restore riparian forests and >> transport fish trapped in "dewatered" streambeds have bolstered >> the fish populations somewhat. >> >> WATER RIGHTS FROM THE 1930S >> >> But conflict between environmentalists and ranchers over >> diversions has simmered for years. Ranchers exercising water >> rights adjudicated in the 1930s typically lower the rivers through >> irrigation during the summer. >> >> This year, a severe local drought has greatly increased the degree >> of the problem. The Scott has been sucked dry, and the Shasta >> reduced to a trickle at its juncture with the Klamath. >> >> Temperatures in the river have reached or exceeded the level >> considered lethal for salmon species, which favor cold water. >> Thousands of fish have died, and thousands of others face imminent >> death, making the pumping a clear violation of Code 5937. >> >> "Everything has died," said Fish and Game Captain Chuck Konvalin >> of the Scott River. "The system has been dried up." Konvalin, who >> heads a team of wardens who operate in the north state, says their >> superiors are reigning them in. >> >> "This thing is out of whack," said Konvalin. "I get my orders." >> >> Gary Stacey, a fisheries program director for Fish and Game who >> oversees projects in the Klamath area, said enforcing Code 5937 >> would "slam the door" on meaningful restoration programs along the >> Scott and Shasta, which cost $25 million a year. >> >> "All our current programs depend on landowner cooperation," he >> said. "That would all stop immediately if we pulled the trigger. >> And the process involved in filing and prosecuting a case like >> this could take years -- years the fish don't have. >> >> "By taking strong law enforcement action, we could simply be >> assuring that the (fish) populations would wink out." >> >> COOPERATIVE EFFORTS >> >> >> >> Ranchers confirm they would scrap all cooperative ventures with >> the state if they were cited by game wardens, and say they are >> guaranteed diversion rights by court rulings made decades ago. >> >> Gary Black, who diverts Scott River water to irrigate alfalfa and >> wheat on his 240-acre farm, said ranchers would respond to >> voluntary incentives to improve fish populations but would resist >> government fiat. >> >> "We're looking for win-win situations," said Black, who helps >> direct a local resource conservation district that promotes fish- >> friendly agricultural methods. "I've worked with more than half >> the farmers in the Scott Valley. Everyone is willing to do their >> part for fishery protection -- the question becomes how far is too >> far." >> >> Still, "flows remain the number one issue, and this is a good time >> to sit down and talk," Black said. "That will work better around >> here than getting out the citation book." >> >> E-mail the writers at glenmartin at sfchronicle.com and >> tstiesntra at sfchronicle.com. >> >> >> >> This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle >> _______________________________________________ >> env-trinity mailing list >> env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity > _______________________________________________ > env-trinity mailing list > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Sat Jul 19 10:23:59 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:23:59 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chron Pg 1 7 19 08 Message-ID: <000501c8e9c4$3b72f2f0$0301a8c0@optiplex> Delta diversion threat to salmon, judge rules Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, July 19, 2008 A federal judge in Fresno affirmed Friday that water diversions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have jeopardized the existence of California's beleaguered salmon. It was the latest in a string of rulings ordering state and federal regulators to fix a water system that supplies millions of Californians with water but is all but dysfunctional when it comes to protecting fisheries and the environment. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger told the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources to come up with ways to protect salmon and steelhead trout, but declined to order any immediate remedies. Wanger's 118-page ruling was issued as a result of a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and several other environmental organizations accusing the government of endangering salmon and steelhead. The plaintiffs had asked the judge to immediately curtail water diversions. "We are frustrated that the court denied our requests," said Doug Obegi, a lawyer for the council. "We want to assure that the water projects are operated to sustain fisheries and farming. The court's decision shows that management has not achieved that balance. The system is really out of balance, and the court's opinion recognizes that what's happening right now puts salmon and steelhead in danger of extinction." The plan now is to hold more court hearings on what to do about the problem before March 2009, when the bureau is required to issue a new "biological opinion" outlining its plans to deliver water and at the same time protect winter- and spring-run chinook and steelhead trout in the Sacramento River. Wanger had ruled in April that water regulators failed to consider the effects of global warming and other environmental issues related to the decline of California salmon when they approved increased pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The decision invalidated the original biological opinion that said the salmon would not be adversely affected by pumping. The report comes amid a statewide fisheries crisis. The number of salmon in the ocean plummeted this year, prompting a ban of fishing all along the California and Oregon coasts. Some marine biologists claim the problem resulted from a lack of nutrients in the ocean caused by global warming, but most fisheries experts believe the biggest impact is from dams, diversions and development along the Sacramento River system, which is the primary spawning grounds. However, curtailing water diversions means cutting back on the flow of drinking water for 25 million Californians and irrigation for 750,000 acres of cropland. California's state and federal water project was established about 100 years ago and is an integral part of the state's infrastructure. Changing it would become a political football up and down the state, affecting the economy as well as the environment. Still, even those who have interests in water rights and support diversions admit the state's water distribution system is in turmoil. "Everyone is realizing the delta is broken and there needs to be some kind of fix that will meet the needs of the citizens who receive water as well as for the environment," said Sarah Woolf, spokeswoman for the Westlands Water District, an agricultural area representing farmers who produce 60 commodities, including most of the state's lettuce, almonds, tomatoes, pistachios and grapes. "We need some sort of conveyance around the delta," Woolf said. "Everything is pointing to a peripheral canal as the solution." The water fight started in February 2005 when environmentalists sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after the agency issued an opinion saying delta smelt would not be harmed by water diversions. The council and its co-plaintiffs challenged the biological opinion for salmon and steelhead a couple months after the delta smelt lawsuit was filed. The Natural Resources Defense Council urged Wanger to require the bureau to open the gates of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam earlier than normal. The dam is usually closed on Memorial Day to create a lake for boat racing and other festivities. Water from the lake is then diverted for farmers and other users through an irrigation channel. Obegi said juvenile salmon heading downstream get caught behind the dam and are eaten by predatory fish. "When the dam is in, the fish get concentrated," he said. "They go down the fish ladders on the side and the predators know exactly where the fish are coming and wait there. It's like serving them up on a dinner plate." Environmentalists also wanted Wanger to impose minimum stream flows on Clear Creek to store more water in Lake Shasta to make sure there is adequate flow year-round and to increase the amount of spawning habitat by releasing colder water farther downstream. The judge apparently decided not to grant the council's requests because the defendants already had agreed to some operational changes, including opening the Red Bluff Diversion Dam slightly earlier than originally planned and increasing flows on Clear Creek, near Red Bluff, to better protect salmon and steelhead. The latest hubbub comes in the wake of a ruling last year to protect the endangered delta smelt. That decision was attacked by lobbying groups for 400 agencies that deliver the state's water. They claimed cropland would go fallow and cities in the Tri-Valley, Santa Clara County, Los Angeles and other areas of the state would have to institute mandatory rationing programs to deal with the water cutbacks. Drought conditions have combined with the water situation to make some of those concerns a reality. "We've abandoned thousands of acres of crops, and hundred of jobs have been lost for farmworkers this year," Woolf said. The ruling "Project operations through March 2009 will appreciably increase jeopardy to the three species. ... All three testifying experts ... conclude that the three salmonid species are not viable and are all in jeopardy of extinction. Based on two drought years, with critically dry hydrologic conditions in 2008, and the presently unpredictable risk of a third dry year, the three species are unquestionably in jeopardy." - Judge Oliver Wanger Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Jul 20 08:55:48 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:55:48 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Stephen Bechtel Jr. Funds Peripheral Canal Report Message-ID: <012a01c8ea81$7ebc9cb0$0a6c3940@trinitycounty.org> From: Dan Bacher [mailto:danielbacher at fishsniffer.com] Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 1:08 PM Subject: Stephen Bechtel Jr. Funds Peripheral Canal Report! Stephen Bechtel Jr. Funds Peripheral Canal Report! by Dan Bacher The people and foundations who fund "scientific" reports and studies often reveal what is the real agenda behind the publishing of any document. A new Public Policy Institute (PPIC) report recommending the construction of a peripheral canal on the California Delta, "Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta," was released yesterday with wild acclamation by the Governor and the state's water contractors, since it "scientifically" justifies the destruction of the West Coast's largest estuary by building a canal. Little noticed in the media reports was where the funding came from. According to the PPIC's press release: "The new report, Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, builds on the findings of a 2007 PPIC study by the same team, which concluded that the need for a new Delta strategy is urgent. The new report was funded in part by Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation." Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr. (born 1925) is, with his son Riley, co-owner of the Bechtel Corporation. He is the son of Stephen David Bechtel, Sr. and grandson of Warren A. Bechtel who founded the Bechtel Corporation, the world's largest engineering firm. Bechtel Corporation, as well as being a war profiteer instrumental in the "reconstruction" of Iraq, is a leading advocate throughout the world of the privatization of water systems. It was Bechtel that sued the country of Bolivia for canceling a contract there sponsored by the World Bank. A CorpWatch report, "Profiting from Destruction," provides case studies from Bechtel's history of operating in the water, nuclear, energy and public works sectors. These case studies reveal a legacy of unsustainable and destructive practices that have reaped permanent human, environmental and community devastation around the globe. Letters from "Bechtel affected communities" included in the report provide first-hand descriptions of these impacts, from Bolivia to Native American lands in Nevada. The report reveals a 100-year history spent capitalizing on the most brutal technologies, reaping immense profits and ignoring the social and environmental costs. For more information, go to http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6975 Another CorpWatch report, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6670, details "Bechtel's Water Wars" in Bolivia. Fortunately, the people of Cochabama rebelled against Bechtel's scheme to privatize their water system and won. The role of Bechtel in funding the PPIC report must be exposed. Are the scientists who authored this report aware of Bechtel's record of devastation across the globe? And will Bechtel profit from the destruction of the California Delta fish, farms and people if a peripheral canal is built? These are both questions that must be asked! Central Valley chinook salmon and Delta fish populations are in a state of collapse, largely due to massive increases in water exports from the Delta in recent years. A broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Delta farmers, Indian Tribes and environmentalists is opposed to the peripheral canal because it would result in the diversion of more water from the Delta and further exacerbate the current fishery collapses. The PPIC report amounts being to an "elaborate sales brochure" for the peripheral canal, quipped Bill Jennings, excecutive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rjwittler at mp.usbr.gov Mon Jul 21 14:35:03 2008 From: rjwittler at mp.usbr.gov (Rod Wittler) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:35:03 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fwd: John Klochak Luncheon Message-ID: Please RSVP to Deanna Jackson, 623-1800 if you plan to attend the luncheon. >>> Jennifer Faler 21 July 2008 2:13:18 PM >>> Hello All, We're planning a going away lunch for John at La Grange for this Friday. Let me know who all can make it so I can make arrangements with the restaurant. I will also take up a collection for a Cabela's gift certificate for John if anyone would like to contribute. Thanks, Jennifer From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Jul 24 14:28:29 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:28:29 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] TRRP E-Mail is Down! Use Phones instead Message-ID: <000801c8edd4$3827a0f0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> I just received a phone call from the Trinity River Restoration Program Executive Director Doug Schleusner. He said that since yesterday (Weds) at about 10 am, their e-mail has been down. So, if you are anxiously awaiting a response to an e-mail from somebody in the Weaverville office, you should call them instead at 530-623-1800. Otherwise, your anxiousness will only get worse! Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Jul 27 19:30:30 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:30:30 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: CSPA and C-WIN Letter of Protest to Representative Napolitano Message-ID: <006701c8f067$cde16e60$3f6c3940@trinitycounty.org> CSPA and C-WIN Letter of Protest to Representative Napolitano ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Stroshane To: Tim Stroshane Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 10:29 AM Subject: CSPA and C-WIN Letter of Protest to Representative Napolitano To all interested parties and media representatives: The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) and the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) submitted a letter of protest to Representative Grace Napolitano, chair of the House Subcommittee on Water and Power concerning the recent hearing on the recently declared drought emergency. CSPA and C-WIN object to short notice, lack of representation of a broad spectrum of interests on the subject, and an apparent lack of interest by both speakers and the Subcommittee on verifying whether a drought truly exists for San Joaquin Valley irrigators and cities this year. A copy of the letter is attached. Contact information for Bill Jennings, Chairman of CSPA, and Carolee Krieger, President of C-WIN, are included in the letter. Tim Stroshane -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: CSPA-CWIN Napol Hear.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 392964 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Jul 29 16:01:24 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:01:24 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fish and Conservation Groups Blast Schwarzenegger/Feinstein Water Bond Proposal Message-ID: <03b301c8f1d3$6cf0c110$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 9:12 AM Subject: Fish and Conservation Groups Blast Schwarzenegger/Feinstein Water Bond Proposal Here's my latest article, followed by an action alert from Steve Evans of Friends of the River and a sidebar breakdown of the water bond proposal. Thanks Dan Conservation Groups Blast Schwarzenegger/Feinstein Water Bond Proposal by Dan Bacher As Governor Schwarzenegger threatens to cut the salaries of 200,000 state workers to the $6.55 federal minimum wage to supposedly ease the state?s projected budget deficit of $17.2 billion, Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein are campaigning for a enormously costly and destructive "compromise" $9.3 billion water bond proposal that includes more dams and a peripheral canal. Fishing and environmental groups strongly criticized the proposal for furthering imperiling already collapsing Central Valley and Delta fisheries while further indebting California taxpayers, while Democratic Legislators urged the Governor to spend $800,000,000 already allocated before talking about another water bond. The latest proposal follows the Governor?s signing of an executive order in June declaring a statewide drought that directed state agencies and departments to ?take immediate action? to address the drought conditions and water delivery reductions that exist in California. Schwarzenegger also proclaimed a state of emergency in nine Central Valley counties to address urgent water needs: Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern. This water bond proposal calls for "increased water storage to ensure our water supply is more reliable year-to-year and we?re able to capture excess water in wet years to use in dry years" and "improved water conveyance to reduce water shortages" - a euphemism for the peripheral canal. "The goal of this plan is to break the long-standing stalemate over water,? Senator Feinstein gushed, evoking the failed "can't we all come together" pseudo-consensus language that her and Schwarzenegger revel in. ?California is facing an unprecedented water crisis. The combination of drought, court ordered water restrictions, global warming, and an increasing population has placed a major strain on the existing infrastructure. She continued, ?We need to prepare now for the future. This language is comprehensive, balanced and could help increase water supplies to meet the needs of the environment, our cities, and agriculture. I hope that all sides can come together around a consensus plan that can be approved this November.? Governor Schwarzenegger echoed, ?There is an urgent need for comprehensive water reform, and this bipartisan plan is offered as a potential compromise that puts us on the path toward restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, expanding water supplies and promoting conversation efforts that will ensure a clean, reliable water supply for California,? In a joint statement, the bipartisan duo claimed that the water bond would somehow restore collapsing Central Valley salmon and Delta fish species, although not specifying how this would be done with more dams and an ?improved conveyance.? The statement continues, ?In two of the past three years, our once thriving Pacific salmon fisheries have been simply shut down as former salmon strongholds throughout the state have become dangerously imperiled. The populations of Delta smelt and other native Delta fish have collapsed to tiny fractions of their former levels. Threats from aquatic invasive species, toxic discharges and pesticides abound. Restoring our fisheries and our riparian ecosystems in the face of all these challenges will require bold action.? Fishing groups said this proposal does nothing to further real water conservation or ecological preservation, but is just another version of the Governor and Feinstein's earlier, outdated proposals to bail out corporate agribusiness, construct new dams and build the canal. ?We already have $6 billion in bond money that the state hasn?t spent yet,? said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. ?This is just the latest scheme to raid the people?s pocketbooks to further subsidize already subsidized water contractors.? He criticized the proposal for including plans to build Sites Reservoir on the west side of the Sacramento Valley and Temperance Flat Reservoir on the San Joaquin River east of Fresno. ?The Governor and Feinstein are trying to force through the dams even though they will have little yield in water,? said Jennings. ?Also, the Sites Reservoir would store water in mercury laden sediments.? The problem with constructing new dams or ?improving conveyance? is that California water is already grossly overallocated. California has 77 million acre feet in annual runoff in a state with a water budget of 85 million acre feet ? and where over half a billion acre feet is authorized for use, according to Jennings. Jennings said that Feinstein, Schwarzenegger and other policy makers ?have to realize that we live in an arid state and the water bond is predicated on an abundance of water that doesn?t? exist.? In spite of Schwarzenegger?s and Feinstein?s claims that the bond will somehow restore the Delta ecosystem, Jennings noted that it will only ?further exacerbate the demise of Central Valley fisheries.? Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign coordinator of Restore the Delta, was also very displeased with the Governor?s bond proposal. ?As was the case in 2007, Governor Schwarzenegger made what appears on the surface to be another move to short-circuit his own mandated Delta planning process, Delta Vision, by calling for a bipartisan $9.3 billion water bond,? she said. ?The joint statement sent out by the Governor and Senator Diane Feinstein calls for (in nebulous language) "improved conveyance" that will take the pressure of the Delta. ?Restore the Delta staff is very suspicious of the lack of details regarding Delta conveyance included in their joint statement as well as the timing of this proposed bond,? she stated. ?Could it be that this initial bond is somehow supposed to finance the proposed Delta Vision Strategic Draft Plan? While the $3 billion figure for improved state water conveyance would not cover the entire cost of a new through Delta pipeline, could money for a new facility be forthcoming from other sources? She also questioned why the Governor is calling for this new bond when California has an $18 billion deficit and is in its third week of operating without a state budget. The Planning and Conservation League (PCL) criticized the bond for including provisions that would limit future legislative oversight for water storage projects and projects affecting the Bay Delta, including the unprecedented continuous appropriation of $3 billion for water storage projects. "If approved, the water bond would bypass the legislature and grant allocation authority to the defunct California Water Commission (which is a commission entirely appointed by the Governor and which currently has no appointed members)," said Mindy McIntire, PCL's Water Program Manager. "The proposal also includes confusing language that seems to limit the Legislature's ability to engage in a solution to fix the Delta by requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to change or amend any portion of the proposal's directives regarding the Delta," she added. "New dams and the Peripheral Canal truly represent a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem," summed up Steve Evans in a letter to Feinstein and Schwarzenegger. "We respectfully urge you to reconsider your support for this budget-busting and environmentally destructive bond measure." Legislators Respond to Proposal Senate President pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) also criticized the Governor?s proposed $9.3 billion water bond measure, saying the best way for California to boost water supply quickly is to put the $9 billion in bond money approved by voters in 2006 to work. However, fishing and environmental groups were alarmed by his increasing willingness to sponsor a compromise water bond with Schwarzenegger and Feinstein, drawing fears that the final version could include a peripheral canal and dams. ?This latest bond proposal shares many similarities to one I put up for a vote last September, before the state encountered its current fiscal crisis,? he concluded. ? I am open to doing a water bond." Perata said the state should spend the bond money voters approved in 2006 - and then pass a ?responsible budget? that can pay for the debt service on a new bond. ?Once we do that, we?ll sit down with the Governor and Republicans to draft a bond measure to secure the state?s long-term water supply,? he explained. On July 14, Perata and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) further indicated their willingness to come up with a compromise bond when they announced that they would push legislation to fund ?water storage, reliability and conservation efforts? with already approved bond money. "It's imperative that we get to work immediately improving water conservation, water storage and water management -- and that's exactly what these two bills do," Bass said. "This package sets a realistic target for boosting water conservation and uses already approved bond money to make big improvements in California's water system." ?Just like California?s transportation infrastructure, our water system must be overhauled and upgraded to meet the growing demands of the 21st century,? Perata said. ?These bills take an important first step by quickly getting more than $800 million out the door and making conservation a top priority.? The two bills are: ? SB 1XX (Second Extraordinary Session), by Perata. This bill appropriates $812.5 million in Proposition 84 and Proposition 1-E dollars already approved by the voters in 2006. These funds are desperately needed by water agencies to address the current water drought and fire crisis and to provide immediate investments in water supply reliability. ? AB 2175, by Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz). This bill establishes a 20 percent water conservation target for most urban water agencies by the year 2020. It essentially says that within 12 years, the state will meet one-fifth of its water needs through more efficient use of the water we have. ?Perata's now talking compromise with the governor,? contended Jerry Neuburger, CSPA webmaster. ?Is the legislature sailing us down the peripheral canal?" Everybody who cares about the future of the California Delta, West Coast fisheries and California water supplies should oppose Schwarzenegger and Feinstein?s proposal ? and urge Bass and Perata to not include dams and a peripheral canal in any final ?compromise? bond proposal. Write, call or visit your Legislators today and phone or write Governor and Dianne Feinstein about your strong opposition to their plan that will result only in the further decline of imperiled chinook salmon, delta smelt, longfin smelt, striped bass, green sturgeon and other fish populations. I strongly urge you to sign on to the letter authored by Steve Evans of Friends of the River opposing the proposal For more information on the legislation, go to www.calsport.org, www.restorethedelta.org and www.friendsoftheriver.org. Action Alert from Steve Evans, Friends of the River: Ten Problems With the Water Bond Proposal Dear Friends, It?s time once again for the conservation, fishing, and Native American communities to let their voices be heard in opposition to the unneeded, destructive, and budget busting $9.3 billion dam and canal-building bond proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein. Please sign your organization on to these two important letters opposing the Schwarzenegger/Feinstein water bond. The first letter is to the Governor and Senator Feinstein. The second letter is to Senate Pro Tem Perata and Assembly Speaker Bass. Last year, more than 50 organizations signed on to a letter opposing the Governor?s previous water bond. Let?s see if we can include even more organizations on this letter. Please sign your organization on by providing your name, title, and group affiliation to Soren Jespersen by replying to soren at friendsoftheriver.org no later than COB Friday, Aug. 1. For more information about these letters, please contact Soren or Steve Evans at sevans at friendsoftheriver.org, phone: (916) 442-3155 x221. Both letters are attached and the letter to the Governor/Feinstein is copied below. Thanks, Steven L. Evans Conservation Director Friends of the River 1418 20th Street - Suite 100, Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: (916) 442-3155, Ext. 221 Fax; (916) 442-3396 Email: sevans at friendsoftheriver.org Web Site: www.friendsoftheriver.org Letter to Feinstein and Schwarzenegger Dear Senator Feinstein and Governor Schwarzenegger: The undersigned conservation, recreation, and Native American organizations respectfully oppose your proposed $9.3 billion water bond. Although we appreciate the provisions in the bond that would fund water conservation and watershed restoration, the bond could also provide significant funding for destructive and unneeded new and expanded surface storage dams, as well as the Peripheral Canal. Our primary concerns about the bond are: 1. New dams are not needed. Wise investments in increased water conservation and efficiency, expanded water reclamation and recycling programs, and improved groundwater management can easily meet our current and future water needs at a fraction of the cost. Funding of these programs now would produce virtually immediate results in response to the drought while funding of new dams would not produce new water for decades. Allocating billions for unneeded new dams prioritizes limited public dollars away from other more cost effective and environmentally beneficial water programs. 2. New dams are not a solution to the drought. Dams do not create water, they simply capture rainwater and snowmelt. If any of the proposed dams existed today, the reservoirs would likely be as empty as our existing reservoirs due to the drought and the state?s primary focus on exporting water for consumptive purposes. If construction of any of these dams began today, they would not provide a drop of water for decades. Increased investments in conservation, efficiency, recycling, and reclamation could produce savings and water almost immediately. 3. Water conservation and efficiency are cheaper and more effective alternatives. Every dollar invested in urban water conservation produces four times more water than twelve dollars invested in new dams. Current and past investments in conservation and efficiency have reduced California?s per capita consumption of water by half in the last 40 years. And yet, there is much more that can be done to reclaim, recycle, conserve, and more efficiently utilize our existing water supplies. 4. Dam costs are exorbitant and increasing daily. As currently proposed, the bond could provide as much as $5 billion for new or expanded dams. Current cost estimates for each new or expanded dam are in the billions of dollars and these estimates do not include actual escalated costs, including the rising price for raw materials and energy needed for construction, inflation, interest, and mitigation of environmental impacts. The public debt service on the proposed bond will cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the multi-year life span of the bond, at a time when the state and its taxpayers are already struggling to fund essential public services. 5. New dams and large reservoirs are ineffective and wasteful. The 2005 California Water Plan found that surface storage conservatively produces the least amount of water than any other water management option, including cloud seeding. The 1,400 existing dams in California already use the most effective dam sites. Because of this, many of the proposed dams will store no water during drought and relatively insignificant amounts of water during normal water years. For example, the proposed Temperance Flat Dam on the San Joaquin River would provide no additional water storage three years out of four. California?s major reservoirs already lose more than 2 million acre-feet of water every year from evaporation. 6. Dams are not a solution to global warming. Experts agree that our existing comprehensive system of dams can be operated to meet the hydrological changes caused by global warming. Large reservoirs created by new dams actually produce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Worse yet, many of the CALFED dam projects are energy losers and may force California to become more reliant on polluting energy sources (moving water is already the top energy use in the state). For example, the Sites and Los Vaqueros projects will require more power to pump water into the reservoirs than the facilities will produce when water is released downstream. The Temperance Flat dam will drown more existing power capacity than it will generate. 7. Local ratepayers who benefit most from new dams should pay for them, not state taxpayers. None of the dam projects under consideration are able to muster a majority vote in the California Legislature. As long as there is a possibility that state and federal taxpayers will pick up the tab to build expensive new dams, many local water agencies will likely decline to invest in expensive new dams. Where local water agencies have determined that a new dam is essential for local needs, the local ratepayers and beneficiaries paid for the new dam (as is the case with the Metropolitan Water District?s Diamond Valley Dam, the San Diego Water Authority?s Olivenhain Dam, and Contra Costa Water District?s Los Vaqueros Dam ? all built in the last 15 years). 8. Dam studies are not completed. We don?t really know how much these dams truly cost, how much water will actually be produced, who will receive and pay for the water, and the true extent of their actual environmental impacts. Funding dams before legally required environmental and engineering studies are complete and their true costs are known is bad public policy and violates the spirit if not intent of our environmental laws. 9. The dams may cause great environmental harm. The Temperance Flat Dam will drown up to 5,000 acres of public recreation land, wildlife habitat, and Native American cultural sites in the San Joaquin River Gorge. The Sites Project will drown 14,000 acres of wildlife habitat and possibly divert enough water from the Sacramento River to harm its ecosystem and endangered fisheries and wildlife. Raising Shasta Dam and enlarging its reservoir will drown the cultural homeland of the Winnemen Wintu Tribe and violate state law requiring the protection of the McCloud River. Proponents claim that the new dams could be operated to benefit the environment but numerous state and federal court decisions prove that government agencies are incapable of operating dams in compliance with environmental laws when pressured by water interests and elected officials to provide more water for consumption. 10. The bond could fund the initial steps to building the controversial Peripheral Canal. The bond would provide nearly $2 billion to facilitate Delta ?conveyance.? California voters overwhelmingly rejected the Peripheral Canal in 1982. Any conveyance that facilitates exports of fresh water from the Delta at current or increased levels is little more than a death sentence for the Delta ecosystem and its endangered fisheries. In addition, improved conveyance will harm Delta agriculture and perpetuate water quality violations in the Delta. New dams and the Peripheral Canal truly represent a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem. We respectfully urge you to reconsider your support for this budget-busting and environmentally destructive bond measure. In addition, we urge you to support legislation introduced by Senate Pro Tem Don Perata to appropriate $800 million in bonds already approved by the voters to expedite funding for water conservation, efficiency, recycling, and reclamation programs. Passage of this legislation will provide nearly immediate relief from water shortages caused by the drought. Thank you for you consideration. Sincerely, Steven L. Evans Conservation Director Friends of the River Sacramento, CA Schwarzenegger and Feinstein?s Proposal Broken Down: $2,000,000,000 for Water Supply Reliability: For regional water supply and conservation projects that implement an integrated regional water management plan and to support regional and interregional connectivity and water management. $1,900,000,000 for Delta Sustainability: For projects that support delta sustainability options ? levees, water quality, infrastructure and to protect and enhance the sustainability of the Delta ecosystem. $3,000,000,000 for Statewide Water System Operational Improvement: For water storage projects to improve state water system operations and provide net improvement in ecosystem and water quality conditions. $1,335,000,000 for Conservation And Watershed Protection: For ecosystem and watershed protections and restoration, invasive species removal, watershed restoration in fire damages areas, and for fish passage improvement and dam removal. $800,000,000 for Groundwater Protection And Water Quality: For groundwater protection, small community wastewater treatment, stormwater management and water quality, and coastal water quality. $250,000,000 for Water Recycling. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Jul 31 10:15:03 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:15:03 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Letter to Rep Grace Napolitano from Lloyd Carter Message-ID: <06a101c8f331$1f67c2e0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Rep. Grace Napolitano Chair, House Subcommittee on Water and Power 1610 Longworth Bldg Washington, DC 20515 July 24, 2008 Dear Rep. Napolitano, On July 21, 2008, at the suggestion of subcommittee members from the San Joaquin Valley, you held a field hearing of the House Subcommittee on Water and Power at Fresno City Hall which focused on impacts of the drought. You told audience members they could submit written remarks that would be made part of the hearing record. Please consider this letter for inclusion in the hearing record. My name is Lloyd G. Carter. On June 11, 2005, you visited the California State University, Fresno campus where the subcommittee held a hearing on proposals for a multi-billion dollar dam six miles upstream from Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River. I was a witness before the committee at that time, at the invitation of Rep. George Radanovich, who was then the chair. I was the only environmentalist testifying but appreciated the opportunity to expose the subcommittee to different views. And I was pleased and impressed when I met you. I am sorry to inform you I believe the panels that testified at your July 21, 2008, hearing showed no balance and that the broad general public was not served by that event. Virtually all of the speakers were officials of the Westlands Water District, representatives of local communities in the Westlands, or representatives of water districts in the Friant Unit of the Central Valley Project. They clearly had their own axes to grind. Missing from the panels were: (1) any representative of environmental interests; (2) any representative of Delta farming; (3) any representative of the commercial salmon industry, which was put out of business this year because of the collapse of the fishery; (4) any representative of the Trinity River Native Americans, who have seen their river destroyed in the interests of Westlands; (5) not a single representative from the Bay Area; (6) no one at all from Northern California. As a result, many of the panelists who did testify were able to freely misrepresent, distort, and exaggerate facts, and spread outright lies, half truths and fabrications, without any countervailing voices to set the record straight or offer an alternative view. The hearing that was supposed to be about impacts of the drought on rural communities turned into a cheerleading session for the Temperance Flat Dam, intemperate attacks on federal judges and "radical" environmentalists, and a call for more Northern California water for Westlands even as the Delta continues to decline. The hearing turned out to be little more than a publicity stunt. I know you had no involvement in the selection of the panel speakers but as the chair of the committee I hope that when you personally convene future field hearings on California water issues that you take special care to see that ALL voices are represented, not just those of local agribusiness. I also recommended you take the following actions: 1. The drainage crisis in the Westlands remains unsolved after half a century. Nobody at the July 21 hearing pointed out that speakers were calling for more water deliveries to Westlands to continue irrigation of high selenium soils totaling 379,000 acres, which U.S. government scientists say should be taken out of production. I suggest you hold a hearing on this issue. 2. Westlands claims to have 600 "growers" but has never provided Congress with a list of growers to show which entities are contracting for water from the District and whether those various business entities have the same ownership. You should request from the district such a list, showing which entities contracting for water have interlocking directorates or the same ownership. For example, Stewart Woolf, who did testify at the July 21 hearing, pointed out that his father, Jack Woolf, six children and 24 grandchildren all run the family enterprise. That is 31 people, or five percent of the district, controlling one major farming operation. If you investigated this matter you would find that 30 or 40 family dynasties in Westlands control a large percentage of land in the district. There is precedent for this. In 1985, the California Legislature commissioned a study of 42,000 acres in Westlands threatened by the cutoff of drainage due to the poisoning of the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge by the tainted drainage from those 42,000 acres. It turned out the 42,000 acres was dominated by a few multi-millionaire growers. And I'm sure you already know the Westlands is the most heavily subsidized federal irrigation district in America with the most pollution problems 3. If you are really concerned about the longterm welfare of farmworker families I urge you to hold hearings on the lack of clean, adequate drinking water in many farmworker communities in the San Joaquin Valley, a problem which existed before the current drought and will continue afterwards. Concern for the health of farmworkers should be as great as concern for their jobs. 4. You should be aware that the State Water Resources Control Board has issued permits for five times as much water as actually exists in the system. You should be aware that distribution of water in the Central Valley Project is based on a priority system and Westlands is at the end of the bucket line. When whatever water available in a given year is distributed to the senior water rights holders then Westlands gets what is left. Westlands has known this since it signed a contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 1963. Growers who in recent years have planted permanent crops in Westlands did so at their own economic risk. 5. If you are interested in protecting the integrity of Delta water drinking supplies and protecting the Delta's fishery, you need to broaden the discussion at subcommittee field hearings in order to provide the public with a larger perspective than that pushed by the local congressmen who are simply playing to their local constituencies. A field hearing is needed immediately. Rep. Napolitano, I retain faith that when you personally decide to hold field hearings that you will provide all California interests an opportunity to share their views about what is necessary to protect the Delta, farming, and drinking water supplies. My best regards, Lloyd G. Carter director, California Water Impact Network www.c-win.org www.lloydgcarter.com 2863 Everglade Ave. Clovis, CA 93619 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sari at sisqtel.net Mon Aug 4 12:16:43 2008 From: sari at sisqtel.net (Sari Sommarstrom) Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:16:43 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] NOAA + USGS = Earth Systems Science Agency? Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20080804111527.02803ea0@pop.sisqtel.net> Web address: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/ 080703140725.htm Proposal To Merge NOAA And US Geological Survey To Form An Earth Systems Science Agency ScienceDaily (July 7, 2008) In an article published in the journal Science, a group of former senior federal officials call for the establishment of an independent Earth Systems Science Agency (ESSA) to meet the unprecedented environmental and economic challenges facing the nation. They propose forming the new agency by merging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Charles Kennel, former Associate Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Director of Mission to Planet Earth, says, "Earth system science focuses on understanding current processes and predicting changes that will take place over the next hundred years. It merges earth, atmospheric, and ocean science into a panorama of the earth system as it is today and as it will be tomorrow. We need it to predict climate change and its impacts, and to help us mitigate and adapt to other changes that have the potential to affect our quality of life and economic well-being." The article points to the many scientific advantages of linking the atmospheric and marine programs of NOAA with the terrestrial, freshwater, and biological programs of USGS. Former NOAA administrator D. James Baker and former USGS director Charles Groat, among the seven coauthors of the paper, see important synergies in linking the two agencies. According to Baker, "Population pressure, development impact, and resource extraction affect land and sea alike. Just as the science of the Earth is seamless, so should the government responsibility be merged for these separate Earth agencies." Groat points to the breadth of capabilities the agency would possess. "The USGS, in bringing not only its geologic, biologic, hydrologic and geospatial expertise to the understanding of natural systems, but also its research capabilities in energy, mineral, water, and biologic resources, gives the new organization a comprehensive perspective on both environmental and resource systems. If we effectively link these capabilities with those of NOAA, we will have a powerful research institution," he says. The authors express concern that federal environmental research, development, and monitoring programs are not presently structured to address such major environmental problems as global climate change, declines in freshwater availability and quality, and loss of biodiversity. According to Donald Kennedy, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and past president of Stanford University, "It isn't often that we are offered a real opportunity to make government work better. But the modest, sensible reorganization proposed here brings a new science-rich focus on some of our biggest contemporary challenges." Kennedy also stresses the importance of linking ESSA's activities with the tremendous talent in the nation's universities. The authors recommend that no less than 25 percent of the new agency's budget be devoted to grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements with academic and nonprofit institutions. ESSA's success will also hinge on the collaborative arrangements the agency makes with other federal departments and agencies. According to former presidential science adviser John H. Gibbons, "ESSA's effectiveness will depend upon the bridges it builds to other federal agencies, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Science Foundation, to the Department of Energy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency." David Rejeski, who worked in both the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality, emphasizes the importance of setting aside some of ESSA's budget to fund research and development with breakthrough potential. "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated the value of funding high-risk, high-reward research and development. ESSA should foster similar ventures in the environmental arena," Rejeski says. The paper points to the direct link between research and development and economic growth. The work of NOAA and USGS already fuels a large, multi-billion dollar private sector enterprise. Mark Schaefer, a former official at the Department of the Interior and the White House science office, adds that "the quality of life of future generations will be defined by the quality of the environment we hand down to them. Our nation's research and development enterprise must be better structured and directed if we are to have any chance of solving the tremendous environmental challenges of our time." ---------- Journal reference: * . An Earth Systems Science Agency. Science, July 4, 2008 Adapted from materials provided by Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats: APA MLA Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (2008, July 7). Proposal To Merge NOAA And US Geological Survey To Form An Earth Systems Science Agency. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 4, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com? /releases/2008/07/080703140725.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kierassociates at suddenlink.net Mon Aug 4 12:36:45 2008 From: kierassociates at suddenlink.net (Kier Associates) Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:36:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] NOAA + USGS = Earth Systems Science Agency? In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20080804111527.02803ea0@pop.sisqtel.net> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080804111527.02803ea0@pop.sisqtel.net> Message-ID: <20080804193650.QGLD3804.omta01.suddenlink.net@kier.suddenlink.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Aug 5 19:41:58 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 19:41:58 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] River of Renewal Screening Arcata Saturday Message-ID: Klamath River Book Becomes a Movie, Arcata Screening Sponsored By NEC This Saturday, you could be one of the first to see the River of Renewal movie, based on the book about the Klamath River. The 54-minute fine-cut screening starts at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 9 at the D Street Neighborhood Center located at 14th and D streets in Arcata. Admission costs $5. Local beer and wine will be sold and refreshments served at the event. All proceeds will benefit Klamath programs at the NEC. Acclaimed Klamath River researcher and author Stephen Most and the longtime Klamath River defender and advocate Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC) invite the public to attend an early film screening of the River of Renewal, released as a book in 2006 and now as a movie. River of Renewal the book offers a rare literary look at the struggles for resources and ultimately survival in communities from headwaters to mouth of the 250-mile river which spans two states and various stakeholder uses. In the River of Renewal movie, Jack Kohler, a "sidewalk Indian," discovers his roots among the Klamath River tribes while investigating the crisis in the land of his ancestors. Conflict over water and wildlife in the Klamath Basin turned farmers and ranchers against American Indians and salmon fishermen in Oregon and California. But after lawsuits and winner-take-all politics brought disaster to the farms, the fish, and the fisheries, these stakeholders came together to forge a consensus for the common good. Like the book, the River of Renewal film is rich with stories, information and both historical and contemporary perspectives. It offers many answers, but also some important questions. Anticipating such questions, a discussion with River of Renewal author Stephen Most will follow the film screening. In essence, this is a film that asks: "Will the future witness the extinction of salmon in what was once North America's third greatest salmon-producing river? Or will it bring the restoration of the Klamath as a home for life?" Erica Terence ECONEWS editor Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G St. Arcata, CA 95521 office phone (707)822-6918 office fax (707)822-0827 erica at yournec.org cell phone (206)214-6454 Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Aug 4 12:10:14 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:10:14 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: reminder - A.B. 2121 Instream Flow Policy workshops Message-ID: <008101c8f665$ba048f90$0301a8c0@optiplex> _____ From: Brian Johnson [mailto:BJohnson at tu.org] Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 11:44 AM To: Brian Johnson Subject: reminder - A.B. 2121 Instream Flow Policy workshops Greetings, As you know, the State Water Board is having workshops tomorrow August 5 (Ukiah) and Wednesday August 6 (Santa Rosa) on the proposed North Coast Instream Flow Policy. It will be important for people who value streams to make a strong showing, so please remind people of the dates. The notice and agenda are attached. For those looking for talking points, I am attaching our Trout Unlimited / Peregrine Audubon comments (see the Executive Summary), plus comments from CSPA and Defenders/CoastKeepers/Russian Riverkeeper. Pass them around. Brian -- Brian J. Johnson Director, California Water Project / TU Staff Attorney Trout Unlimited / 1808B 5th Street / Berkeley, CA 94710 bjohnson at tu.org / 510-528-4772 (office) / 510-528-7880 (fax) / www.tu.org -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: August workshop notice_ab2121.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 41781 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: August 2008 AB 2121 Workshop Agenda.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 15198 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: TU-PAS AB 2121 Comments (2008-05-01).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 358170 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: CSPA comments ISP 043008.doc Type: application/msword Size: 46592 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Defenders CCKA RRK AB 2121 comments - Final.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 94683 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Guillen at uhcl.edu Mon Aug 4 12:46:05 2008 From: Guillen at uhcl.edu (Guillen, George J.) Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 14:46:05 -0500 Subject: [env-trinity] NOAA + USGS = Earth Systems Science Agency? In-Reply-To: <20080804193650.QGLD3804.omta01.suddenlink.net@kier.suddenlink.net> Message-ID: I second Bill's observation. The name of the proposed new agency says it all ("Earth Systems") which to means geophysical. It's time to merge the science and managemenet agencies so management has responsive research support e.g. FWS + NOAA + USGS. or FWS + NMFS GG George Guillen, Ph.D. Executive Director - Environmental Institute of Houston Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Science University of Houston Clear Lake 2700 Bay Area Blvd Houston, Texas 77058 281-283-3950 http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page/portal/EIH/about/directory/guillen http://sce.uhcl.edu/guilleng/ ________________________________ From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Kier Associates Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 2:37 PM To: Sari Sommarstrom; env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: Re: [env-trinity] NOAA + USGS = Earth Systems Science Agency? Sari and All I don't know that the "important synergies" that Mr Baker attributes to the creation of NOAA were conferred equally upon the fishing communities, which were doing reasonably well under USFWS mgt, such as it was in those days ... But NOAA, like NASA, has been generous to the academic research community, whence most of their leadership, like Baker, come -- and return after their gov't service My gut tells me that the fisheries, and their legitimate resource needs, fiscal as well as physical, would slide even further off the political radar with the fusion of NOAA and USGS Unless of course there was in Congress a senior Member prepared to champion fisheries mgt and rebuilding as an essential element of the proposed upgrading of the government's interest in "earth systems science" 'Best, Bill At 12:16 PM 8/4/2008, Sari Sommarstrom wrote: Web address: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/ 080703140725.htm Proposal To Merge NOAA And US Geological Survey To Form An Earth Systems Science Agency ScienceDaily (July 7, 2008) In an article published in the journal Science, a group of former senior federal officials call for the establishment of an independent Earth Systems Science Agency (ESSA) to meet the unprecedented environmental and economic challenges facing the nation. They propose forming the new agency by merging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Charles Kennel, former Associate Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Director of Mission to Planet Earth, says, "Earth system science focuses on understanding current processes and predicting changes that will take place over the next hundred years. It merges earth, atmospheric, and ocean science into a panorama of the earth system as it is today and as it will be tomorrow. We need it to predict climate change and its impacts, and to help us mitigate and adapt to other changes that have the potential to affect our quality of life and economic well-being." The article points to the many scientific advantages of linking the atmospheric and marine programs of NOAA with the terrestrial, freshwater, and biological programs of USGS. Former NOAA administrator D. James Baker and former USGS director Charles Groat, among the seven coauthors of the paper, see important synergies in linking the two agencies. According to Baker, "Population pressure, development impact, and resource extraction affect land and sea alike. Just as the science of the Earth is seamless, so should the government responsibility be merged for these separate Earth agencies." Groat points to the breadth of capabilities the agency would possess. "The USGS, in bringing not only its geologic, biologic, hydrologic and geospatial expertise to the understanding of natural systems, but also its research capabilities in energy, mineral, water, and biologic resources, gives the new organization a comprehensive perspective on both environmental and resource systems. If we effectively link these capabilities with those of NOAA, we will have a powerful research institution," he says. The authors express concern that federal environmental research, development, and monitoring programs are not presently structured to address such major environmental problems as global climate change, declines in freshwater availability and quality, and loss of biodiversity. According to Donald Kennedy, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and past president of Stanford University, "It isn't often that we are offered a real opportunity to make government work better. But the modest, sensible reorganization proposed here brings a new science-rich focus on some of our biggest contemporary challenges." Kennedy also stresses the importance of linking ESSA's activities with the tremendous talent in the nation's universities. The authors recommend that no less than 25 percent of the new agency's budget be devoted to grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements with academic and nonprofit institutions. ESSA's success will also hinge on the collaborative arrangements the agency makes with other federal departments and agencies. According to former presidential science adviser John H. Gibbons, "ESSA's effectiveness will depend upon the bridges it builds to other federal agencies, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Science Foundation, to the Department of Energy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency." David Rejeski, who worked in both the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality, emphasizes the importance of setting aside some of ESSA's budget to fund research and development with breakthrough potential. "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated the value of funding high-risk, high-reward research and development. ESSA should foster similar ventures in the environmental arena," Rejeski says. The paper points to the direct link between research and development and economic growth. The work of NOAA and USGS already fuels a large, multi-billion dollar private sector enterprise. Mark Schaefer, a former official at the Department of the Interior and the White House science office, adds that "the quality of life of future generations will be defined by the quality of the environment we hand down to them. Our nation's research and development enterprise must be better structured and directed if we are to have any chance of solving the tremendous environmental challenges of our time." ________________________________ Journal reference: 1. . An Earth Systems Science Agency. Science, July 4, 2008 Adapted from materials provided by Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies , via EurekAlert! , a service of AAAS. Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the following formats: APA MLA Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (2008, July 7). Proposal To Merge NOAA And US Geological Survey To Form An Earth Systems Science Agency. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 4, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com- /releases/2008/07/080703140725.htm _______________________________________________ env-trinity mailing list env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity Kier Associates, Fisheries and Watershed Professionals P.O. Box 915 Blue Lake, CA 95525 707.668.1822 mobile: 498.7847 http://www.kierassociates.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From trinityjosh at gmail.com Mon Aug 11 10:08:52 2008 From: trinityjosh at gmail.com (Joshua Allen) Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:08:52 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Looking for work Message-ID: Well, I figured I let you all know that the position with EDAW did not work out due to a clash with their "Corporate Culture"; which came as a result of me not being happy about the move to the Sac area with no relocation assistance, the drastic change in my environment, the commute, the very small amount of money I was making over Trinity County, and I just wasn't feeling it being a corporate clone. So now I'm collecting unemployment... Anyways, I'm in Stockton now looking for work, but also looking for an opportunity that will be interesting, satisfying, which does something good for the earth and it's people, while not selling my soul to the highest corporate bidder. So far all I can seem to find are positions in large consulting firms, which I'm not interested in. Though, I am interested in doing volunteer work for now on the Bay-Delta, since I'm here, and currently have nothing else to do with myself. My resume is attached if anybody cares to review it. I can be reached at trinityjosh at gmail.com. Thanks. Joshua Allen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: JUL08 Resume.doc Type: application/msword Size: 53760 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Aug 11 17:22:09 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (tstokely at trinityalps.net) Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:22:09 -0400 Subject: [env-trinity] DFG solicits proposals for watershed restoration grants; deadline Sept. 3 Message-ID: <380-2200882120229712@M2W016.mail2web.com> Department of Fish and Game NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Aug. 8, 2008 Contact: Patty Forbes, Program Coordinator, (916) 327-8842 DFG Office of Communications, (916) 322-8911 DFG solicits proposals for watershed restoration grants; deadline Sept. 3 The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Fisheries Restoration Grant Program is soliciting proposals for watershed restoration projects in California?fs coastal watersheds. The primary goal of this program is to ensure the survival and protection of coho salmon, steelhead trout, Chinook salmon, and cutthroat trout in the state?fs coastal watersheds. This year, DFG will focus on funding projects that have immediate benefits to salmonids in watersheds affected by the 2007 and 2008 wildfires. Proposals for projects that remove permanent or seasonal barriers to otherwise functioning historical salmonid habitat, and those that improve riparian habitat and water quality enough to benefit spawning or rearing habitat for salmonids are particularly desirable. Funding for the anadromous fish restoration work in coastal watersheds that have been impacted by the wildfires of 2007 and 2008 is limited to these types of projects: ?? Fish Ladders ?? Fish Passage at Stream Crossings ?? In-stream Barrier Modification for Fish Passage ?? Riparian Restoration ?? Watershed Evaluation, Assessment and Planning Funding for fiscal year 2008-2009 is expected to be approximately $10 million. All proposals submitted by mail must have a U.S. Postal Service postmark no later than Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008. Proposals delivered by any other means, including hand delivery in person, must be delivered no later than 3 p.m. on Sept. 3, 2008. DFG?fs intent is to fund projects that are consistent with its Steelhead Restoration and Management Plan for California, the Recovery Strategy for California Coho Salmon, and address impacts to listed waters from wildfires within anadromous salmonid habitat. All documents needed to apply for these grants - including the application form, complete instructions and contact information - are available on the Internet, at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/fish/Administration/Grants/FRGP/Solicitation.asp. Funding for proposals submitted under this proposal solicitation notice are subject to the availability of funds and approval of the Budget Act for the State fiscal year 2008-2009. Grant agreements will not be in place until the spring of 2009. ### DFGnews at dfg.ca.gov is an outgoing email account only. Please do not reply to this email. For questions about this News Release, contact the individual(s) listed above. -------------------------------------------------------------------- myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft? Windows? and Linux web and application hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Aug 12 11:02:41 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:02:41 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] ESA Rule Changes Message-ID: <68B646F984234272ABC99DA81B96EAF8@optiplex> Endangered Species Act -- parts of it could become extinct: Bush wants to let federal agencies decide whether projects might harm endangered animals. New rules would cut scientific reviews. The Los Angeles Times- 8/12/08 By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post WASHINGTON - The Bush administration Monday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades. The new rules, which will be subject to a 30-day comment period, would use administrative powers to make broad changes in the law that Congress has resisted for years. Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species. The Associated Press obtained a draft of the proposal and reported its details. Afterward, in a telephone call with reporters, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne described the rules as a "narrow regulatory change" that "will provide clarity and certainty to the consultation process under the Endangered Species Act." But environmentalists and congressional Democrats blasted the proposal as a last-minute attempt by the administration to bring about dramatic changes in the law. For more than a decade, congressional Republicans have been trying unsuccessfully to rewrite the act, which property owners and developers say imposes unreasonable economic costs. "I am deeply troubled by this proposed rule, which gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who asked for a staff briefing before the proposal was announced but did not receive one. "Eleventh-hour rulemakings rarely, if ever, lead to good government. This is not the type of legacy this Interior Department should be leaving for future generations." Bob Irvin, senior vice president of conservation programs at the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, questioned how some federal agencies could make the assessments, when most do not have wildlife biologists on staff. "Clearly, that's a case of asking the fox to guard the chicken coop," Irvin said, adding that the original law created "a giant caution light that made federal agencies stop and think about the impacts of their actions. What the Bush administration is telling those agencies is they don't have to think about those impacts anymore." But Dale Hall, who directs the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the move would not apply to major federal projects and would give his agency more time to focus on the most critically endangered species, rather than conducting reviews of projects that pose little threat. "We have to have the ability to put our efforts where they're needed," Hall said, adding that individual agencies will have to take responsibility if their projects do harm a protected species. "This really says to the agencies, 'This law belongs to all of us. You're responsible to defend it.' " The new rules would also limit the impact of the administration's decision in May to list the polar bear as threatened with extinction because of shrinking sea ice. At the time of that decision, Kempthorne said he would seek changes to the Endangered Species Act on the grounds that it was inflexible, adding that it had not been modified significantly since 1986. In a statement Monday, the Interior Department declared that even if a federal action such as the permitting of a power plant would lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions, the decision would not trigger a federal review "because it is not possible to link the emissions to impacts on specific listed species such as polar bears." The draft rules obtained by the Associated Press would bar agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats. Kempthorne said the new regulations included that language "so we don't inadvertently have the Endangered Species Act seen as a back door to climate change policy that was never, ever intended." The new rules were expected to be formally proposed immediately, officials told the Associated Press. That would give the administration enough time to impose the rules before November's presidential election. A new administration could freeze any pending regulations or reverse them, but that process could take months. Congress could overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer. Tim Coyle, senior vice president for governmental affairs at the California Building Industry Assn., said that while his association would have to read the rules before making a judgment, he welcomed Kempthorne's statement on the polar bear because it offered "clarity on an issue that if it was left broad and ambiguous, could be a serious problem for the home-building industry here in California. . . . For home builders, clarity in the rules is always, always helpful." Although Kempthorne said he had received "encouragement from both sides of the aisle to see if we couldn't bring about steps that would make the Endangered Species Act more effective," his proposal opened a new front in the ongoing battle between the administration and Congress on the environment. An aide to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she, like Rahall, had requested but not received a briefing. The panel is drafting a letter to the Interior Department and will hold an oversight hearing. In a statement, Boxer called the rules change "another in a continuing stream of proposals to repeal our landmark environmental laws through the back door. I believe it is illegal, and if this proposed regulation had been in place, it would have undermined our ability to protect the bald eagle, the grizzly bear, and the gray whale."# Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From awhitridge at snowcrest.net Mon Aug 18 06:39:35 2008 From: awhitridge at snowcrest.net (Arnold Whitridge) Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:39:35 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] TAMWG meeting August 25-26 Message-ID: <26E7F21DD88D4BF0A064AB1BE758CD7F@arnold7c7zvi7i> The Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group will meet in Weaverville on August 25 and 26; here's the proposed agenda. All TAMWG meetings are open to the public. Arnold Whitridge, TAMWG chair Proposed Agenda TRINITY ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT WORKING GROUP Victorian Inn (large room), 1709 Main Street, Weaverville, CA August 25 and 26, 2008 Time Presentation, Discussion, and/or Action on: Presenter Monday, August 25 1. 1:00 pm Adopt agenda; approve June minutes 2. 1:15 Open forum; public comment 3. 1:30 Designated Federal Officer topics Randy Brown 4. 1:45 TRRP budget Doug Schleusner 5. 3:00 Follow-up to CDR report; TRRP decisionmaking Mike Long (invited) & Brian Person (invited) 6. 4:30 Hatchery production issues Tom Weseloh 5:00 Adjourn for the day Tuesday, August 26 7. 8:30 TRRP construction program Jennifer Faler 8. 10:00 Integrated Assessment Plan update Rod Wittler 9. 10:45 Science briefs- selected modern developments in Nina Hemphill, fish understanding, gravel study, and IIMS Andreas Krause 10. 11:30 Executive Director's Report 11. 11:50 Tentative date and agenda topics for next meeting 12:00 Adjourn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Aug 18 15:43:49 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:43:49 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Temperature Report for 2007 Message-ID: <001b01c90183$e22f6430$337cfea9@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 11:50 AM Subject: Re: Temperature Report for 2007 > > AFWO is pleased to announce the release of a final report entitled: The > Influence of Lewiston Dam Releases on Water Temperatures of the Trinity > and > Klamath Rivers, CA. April to October, 2007. This report as well as > reports > generated for the years 2002 to 2006 are available at our website: > http://www.fws.gov/arcata/fisheries/activities/waterQuality/trinityWQ.html > . > > Questions and or comments can be directed to me at 707-825-5119. > > Cheers! > > Paul Zedonis > Supv. Fish Biologist > Arcata Fish and Wildlife Office > U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service > 1655 Heindon Road, Arcata, CA 95521 > > > .. all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause > and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from > experience; and all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the > supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. .. Without > the > influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of > fact > beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. (David Hume, > 1737) > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Aug 18 16:00:57 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:00:57 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Ruth Lake restricted to local boats Message-ID: <006f01c90186$470e8870$337cfea9@trinitycounty.org> http://www.times-standard.com/ci_10222722?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com Ruth Lake restricted to local boats John Driscoll/The Times-Standard Article Launched: 08/16/2008 01:21:21 AM PDT Water and wildlife officials are temporarily restricting boats that can use Ruth Lake to those from Humboldt and Trinity counties in an effort to prevent infestation of the regional water supply system by invasive mussels. The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, the Ruth Lake Community Services District and the California Department of Fish and Game are taking the measure to keep zebra and Quagga mussels from becoming a scourge like they are in other parts of the state. Boats registered in Humboldt and Trinity counties will be allowed to use the lake, with the exception of those that have recently been in infested waters. Ruth Lake is created by Matthews Dam on the Mad River, which is where some 80,000 people in Humboldt County get their drinking water through the water district. Nineteen reservoirs in California and others in the United States are already rife with the freshwater mussels. The mussels spread by water releases or by attaching themselves to boats or trailers -- larval mussels can live in bilges, live wells and engines. It can be impossible to rid a waterway of them once they take hold. ?At this time, there are no plans to close the lake,? water district General Manager Carol Rische said in a news release, ?but work is under way with the Ruth Lake Community Services District to develop a prevention plan.? That will include closing unstaffed boat launches, initiating boater registration and -------------------------------------------------------------------- Advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------- developing an inspection process. The invasive mussels multiply quickly, with each adult capable of releasing a million eggs in a season. The mussels can clog pipes and infrastructure and coat piers. The mussels can consume so much organic material in a lake that the water becomes overly clear, the release said, stimulating weeds and algae that can cause taste and odor problems in drinking water. ?Quagga and zebra mussels pose a serious threat to all of California's waters,? said Fish and Game director Don Koch. ?DFG is committed to providing local agencies like Humboldt County with the information they need to protect local waters from these invasive species.? Boaters are asked to: * inspect exposed surfaces of boats; * wash the hull of water craft thoroughly; * remove plants and animal material; * drain all water and dry all areas; * drain and dry lower outboard units; * clean and dry live wells; * empty and dry buckets; * dispose off all bait in the trash; and * wait five days and keep watercraft dry between launches into different fresh water. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 7513_matsen.gif Type: image/gif Size: 20648 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Aug 18 16:38:56 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:38:56 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Oregonian: Oregon farmers design a breakthrough for fish, growers alike Message-ID: <016e01c9018b$953f8620$337cfea9@trinitycounty.org> Oregon farmers design a breakthrough for fish, growers alike - OregonLive.com http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1218684316158480.xml&coll=7 Oregon farmers design a breakthrough for fish, growers alike A newly patented fish screen appears to protect fish and make money FACTBOX . Online Related Documents (PDF): 1 August 14, 2008 MICHAEL MILSTEIN The Oregonian Staff Floods racing off Mount Hood in 1996 nearly destroyed the little Farmers Irrigation District. Its water intakes in the Hood River Valley were in ruins. The small hydroelectric plants that brought in revenue were shut down. "We were broke," says Jerry Bryan, the district's project manager. "We were fundamentally bankrupt." The district then did something more befitting NASA or Intel than a bunch of tapped-out apple and pear growers. It launched its own research and development program, employing high-tech design tools and computational fluid dynamics. The goal: Build a better fish screen. The district wanted a screen that would keep protected salmon out of irrigation intakes while reducing exposure to damaging debris. Today the district has patented a screen design that could promote a revolution in fish protection while saving farmers time and money. The design is innovative in its simplicity: Unlike traditional screens installed across the Pacific Northwest it has no moving parts and cleans itself. The new screen freed the district from costly maintenance that almost sank it. No longer do its screens clog with glacial silt washing off Mount Hood, and they're safe from destructive floods. Now the district is making money. A curious group from New Zealand flew in this year to see how the screen works and is interested in installing some. The irrigation district launched a nonprofit to take what it calls the Farmers Screen commercial and reinvest the proceeds into rural communities. "Our deep, dark secret is that taking care of fish makes us a lot of money," Bryan said. "Screening became the key element to our fiscal success." If the 1996 floods provided the opportunity to create the new fish screen, windsurfing provided its inspiration. Dan Kleinsmith got a job at Farmers Irrigation District just before the floods hit. The one-time windsurfer ended up helping unclog fish screens so water could keep flowing to the hydroelectric plants. After the floods, the irrigation district had two choices: Shut down, or try to come up with a better way of drawing water from the unpredictable and silty Hood River. The way district leaders saw it, there was only one choice. "The alternative was no alternative at all, which was to give up," Bryan recalls. "There wasn't a lot of vision. There was a lot of desperation." The district set Kleinsmith up in a windowless building once used for cold storage. He and others, including his brother, Mike Kleinsmith -- now the district manager -- started building models of fish screens, seizing on a new approach a couple of farmers had tried. They sat around a big round table and tossed around design ideas. Then they'd go build trial versions. Traditional irrigation diversions often work against the water: They try to manhandle streams, routing them into screens. If the screens are vertical, water shoves fish and debris against them. To a windsurfer like Kleinsmith, that made little sense. "When you windsurf, you don't try to control the wind -- you try to work with the wind," he said. "It's kind of like a Zen-like thing." They pursued a different design: The screen is not vertical, it's horizontal. Water flows through a flume and over the flat screen. This, by itself, wasn't new. But such flat screens long suffered from problems: Water dropping through them pulls fish and debris down against the surface, clogging the flow. "I probably spent more hours staring at fish screens than anyone I know," Dan Kleinsmith said. They wanted water to wash fish and debris over the screen. Yes, some water would drop through the screen as it passed. But if the forward current moved fast enough it would propel fish, sticks, stones, leaves and any other debris across and beyond the screen. The trick was to slow the water dropping through the screen. Then it couldn't draw fish and debris down very hard. They did this in a few ways: First, the screen itself is a metal plate full of holes and is only 50 percent open. So water passes through it slowly -- only a small fraction of a foot per second. Also, the water flows forward through a chute that narrows like the nozzle of a hose. That keeps the water moving quickly -- about four to six feet per second. In short, water moves over the screen faster than it drops through the screen. This keeps fish speeding ahead. Also, water dropping down through the screen must also rise back up and over an adjacent wall, further slowing it down. The design is not suited to all conditions: There must be enough slope in a stream to keep the water moving fast enough. But Kleinsmith and others have built commercial versions in all sizes and have a small, modular version that can be quickly assembled. "If the flood of '96 hadn't come through, none of this would have happened," he says. When the district started installing the screens in its own diversions, its leaders knew they were on to something. "It turned our problems around overnight," Bryan recalls. No more debris clogs. No more shutting down the hydroplants. What was good for fish, it turned out, was good for farmers, too. This proved as revolutionary as the screen itself. "You had a relatively conservative bunch of farmers thinking that protecting fish was a fiscally responsible thing to do," Bryan says. "When we started paying attention to fish criteria, our debris problems went away." It also opened for the Farmers Irrigation District an enormous market opportunity. More than 50,000 irrigation diversions in Oregon do not have fish screens. Thousands more exist in other Western states. Not all are large, or suck up many fish, but some do. Every fish that ends up in an irrigation ditch means one less in the rivers -- and for endangered salmon species, one fish can be extremely valuable. The district patented the screen. It created Farmers Conservation Alliance, a nonprofit corporation in Hood River, to market the screen around the West. The nonprofit will invest revenue back into rural communities to support energy and water conservation projects. The Natural Resources Conservation Service provided a $529,000 "conservation innovation" grant to promote the design, calling for 56 installations by 2011. The nonprofit's first installation of the screen is up and running in the Lacomb Irrigation District east of Albany. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and NOAA-Fisheries in conjunction with the Fish America Foundation all contributed. "I think it's going to solve a lot of our problems," said Dean Castle, chairman of the board of the Lacomb district. "These guys came up with an innovative solution to a definite problem," said Kerry Griffin of NOAA-Fisheries, the federal agency that oversees threatened salmon. The agency doesn't normally fund new technology, but it contributed to the Lacomb installation to get the new screen design in place. "We thought it offered so much promise, we wanted to help move it along," he said. From the view of farmers, the money saved from not having to unclog screens and the uninterrupted hydropower revenue means more money for improving their irrigation systems to save water. That, in turn, helps fish. While investing profits back into communities may seem generous, Bryan said, "whenever we address the common good, we do better." Michael Milstein: 503-294-7689; michaelmilstein@ news.oregonian.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 33e40e.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1084 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Aug 19 11:13:09 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:13:09 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Westlands Water Contract in Perpetuity? Message-ID: <4D0CCA4D28C44AEDACDD335E9ED4A3C7@optiplex> Attached is a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation related to draft legislation and several related documents (draft contract, etc.) it is proposing in response to a request from Senator Dianne Feinstein. Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: SLU Drainage Draft Legis - Related Docs 8 15 08.doc Type: application/msword Size: 65536 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Aug 19 15:22:30 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:22:30 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] CALFED Jobs Message-ID: <008901c90252$cfc75210$337cfea9@trinitycounty.org> Multiple Job opportunities in the CALFED Science Program The CALFED Science Program has an opening for one Research Writer and multiple Staff Environmental Scientists. Help our team to synthesize cutting-edge science from exceptional minds and leading researchers throughout the nation to keep government policy makers fully informed on timely water and ecosystem resource related topics in California. Please visit http://www.calwater.ca.gov/calfed/HR/job_opportunities.html for detailed information. Please distribute this information widely. We apologize for any duplicate postings. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Aug 19 21:06:27 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:06:27 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Westlands Nuclear Message-ID: By KSEE News Story Published: Aug 19, 2008 at 7:57 PM EDT Story Updated: Aug 19, 2008 at 7:57 PM EDT The Fresno Nuclear Energy Group and the Westlands Water District signed a "letter of intent." This paves the way for exploring options that would bring two 1,600 megawatt facilities to west Fresno. "Low cost energy will be an economic boom to this area like this place has never seen before," said John Hutson of the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group. The state of California has a current moratorium on building new nuclear plants. The two plants are expected between Mendota and Kettleman City. The nuclear project could also make way for desalinization plants to the area. That process cleans up the water for farmers. "We are unable to produce a vast majority of crops. We have land that went fallow," said Sarah Woolf of Westlands Water District. "What do you need to clean water?, heat and electricity. What's more abundant at a power plant than heat and electricity?," said Huston. Signing the letters of intent are just the beginning stages. If all goes by plan, the energy group expects construction of the two nuclear plants to begin in 2017. Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Aug 20 14:10:37 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:10:37 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Westlands' Nuke Message-ID: Westlands discusses nuclear plants The Fresno Bee- 8/19/08 By Dennis Pollock Fresno Nuclear Energy Group LLC on Tuesday signed a letter of intent with the Westlands Water District to discuss the possibility of building two 1,600-megawatt nuclear power plants on 500 acres in the district. John Hutson, the company's president, said the district would choose the site. Hutson said that, under the proposal, a desalinization facility, powered by the plants, would be built "to supply clean, reliable water to the farmers on the west side." Ground water in the district is plagued by salts that include selenium and boron. State law bans any new nuclear power plants until the federal government approves a process for the permanent disposal of their spent fuel. A nuclear plant also would have to clear several federal legal hurdles, most notably from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Hutson has said he might try to use a ballot initiative to overcome the state ban on new nuclear plants. Sarah Woolf, a spokeswoman for Westlands, said district officials met once with Hutson and others involved in the project about two weeks ago. "The agreement says, 'Let's at least sit down and talk about it,' " she said, adding that one challenge would be obtaining enough water to cool the energy plant. "We made it clear that we're water short. "Our interest is if we could create a desalinization plant, we could power it with nuclear energy that would make it more cost effective." California has two active nuclear plants: Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, and San Onofre, between San Diego and Los Angeles. Woolf said it would be "at best" 10 years before anything could be built. Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Aug 20 15:00:28 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:00:28 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Harvest of cash: Kern County agency buys public water low, sells high Message-ID: <000501c90360$6ad3d0e0$7c6b3940@trinitycounty.org> My apologies for the tardiness of this article to you, but I've been on vacation for a couple of weeks. The article is still quite relevant. I once asked David Fullerton, architect of the Environmental Water Account, what would happen when funds for the EWA ran out. His response was "the fish will die." It seems to have come to pass with decline of the Central Valley salmon stocks, as well as the Delta's Pelagic Organism Decline (Delta smelt, etc.). This article is relevant to the Trinity River because it is my understanding that some of the EWA funds came from the CVPIA Restoration Fund, which water and power sales from the Trinity River contribute to, and sometimes come back to the Trinity River Restoration Program. Tom Stokely Harvest of cash: Kern County agency buys public water low, sells high Contra Costa Times- 8/9/08 By Mike Taugher Delta fish suffered a crippling decline while taxpayers paid nearly $100 million to a Kern County water wholesaler for an environmental protection program that was largely ineffective, a Contra Costa Times investigation has found. In the process, the wholesaler sold water to the state for as much as $200 an acre-foot and last year bought water from the state for as little as $28 an acre-foot. The Kern County Water Agency was the biggest buyer in a program that delivered discounted Delta water in a way that now appears to have been particularly harmful to the environment. It also was the biggest seller of water to an ill-fated, publicly-financed state program meant to protect the same environment, the investigation found. The Kern agency collected $96 million in taxpayer money ? nearly all of it borrowed on the bond market ? for sales to an "environmental water account" that was shelved after seven years at the end of 2007, records show. While state water officials took steps to ensure they did not directly repurchase the discount water, the exchanges amounted to "classic arbitrage," where investors exploit price differences in financial instruments, said Barry Nelson, a water policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "What makes this arbitrage so remarkable is they're buying the water and selling the water to the same entity, using water that should never have been pumped in the first place," Nelson said. The newspaper's investigation, which spanned six months and involved dozens of interviews and reviews of hundreds of pages of documents, some of which were obtained through the California Public Records Act, reveals: ? Regulators were kept in the dark as the California Department of Water Resources delivered far more discounted Delta water than was specified in its environmental permit ? more than four times as much in 2005. The permit contained restrictions that were supposed to protect Delta smelt, a tiny fish whose population has collapsed along with a large part of the Delta's ecosystem. ? Although state water officials took steps to keep the discount water sales to Kern County and the purchases of environmental water separate, those safeguards may have been compromised. Documents show Kern County water managers discussed trading water that was ineligible for sale to the environmental water account for water that was eligible in order to facilitate sales. ? Some researchers believe that increased pumping of Delta water at times when the discount water deliveries were occurring ? far in excess of permit limits in the past few years ? may have contributed significantly to the ongoing collapse of Delta smelt, which triggered a court order last year sharply restricting Delta water deliveries and tightening water supplies in parts of the state. ? The Kern water agency wrested control of the Kern Water Bank from the state in the 1990s by withholding needed local approval and eventually trading a small portion of its contractual water rights for the 20,000-acre site. The bank enhanced the region's ability to buy and sell water. ? Proceeds from the taxpayer-financed water sales were distributed to Kern County landowners in some cases. In 2003, for example, the sales brought $1.4 million in net revenue to one of the water districts within the Kern County agency. That money, "a return on the substantial investment of the district in the acquisition and development of the Kern Water Bank," was distributed to landowners, according to meeting minutes from the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District. The two water districts the newspaper has identified to date that distributed proceeds to landowners are controlled, at least partly, by some of the wealthiest land companies in California The story of how a powerful water agency was able to gain advantage in state water initiatives developed during the 1990s is coming to light as California's top political leaders once again try to deal with a broken water delivery system. After a punishing drought that ended in the early 1990s, a series of deals were negotiated to stabilize water supplies and protect the environment. Rather than impose cutbacks on water users or accept some environmental degradation, the deals promised all sides' interests would be served by programs paid for with taxpayer-backed bond funds. It didn't work. Instead, the spigot to the state's biggest water users flowed with record amounts of water from the Delta beginning in 2000. And as Delta water pumping reached new highs ? boosted in part by the new discount water program, especially in the past few years ? several fish populations crashed, including Delta smelt, longfin smelt, striped bass and threadfin shad. Pollution, invasive species and other factors are likely also to blame for the collapse, but Delta pumping was a major factor, biologists say. The ecological crisis became severe enough that last year a federal judge stepped in and ordered sharp restrictions on Delta pumping. The result: Despite at least $3 billion spent since 2000 to improve Delta water supplies and the environment, the West Coast's largest estuary is experiencing an ecological collapse and Californians appear to be faced with years of uncertainty about the reliability of future water supplies. The programs set up by the state to sell surplus water in wet years and to buy water for the environment were never directly linked. But both were among the many initiatives that grew out of attempts to resolve water problems in California. The Kern County Water Agency was the largest participant in both, thanks in part to its takeover in 1995 of a 20,000-acre groundwater bank that the state purchased seven years earlier. It was in the bank that the Kern water agency stored about one-third of its purchases from the discount water program and from which it delivered about 60 percent of its sales to the environmental water account, according to the agency. At the same time, the new discount water program known as Article 21 was set up to encourage water agencies like Kern and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to buy surplus water during wet periods and store it in local reservoirs. Under Article 21, the agencies buy the water for the cost of pumping it. The idea was that once the water was stored in the southern part of the state, it could be used in dry years when less Delta water is available. But in recent years the water districts took far more Article 21 water than was authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and some researchers now think that an increase in Delta pumping during winter ? the same months when Article 21 water is delivered ? might have contributed significantly to the ongoing Delta smelt collapse. "It really looks like that was a hit on the head," said Bruce Herbold, a fisheries biologist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Separately, the environmental water account was supposed to provide supplemental protection for the Delta without restricting water users. The Delta is home to hundreds of species and a crucial link in the migratory paths of birds and salmon. It is also an unrecognizable version of its former self, badly degraded by pesticides, pollution and invasive species. But the water deliveries from the Delta command the most attention. Inevitably, especially at the high levels of recent years, pumping water to more than 23 million Californians and 2 million acres of farmland degrades habitat and kills fish, larvae and eggs. The environmental water account was set up to counter that problem by giving regulators greater flexibility to slow Delta pumping to prevent fish from being sucked into the pumps. But the water account also put regulators on a budget. If they wanted to decrease pumping rates, they had to keep water users whole by delivering water from the account. Despite the bond funds, the environmental water account never had enough money or provided as much water as planners promised. In addition, the original plan was to use the environmental water account to supplement existing environmental water assets. But a key court ruling reduced the other assets, forcing the environmental water account to make up the difference. In other words, the account was not as big as promised and it had to buy more than was expected. After spending nearly $200 million in public funds, the environmental water account expired at the end of 2007. Despite the expense to taxpayers and the continued decline in environmental conditions, both programs worked well for Kern County. The $96 million in sales to the environmental water account since 2001 was more than twice as much as sold by any other water agency in the state, records show. Half of all the money spent by the environmental water account went to the Kern agency. And the bulk of the purchases were financed with the proceeds from environmental bonds authorized in 1996 by Proposition 204 and in 2002 by Proposition 50, meaning taxpayers will be paying for those purchases for years to come, with interest. The price taxpayers paid for environmental water, before interest: typically between $170 and $200 per acre-foot. Kern paid much less. The price for Article 21 water varies, but last year Kern paid $28 per acre-foot. And, in 2007, the average price it paid for all Delta water ? both Article 21 and its standard contractual water ? was $86 per acre-foot, according to the Department of Water Resources. Kern County water officials said the $170 to $200 per acre-foot they charged the environmental water account was appropriate to cover the cost of their water plus the expense of building, maintaining and operating the infrastructure to store the water and deliver it back to canals. They also said a portion of the proceeds was set aside to buy replacement water in dry years. And state water officials could not get water to thirsty parts of the state at a better price, they said. "We were the most economical game in town," said James Beck, general manager of the Kern County Water Agency. The state Department of Water Resources, meanwhile, only bought "previously stored" water ? basically, Delta water that was injected into Kern County aquifers during the wet years of the late 1990s. But minutes of meetings show Kern County water managers discussed and performed trades to accommodate sales to the environmental water account ? and to save the expense of actually pumping the water out of the ground. In other words, although a lot of water was sold to the environmental water account from the aquifers beneath Kern County, those transactions were often paper trades that resulted in relatively little water actually being pumped out of the ground. During a May 2003 meeting, for example, water managers made note of the fact that despite "substantial" sales of water from Kern County to the environmental water account, the region's groundwater had not been drawn down much because most of the sales were achieved through trades and other exchanges, "rather than outright sales and extractions," according to minutes from a meeting of the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District. Beck, meanwhile, said that in some cases his agency sold Article 21 water directly back to taxpayers. At least 3 percent of the water sold to the environmental water account came directly from Article 21, according to figures provided by the agency. That water would have been eligible for sale to the environmental account so long as it was stored in the late 1990s. "It's a little bit of a shell game," said Jim White, an environmental specialist at the California Department of Fish and Game. "It's not as if they (the state Department of Water Resources) were selling Article 21 in 2006 (and buying it back the same year). But you could say, what difference does it make?" It was "water laundering," said a critic at an environmental group that sued over the agreements that resulted in Kern getting the water bank and the water discount. "People ask how we could spend billions of dollars and still have the fish crash. This is the type of thing we were setting up," said Mindy McIntyre, a water policy analyst at the Planning and Conservation League. "In the end, the public ends up paying," she said. "Not just with loss of species, but then bond funding and, of course, a water crisis." Since 1995, the Kern County Water Agency bought 1.2 million acre-feet of water under Article 21, making it the biggest purchaser of that category of water, according to a tally of annual purchase records compiled by the Times. The next biggest purchaser was the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which bought about 830,000 acre-feet. Those numbers are higher than environmental regulators expected, and the Department of Water Resources in recent years delivered far more Article 21 water than was approved in the endangered species permit that was meant to protect Delta smelt. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit called for 168,000 acre-feet of Article 21 deliveries in an average year. In 2005, state water managers delivered a record 730,000 acre-feet in a year that was only slightly wetter than average. Kern County alone took a record amount that year, 453,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is enough water to cover a football field with 1 foot of water, or enough generally for two families of four for a year, meaning Kern's share of discounted water that year was enough for 3.6 million people or enough to irrigate 150,000 acres of farmland with 3 feet of water. The higher Article 21 deliveries were the result of Kern County water officials becoming more sophisticated about how to schedule their water deliveries, said one top state water official. "A lot of this was a cost saving mechanism," said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the Department of Water Resources. "They got smarter about how to request this stuff, rather than us changing the rules. These guys are not stupid." Normally, when an endangered species permit is violated, the agency holding the permit ? in this case the Department of Water Resources ? would be expected to ask regulators to reopen the permit for new analysis and modifications. That did not happen. Instead, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, a federal water agency that was also a party to the same Delta water permit, asked for a new permit in July 2006. Its request did not mention the state's Article 21 deliveries. Rather, the federal agency requested a new permit because Delta smelt numbers were falling drastically. The overdeliveries, meanwhile, went unnoticed by federal regulators because they never expected the Article 21 program to be a significant source of water. "There wasn't a great focus on how much it was because it was supposed to be infrequent," said Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Al Donner. Because the permit is being rewritten to correct other legal and biological deficiencies, nothing is expected to be done about past over-deliveries of Article 21, Donner said. The environmental toll of what happened is unknown. But one leading theory about what may have contributed to the Delta fish crash suggests that pumping out of the Delta during the early months of the year could have been particularly damaging to Delta smelt and other fish. It is during those periods that genetically superior smelt spawn, some researchers now believe. If pumping in those months killed the early-spawning fish and their offspring, it might have removed the fish that had the best chance of survival. If correct, the theory would place a finger of blame on the State Water Project, and in particular the increased water deliveries that coincide with Article 21 deliveries. In retrospect, the possibility of a link between increased deliveries of Delta water to places like Kern County and the collapse of the Delta's environment appears foreseeable. In 1991 ? two years before Delta smelt were listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act ? a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulator warned that if the Kern Water Bank, which at the time was owned by the state, were opened, it would lead to increased pumping out of the Delta and harm to fish, specifically Delta smelt and winter-run chinook salmon. "The reason for this concern is that water storage capacity within the Kern Water Bank would be filled through additional water exports from the Delta averaging approximately 90,000 acre-feet per year," said the 1991 letter from the agency. That prediction, which was at least roughly on target, appears to have gone ignored.# http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_10152127?nclick_check=1&forced=true -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Aug 22 10:13:25 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:13:25 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Shasta Supervisors oppose water reallocation Message-ID: <00ea01c90480$49f49320$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Supervisors oppose water reallocation By Kimberly Ross (Contact) Wednesday, August 20, 2008 http://www.redding.com/news/2008/aug/20/supervisors-oppose-water-reallocation/ Shasta County supervisors passed a lean annual budget Tuesday and agreed to voice opposition to the controversial Delta Vision plan -- which could deny north state water rights to quench Southern Californians' thirst. The Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to send a letter to the chairman of the plan's Blue Ribbon Task Force, with Supervisor Mark Cibula repeatedly questioning whether the county's four-page letter was worded strongly enough. He stressed Shasta County's responsibility to protect the north state's enormous water supply from Lake Shasta and Whiskeytown Lake, both for local water users and those in neighboring counties. "This is one of the most important things we will do," he said. Supervisor Les Baugh defended the letter's strength, pointing out the start of one of his favorite lines: "We cannot be more vehemently opposed to this preemption of local government authority. The reason why many counties adopted ordinances to regulate groundwater exports was due to real or perceived failures on the part of the state to manage these problems adequately," it says. Supervisor David Kehoe abstained from the vote, saying he agreed with many of the letter's concepts, but wanted more information and public comment. Kehoe successfully requested that the board hold a workshop to further discuss the Delta Vision?s implications. The workshop is tentatively set for Sept. 23 or later, Shasta County Administrative Officer Larry Lees said Tuesday afternoon. Cibula voted yes on the proposed letter with the understanding that more letters could be sent after the workshop, and visits with state representatives should be planned, he said. The Delta Vision Strategic Plan aims to fix the poorly functioning Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the west coast?s largest estuary, Public Works Director Pat Minturn told the board. The peat bog?s weak levees are vulnerable to storms and earthquakes, yet they serve as part of a water conveyance system for 23 million Californians, Minturn wrote in a staff report. However, the plan by the Blue Ribbon Task Force, formed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, ?would trump local and regional controls,? including the county?s Groundwater Management Ordinance, Minturn wrote. The county?s letter opposes the plan to grant the California Delta Ecosystem and Water Council the authority to affect areas outside the delta or to supercede existing water rights. Additionally, it opposes the idea that water would not be purchased, but provided based on ?constitutional principles of reasonable use and public trust,? as described in the plan. Depleting upstream water systems is another concern, the letter states. While understanding that water supplies must be increased, ?efforts to reduce the demand for water must equally be advanced,? the letter says. The board?s letter was drafted in conjunction with Tehama, Butte, Colusa and Glenn counties and based on the Northern California Water Association?s concerns. Voting on it Tuesday means it will be received before the governor?s Oct. 31 deadline for the task force?s management plan. Reporter Kimberly Ross can be reached at 225-8339 or at kross at redding.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Aug 22 15:16:21 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:16:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Lewiston-Dark Gulch Project to start Message-ID: <02a101c904a4$deb56fb0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandt Gutermuth" To: Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 11:14 AM Subject: Lewiston-Dark Gulch Project to start > hi All - > > The Contractor, Erick Ammon, Inc., will start work next week on the > Lewiston-Dark Gulch Channel Rehab Project. We will be working 6 days a > week to get as much work done in the active river channel before the > in-river work period ends on Sept 15, as possible. The first priority > is to get in-river work completed in the Lewiston area (e.g., placement > of coarse sediment bars). After the in-river work period is over, work > will move to the floodplains where floodplain lowering and side channel > construction will take place under conditions that are isolated from the > river. > > If you have any questions, please give me a call. > > Best Regards- > Brandt > > > > ____________________________ > Brandt Gutermuth > Environmental Specialist > Trinity River Restoration Program > PO Box 1300 (mailing) > 1313 S. Main Street (physical) > Weaverville, CA 96093 > 530.623.1806 (voice) > 530.623.5944 (fax) > www.trrp.net (website) > ___________________________ > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Aug 22 21:50:32 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:50:32 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Invitation to attend public forum on salmon ~ On behalf of Drew Bohan Message-ID: <006a01c904db$e18c5870$0f6c3940@trinitycounty.org> FW: Invitation to attend public forum on salmon ~ On behalf of Drew Bohan ------ Forwarded Message From: Valerie Termini Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:28:34 -0700 To: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Subject: RE: Invitation to attend public forum on salmon ~ On behalf of Drew Bohan MEMORANDUM TO: Members of the Ocean and Coastal Community FROM: Drew Bohan, Executive Policy Officer, OPC DATE: August 19, 2008 RE: Public Workshop on Salmon Protection On behalf of the Ocean Protection Council (OPC), I am pleased to invite you to attend a public workshop focused on salmon protection scheduled to be held on: ? Tuesday, August 26, 2008 from 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. at the Agriculture Center, 5630 South Broadway Street, Eureka The OPC recognizes that California has already benefitted from a significant amount of work by thousands of people on salmon issues and seeks to build on and maximize these investments in salmon. The workshop has two main goals: (1) to identify the top causes of wild salmon population decline; and (2) to receive feedback from the public on how the OPC can help ensure wild populations of salmon exist in California for future generations. There is a particular interest in "big ideas" about statewide policy objectives for salmon and the core strategies we are using, or should consider using, to achieve those objectives. The Eureka workshop follows a similar workshop that took place in Sausalito on August 14, 2008. The OPC was created in 2004 as part of California's Ocean Protection Act, or COPA. The OPC has seven members: ? Secretary for the Resources Agency, Mike Chrisman, Chair ? Chair of the State Lands Commission, John Chiang ? Secretary for Cal/EPA, Linda Adams ? Public member, Susan Golding ? Public member, Geraldine Knatz ? State Senator, Darrell Steinberg ? State Assemblymember, Pedro Nava The OPC is a leader in setting policy and promoting legislation on key issues, such as wild salmon protection. The OPC seeks public input on how best to ensure that wild populations of salmon exist in California well into the future. The workshops are open to the general public. Please forward this email invitation to other colleagues and friends who might be interested in attending. If you have questions about the workshops, please direct them to Valerie Termini (OPC staff) at 510-286-0319. Valerie Termini State Coastal Conservancy Project Manager - Ocean Protection Council 510-286-0319 (Oakland) http://resources.ca.gov/copc/ www.westcoastoceans.gov www.thankyouocean.org P ------ End of Forwarded Message -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.gif Type: image/gif Size: 12904 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 723 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Aug 25 13:48:49 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:48:49 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SACBEE Opinion- All of a sudden, new dams don't look quite so attractive Message-ID: <022b01c9071c$d8d31280$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Opinion: Stuart Leavenworth: All of a sudden, new dams don't look quite so attractive Sacramento Bee ? 8/24/08 By Stuart Leavenworth, staff writer The Sierra snowpack is dismal. Lake Oroville is at one-third of its capacity. Over on the Colorado River, Lake Mead has dropped to its lowest level in four decades. The D-word ? drought ? is on everyone's lips. Given these circumstances, you might think that Southern California would be leading the fight for new reservoirs. It's not. While Central Valley farmers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are all clamoring for state-funded surface storage (that's water community jargon for dams and reservoirs), Southern California has examined the price tag of these projects and said, "Thanks, but no thanks." Largely unnoticed by the state's media, the Southland's reservations about reservoirs are rocking the debate over water investments. In the 1960s, powerful farm industries in the Central Valley teamed up with Southern California to create Lake Oroville and other pieces of the State Water Project. History has shown that, when these groups cooperate, California can make water to flow uphill toward money. But several converging trends are souring Southern California's support for new dams, including those pushed by the governor. Construction costs are skyrocketing, along with prices of energy needed to move water south. Water stored in Northern California has to be shipped through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, an increasingly undependable transit point for exports. Add these up, and surface storage becomes a risky, expensive option, according to a draft report released this month by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "From a Southern California perspective, dams in the northern part of the state have to be considered unreliable," said the report, aptly entitled "Where will we get the water?" Prepared for Southern California business leaders, the LAEDC report is significant on several fronts. For one, this is not the work of a think tank with an anti-dam agenda. LAEDC is a group with wide respect in economic development circles. In addition, it has taken a unique, comprehensive look at the Southland's current water options, and the likely costs of those options over 30 years. According to the report, conservation would be the least costly alternative, at $210 per acre-foot of treated water. Capturing storm water would cost about $350 but wouldn't help during a drought; groundwater storage would cost $580; and recycling about $1,000. Ocean desalination would cost more than $1,000 per acre-foot, depending on energy prices. By contrast, surface storage ? including proposals such as the Sites Reservoir in Northern California and the Temperance Flat dam near Fresno ? would cost $760 to $1,400 per acre-foot. Most of these expenses would come from shipping the water through or around the Delta, "a legally and environmentally tortuous path," the report states. Does this mean that Los Angeles is done financing water projects in Northern California? Don't bet on it. If California were to approve a new peripheral canal, Southern California would likely provide funding, and new storage projects would then become more viable. But for now, diversification is the name of the game in a region where 22 million people are dangerously dependent on water imports. "The region needs to undertake an urgent program to secure sufficient, reliable water supplies," the Southern California report states. "The solution will have to incorporate a portfolio of water strategies, since no single strategy will provide a 'silver bullet.' "# http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1179131.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Aug 25 13:50:04 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:50:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] DWR Rebuttal of Article on "Harvest of Cash" (Environmental Water Account) Message-ID: <022c01c9071c$d97e46a0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Guest Commentary: Lester Snow Article about water was misleading Contra Costa Times ? 8/22/08 By Lester Snow ? Director, California Department of Water Resources THIS IS REGARDING your Aug. 10 front-page story "Harvest of cash." The Delta is declining, but this article distorts the truth about the causes and fails to recognize the governor's commitment to finding a solution. There are many Delta stressors, including invasive species, pollution, rising water temperatures and runoff. To assert that the environmental water program contributed to the fishery decline ignores the complexity of the issue. Water purchases made under the Environmental Water Account were according to law and rules established in the CALFED Record of Decision. Operation of the account was assisted by public independent science reviews. Also, water deliveries did not exceed conditions in the federal biological opinions. They do not have a limit on Article 21 deliveries. EWA met its water purchase goals. Fish agencies had enough water for the actions they thought were needed. Purchases made by the EWA from south of Delta water users from 2001 to 2007 were from willing sellers who had stored water in water banks. The purchase price compensated users for the costs of storing this water, maintaining the water bank facilities, and extracting the water. The water bond proposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein will increase water reliability and conservation, reduce shortages and restore the Delta. # http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_10281264?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Sep 3 10:08:45 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 10:08:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Forest Service Fisheries Biologist Position, GS-11 Message-ID: <011d01c90de7$e291c420$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> From: mloughrey at fs.fed.us (I have not included the attachments, but you can e-mail Marilyn Loughrey or Bill Brock to get them). - Tom Stokely ****************************************************************************************** The USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region,Shasta-Trinity National Forest, is currently in the process of outreach to assess interest for a Fisheries Biologist, GS 0482-11 located in Weaverville, California. Please share this information with those within your network, or with others you know who may be interested. The outreach notice for this position can be accessed at http://outreach.fsr5.com. For further information on this position, please contact Bill Brock, Fisheries/Aquatics Manager at (530) 226-2430 or at wbrock at fs.fed.us. Also attached for your use is an Outreach Reply form, if you are interested in this position, please complete and return to me by September 16, 2008. Please access USAJOBS www.usajobs.gov, for vacancy announcement information when it becomes available. Thank you for your participation in our outreach efforts. Have a great day! (See attached file: Fisheries Biologist outreach.doc)(See attached file: Outreach Response Form.ppt) ******************************************************* Marilyn Loughrey, Forest Civil Rights Officer Shasta-Trinity National Forest 3644 Avtech Parkway, Redding, CA 96002 Voice (530) 226-2367 Fax (530) 226-2482 TTY (530) 226-2490 mloughrey at fs.fed.us ******************************************************* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jay_Glase at nps.gov Fri Sep 5 13:08:28 2008 From: Jay_Glase at nps.gov (Jay_Glase at nps.gov) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 16:08:28 -0400 Subject: [env-trinity] Ruth Lake restricted to local boats In-Reply-To: <006f01c90186$470e8870$337cfea9@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: Mussel veligers attached to boat hulls can be nearly invisible. So for those of you that actually inspect your boats for dreissenid mussels, a quick tip is to actually feel the boat hull to see if the surface feels rough - a possible indication that veligers are present. It's worth the effort - you don't want these things in your reservoirs. They're partly responsible for massive ecological changes occurring in Lake Michigan and other areas, and it's hard telling when it'll end. cheers, jay Jay Glase Great Lakes Area Fishery Biologist National Park Service 800 E Lakeshore Dr Houghton, MI 49931 906-487-7167 |---------+----------------------------------------------> | | "Tom Stokely" | | | | | | Sent by: | | | env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.| | | davis.ca.us | | | | | | | | | 08/18/2008 04:00 PM MST | | | Please respond to Tom Stokely | |---------+----------------------------------------------> >------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | To: "Trinity List" , | | cc: (bcc: Jay Glase/Omaha/NPS) | | Subject: [env-trinity] Ruth Lake restricted to local boats | >------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| http://www.times-standard.com/ci_10222722?IADID=Search-www.times-standard. com-www.times-standard.com Ruth Lake restricted to local boats John Driscoll/The Times-Standard Article Launched: 08/16/2008 01:21:21 AM PDT Water and wildlife officials are temporarily restricting boats that can use Ruth Lake to those from Humboldt and Trinity counties in an effort to prevent infestation of the regional water supply system by invasive mussels. The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, the Ruth Lake Community Services District and the California Department of Fish and Game are taking the measure to keep zebra and Quagga mussels from becoming a scourge like they are in other parts of the state. Boats registered in Humboldt and Trinity counties will be allowed to use the lake, with the exception of those that have recently been in infested waters. Ruth Lake is created by Matthews Dam on the Mad River, which is where some 80,000 people in Humboldt County get their drinking water through the water district. Nineteen reservoirs in California and others in the United States are already rife with the freshwater mussels. The mussels spread by water releases or by attaching themselves to boats or trailers -- larval mussels can live in bilges, live wells and engines. It can be impossible to rid a waterway of them once they take hold. ?At this time, there are no plans to close the lake,? water district General Manager Carol Rische said in a news release, ?but work is under way with the Ruth Lake Community Services District to develop a prevention plan.? That will include closing unstaffed boat launches, initiating boater registration and developing an inspection process. The invasive mussels multiply quickly, with each adult capable of releasing a million eggs in a season. The mussels can clog pipes and infrastructure and coat piers. The mussels can consume so much organic material in a lake that the water becomes overly clear, the release said, stimulating weeds and algae that can cause taste and odor problems in drinking water. ?Quagga and zebra mussels pose a serious threat to all of California's waters,? said Fish and Game director Don Koch. ?DFG is committed to providing local agencies like Humboldt County with the information they need to protect local waters from these invasive species.? Boaters are asked to: * inspect exposed surfaces of boats; * wash the hull of water craft thoroughly; * remove plants and animal material; * drain all water and dry all areas; * drain and dry lower outboard units; * clean and dry live wells; * empty and dry buckets; * dispose off all bait in the trash; and * wait five days and keep watercraft dry between launches into different fresh water. (See attached file: 7513_matsen.gif) _______________________________________________ env-trinity mailing list env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 7513_matsen.gif Type: image/gif Size: 20648 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Sep 8 11:20:38 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 11:20:38 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle September 8 Farm Irrigation Study Message-ID: <002a01c911df$9894af30$0301a8c0@optiplex> Study finds California can cut farm water use Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, September 8, 2008 _____ (09-07) 16:44 PDT -- By growing less thirsty crops and investing in more efficient irrigation technology, California farmers could save billions of gallons of water each year - the equivalent of three dams to 20 dams, according to a controversial new report by an influential water policy think tank. Medvedev: European monitors to deploy to Georgia 09.08.08 In a study to be released today, researchers at Oakland's Pacific Institute say that before Californians take on costly new dam and reservoir projects, state and federal policymakers need to build on existing methods for reducing agricultural water use. The report, titled "More with Less: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency in California - A Focus on the Delta," stresses that agriculture remains an important part of California's economy. However, with farmers using about 80 percent of the water drawn from the critically ill Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, researchers said agricultural water conservation must expand - and quickly. "No one has ever evaluated the potential for improving the efficiency of agricultural water use," said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and co-author of the report. "We found there is a lot of potential for savings ... and they're extensions of things farmers are already doing." Farmers who shift away from water-intensive crops, invest in high-tech watering systems and irrigate only at precise times in the growing cycle could save between 600,000 and 3.4 million acre-feet of water each year, Gleick said. One acre-foot is roughly 326,000 gallons, and represents the amount of water needed to cover 1 acre of land to a depth of 1 foot. The study is part of a larger report to be released by the nonpartisan research group next year and was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. While water use in California has been a historical source of conflict between urban and agricultural consumers, the issue has taken on new urgency in recent years amid predictions of a drier climate, booming population growth and ecological damage to the delta - the hub of the state's water system. The agriculture industry, however, bristles at the notion that its operations are wasteful. "The idea that farmers are not seeking more efficient ways to do business is an insult to California agriculture," said Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, a group aimed at helping farmers boost water efficiency. "Changes are occurring when it's cost-effective and when the technology is available." Though Wade said conservation has a role to play in the state's water crisis, he said additional water storage is also necessary. Several state water bond proposals vying for a place on the November ballot include billions for building new dams and reservoirs. The Pacific Institute researchers suggest that dams, or a proposed peripheral canal - which would route water around the delta, where certain fish populations are crashing - may be necessary. But first, researchers said, the state must create a better system for tracking water use. "Wouldn't it be best to know exactly how much water we need to deliver so we don't overbuild (dams) or spend more money than we need to spend?" Gleick said. The report suggests several other practical solutions, including boosting outreach programs to help teach farmers about new techniques and giving farmers tax breaks for water-saving irrigation systems. The report also recommends broader changes to state and federal policies that are sure to draw sharp criticism from farmers. Gleick said policymakers should reduce or realign federal subsidies that encourage the growing of low-value, water-heavy crops such as alfalfa and cotton. But Wade said the market - not policymakers - drives crop choices. "It's like saying to a restaurant, 'You have to be a shoe store because it uses less water,' " Wade said. Finally, the study recommends that the state develop a more rational water rights system aimed at cutting waste. Under the law, users with the earliest water claims have the highest priority for receiving water. But with the dire situation in the delta, a record-breaking dry spell and some communities under mandatory restrictions, experts say it may be time to re-evaluate how and to whom water is allocated. "We're at an extremely important point where climate change, looming drought and the worsening, deepening ecological problems are all coming together," said Cynthia Koehler, senior consulting attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund. "People realize that 19th century and even 20th century solutions to water problems are not the solutions for the 21st century. We need to look at how we move water around, how we allocate it, how we allocate it for the environment." Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Sep 8 11:21:15 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 11:21:15 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chron Sept 8 More Food Less Delta Water Message-ID: <002f01c911df$aed47c30$0301a8c0@optiplex> California can grow more food AND take less water from the delta Heather Cooley,Juliet Christian-Smith Monday, September 8, 2008
We can do more with less. Nations in drier climates around the world and forward-thinking farmers in California already are using less water to grow more crops - with greater profits. It is time for California to implement economic and environmental policies that encourage farmers to use water more efficiently, both for the good of the environment and to sustain a robust agricultural sector. _____ Images Drip irrigation delivers water as needed to the vines and... Microirrigation can eliminate the need for flood irrigati... Siphon tubes are used to raise water without pumps from a... View Larger Images _____ The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is in a state of crisis, both as an ecosystem and as a water supply. Almost half of the water used for California's agriculture comes from rivers that once flowed to the delta, and more than half of Californians rely on water conveyed through the delta for at least some of their water supply. It is imperative that we recognize what both the recent court decisions and the scientists are saying: We're taking too much water from the delta. Given that agriculture accounts for about 80 percent of delta water consumption, reducing withdrawals from the delta will inevitably affect farmers. We have two options, two very different paths to reduced agricultural water use. One is to choose to let events evolve as they will, which may lead to growing disruptions in the agricultural sector, uncertainty about the reliability of food production, and the weakening of a vital component of our traditional economy. The other is to work toward a carefully planned and efficient agricultural sector, long-term protections for land and water resources, and the production of more high-valued crops grown with efficient irrigation systems that are effectively managed to respond to weather and crop conditions. By changing what crops are grown and how we grow them, the report concludes that we can achieve substantial water savings, ranging from 0.6 million to 3.4 million acre-feet of water annually, and for far less than building new, centralized water storage. In fact, if we look at water savings in "dam equivalents," the scenarios examined in the study could save as much water as three to 20 dams the size of those being proposed. But for the agricultural sector to make such adaptations and investments, the state needs to implement policies and incentives that support water conservation and efficiency improvements. Farmers are already trying to undertake many of these strategies, but they need to overcome some difficult financial, legal and institutional barriers. There are numerous ways to move forward, including: -- The state can offer tax exemptions and rebates for farmers who upgrade to more efficient irrigation systems. -- Courts and regulators can apply California's water-rights laws more rationally to ensure water is being used reasonably and beneficially. -- Water use measurement and monitoring should be drastically improved. -- Misguided federal and state subsidies that encourage wasteful use of water can be redesigned to encourage efficiency and conservation. Farmers have been moving in the right direction for decades, growing more food with less water under difficult conditions. Let's remove the barriers in their way and help them move even faster. Agricultural water-use efficiency can be improved through careful planning, by adopting existing, cost-effective technologies and management practices, and by implementing feasible policy changes. Our findings show that it is possible - indeed, far preferable - to take less water and still improve the delta's economic and environmental conditions. Not only can we do more with less; we must do more with less. A new report from the Pacific Institute, "More with Less: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency in California - A Special Focus on the Delta," offers a roadmap to the better option: significantly reducing delta withdrawals and groundwater overdraft while still sustaining a strong agricultural economy. Heather Cooley and Juliet Christian-Smith are senior research associates at the Pacific Institute, a nonpartisan research institute that works to advance environmental protection, economic development and social equity. The institute's new report, "More with Less," is available at www.pacinst.org. Byron Leydecker, JCT Friends of Trinity River, Chair PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell 415 383 9562 fax bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5973 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5866 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5568 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Sep 9 16:52:26 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 16:52:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: News Release: NEC Hosts Klamath Settlement Presentation at Wharfinger Oct. 8 Message-ID: <036901c912d7$1f157ba0$146c3940@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Greg King Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 11:47 AM Subject: News Release: NEC Hosts Klamath Settlement Presentation at Wharfinger Oct. 8 [attachment same as below; apologies for cross-postings] News Release NEC Hosts Klamath Settlement? Presentation at Wharfinger Oct. 8 For Immediate Release Contact:???????? Greg King, Executive Director ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?707-822-6918 ? ARCATA ? The Northcoast Environmental Center will host a public presentation of the complex and controversial Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) on Wednesday, Oct. 8, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Wharfinger Building in Eureka. The KBRA is a 256-page document created by 28 parties over a two-year period. It has been more than six months since the Klamath Settlement Group has met to finalize the Agreement, owing to the absence of an agreement with PacifiCorp to decommission four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River mainstem. The NEC had preferred to wait for release of a dam agreement before offering a public presentation on the Restoration Agreement. However, with the ?hydro agreement? now nearly one year overdue, the NEC has chosen to move forward without it.? ?We really can?t wait any longer for the dam deal,? said Greg King, executive director of the NEC. ?There?s a chance we will see such a deal by the end of this month, but negotiators have promised us a hydro agreement several times during the past year and each deadline has been announced and then passed with no result. So whereas the two agreements are linked ? the Restoration Agreement dies on the vine unless negotiators strike a deal to remove the four dams ? it?s time for the public to hear our thoughts on the water deal.? Last March the NEC rejected the KBRA as written because ?it puts all the risk on the fish,? said King. ?Farmers in the upper basin are the only ones who receive a guarantee of water in the deal. The fish get what?s left over.? That month the NEC recommended several changes to Draft 11 of the Restoration Agreement that would allow the organization to ?sign on? and support the deal through legislation and implementation. However, the Settlement Group drafting committee has yet to produce a twelfth draft of the Agreement owing to the absence of measures to remove the four dams. The NEC?s recommended changes, the reasons for them, and the Restoration Agreement as a whole will be the focus of the Oct. 8 presentation. After the presentation the public will be invited to comment and ask questions. ? ? #????????? #????????? # ? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [attachment same as below; apologies for cross-postings] News Release NEC Hosts Klamath Settlement Presentation at Wharfinger Oct. 8 For Immediate Release Contact: Greg King, Executive Director 707-822-6918 ARCATA ? The Northcoast Environmental Center will host a public presentation of the complex and controversial Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) on Wednesday, Oct. 8, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Wharfinger Building in Eureka. The KBRA is a 256-page document created by 28 parties over a two-year period. It has been more than six months since the Klamath Settlement Group has met to finalize the Agreement, owing to the absence of an agreement with PacifiCorp to decommission four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River mainstem. The NEC had preferred to wait for release of a dam agreement before offering a public presentation on the Restoration Agreement. However, with the ?hydro agreement? now nearly one year overdue, the NEC has chosen to move forward without it. ?We really can?t wait any longer for the dam deal,? said Greg King, executive director of the NEC. ?There?s a chance we will see such a deal by the end of this month, but negotiators have promised us a hydro agreement several times during the past year and each deadline has been announced and then passed with no result. So whereas the two agreements are linked ? the Restoration Agreement dies on the vine unless negotiators strike a deal to remove the four dams ? it?s time for the public to hear our thoughts on the water deal.? Last March the NEC rejected the KBRA as written because ?it puts all the risk on the fish,? said King. ?Farmers in the upper basin are the only ones who receive a guarantee of water in the deal. The fish get what?s left over.? That month the NEC recommended several changes to Draft 11 of the Restoration Agreement that would allow the organization to ?sign on? and support the deal through legislation and implementation. However, the Settlement Group drafting committee has yet to produce a twelfth draft of the Agreement owing to the absence of measures to remove the four dams. The NEC?s recommended changes, the reasons for them, and the Restoration Agreement as a whole will be the focus of the Oct. 8 presentation. After the presentation the public will be invited to comment and ask questions. # # # ? -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Press Release_NEC Klamath Event 10_8_08.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 204826 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Sep 10 11:18:47 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:18:47 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] AP story on West Coast Salmon Message-ID: <840EAB52887043C0969E833D0EB128AF@ByronsLaptop> Cold water rings dinner bell for West Coast salmon The Associated Press - 9/10/08 By JEFF BARNARD A federal oceanographer says a flip-flop in atmospheric conditions is creating a feast for salmon and other sea life off the West Coast, reversing a trend that contributed to a virtual shutdown of West Coast salmon fishing this summer. Bill Peterson of NOAA Fisheries in Newport, Ore., said Tuesday the change in cycle of an atmospheric condition known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation last fall has brought cold water flows from the Gulf of Alaska, which are carrying an abundance of tiny animals known as copepods that are the foundation of the food chain. It's unknown how long the good times will last, but Peterson said ocean surveys of chinook salmon in June found lots of yearling juveniles, which should grow up to be plentiful stocks of adults by 2010. Coho surveys start in a couple weeks. Peterson said last spring that he expected the rebound, and the confirmation of his expectations were reported by The Oregonian. While the cycle used to last as long as 20 years, it has lately taken about four years for conditions to change; but no one knows for sure what the future will bring, Peterson added. Ed Bowles, fisheries chief for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said salmon that spend most of their time in the ocean close to the coast, such as fall chinook, coho and Willamette River spring chinook, should reap the greatest benefits, but crab, ling cod, rockfish, sea birds and other ocean life are rebounding as well. Bowles was cautious in his assessment. "Overall, we are seeing more years of poor ocean conditions than we are good," he said. "This is a welcome respite in what more typically has been discouraging news." Bowles added that Columbia River salmon have also benefited from court-ordered increases in the water spilled over hydroelectric dams, which speeds their migration downriver to the ocean and increases the number that survive. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched last November, developing into the most favorable conditions for West Coast fisheries since 1999, which was the gateway to several good years for fish, Peterson said. The boost in copepods meant more food for baitfish, such as sand lance and smelt, which are food for larger fish such as salmon. That changed in 2005, when starvation conditions developed for young salmon migrating from their native streams to the ocean. Three years later, there were so few adults that federal authorities practically shut down commercial and sport fishing off Oregon, Washington and California. Federal authorities are investigating a variety of factors that could have contributed to the collapse of salmon returns from British Columbia to California. One of the leading suspects is irrigation withdrawals from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California. Salmon from the Sacramento River saw some of the sharpest declines, and a federal judge is working to reduce the harm on young salmon from irrigation withdrawals from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.# Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Sep 10 11:22:39 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:22:39 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Irrigator Water Conservation - Fresno Bee and Bakersfield Californian Message-ID: <7F1F3D8C6C7444A08A6899A8DCC7C509@ByronsLaptop> New ideas for saving ag water: Tax exemptions for irrigation equipment is one of several proposals. The Fresno Bee- 9/9/08 Report: Farmers could conserve more water The Bakersfield Californian- 9/9/08 ++++++++++++++++++++ New ideas for saving ag water: Tax exemptions for irrigation equipment is one of several proposals. The Fresno Bee- 9/9/08 By Dennis Pollock Farmers in the hard-hit Westlands Water District have shelled out an estimated $500 million on water-saving measures in the past decade. But more can be done, said one of the authors of a report issued this week that touts water-saving alternatives to building reservoirs. "We acknowledge there have been significant developments in efficiency, and we looked at accelerating that trend," said Heather Cooley, who helped draft the report by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute. The institute came out with a laundry list of steps that would require significant policy changes and could cost farmers and government agencies millions more. They include: *Provide sales tax exemptions or rebates on efficient irrigation equipment. *Provide property tax exemptions for farmers who upgrade to more water-efficient irrigation systems. *Develop new legal mechanisms by which municipal water or state or local wildlife agencies could invest in farmers' irrigation systems in exchange for some portion of the water conserved. *State and federal government agencies or energy providers would offer rebates or incentives to farmers who implement on-farm conservation measures. *Reduce or realign subsidies for low-value, water-intensive crops to higher-value, less water-intensive crops. *Make agricultural "efficient water-management practices" mandatory and enforceable by the state Water Resources Control Board. The list is lengthy, and Cooley said the institute will issue a report early next year "looking closer at the costs for those recommendations." Some of the recommendations -- including use of more drip irrigation or micro-irrigation -- can improve productivity and increase the return on investment, Cooley said. Farmers on the central San Joaquin Valley's west side say they already have made considerable strides toward saving water, notably switching in recent years from furrow or flood irrigation to drip irrigation that puts the water only where it will benefit the crop. And they say they have gone about as far as they can in that regard and the notion of "conserving their way out of a drought" is flawed. "If that were the case, they would already have done it," says Fresno County grower John Diener, who has become something of a poster figure for saving water on the farm, working for about a decade with local, state and federal researchers on an irrigation system that captures and reuses irrigation water. Farm leaders were quick to respond to the report. "Farmers will continue to increase water use efficiency," said Jasper Hempel, executive vice president of Western Growers in Irvine. "But increased water-use efficiency is not a substitute for the needed improvements in water storage or conveyance." California Farm Bureau Federation President Doug Mosebar said that while "improved efficiency of water use will certainly be a key in meeting California water needs," a wide variety of strategies will be needed, including water recycling and new water storage. California Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura said agriculture "is doing its part" to address the water crisis. "Over the last four decades, the amount of water used on California farms has remained relatively level while crop production has increased more than 85% in the same period," he said. "In fact, California farms use water not just once but as many as eight times." Stuart Woolf, who heads Woolf Farming Co. in Huron, told a congressional subcommittee that his father often jokes, "We work the water so hard it has blisters."# http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/855954.html Report: Farmers could conserve more water The Bakersfield Californian- 9/9/08 BY STACEY SHEPARD AND COURTENAY EDELHART, staff writers Central Valley farmers could save an amount of water equal to the annual supply of 20 new reservoirs if they change how and when they irrigate and switch to less water-intensive crops, according to a report released this week by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute. The study is one of the first to explore how better water conservation on farms could help address statewide shortages. In response, farmers say they're already doing their part, noting the amount of water used by the state's farms is almost the same as 40 years ago, yet crops over that period have increased 89 percent. San Joaquin Valley growers alone have invested more than $500 million in improved irrigation equipment since 2004, according to the Agricultural Water Management Council. "Farmers are increasing their efficiency all the time," said California Farm Bureau Federation spokesman Dan Kranz. "Certainly given our current circumstances it's an increasing concern, but improved efficiency is just one key element along with recycled water and water storage and many other strategies." The report's lead author, Heather Cooley, agreed conservation is not a "silver bullet." New dams and storage may be needed at some point. But decision-makers should know what low-cost solutions are available before spending billions on costly water-infrastructure, she said. "The water savings from these exercises are far cheaper than any reservoir we can build and have fewer social and environmental impacts," Cooley said. In response to a statewide drought and court-ordered reductions in water exports from the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, lawmakers are now considering a $9.3 billion proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein to build new dams, reservoirs and possibly a peripheral canal. Jim Beck, general manager of the Kern County Water Agency, which contracts for Delta water on behalf of local water districts, thinks the study should have taken a broader look at causes of the water shortages. "I think it unfairly targeted agriculture as the single solution for the state's water woes," he said. Cooley said the Institute had previously studied urban water conservation, finding that water use could be reduced by one-third with widely available technologies. Given that farms use 80 percent of the state's developed water supplies, "we suspected there were some large savings available there as well." She added: "We were also struck by the fact that no one had done a real assessment" of farm water use. Overall, the study found farmers could reduce water usage by 13 percent. That equals a water savings of up to 3.4 million acre-feet each year - enough water to fill Isabella Lake six times over. To do so, the report recommends switching about 25 percent of water-intensive field crops grown in the state - such as cotton, rice, corn and alfalfa - to vegetables, which use less water and bring in more revenue. It encourages farmers to use newer technology - weather data, soil monitors and computer models - to schedule precisely when and how much water to apply to crops rather than relying on visual inspection. Farmers should also move away from flood irrigation by investing in drip irrigation systems and sprinklers. While some of the recommendations require up-front costs to farmers, the study found that the strategies were cost-effective overall when you consider water savings, improved yields and other factors. Planting crops that require less water seems obvious, but that oversimplifies the reality of agricultural economics, said retired grower William Bolthouse Jr., whose family founded William Bolthouse Farms. "If you grew all cactus, I'm sure you could save some water, but it's not economically feasible," he said. "Supply and demand dictates what people grow. We used to grow a lot of cotton, but demand dried up so people quit." Bolthouse said he'd prefer to see available water sources managed better. The California Department of Food and Agriculture estimates drought-related crop losses as of this month are $259.8 million, up $14.5 million from July. Rangeland took the hardest hit, followed by cotton. Kern County suffered the second highest losses in the state with $69.5 million. Fresno County led the state with $73.5 million, in losses.# http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/547703.html Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Sep 11 09:14:18 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:14:18 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] September 13: Forest Stewardship and Roads Workshop in Weaverville Message-ID: <06a801c91429$8a6af5d0$146c3940@trinitycounty.org> September 13: Forest Stewardship and Roads Workshop, Forest road risk assessment and management, Trinity County Weaverville Fire Hall, Weaverville, CA http://groups.ucanr.org/Forest/2008_Forest_Stewardship_Workshops/September_13--Weaverville.htm Sponsor: UCCE Forestry and CALFIRE?s Forest Stewardship Program Contact: Sherry Cooper, 530-224-4902 , slcooper at nature.berkeley.edu For more information and the full 2008 Forestry Workshop & Lecture Series schedule, see http://groups.ucanr.org/Forest/2008_Forest_Stewardship_Workshops/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bgutermuth at mp.usbr.gov Thu Sep 11 12:53:38 2008 From: bgutermuth at mp.usbr.gov (Brandt Gutermuth) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:53:38 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Open House tonight in Douglas City on TRRP Planned 2009 Channel Rehab project in the vicinity Message-ID: Trinity River Restoration Program OPEN HOUSES for Lewiston and Douglas City Projects This Week! Construction of the Trinity River Restoration Program?s (TRRP?s) next group of Channel Rehabilitation sites is planned for 2009 in proximity of Lewiston and Douglas City. In Lewiston, work is planned at four locations: the Sawmill area, Upper Rush Creek, Lowden Ranch, and Trinity House Gulch. In Douglas City, work is planned on Steel Bridge Road and near the Mouth of Reading Creek, including the local BLM campground area. The Open Houses will allow residents and interested parties to hear preliminary project planning, ask questions, and provide valuable local input. The first session will be held at the Lewiston Moose Lodge on September 10, 2008 from 6-8 p.m. This session will emphasize information on the four Lewiston area projects. The agenda is informal and includes a meet and greet and slide presentation starting around 6:15 p.m. Afterwards, key TRRP personnel will be available for a question and answer session. A second session will be held at the Douglas City Fire Hall on September 11, 2008 from 6-8 p.m. This session will emphasize planned Projects on Steel Bridge Road and at the Mouth of Reading Creek. For more information on the project, visit the TRRP?s website at: http://www.trrp.net/implementation/remaining8.htm. For more information regarding the Open House, please contact Diana Clifton at 530-623-1804 or dclifton at mp.usbr.gov Best Regards- Brandt ____________________________ Brandt Gutermuth Environmental Specialist Trinity River Restoration Program PO Box 1300 (mailing) 1313 S. Main Street (physical) Weaverville, CA 96093 530.623.1806 (voice) 530.623.5944 (fax) www.trrp.net (website) ___________________________ From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Sep 11 21:11:57 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:11:57 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Salmonid Restoration Federation Message-ID: <20080912041203.8A1DB2B43@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> Central Coast Bioengineering Field School October 6-9, 2008 in the Santa Ynez Valley SRF will host a Central Coast Bioengineering Field School October 6-9, 2008 in the Santa Ynez Valley. The course will include classroom instruction with John McCullah of Salix Applied Earthcare who will teach techniques to restore riparian habitat, control erosion and stabilize banks. Participants will tour projects in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties and learn how to build willow mattresses and live siltation baffles. Participants will tour Camp San Luis Obispo to see upland erosion control where roads were improved and brush check dams installed to retain sediment. We will also visit the San Luis Creek Project to view the stabilized creek channel and banks where different methods were employed included willow mattresses, coir biologs, and brush bank protection. San Luis Creek Project was implemented in 2001 to stabilize the creek channel and banks by using a few different methods one of which was a willow mattress that did not survive but is working nicely as brush bank protection. Coir biologs were installed at the toe of one of the banks and were designed to be undercut to provide steelhead habitat. A bank failure after this project was completed was remedied using coir fabric filled with soil and stacked like burritos up the bank and integrated willows into the wall for added protection and cover. A good "learn-by-doing" story by Brian Stark goes along with this project. Pennington Creek Project, implemented in 2001, stabilized 150 feet of nearly vertical creek bank by installing a vegetated rock toe and willow mattress along with four rock wing deflectors and three willow baffles. We will brainstorm with the help of the instructor a "what would you do" project on Acacia Creek. A small tributary to San Luis Creek that runs alongside a road that is in danger of falling in. Participants will help construct bioengineering projects at the Rancho La Vina work site. The course will be held at Camp Whittier near Santa Barbara. There are lodge accommodations with four to a room. The fees for the course are $300 which includes all instruction, materials, food and lodging. For more information, please see the registration form on the SRF website: http://calsalmon.org/pdf/BioengineeringRegForm_small.pdf or you can register online at: http://www.calsalmon.org/cart/index.php?main_page=index &cPath=11&zenid=4a4e429846e70ecf65d9b674fa68acb3 Thank you, Francine Allen Project Coordinator Salmonid Restoration Federation PO Box 784 Redway, California 95560 (707) 923-7501 francine at calsalmon.org Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Sep 12 11:35:45 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:35:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Smelt again at center of water conflict: Environmentalists want 3 dozen water contracts canceled or reworked Message-ID: <09c001c91506$5f7db230$146c3940@trinitycounty.org> Smelt again at center of water conflict: Environmentalists want 3 dozen contracts canceled or reworked. The Fresno Bee- 9/11/08 By John Ellis Environmentalists want the federal government to cancel or renegotiate more than three dozen long-term water contracts in the Central Valley because they say they were drawn up using flawed data. If the request is approved by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, agricultural users both north and south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta say it would likely mean less water for them. Some say the environmentalists' request has the potential to turn the state's intricately woven water world upside down. That's because some Sacramento River users say that if there's no federal contract, they should be able to reassert their longtime state water rights -- a claim that could devastate the Westlands Water District and even hurt the Friant Water Users Authority and other San Joaquin River water users. Wanger today will hear arguments in his Fresno courtroom on the request to cancel water contracts in a case involving the tiny delta smelt, which environmentalists say is facing extinction. They say the population decline is driven largely by reduced water coming into the delta, and also because increased pumping for users south of the delta has helped wreck critical spawning areas and is damaging the smelt's overall habitat. Last year, Wanger threw out a key opinion on the effects of delta water pumping on the smelt. Data from that opinion -- which is being rewritten by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- were used to help craft the new 25- to 40-year contracts with the 42 different users. Environmentalists say the contracts should instead be based on the new smelt opinion, which is scheduled to be finished next year. Trent Orr, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit legal watchdog group in Oakland, said the environmentalists aren't seeking to stop water deliveries. Instead, they want the contracts to be deemed legally invalid, but then keep the order from taking effect for one year while interim contracts are negotiated. More potentially explosive, some say, is language in a legal brief on the contract issue filed by 22 Sacramento River settlement contractors -- water users who had used Sacramento River water before the federal Central Valley Project was constructed beginning in the late 1930s. These users say in court filings that if there are no valid federal contracts -- as environmentalists want -- then they would revert to using water under those pre-existing rights, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's "ability to operate the CVP would be severely compromised." That in turn could affect users south of the delta whose supply originates in the state's far north. Among them are the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors Authority, which represents owners of 240,000 farmland acres in Fresno, Madera, Merced and Stanislaus counties on the San Joaquin Valley's west side. Unlike other west-side water users such as Westlands, the exchange contractors authority has historic water rights on the San Joaquin River -- much like the settlement contractors on the Sacramento River -- dating back to the 1870s. The exchange contractors subsequently agreed to instead take delta water via the Delta-Mendota Canal, but also reserved the right to reclaim their share of San Joaquin River water. If the authority turned to its historic San Joaquin rights, that could affect water on the Valley's east side, including the Friant Water Users Authority and those who get water from the Friant-Kern Canal. Ron Jacobsma, general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, said that for the first 50 years of the CVP, there was "little or no concern" that the exchange contractors authority would assert its San Joaquin River claim. They held a priority position in receiving delta water.# http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/862098.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Sep 15 12:04:43 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:04:43 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chron Editorial Water Message-ID: <1608AE9526994834B3A621A8498D3960@byronPC> Editorial Farmers must monitor, reduce water use The San Francisco Chronicle- 9/14/08 Drought, population growth, global warming, a collapsing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta environment - it's no secret that California's water challenges are only going to get more challenging in the near future. So you'd think, at the very least, that the state would measure how much water farmers - who use about 80 percent of the water drawn from the ailing delta - use each year. Pelosi views on abortion in synch with most Catholics 09.15.08 And you'd best think again. There's no system to measure or monitor how much of our water is being used by agricultural interests - and therefore we have no idea what our state's water needs and policy should be going into the future. (Think about that, voters, before you approve any more water bonds.) That's just one of the surprising revelations of researchers at the Pacific Institute in Oakland in their new study about the potential for agricultural water conservation in California. The other big surprise in their report is the fact that California farmers could save billions of gallons of water every year by expanding practices they already use - sparing the rest of us the cost and environmental damage of at least some of the new dams being discussed by legislators and the governor. The report lists a number of ways in which farmers cannot just conserve water but save money in the process: installing drip irrigation (about 60 percent of California agriculture is still irrigated using flood-irrigation methods), switching over to crops that require less water and yield higher prices (it's pretty hard to justify growing rice and cotton in what is, after all, a desert climate), and managing irrigation with technology instead of visual inspections. This is good news: Who likes wasting money? And who wants more dams? So it's disheartening to watch farming interests try to tear the report down. A spokesman from the California Farm Bureau Federation declared that farmers are already increasing their efficiency. Jasper Hempel, executive vice president for Western Growers Association, the trade group whose members grow 90 percent of California's fruits and vegetables, said in a statement that his organization was "troubled" by a report he described as "incomplete" and added that he hoped a "more serious study" would soon emerge. There are a few reasons why farmers might take umbrage to the suggestion that they could be doing things better, but they all go back to money - money and perceived control. Regarding the money, it requires quite a bit of up-front cash to, say, shift from flood irrigation to drip - $1,000 per acre. But that initial capital outlay is usually recouped within two years, and there's no reason why the state couldn't offer farmers rebates to do the right thing. The other reason for farmers to resist change is that it could upset the infrastructure, delivery systems and financial plans they've already created. But change, like it or not, will have to come to California's water policy. We simply can't continue along the path that we're traveling. Just as urban dwellers in California have had to adapt to low-flush toilets, short showers and mandatory reduction programs, farmers, too, need to step up the efforts to use less water. For the sake of California, that day needs to come sooner rather than later. The first step is for the Legislature and the governor to insist on a measuring and monitoring system for agricultural water use. That system must be approved before voters offer Sacramento yet another check for dams and other water infrastructure. The second step is for our state leaders to go to the farmers and ask them what kinds of changes they're willing to make if they're to continue getting so much water at such a great cost to the state. Will they work with the state to update their irrigation systems? Phase in different crops? And if they say that they won't change a thing - if they say that California's environmental sustainability and future growth are less important than their ability to continue farming rice or cotton using wasteful methods - well, then, they'll have to explain that to the voters themselves. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Sep 16 09:45:08 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:45:08 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] DATE CHANGE: Klamath Settlement Presentation at Wharfinger OCTOBER 15 Message-ID: <00a601c9181d$618d53e0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Greg King Sent: Monday, September 15, 2008 7:16 PM Subject: DATE CHANGE: Klamath Settlement Presentation at Wharfinger OCTOBER 15 PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DATE OF THE NEC'S KLAMATH SETTLEMENT PRESENTATION HAS BEEN CHANGED THE NEW DATE IS: Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008 Time and place remain the same: 7 to 9 p.m. Wharfinger, Eureka News Release NEC Hosts Klamath Settlement Presentation at Wharfinger Oct. 15 For Immediate Release Contact: Greg King, Executive Director 707-822-6918 ARCATA ? The Northcoast Environmental Center will host a public presentation of the complex and controversial Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) on Wednesday, Oct. 15, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Wharfinger Building in Eureka. The KBRA is a 256-page document created by 28 parties over a two-year period. It has been more than six months since the Klamath Settlement Group has met to finalize the Agreement, owing to the absence of an agreement with PacifiCorp to decommission four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River mainstem. The NEC had preferred to wait for release of a dam agreement before offering a public presentation on the Restoration Agreement. However, with the ?hydro agreement? now nearly one year overdue, the NEC has chosen to move forward without it. ?We really can?t wait any longer for the dam deal,? said Greg King, executive director of the NEC. ?There?s a chance we will see such a deal by the end of this month, but negotiators have promised us a hydro agreement several times during the past year and each deadline has been announced and then passed with no result. So whereas the two agreements are linked ? the Restoration Agreement dies on the vine unless negotiators strike a deal to remove the four dams ? it?s time for the public to hear our thoughts on the water deal.? Last March the NEC rejected the KBRA as written because ?it puts all the risk on the fish,? said King. ?Farmers in the upper basin are the only ones who receive a guarantee of water in the deal. The fish get what?s left over.? That month the NEC recommended several changes to Draft 11 of the Restoration Agreement that would allow the organization to ?sign on? and support the deal through legislation and implementation. However, the Settlement Group drafting committee has yet to produce a twelfth draft of the Agreement owing to the absence of measures to remove the four dams. The NEC?s recommended changes, the reasons for them, and the Restoration Agreement as a whole will be the focus of the Oct. 8 presentation. After the presentation the public will be invited to comment and ask questions. # # # -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Sep 16 10:05:15 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:05:15 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Western Native Trout Initiative Project Proposals FY 2009 Message-ID: <00bf01c9181e$64b133b0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: David_Hu at fws.gov To: Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 9:45 AM Subject: Fw: WNTI Project Proposals FY 2009 Hi All, Here an opportunity to apply for NFHAP funds...under the WNTI partnership led by Lisa Heki in our Reno office. Please see the following message and template. Feel free to contact Lisa Heki in our Reno office (lisa_heki at fws.gov) (775/861-6300) to discuss WNTI, and feel free contact me to assist in coordinating with our field stations and get projects entered in the FONS database. thanks! Dave David H. Hu Anadromous Fish Restoration Program U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 4001 N. Wilson Way, Stockton, CA 95205 Tel (209) 334-2968 x 406 Fax (209)946-6355 -----Forwarded by David Hu/SJFRO/R1/FWS/DOI on 09/16/2008 09:31AM ----- fyi This is part of the National Fish Habitat Initiative. Please pass it on to interested parties. thanks, Kim Webb U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 4001 N. Wilson Way Stockton, CA 95205 209-946-6400 x 311 fax 209-946-6355 kim_webb at fws.gov ----- Forwarded by Dan Castleberry/SAC/R1/FWS/DOI on 09/16/2008 08:17 AM ----- Lisa G Heki/RENO/R1/FWS/DOI 08/27/2008 11:23 AM To Dan_Castleberry at fws.gov cc Subject WNTI Project Proposals FY 2009 Dan. Please forward on to field offices for consideration. All. Time once again to consider habitat related projects that you have been working on that may be considered for funding by the Western Native Trout Initiative Steering Committee with NFHAP funds. As with past years, project proposals that the field offices develop should be entered into FIS as a FONS project. The FONS project title should begin with WNTI-. For example, WNTI-Barrier Removal in Pole Creek for Lahontan cutthroat trout. The projects should be entered into FIS no later than October 1, 2008. Please ensure that your State Fish and Game agency is knowledgable of the project and preferably a partner. Put forward projects for WNTI that have: multiple or at least one partner; partnership funds or inkind support is relatively high, 50% partner is optimum but not required; has completed all regulatory compliance and authorizations; preferably in the second advanced stages of completion. Please use the attached Project Proposal template to guide project proposal development. Regional Office Fishery Program will review all WNTI-NFHAP projects and select the top ten projects. The lead WNTI coordinator will consolidate the top ten project list from all 5 FWS regions and submit the consolidated list to the WNTI Steering Committee by December 1, 2008 for review. The Steering Committee will meet in San Diego for a final ranking and recommendation to the FWS for the top 10 projects that will be forwarded to the Washington Office for NFHAP funding consideration. If you have any questions, contact Dan Castleberry or Lisa Heki -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WNTI Application Form 2009.doc Type: application/msword Size: 356864 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Sep 18 08:33:54 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:33:54 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Special Trinity County Board of Supervisors' Meeting with Mark Rey Message-ID: <001301c919a3$f8737690$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> It is my understanding that Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Mark Rey, will be present at tomorrow's meeting. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org ******************************************** TRINITY COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS Trinity County Library Conference Room Weaverville, California SPECIAL MEETING AGENDA 2008-09-19 9:00 am CALL MEETING TO ORDER IN OPEN SESSION PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE ANNOUNCEMENTS PUBLIC COMMENT This time slot is for information from the public. No action or discussion will be conducted on matters presented at this time. When addressing the Board, please state your name for the record prior to providing your comments. Please address the Board as a whole through the Chair. Comments should be limited to matters within the jurisdiction of the Board. Chairman Supervisor Anton R. Jaegel - District 3 Vice Chairman Supervisor Wendy Reiss - District 5 Supervisor Judy Pflueger - District 1 Supervisor Jeff Morris - District 2 Supervisor Howard Freeman - District 4 Dero Forslund - County Administrative Officer Wendy Tyler - Clerk of the Board/Administrative Analyst Note: This agenda contains a brief general description of each item to be considered. Supporting documention is available in the public packet at the Board meeting or at the Office of the Clerk of the Board, located at 11 Court Street, Room 230, Weaverville, CA. Board meetings are recorded. Copies of DVDs are available at the Trinity County Library. County Matters Board of Supervisors 1.01 Workshop regarding wildfire rehabilitation; field trip to view fire damage in downriver area Fiscal Impact: None ADJOURN 2008-09- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Sep 18 08:35:37 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:35:37 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: TRRP watershed meeting Message-ID: <001801c919a4$33dde1c0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Gaeuman" To: "Gary Diridoni" ; "Francis Berg" ; "Randi Paris" ; "Larry Hanson" ; "Mike Berry" ; "William Brock" ; "Andrea Davis" ; "Robert Franklin" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Tom Weseloh" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Alex Cousins" ; "Patrick Frost" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Walt Lara" Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 4:11 PM Subject: TRRP watershed meeting > Hi Workgroup people, > After taking your input I've scheduled the upcoming watershed meeting > for Oct 8 at the TRRP office in Weaverville. Let plan to start at 9:30 > and go no later than noon. > I ask for any agenda input you might have to go with: get started > brainstorming (or better) on the watershed projects we expect to propose > for FY09 funding; talk about what we need to do to facilitate getting > our funding agreements through the regional contracting office. > > > > > David Gaeuman > Trinity River Restoration Program > PO Box 1300 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > dgaeuman at usbr.gov > (530) 623-1813 > fax: (530) 623-5944 > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Sep 18 08:44:49 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:44:49 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Dorothy Green Passes on Message-ID: <005001c919a8$e02a2bb0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> I am also on the Board of Directors of the California Water Impact Network. Tom Stokely latimes.com http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-me-lopez17-2008sep17,0,3496650,full.column >From the Los Angeles Times Cancer can't dim passion for a cause The energy and focus that helped Dorothy Green, 79, found Heal the Bay remain with her as her health fails. Steve Lopez September 17, 2008 Dorothy Green was trying to be polite, but the founder of Heal the Bay made it quite clear that she wasn't terribly interested in talking about the things I had come to discuss in her Westwood home. Death? "It's part of living," she said, flicking away the question. Her legacy? "I don't look back, only forward." Her deteriorating condition? "It's interesting that cancer is what you want to talk about." Now 79, Green has beaten her grim prognosis by years. But the melanoma first diagnosed 30 years ago metastasized to the brain six years ago, and she's now been told there's no way to stop the rapid spread of the disease. She's in hospice-care now, a bit wobbly on her feet and wearing a smart-looking cap to keep warm. "I hope it happens sooner than later," she said of her demise. "It's so hard getting one thought put with another now." You're not afraid? "I'm scared for the whole world, for the Earth. Not for me." To those who know her, this is classic Dorothy. "She tells me we have to keep talking about these issues because it's what keeps her alive -- her passion to do what's right for California," said Carolee Krieger. Krieger and Green co-founded the California Water Impact Network, a nonprofit devoted to educating Californians about what they see as environmentally destructive water mismanagement in California, with public officials caving to the desires of big agriculture. Though Green is clearly addled by painkillers and exhausted by her fight with cancer, so much so that she often pauses mid-sentence to steal the strength to continue, she immediately interrupted me when I mentioned California's water shortage. "There is no water shortage," she said sharply. Not that anyone should run out and plant a 40-acre lawn, she cautioned. We waste far too much water as it is. But there's no water hog like agriculture, she said. "Big agriculture uses 80% of the developed water in the state," she said, calling their conservation measures abysmal. "And almost half the agriculture in the state is for low-value, water-intensive crops like cotton, rice, alfalfa." The siphoning of such huge amounts of water for agriculture is destroying the ecosystem in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, she argues. And the boondoggle is made possible by the lackeys on the state Water Resources Control Board. She gave the Gov. Schwarzenegger-appointed board members lousy grades for their two main duties: Managing water supplies and managing water quality. But in Dorothy Green's book, they aren't the only culprits. More than once during my visit, she blamed the media for not hammering away at the story and helping light a fire under the aloof and detached general public. As for the latter: "They turn on the tap and water comes out," she said, and that's all the average Californian cares to know about water issues. If she weren't still fighting the fight, Green told me, she doesn't know what else she'd be doing. "This year, she had her spleen and kidney removed and showed up at our board meeting five days later," said Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay. "She has been the most influential water activist in California in the last 30 years." Green's life is a lesson in reinvention. All that activism lay dormant as she raised a family with a husband who was in real estate. But after the kids were out of the house, she filled the void by volunteering for one cause after another, beginning with programs related to the needs of her own mentally challenged child. She later campaigned for Proposition 20, which led to the creation of the California Coastal Commission. Her outrage over the lack of restrictions on sewage treatment and discharge into the ocean led to community organizing in her living room, followed by the creation of Heal the Bay and the watershed councils for the San Gabriel and Los Angeles rivers. I assumed a person of her background might choose to have her ashes scattered over a bay she has helped heal. But Green shook her head, calling herself more traditional than that. "Bury me in the soil," she said with a devil-may-care grin. "Worms crawl in, worms crawl out." I asked Green if she thought it was easier to face death having made a great contribution to society and knowing she's left a lasting mark. That's not something she'd given much thought to, she said, as if such rumination would be a waste of precious time. "It's been a good life. A very rewarding life," she admitted. She regrets that she won't be around to see 3-year-old granddaughter Tara grow up, and she regrets all the unfinished business. But she's not finished just yet. She and Krieger were scheduled to meet today and strategize on fundraising for California Water Impact Network. I promised Green I would direct readers to the website, so they could educate themselves on the issues she's so passionate about. So please, dear readers, take a look at www.C-Win.org. Or spend a few minutes at www.healthebay.org. You might get angry; you might even get involved. And Dorothy Green's great legacy, in spite of her modesty, will only grow. steve.lopez at latimes.com If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. TMS Reprints Article licensing and reprint options Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Sep 18 09:08:31 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:08:31 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] This months Watershed Work Group meeting Message-ID: <005101c919a8$e09cc3a0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Cousins" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 3:33 PM Subject: This months meeting > In an effort to reduce the number of meeting we attend, I would like to > cancel our next meeting, which would have been the the 24th of > September, and combine our Trinity River Watershed Council with Dave > Gaeuman's Watershed Workgroup meeting. He is going to be looking for > the next round of watershed rehabilitation projects so it would help to > get your ideas together. > > He has scheduled the meeting for the 8th of October at the Trinity River > Restoration office, he will be sending out a time soon, and I will pass > that along to all of you. > > For those of you who are not on his email list, his preliminary agenda > is to begin discussing the watershed projects we expect to propose for > FY09 funding. He also has new information to relate regarding what it's > going to take to get funding agreements through the regional contracting > office in the future. > > > Alex > -- > Alex Cousins > Trinity County RCD > PO Box 1450 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > > 530-623-6004 (office) > 530-623-6006 (fax) > acousins at tcrcd.net > www.tcrcd.net > > From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Sep 18 09:06:23 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:06:23 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: TRRP watershed meeting In-Reply-To: <001801c919a4$33dde1c0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> References: <001801c919a4$33dde1c0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <6C134530F4C14513A02C324EC8BFA9F1@byronPC> Dave... I have one central, crucial point to make. Steelhead and Coho, who largely spawn in tributaries, NEVER will be restored as required by law unless watershed work is pursued aggressively. Program actions have not reflected this fact until Congressman George Miller provided the Program with some $3 million in additional funds this fiscal year. That resulted in an increase in funding to $600 thou for this year, as opposed to the grossly inadequate $100 thou the Program had been devoting to this significant, major need for fisheries restoration. Byron -----Original Message----- From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Tom Stokely Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:36 AM To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: TRRP watershed meeting ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Gaeuman" To: "Gary Diridoni" ; "Francis Berg" ; "Randi Paris" ; "Larry Hanson" ; "Mike Berry" ; "William Brock" ; "Andrea Davis" ; "Robert Franklin" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Tom Weseloh" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Alex Cousins" ; "Patrick Frost" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Walt Lara" Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 4:11 PM Subject: TRRP watershed meeting > Hi Workgroup people, > After taking your input I've scheduled the upcoming watershed meeting > for Oct 8 at the TRRP office in Weaverville. Let plan to start at 9:30 > and go no later than noon. > I ask for any agenda input you might have to go with: get started > brainstorming (or better) on the watershed projects we expect to propose > for FY09 funding; talk about what we need to do to facilitate getting > our funding agreements through the regional contracting office. > > > > > David Gaeuman > Trinity River Restoration Program > PO Box 1300 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > dgaeuman at usbr.gov > (530) 623-1813 > fax: (530) 623-5944 > > _______________________________________________ env-trinity mailing list env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity From kierassociates at suddenlink.net Thu Sep 18 10:49:12 2008 From: kierassociates at suddenlink.net (Kier Associates) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:49:12 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Dorothy Green Passes on In-Reply-To: <005001c919a8$e02a2bb0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> References: <005001c919a8$e02a2bb0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <20080918174920.IDHT3804.omta01.suddenlink.net@kier.suddenlink.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Sep 18 12:37:47 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:37:47 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Dorothy Green is still alive Message-ID: <011701c919c6$df067090$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Please excuse my mis-interpretation that Dorothy Green is not alive. She is still hanging on. Tom Stokely -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cjralph at humboldt1.com Thu Sep 18 20:03:21 2008 From: cjralph at humboldt1.com (C. John Ralph) Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:03:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: TRRP watershed meeting In-Reply-To: <001801c919a4$33dde1c0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> References: <001801c919a4$33dde1c0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <48D31679.3060001@humboldt1.com> Hi... FYI.... that is Yom Kippur ... the equivalent of having a meeting on Christmas or Easter. fine with me. c.j. -- -----Dr. C. John Ralph --- U.S. Forest Service, Redwood Sciences Laboratory, 1700 Bayview Drive, Arcata, California 95521. (707) 825-2992 (fax: 825-2901) home: 822-2015 cell: 499-9707 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cjralph at humboldt1.com cjr2 at humboldt.edu cralph at fs.fed.us http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/programs/TimberManagement/staff/cralph/ From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Sep 23 13:39:26 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:39:26 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Salmon Disaster Relief Funds Message-ID: <7DC2A64E7D0C4F0EB09FFD3E137F2707@byronPC> Bush Withholds Salmon Disaster Money As He Pushes For Corporate Bailouts! by Dan Bacher While George W. Bush wants taxpayers to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a $700 billion blank check to bail out Wall Street for its reckless speculation and greed, the administration announced last week that it would release only $100 million of the $170 million appropriated to salmon fishermen and businesses impacted by this year's salmon fishing closure off the California and Oregon coasts and in Central Valley rivers. Representatives Peter DeFazio (OR-04) and Mike Thompson (CA-01), along with 10 other members of Congress, wrote to President Bush on September 19 urging him to distribute the full $170 million in disaster aid to fishermen and businesses suffering from the closure of the salmon fishing season on the West Coast caused by the collapse of the Sacramento River fall run chinook salmon population. "Playing games with the livelihood of fishers across the Pacific Northwest is yet another sign that the Bush Administration has no commitment to protect our valuable river systems, and no interest in helping the fishing communities and economies that rely on them," the letter stated. "It is also completely unacceptable. We insist that you comply with congressional intent and immediately release the full $170 million in federal disaster aid for Pacific Northwest fishers." The other Representatives who signed the letter were Baird, Blumenauer, Capps, Eshoo, Farr, Hooley, Matsui, Woolsey, Wu and George Miller. "The Bush Administration has once again put politics ahead of people," said North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson (D-CA). "Because of the Administration's disastrous policies, Pacific coast fishing families have been devastated. Congress appropriated $170 million in federal disaster relief, but this latest proposal by the Bush Administration to withhold a large portion of these funds shows no regard for hardworking fishing families nor their livelihood." "I am absolutely astounded that the Administration is not distributing the full $170 million Congress allocated in the Farm Bill to deal with the salmon disaster," DeFazio said. "Instead, they are trying to steal $70 million from salmon fishermen and give it to an incompetent defense contractor. The fishing community of Oregon is already suffering because of the flawed Bush policies in the Sacramento River basin. They should not have to suffer again because the President has hired people in Florida who can't count. We've been there before." In a news release, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez offered no reason why the other $70 million owed to the fishermen and businesses wasn't being released immediately. "The salmon fishery has been a mainstay of the West Coast's ocean fishing revenues for many years," said Gutierrez. "This year's closure left thousands of fishermen and dependent businesses struggling to make ends meet. This disaster aid package of $100 million will help them get back on their feet." Brian Gorman, spokesman for NOAA Fisheries, said the remaining $70 million of Congressionally appropriated disaster-relief money "is expected to become available later in the year as the $100 million is spent." "The administration requested to transfer $70 million for the Census, but I have no idea if there is support for this in Congress," Gorman added. "If there is no vote to do otherwise, the funds will remain as originally designated and the disaster relief aid will become available after October 1. I expect all of the money to be distributed." He noted that the agency will provide the money in the form of a grant to the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. The commission will distribute the money, based on the agreements reached with the states, to fishermen and related businesses affected by this year's closure of the ocean salmon fishing season off California, Oregon, and Washington. The governors of all three West Coast states requested a federal disaster declaration as a result of the closures. The declaration, issued by Gutierrez in May, paved the way for Congress to appropriate the $170 million disaster-relief package in July. The states of Washington, Oregon, and California estimated damages to the fishing industry to total $290 million. The full disaster aid is needed immediately in order that fishermen can make boat payments, insurance payments, mortgage payments, and keep food on the table. In June, the Office of Management and Budget that puts together the President's annual budget sent Congress a revised budget request for more funding to carry out the 2010 Census. The White House is requesting $546 million more for the Census, and has proposed using $70 million of the $170 million in salmon disaster money allocated in the Farm Bill, to pay for the cost over-runs, according to DeFazio and Thompson. The Administration entered into a contract with the Harris Corporation, a Florida defense contractor, to conduct the Census, but the contractor has run into serious cost over-runs amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Congressmen DeFazio and Thompson and 13 other members of Congress sent President Bush a letter at that time that they say was "largely ignored" by the Administration. The refusal to dispurse the $70 million in salmon aid relief now is particularly outrageous because the Bush and Scharzenegger administrations are largely responsible for the unprecedented fishery collapse. The population of the Sacramento fall run chinook salmon population has declined from over 800,000 in 2002 to less than 60,000 fish this year. The Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations claim that "ocean conditions" are responsible for the collapse, but all of the available evidence demonstrates that it is water policies that favor agribusiness and corporate water developers over fish, the environment and local communities that caused the dramatic decline. The collapse undoubtedly occurred because of record water exports from the California Delta by the state and federal projects to drainage-impaired land in the San Joaquin Valley during the years this year's returning salmon were supposed to go to sea. For example, 2005 was a record export year with 6.4 million acre feet of water diverted from the estuary. It is believed that many salmon never made out of Bay-Delta estuary, but were instead chopped up in the Delta pumps, disoriented and stranded in dead end sloughs because of reverse flows caused by pumping, and deprived of forage. At the same time, the state of California failed to put its hatchery salmon into salt water acclimation pens, as they had done previously, during 2005 and 2006. This resulted in increasing loss of salmon to predators when the stunned salmon were released into San Pablo Bay. I believe that you can't fully understand the Central Valley chinook salmon collapse without understanding the dramatic decline of four California Delta pelagic species - delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad. A team of federal and state scientists have pinpointed water exports as the number one cause of the "Pelagic Organism Decline," followed by toxic chemicals and invasive species. As Peter Moyle, prominent U.C. Davis fishery scientists, recently stated, "Overall, blaming 'ocean conditions' for salmon declines is a lot like blaming Hurricane Katrina for flooding New Orleans, while ignoring the many human errors that made the disaster inevitable, such as poor construction of levees or destruction of protective salt marshes. The listings of the winter and spring runs of Central Valley Chinook as endangered species were warnings of likely declines on an even larger scale. Continuing on our present course will result in the permanent loss of a valuable and iconic fishery unless we start taking corrective action soon." Meawhile, the Bush administration, while trying to steal money allocated to the victims of a fishery collapse engineered by the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations, wants to soak the taxpayers for another $700 billion for corporate criminals who should be in jail, not receving another handout. That's on top of $1.1 trillion for other recent bailouts, including A.I.G., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns. Just when you think the Bush regime has sunk to a new low, it will always find a way to reach a lower level of criminality in its policy of "socialism for the rich." Note: The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the Harris Corporation and the problems with the Census on June 11, 2008. http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2001. The text of the letter sent to President Bush is below: September 18, 2008 The Honorable Jim Nussle, Director Office of Management and Budget Washington, DC. 20503 Dear Director Nussle: We write with increasing concern regarding full disbursement of the $170 million appropriated by Congress to compensate fishers for the unprecedented closure of the West Coast salmon fishery. Earlier this week, NOAA Fisheries (NOAA) indicated that it would be dispersing $100 million of the $170 million appropriated by Congress to provide aid to affected fishers. NOAA further indicated that the remaining $70 million may be disbursed if further need was demonstrated, and "if Congress did not act to rescind the funds." We have been informed that NOAA is not dispersing the full amount now because OMB has not yet released the funds. We find this unconscionable. First, as we expressed to you in June, it is unacceptable that the Administration has proposed - and now seems to be trying to implement - a plan to take disaster aid from the fishing communities of California, Oregon and Washington to pay for cost overruns associated with this Administration's questionable contract with the Harris Corporation to complete the 2010 census. Indeed, the reason why Congress had to step up to provide this emergency aid to fishers in our states is because of this Administration's unlawful and shortsighted policies regarding the Pacific Northwest's rivers. Second, we have received no satisfactory explanation for why OMB can legally withhold funds that Congress has appropriated for a specific purpose such as this. The states of Oregon, Washington, and California have followed the process set out in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which provides for emergency assistance. Now that NOAA has accepted the application from Pacific Fishery Management Council, and has approved the $170 million grant to the states, OMB is legally obligated to release the funds so that affected fishers may receive the aid they desperately need. The law provides for no further "assessment of need," and we are aware of no precedent for OMB's alleged "phased" disbursement of these funds. To us, the fact that OMB is withholding $70 million, when it proposed in June to reprogram this exact same amount to pay for the Administration's mistakes with its census contract, smacks of political gamesmanship. Playing games with the livelihood of fishers across the Pacific Northwest is yet another sign that the Bush Administration has no commitment to protect our valuable river systems, and no interest in helping the fishing communities and economies that rely on them. It is also completely unacceptable. We insist that you comply with congressional intent and immediately release the full $170 million in federal disaster aid for Pacific Northwest fishers. Sincerely, Baird Blumenauer Capps DeFazio Eshoo Farr Hooley Matsui Thompson, Mike Woolsey Wu Miller, George Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Sep 30 18:44:50 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:44:50 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Article on California Pacific Salmon Message-ID: <0B2F1F967D0A48EFB3B9078C0BE05D2E@byronPC> This is an outstanding article by a Smithsonian Magazine staff writer. It originally was forwarded by Mark Rockwell, Conservation Director of the Northern California Council Federation of Fly Fishers. To many of us, this provides the most comprehensive picture ever assembled and written about Northern California Salmon. The author is an exceptionally gifted writer. Many of you will know some of those persons named in it. It's a great article. Byron Leydecker On California's Coast, Farewell to the King Salmon For the first time there's no fishing for chinook salmon on the California coast. The search is on for why the prize catch is so scarce. Smithsonian Magazine - October 2008 By Abigail Tucker, staff writer The salmon-boat cemetery in Fort Bragg, a fishing port tucked into shaggy pines about 150 miles north of San Francisco, is full of bleached and peeling hulls. Over the years many California vessels have landed in Bruce Abernathy's front yard, pitched at steep angles among the weeds, some still rigged with trolling poles. The Anita II, the Dag. Eventually Abernathy's son David takes them apart with a tractor and chain saw and sells what he can for parts. Sometimes all that's left is a scrap with a painted-on name: My Pet. Bruce Abernathy himself doesn't watch the demolitions. He finds somewhere else to be, or he stays inside his house, with its many framed prints of trim little ships atop frisky seas. The fisherman turned resale man, and lately junk dealer, has "a lot of remorse" about what's happening outside his window beyond the hot pink rhododendron bush. "I know almost everybody who owned these boats," he said. "Boats become part of you, like a wife." Thirty years ago there were several thousand salmon boats in California. More recently, as the fish became scarce, only a few hundred worked the coast. Then salmon populations crashed, and this year for the first time U.S. officials canceled all ocean salmon fishing off California and most of Oregon, and curtailed it off Washington, a $300 million loss. When I visited Fort Bragg, in late May, the harbor felt about as cheerful as a junkyard. The docks should have quaked with activity, but the mooring basin was quiet except for the hoarse bark of sea lions. The fishermen with the biggest boats hoped to go way out after tuna later in the season; others had already joined roadwork crews or cobbled together odd jobs. Disaster relief money would be on the way, but to many second- and third-generation fishermen, a summer without salmon felt like the end of the line. For the better part of a century the fish supported Fort Bragg, home of the World's Largest Salmon Barbeque, at which local politicians flip fillets on the grill and tourists come from far and wide to taste one of the most sought-after fish in the sea, the chinook salmon, a.k.a. the king. The sudden decline of California's chinooks, most of which originate in the Sacramento River, has shaken scientists as well as fishermen. Typically several hundred thousand adult fish return from the sea to the river in the fall. Last autumn, only about 90,000 made it back, and fewer than 60,000 are expected this year, which would be the lowest number on record. "Usually when something like that happens, you can point to something dramatic, an oil spill, closing of hatcheries, an earthquake," said Donald McIsaac, executive director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the regulatory group that advised U.S. officials to halt this year's salmon fishing. But no such catastrophe has been definitively linked to the shortage. Salmon is the third most popular seafood in the United States, after shrimp and canned tuna, with about 600 million pounds consumed annually. Most of the fresh meat is Atlantic salmon raised in fish farms. California fishermen bring in about five million pounds of chinook meat in a good year. That's not terribly much, considering the national appetite, but king salmon is the largest and perhaps the choicest variety, owing to its deep reddish pink color (a result of its krill-heavy diet), high omega-3 fatty acid content and rich flavor. It is the stuff of white tablecloth restaurants and fancy markets, not salmon burgers. ("You would never put king salmon in a can," one fish market analyst told me.) What's more, local chinook, chrome-colored and strong enough to charge up waterfalls, are revered as a symbol. We savor the salmon's story almost as much as its flesh-its epic slog from birth stream to sea and back again, its significance to Native Americans, who saw the fish as a dietary staple and a religious talisman. Salmon still retain something of that spiritual power. Called the "soul food of the North Pacific," king salmon is the flavor of healthy rivers and thriving coastlines. It is a pepper-crusted or pesto-smeared communion with nature, gustatory proof that in a region where cities are sprawling, wildness still waits below the surface-if you will only cast your fly and find it. There are about a half-dozen salmon species worldwide, and populations are further defined by their rivers of origin and migration seasons. Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) are found from California's Ventura River to Kotzebue Sound in Alaska to Russia's Andyr River and northern Japan. The species whose sudden disappearance has been in the news, prompting Congressional hearings this past spring, is the fall-run Sacramento River chinook, named for the river to which mature fish return to spawn and the season in which they do so. (The Sacramento River also supports much smaller winter and spring runs, which are classified as endangered and threatened, respectively, and a late-fall run.) After eggs are laid in autumn, young salmon emerge from their gravel nests as early as Christmastime, swimming south a few weeks later. They slink seaward mostly at night to avoid predators, lingering in brackish estuaries to gather strength. As they near the ocean, their bodies change. Their renal systems adapt to salt water. They lose black bars on their sides and gradually assume the silvery color-with a scattering of black spots-that thrills fishermen. "God, they're beautiful," exulted Dave Bitts, of McKinleyville, California, a commercial fisherman for more than 30 years. "That's what a fish is supposed to look like-the whole shape of them, the power of the back, the thickness of the tail." The fish typically stay at sea three years, ranging thousands of miles in the Pacific and gaining 90 percent of their body mass (between 10 to 50 pounds, though the largest weigh more than 100). Then they head for home, tracing the smell of minerals and organic materials to find their natal streams. It is a brutal journey. The fish stop eating once they hit fresh water, and their bodies begin to deteriorate even as they ascend rapids (the word "salmon" comes from the Latin salir, to leap). Ready-to-mate males flush crimson and grow tough-guy hooked jaws for fighting; females search for gravel for a nest. Soon after laying and fertilizing eggs, the exhausted adults die. But the life cycle doesn't stop there. The kings' spawned-out carcasses nourish not only the baby salmon that will take their place but also living things up and down the food chain, stimulating whole ecosystems. Salmon-rich streams support faster-growing trees and attract apex predators like bears and eagles. In certain California vineyards, compounds traceable to salmon can be found in zinfandel grapes. This is the elegant narrative that people in the West are fighting to preserve, a tale of determination and natural destiny that somehow touches even those of us who don't live there. And yet this ideal of wild salmon is increasingly an illusion. Coleman National Fish Hatchery, Anderson, California, 4 a.m.: Had it been light, I could have seen the edge of the Cascade Range, which includes Mount Shasta, the Sacramento River's source. But I couldn't make out the hatchery's outbuildings, or anything much beyond a series of long concrete pools, or raceways, illuminated by floodlights. It dawned on me that the gray current shifting and flickering below the surface of Raceway 5 was actually hundreds of thousands of three-inch-long fall-run chinooks. A hatchery worker scooped up a couple: squiggles with woeful expressions, they were barely princelings, never mind kings. But every so often one would snap itself suddenly out of the big pond, a hint of the athleticism that would one day launch it upstream. We were there because the hatchery was taking a historic step. Usually, the federal facility-at the northern end of California's Central Valley-releases the juveniles out its back door into Battle Creek, which feeds into the Sacramento River six miles downstream. This year, though, natural resource managers had decided to load 1.4 million fish, about a tenth of Coleman's total stock, into trucks and drive them roughly 200 miles south to San Pablo Bay, above San Francisco Bay, bypassing the entire river, a tactic that state hatcheries have been using for years. I had already been startled to learn that between 50 percent and 90 percent of the Sacramento River's "wild" fall-run chinooks are actually born in hatcheries, which were created to compensate for the loss of spawning grounds to dams. Every autumn, hatchery workers trap returning adults before they spawn and strip them of sperm and eggs. The offspring are incubated in trays and fed pellets. Now this latest batch would not even have to swim down the river. The shipment was an effort to rekindle future fishing seasons, Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery manager, said: "If you truck a fish from Coleman and bypass certain areas where mortality can happen, you may improve survival. You take out hundreds of miles of avoiding predators, water diversions, pollution, any number of things." We spoke in his office, which held a shrine to Popeye, a cat who must have enjoyed an extremely happy tenure at the hatchery. Despite the low numbers of returning Sacramento salmon this year, Coleman planned to go ahead with its annual Return of the Salmon Festival in the third week of October, where in years past schoolchildren have shrieked over the chinooks jamming the creek. Outside, a worker standing waist-deep in the raceway crowded the fish toward a hydraulic pump, using a broom to goad stragglers. Their shadowy forms shot up a transparent tube and into a tank on a waiting truck. In a few hours they would be piped into net pens in the bay, then hauled by boat farther out and released to swim out to sea. Some scientists say the hatchery fish are less physically fit than their wild brethren, with a swimming-pool mentality that does not serve them well in the ocean. And yet in years past, many survived to maturity simply because they were introduced in such overwhelming numbers. Some wildlife experts speculate that the hatchery-born fish may even be weakening wild populations they were meant to bolster by competing with the river-born fish for food and space, and heading home with them to breed, altering the gene pool. The trucked fish won't know where home is, exactly. Many will likely never find their way back to Battle Creek, not having swum down the river in the first place. These strays might spawn successfully elsewhere, but without that initial migration it might seem that some essential quality of salmon-ness is lost. If this is the price of keeping the species going, so be it, said Hamelberg, who wears a wedding band etched with tiny salmon. "There's a greater public good here," he told me. "We're providing fish to the American public to eat, and also for aesthetic reasons-just for people to know they're in the system, that they returned. Our obligation is to keep these runs as sound as possible." The hatchery workers looked weary as the trucks pulled away. As it turns out, chauffeuring tons of pinkie-length fish hundreds of miles is trickier than it sounds. During shipping the day before, the circulation system in one of the trucks stopped working, and 75,000 chinooks died. Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest used to think salmon were immortal, and it's easy to see why. Even though the rivers hosted spectacular mass death scenes every year and were filled for weeks with rotting bodies, the next season's fish always mobbed the gravel beds. To safeguard this cycle, tribes were careful to place the bones of the season's first catch back in the river. But the California and Pacific Northwest salmon populations have been declining for more than a century and a half. Gold miners washed the gravel out of streams and loggers dismembered river habitats. Fishermen caught so many salmon that the canneries couldn't keep up; barge loads were dumped back into the sea, and salmon carcasses were used to feed hogs and fertilize fields. Today, the Columbia River supports at most 3 percent of the salmon it boasted when Lewis and Clark passed through. The Klamath River, which starts in southern Oregon, has suffered major salmon kills. Some Pacific salmon varieties may share the fate of their East Coast cousins, the wild Atlantic salmon, which were killed off in huge numbers in the 19th century by overfishing, pollution and dams and are today nearly extinct in the wild. By now, Sacramento chinooks have lost an estimated 70 percent of their original spawning habitat in central California. Dams did the most damage, drying up riverbeds and cutting off access to mountain spawning streams. Shasta Dam, completed in 1945, is the nation's second largest, far too big for the fish ladders that in some places help salmon reach their spawning grounds. Some populations barely survived. There are plenty of complaints against hatcheries-the main one is that artificially producing millions of fish masks deep ecological problems-but without the hatcheries, the Sacramento run could hardly have rebounded from industrialization the way it did. The fall run, probably numbering about a million at its peak, was until very recently holding steady at a quarter or more of that level, enough to keep the West Coast salmon industry afloat. Then came this summer's calamity. The official list of possible causes is more than 40 items long, ranging from bridge construction in migration areas to a surging population of Humboldt squid, grabby predators that may or may not have a taste for chinook. Scientists are looking back to 2005, when the fish that should be returning to the river now would have been sea-bound juveniles, small and vulnerable. There were poor ocean conditions off the West Coast that spring. A shift in weather patterns-possibly related to global warming-delayed the seasonal upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that supports the base of the marine food chain. As a result, "everything that was expecting something to eat in May died," including juvenile salmon, said Bill Peterson, a fisheries oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Other experts cite freshwater dangers, since fish weakened by a stressful trip downstream are less likely to survive in a hostile ocean. This is a politically loaded argument: many of those stresses, from pollution to introduced species, are man-made. "Protecting this icon means protecting the watershed, from where these things spawn in the mountains down to the ocean," said Jon Rosenfield, an aquatic conservation ecologist based in Berkeley, California. "If you operate the rivers in the way that's best for agriculture, that's not necessarily how the water would be operating on its own." In addition to being the most populous state, California is the most productive agriculturally. But much of its farmland, and more than 75 percent of its population, lie south of Sacramento, while three-quarters of the precipitation falls north of it. Huge dams, the Shasta chief among them, hoard water that's released downstream on demand and pumped to the Central Valley and Los Angeles. The arrangement works out for millions of people but not always for the fish, which can get disoriented in artificial flows created by water diversions and never make it to the sea. Such problems are expensive to fix and the solutions can mean water shortages, especially for farmers, which heighten the conflict between interest groups. "The environmental community exploits the problems in nature and ignores human problems," said Jason Peltier, deputy manager of the sprawling Westlands Water District, which supplies hundreds of farms in the Central Valley. "That's their agenda. I can't understand how they get away with it. I can't understand how [the groups] push a fish-and-nature-first agenda at the expense of human socioeconomic conditions." Over the past decade or so changes have been made to California's intricate plumbing to give salmon safer passage. Shasta Dam was retrofitted, at a cost of roughly $80 million, with a device that draws from the very bottom of its reservoir, supplying downstream areas with more of the cool water that spawning salmon require. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent otherwise improving Sacramento River habitat. But it's doubtful that any amount of effort or money can restore the salmon's world. I didn't fully understand this until I visited the most altered ecosystem of all, the one environmentalists are most likely to lament when discussing the king. It's where ocean and river meet: the vast and troubled estuary at the Sacramento's mouth, through which almost all the river's wild-born salmon pass en route to the Pacific. The former 400,000-acre tidal marsh is California's main water hub, a place both tamed beyond recognition and perilous for salmon in new ways, full of obstacles far more challenging than mere rapids. Just east of San Francisco Bay, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta stretches 50 miles south of Sacramento and some 25 miles west. Part of the largest estuary on North America's Pacific Coast, the delta was once a marshy haven of cattails and bulrushes. Juvenile salmon from both the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers (which converge in the delta) used it as a kind of staging ground, tarrying in its shallows before going out to sea. But 150 years and 1,100 miles of man-made levees later, the wetlands have been transformed. During the gold rush, they were drained and converted into a web of farming islands with winding channels in between. Ninety-five percent of the original marsh is gone, and what remains is the epitome of an artificial landscape, so squarely under civilization's thumb that it's almost impossible to imagine it otherwise. The islands-many of them ten feet or more below sea level due to soil decomposition-are a patchwork of crops and alien species: palm trees, European sycamores, Himalayan blackberry bushes, spindly grapevines propped up on sticks, extensive plantings of Bartlett pear trees and fields of lawn turf as green and smooth as a pool table. At times the air suddenly smells of licorice-wild fennel, another invasive species. Go around a levy bend and there might be a beached World War II landing craft used by a local duck-hunting club, a sign for brand-new mansion developments "Coming Soon" or the pink explosion of a garden-variety rosebush. The waterways surrounding these islands are about as hospitable to salmon as drainage ditches. The remaining marshland teems with nonnative species, many of them ravenous stowaways from the cargo ships of nearby San Francisco Bay. Brazilian waterweed, an aquarium favorite, clogs the sloughs and retains sediments, making the water clearer and juvenile fish easier to spot: predators like largemouth bass-introduced as a sport fish more than a century ago-lie in wait. Upriver farms release potentially poisonous pesticides and herbicides. Wastewater from the Sacramento area, with its ballooning population, also seeps into the delta, and scientists are increasingly suspicious that ammonia from human sewage interrupts the seasonal cycle of phytoplankton blooms at the base of the food chain. And then there are the pumps. Naturally brackish, the delta is now managed as a freshwater system, because fresh water is what's needed to fill bathtubs and irrigate fields and quench the thirst of Californians, about 25 million of whom rely on the delta for at least some of their water. Mammoth federal and state pumps in the delta's southern end, near the city of Tracy, slurp up roughly half of the Sacramento's flow and send it to Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and beyond. When the federal pumps are going full blast, six 22,500-horsepower motors pull water through pipes 15 feet in diameter, raising the flow into a canal that helps irrigate the middle of California's Central Valley. (The state pumps are even bigger.) The pumps are powerful enough to alter the currents miles away, confusing migrating salmon. Often, salmon are siphoned along with the water. More than half of these are salvaged near the pumps at fish-collection facilities, where the buckets are checked every two hours, the operators pawing through seaweed to find the tiny fish, which are then loaded into trucks and driven back to the delta. But the smallest chinooks can slip through; in past years tens of thousands have died. In 2005, that fateful year for this season's salmon, the pumps exported record amounts of water from the delta. "The higher the export rate, the more fish are lost," said Tina Swanson, a biologist and head of the Bay Institute, an advocacy group that monitors San Francisco Bay and the delta. "Even small increases can lead to disproportionately high losses." Constructed mostly in the middle of the last century, the pumps are relics of a time when fish populations were not much valued or understood. Lately California's attitude has changed. When I visited the federal pumps, they were churning much more slowly than usual because of a court order to protect a threatened fish called the delta smelt. Already, farmers to the south were not getting water they'd asked for. They were also nervous about another lawsuit, filed by a coalition of environmentalists, fishing associations and Native Americans on behalf of the Sacramento's winter-run chinook and other salmon species. Among other things, the plaintiffs want more reliable cold releases from the Shasta reservoir, which could limit flows to the pumps. "I can't be without [that] water," said Daniel Errotabere, co-owner of Errotabere Ranch, which grows some 5,600 acres of almonds, lettuce and other crops with the help of delta flows. This summer the farm got just 40 percent of the water it had ordered from the pumps. "We're not wasting anything. All our crops are pretty much spoonfed. I can't do any more than I'm doing, unless there's a way to find a crop that doesn't need water." My guide to the fantastical Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was Peter Moyle, of the University of California at Davis, an estuary and fish expert who made room on his research boat to show me a bit of what the delta is and used to be. I wanted to see some wild baby salmon, which he said was not likely, since it was late in a dry spring. I felt sure he would be relieved to see some too. When I picked him up in Davis, there were salmon prayer flags fluttering in front of his house. Moyle has spent much of the past 30 years in the grayish-brown marsh mud on the outskirts of the delta, and he's the authority on local fish-the California roach, the Sacramento sucker, the tule perch-much less glamorous than salmon. He's the go-to person on the delta smelt, a homely little fish that smells like cucumber and faces many of the same challenges as the chinook. Moyle's rickety aluminum research vessel, The Marsh Boat, was crewed by two graduate students. We pulled on waders and life vests and then bounced off into a stiff north wind, which made the tall grasses on the shore roll like waves. We were surveying fish populations on the outskirts of the delta in the Suisun Marsh, which has not been tampered with as much as adjoining areas and is reminiscent of what the whole place might have looked like before the gold rush: an expanse of bulrushes and brownish water, with snowy egrets stalking the perimeter and white pelicans flapping overhead. It was almost possible to ignore the bellow of an Amtrak train bound for San Francisco and the jets landing at nearby Travis Air Force Base. The boat stopped by a muddy beach, depositing Moyle, me and a graduate student studying invasive jellyfish from the Caspian Sea. The other student roared off in hot pursuit of zooplankton. We walked the shore, with the professor periodically plunging into the water to drag a net. "If you were a baby salmon, this is exactly where you'd want to be," said Moyle, his bifocal sunglasses glinting as he eyed a particularly inviting stand of bulrushes. "This would have been full of food, full of cover. You could have escaped your predators and there were strong enough currents that you could find your way out to sea." Nearly everyone's unhappy with the delta as it is today. Some say that rising sea levels and earthquakes threaten its structure, and since Hurricane Katrina there have been calls to armor the levees to maintain the delta as a freshwater system. Others advocate reducing water exports from the delta, doing away with the levees and unleashing the river to become brackish again in places and flow where it will. The plan that has lately gained the backing of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger involves digging a canal upstream of the delta that would send fresh Sacramento water straight to the pumps. With the help of fish screens, the salmon would stay in the main river and continue their migration without the threat of artificial currents. "Separate the water for people from the water for fish," said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. "Manage each for their own purposes." Quinn says healthy fish populations and a reliable water supply aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, he takes his grandkids every year to see the spawning in Butte Creek, a Sacramento River tributary. "I don't want them growing up in a state where they'll sacrifice fish to get cheap water," he said. But the peripheral canal, as it's called, is so controversial it's known as the "third rail" of California politics, and voters have nixed it before. Building it would take more than a decade and cost billions, and California will need to figure out how to accommodate another eight million thirsty residents by 2025. Still, academics from different disciplines have begun to agree that the canal may be the only way. "The devil's in the details, though," Moyle said. "No matter what you do, it's going to be complicated-and expensive." Our nets yielded plenty of fish that morning on the marsh, many of them nonnative: baby carp, yellowfin goby and inland silversides, transparent little fish with a stripe like thermometer mercury. Moyle held flapping palmfuls as he measured them one by one, then tossed them back into the water. He had been right: we saw no young salmon. To fishermen, the chinook is known as a fighter, and likewise its advocates won't let the fish die out without a struggle. People desperately want to save wild salmon. "DEMAND Wild Californian King Salmon" stickers adorn car bumpers, and products like Butte Creek Brewing's Spring Run Organic Pale Ale benefit the kings. A SalmonAid concert stirred up support in Oakland this past spring, and an advocacy group for Columbia and Snake River salmon hauled a 25-foot fiberglass chinook from Seattle to Washington, D.C., stopping at schools and farmer's markets along the way. Another lawsuit to ensure the wild salmon's safe passage continues to wind its way through the courts. Even as the crisis deepens, the nation's appetite for salmon grows, thanks largely to the farmed variety. In 1980, almost none of our fresh salmon meat came from fish farms; now three-quarters of it does. Corporations in Norway, Canada and Chile run many of the farms, and most of the fish are Atlantic salmon. Raised in offshore pens, removed entirely from rivers, they eat formulated pellets instead of krill, so their flesh is naturally gray. Aquaculturists feed the fish color additives to make the flesh pink, fine-tuning the hue with the help of a color wheel called the SalmoFan. As a result inexpensive salmon meat is now sold practically everywhere, including Wal-Mart-an abundance that obscures the wild salmon's plight. Salmon fishing in California and Oregon will probably have to be limited for a few years, to allow stocks to recover. Among those who continue to have faith in the king's return is 26-year-old Cyrus Maahs, a fourth-generation Fort Bragg salmon fisherman. He grew up trolling with his grandfather, Sonny Maahs, who helped found the town's annual salmon cook-off 37 years ago, when the rivers still thrashed with fish and the sea was full of them. Cyrus' father, Mike, put himself through college on salmon money and died at sea in a storm; his name is on the fishermen's memorial in the harbor, beside the charred concrete barbecue pits. Cyrus believes he has inherited the family instinct to clear the jetty in a thick fog, to pick the perfect psychedelic-colored salmon lure. I asked him if he ever considered a more stable line of work-serving Fort Bragg's burgeoning tourist trade, perhaps, or leading whale-watching trips. "I'd much rather be out there fishing, and have a job with freedom to it," he said. "Once you get a taste of that, it's hard to give up." The family boat, Kromoli, spent most of the summer at anchor with much of the rest of the town's fleet. Some fishermen contemplated putting their boats up for sale, on the off chance someone would buy them. And yet, even in Fort Bragg, the myth of a bountiful fishery persists. Visitors to this July's World's Largest Salmon Barbeque did not go hungry, for instance. They were served coho salmon flown in from Alaska.# http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/salmon-king.html?c=y &page=1 Dr. C. Mark Rockwell, D.C. Calif. State Coordinator Endangered Species Coalition 19737 Wildwood West Dr. Penn Valley, Ca. 95946 summerhillfarmpv at aol.com 530 432-0100 (business) 530 432-9198 (home) The Endangered Species Coalition (ESC) is a national network of 380 conservation, scientific, religious, sporting, humane, business and community groups across the country. Through public education, scientific information and citizen participation, we work to protect our nation's wildlife and wild places. The ESC is a non-partisan coalition working with concerned citizens and decision makers from all parties to protect endangered species and habitat. www.StopExtinction.org . _____ Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Oct 2 13:59:02 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 13:59:02 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Mystery Presidential Contender Message-ID: <047901c924d1$cb6a5cc0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> If you go to the website below, you will see how far and how fast somebody who has been involved with the Trinity River Restoration Program can go in national politics! Wow! http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=370617&altf=Czspo&altl=Mfzefdlfs Tom Stokely -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kierassociates at suddenlink.net Thu Oct 2 15:44:35 2008 From: kierassociates at suddenlink.net (Kier Associates) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:44:35 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Mystery Presidential Contender In-Reply-To: <047901c924d1$cb6a5cc0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> References: <047901c924d1$cb6a5cc0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <20081002224451.BCLD28684.omta02.suddenlink.net@kier.suddenlink.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From greg at yournec.org Thu Oct 2 16:58:52 2008 From: greg at yournec.org (Greg King) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:58:52 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Mystery Presidential Contender In-Reply-To: <20081002224451.BCLD28684.omta02.suddenlink.net@kier.suddenlink.net> References: <047901c924d1$cb6a5cc0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> <20081002224451.BCLD28684.omta02.suddenlink.net@kier.suddenlink.net> Message-ID: I thought he was President! On Oct 2, 2008, at 3:44 PM, Kier Associates wrote: > that is absolutely marvelous !! > > he gets my vote > > Bill > > At 01:59 PM 10/2/2008, Tom Stokely wrote: >> If you go to the website below, you will see how far and how fast >> somebody who has been involved with the Trinity River Restoration >> Program can go in national politics! >> >> Wow! >> >> >> http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=370617&altf=Czspo&altl=Mfzefdlfs >> > com:office:office" /> >> >> Tom Stokely >> _______________________________________________ >> env-trinity mailing list >> env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity > Kier Associates, Fisheries and Watershed Professionals > P.O. Box 915 > Blue Lake, CA 95525 > 707.668.1822 > mobile: 498.7847 > http://www.kierassociates.net > > _______________________________________________ > env-trinity mailing list > env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity -- Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeff at weavervilleinfo.com Thu Oct 2 17:01:08 2008 From: jeff at weavervilleinfo.com (jeff morris) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 17:01:08 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Mystery Presidential Contender Message-ID: <20081002170108.BA6E06E3@resin11.mta.everyone.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Oct 5 21:06:05 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 21:06:05 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle- A move to secede on California-Oregon border Message-ID: <092901c92768$ddde1150$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> A move to secede on California-Oregon border Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, October 5, 2008 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/05/MNNP138DLP.DTL -------------------------------------------------------------------------- (10-05) 04:00 PDT Yreka, Siskiyou County -- Some folks around here think the economic sky is falling and state lawmakers in Sacramento and Salem are ignoring their constituents in the hinterlands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Images View More Images -------------------------------------------------------------------------- More News -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Guess the time is ripe to create a whole new state. That's the thinking up here along the border between California and Oregon, where 12 sparsely populated, thickly forested counties in both states want to break away and generate the 51st star on the nation's flag - the state of Jefferson. You can see the signs of discontent from Klamath Falls to Dunsmuir, where green double-X "Jefferson State" flags hang in scores of businesses. You can hear the talk of revolution at lunch counters and grocery lines, where people grumble that politicians to the north and south don't care. You can even hear the dissent on the radio, where 21 area FM stations broadcast from Oregon into California under the banner of "Jefferson Public Radio." "We have nothing in common with you people down south. Nothing," said Randy Bashaw, manager of the Jefferson State Forest Products lumber mill in the Trinity County hamlet of Hayfork. "The sooner we're done with all you people, the better." Talking about secession has been a quasi-joking conversational saw since 1941, when five counties in the area started things by actually declaring themselves - briefly - to be the state of Jefferson. But now, with the economy in trouble and unemployment soaring, the idea of greater independence is getting its most serious consideration since World War II. Locals complain that federal and state regulators have hampered the fishing and timber industries to protect forestlands and endangered species such as sucker fish and the spotted owl. Jobs are so scarce that the median income in the area is only two-thirds that of the rest of the state. Most water from the rainy Shasta region is shipped south, with little economic benefit to the area. Even the California sales tax draws sneers. If they ran their own state, the reasoning goes, folks in Siskiyou, Modoc and the other potential Jefferson counties could whack the red tape from both federal and state officials and get rid of the sales tax. Seeking signatures The Grange Hall of Yreka, a farm-based service organization, is activating 51 of its brethren halls in the area to collect 1 million signatures to have a statehood advisory measure put on the California ballot. Tony Intiso, a runoff candidate in the Nov. 4 election for Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors, has pledged to force the issue and is running campaign ads calling for regional freedom. The number of registered users of a decade-old Web site advocating partition has suddenly shot from dozens to more than 900. "Heck yeah, it's a darn good idea," said Richard Mitchell, manager of the Cooley & Pollard Hardware Store on Miner Street, the main drag in the blink-and-you-miss-it town of Yreka. "Those liberal people down south don't understand us at all, and if there was a vote today to form a new state, it would pass in a heartbeat. "I would bet on it." The window of Mitchell's store, where he tends the register in worn work boots and a camouflage hunting cap, displays T-shirts and flags sporting the state "seal" of Jefferson: Two X's denoting the double-crossing the area supposedly gets from the capitols of California and Oregon. Movement began in 1941 Mitchell also posts a copy of the original declaration of Jefferson independence, drafted in 1941 by the angry miners and loggers who pushed for secession over the appalling condition of roads. That movement - the coverage of which earned Chronicle reporter Stanton Delaplane a Pulitzer Prize - lasted just two weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack, when the movement dissolved in the name of national unity. But it was never forgotten. "It started out as a big joke back then, but then some folks got real serious and before long they had elected a governor and all that," said Frances Wacker, 95, whose husband, the late George Wacker, was one of the 1941 Jefferson movement leaders. "I think some folks have become serious again and think they have something going." Sixty-seven years ago, Wacker recalled, locals were frustrated because they were ignored when they complained to lawmakers that they couldn't easily ship copper and timber south to ports and markets on the axle-cracking roads. The roads have improved since then - the same trip now takes four hours, not the eight of 1941 - but the unhappiness has not. "It's not rocket science to see why it makes sense, and how we could do it," said Brian Petersen, a landscaper who runs the main online forum advocating statehood, www.jeffersonstate.com. "The capitols of California and Oregon ignore us. We want out. "All we have to do is get an initiative on the ballot and vote to get things going." Peterson has run his Web site for 10 years. For most of the time since, the site had a mailing list of about 100. In the past year, though, as the Grange began its petition drive and unemployment throughout the region rose to about 10 percent - almost three points above the California average - the mailing list grew nearly 10 times in size. "If you want any chance of fixing things, sometimes you have to break the system," said Leo Bergeron, master of Yreka's Greenhorn Grange Hall and past master of the statewide, agriculturally oriented Grange service club. "Now, we have to break the system." For years, he said, locals have proudly claimed Jefferson is a "state of mind" born of living in an expanse of forestlands and hamlets that is roughly the size of Wales and has about the same population as San Francisco. Redding, with a population of 80,000, is the closest thing to a metropolis. And with 60,000 cattle, Siskiyou County has 15,000 more bovines than it does people. Along the way, tourist-minded locals have come up with the flags, an official state cow ("Moo-dona," a huge sculpture alongside Interstate 5) and an official beer (microbrewed in Etna). The legend of Big Foot is also big around here. But Bergeron's not playing around. "If you do it seriously, some people will think you're a kook," said Bergeron, who spearheads the Grange effort. "But 9 out of 10 people have an interest in this - and we need to reach the ones who are really serious." Working toward '09 measure Bergeron's first goal is to gather 1,200 signatures in Siskiyou County to put an advisory secession initiative on the county ballot in 2009. At the same time, he is urging the 51 Grange Halls in Jefferson territory, and those on the mailing list of www.jeffersonstate.com, to gear up for collecting 1 million signatures to take the advisory measure statewide. "We'll need the approval of both states and the federal government, but it can be done," he said. "And even if we don't become a new state, we will have made a statement and can at least get some more independence in our own affairs." Such a statement would be news to most in Sacramento. "Never heard of Jefferson," said Aaron McLear, spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "We are going to decline comment." Gail Fiorini-Jenner, co-author of two books on the state of Jefferson, said the almost 900,000 people who live in the territory aren't hicks. Just feisty. And that, she said, is not new: Since the 1850s, there have been similar attempts to create the states of Klamath and Shasta. "Everyone thinks we're dumb rednecks, but we have the far left, the far right and a lot of the middle up here," she said. "Our only trouble is we have no political power. It's no wonder people want to change that." E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan at sfchronicle.com. 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Name: plus-green.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Mon Oct 6 08:57:53 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 08:57:53 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] A Move To... Message-ID: <009501c927cc$4ffb7120$6401a8c0@HAL> even more telling are the comments on SFGate... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/05/MNNP138DLP.DTL -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Oct 7 11:04:15 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 11:04:15 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Next Watershed Meeting Message-ID: <023a01c928a7$1d1bf230$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Cousins" To: "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Andy Baker" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Bernie Aguilar" ; ; "Bill Kuntz" ; "Tom Walz" ; "Colleen O'Sullivan" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Erica Spohn" ; "John Ribinsky" ; "Joyce Andersen/R5/USDAFS" ; "Kenneth Baldwin" ; "Loren Everest" ; "Mark Dowdle" ; "Mark Lancaster" ; "Michele Fortner" ; "Noreen Doyas" ; "Pat Frost - TCRCD" ; "Andy Hill" ; "Sandra Perez" ; "Susan Erwin" ; "Tiffany Riess" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Zack Blanchard" ; "Gary Diridoni" ; "Jim Thompson" Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 10:56 AM Subject: Next Meeting > Just a reminder that the Trinity River Watershed Council meeting is being > held at the Trinity River Restoration Office tomorrow at 9:30. > > See you all there > > Alex > > -- > Alex Cousins > Trinity County RCD > PO Box 1450 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > > 530-623-6004 (office) > 530-623-6006 (fax) > acousins at tcrcd.net > www.tcrcd.net > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Oct 7 11:57:25 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 11:57:25 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: watershed workgroup Message-ID: <028f01c928ae$8d4d1730$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Gaeuman" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 11:45 AM Subject: watershed workgroup >A joint meeting of the TRRP Watershed Workgroup and Trinity Watershed > Council will be held tomorrow (wednesday) at 9:30 at the TRRP office in > Weaverville. The agenda is as follows: > > Information on Cal Fish and Game grants Tom > Stokely > > Review of 2008 contracting issues and requirements for 2009 Dave > Gaeuman > & Pricilla > Davee > > Timeline for 2009 project development Dave > Gaeuman > > Review/update/prioritize watershed project inventory Alex > Cousins > (including status of 2008 obligations) > > Participants are encouraged to propose new projects for implementation > with FY2009 funds. > We will adjourn no later than 11:45. > > > > > David Gaeuman > Trinity River Restoration Program > PO Box 1300 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > dgaeuman at usbr.gov > (530) 623-1813 > fax: (530) 623-5944 > > From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Oct 8 09:19:09 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 09:19:09 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Reminder: NEC Klamath Settlement Presentation Oct. 15 Message-ID: <01b201c92961$98dd5b60$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Greg King Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 2:05 PM Subject: Reminder: NEC Klamath Settlement Presentation Oct. 15 This is a reminder that the NEC's presentation of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008 7 to 9 p.m. Wharfinger, Eureka We will discuss details of the complex and controversial Restoration Agreement, the elusive "hydro agreement" that would decommission four Klamath River dams, and upcoming hearings of Pacificorp's 401 "clean water certification" process that also could result in dam removal. Greg King Executive Director Northcoast Environmental Center 1465 G Street Arcata, CA 95521 (707) 822-6918 greg at yournec.org http://www.yournec.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Oct 8 15:54:41 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 15:54:41 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] LA Times 10/8 Water Policy Op-Ed Message-ID: Opinion A heartfelt plea for a sensible water policy Heal the Bay's founder lays out her vision for a clean and sustainable state supply. Los Angeles Times - 10/8/08 By Dorothy Green Dorothy Green is founding president of Heal the Bay, the Los Angeles/San Gabriel River Watershed Council and a founder of the California Water Impact Network. To everything there is a season; but water is eternal. Or it was, until we started disturbing its natural rhythms. We penned it behind dams and diverted it to aqueducts, starving the life out of rivers and creating an unsupportable addiction to using more water than we need to live. Despite the looming crisis in water, we have enough to live on, but not enough to waste. And waste it we have, with great enthusiasm for lush green lawns in a desert and a penchant for backroom deals with agribusiness. These deals end up as sweetheart ones for the moneyed corporate farmers, providing them with essentially a bountiful private water supply, which they sell off at a profit, while the rest of us are carefully metered and potentially rationed. I have spent more than 30 years fighting for clean water and a sustainable supply for California. As this is being written, I am bedridden, under hospice care. I am making one last plea for common-sense management of our water supply in a manner that protects public health and the environment while sustaining business and agriculture. How? The state Water Resources Control Board already has the authority -- legal and regulatory -- to manage the state's water resources. But it hasn't been doing so. For example, it has issued from five to seven times the amount of water rights than there is available water. It is also responsible for water rights and quality in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, yet 10 sewage treatment plants in the delta area discharge treated wastewater that contains large amounts of pollutants into the water supply. The board should be depoliticized and sufficiently funded so that it can do its duty effectively. It should create a sustainable water plan that has teeth, with bipartisan support from the governor and the Legislature. This is how to make this happen: * Create an independent structure for water rights: a water court comprising three appointed administrative law judges who specialize in water rights to handle those disputes before the board. Their decision-making must be consistent with applicable law, but there should be a mandate that they allocate water according to the actual availability of supply in the state. They also should review past water-rights decisions to bring them in line with existing supplies. * The board should develop a sustainable water plan with accountability. Enforcement mechanisms would include financial penalties and operating restrictions for wayward agencies. There also should be an independent and public biennial assessment of the plan's implementation. * The sustainable water plan should include an allocation of water rights based on available supply; a ban on discharging wastewater into our drinking water supplies unless it meets Title 22 public health standards for water recycling (similar to drinking water standards); meter every water use, including agriculture, not just those of urban dwellers; mandate use of recycled water throughout the state; mandate low-impact development for all projects, including transportation, in order to capture storm water on-site to replenish local groundwater aquifers; and fast-track a groundwater cleanup program. * Develop a steady revenue stream to support the water-rights court and the board. The funding must not be dependent on the general fund budget. There are a number of fees that support the board, but they are not enough. Additional funds should come from water supply agencies based on their water usage. * Do not approve a deal for a new water bond until these changes have been put in place. Although past bonds have done some good, they haven't helped us face the increasing water scarcity caused by climate change and increasing population. The time for consensus and compromise has long passed. If there is one thing I've learned in my lifetime of activism, change doesn't come easily, but without it, the environment will continue to degrade along with our quality of life. Don't allow our water future to be decided by special interests. Anne Frank said, "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." I agree. Let's start now. Byron Leydecker, JCt Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Sat Oct 11 09:45:31 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:45:31 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Tom Stokely Retirement Party Message-ID: Tom Stokely, Trinity County Planner, is retiring the end of this month. Attached is an announcement of a party in his honor. Tom has been one of the most competent and effective advocates for the Trinity River's restoration for the past 25 years. He is highly intelligent and a walking encyclopedia of Trinity River facts - Trinity Division history, impacts of diversions upon the Basin and activities of diverted water beneficiaries, as well as an advocate of restoration, and otherwise the person with "on the job" experience and knowledge in all phases of restoration efforts and its hurdles throughout the years. Unhappily, I will not be able to join in this tribute to Tom. However, with CalTrout we did honor him a few years ago for his devotion and for his achievements in the pursuit of Trinity River restoration. He deserves the thanks of all of us for his incredibly constructive work for the river, the Trinity Basin and its economy. Trinity County has been unusually fortunate to have had him in its service. Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Toms_Retirement_Flyer[1].doc Type: application/msword Size: 25088 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Oct 14 19:33:05 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:33:05 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Action Alert for the Tuolumne River Message-ID: <10FB39C85D6F433D86F232339E1AC68B@ByronsLaptop> I support this effort - it's genuinely within the realm of reality. I signed on to the letter as an individual. You also can help salmon and steelhead by signing the letter and, if possible, by showing up for the October 30 hearing. Byron Stop the Water Grab - A Call to Action Friends, This is it - the final few weeks of a multi-year campaign to stop the SFPUC water grab - one that could seriously harm the health of the Tuolumne River. A final decision is likely on October 30th. The time to act is now. Please send an email to the SFPUC and encourage them to prioritize water conservation and recycling over taking any more water out of the River! And then please forward this email to your friends and ask them to do the same. http://www.tuolumne.org/content/staticpages/index.php/letter_commissioners Send a letter to the SFPUC: http://www.tuolumne.org/content/staticpages/index.php/letter_commissioners We've come a long way. A few short months ago, the SFPUC (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission) was considering a controversial plan to take an additional 25 million gallons of water per day out of the Tuolumne River. Most of this increase would have been for outdoor use. Imagine it: pristine Hetch-Hetchy water - some of the best drinking water in the world - being sprinkled on lawns. While that option is still on the table, SFPUC staff are now recommending a compromise - a variant that would leave most of that water in the River and turn to water conservation and recycling instead, at least until the year 2018. Make no mistake - this has the potential to be a huge victory. But we still have major concerns - assurances that the SFPUC and it's customers won't go over their cap are weak, and the plan would still allow for an additional 2 million gallons a day to be diverted. 59% of flows are already diverted in an average year (up to 90% in some years) - meanwhile, we've seen our native salmon and steelhead populations crash. So right now, please email the Commissioners of the SFPUC and urge them to choose a plan that keeps every drop of remaining water in the River: http://www.tuolumne.org/content/staticpages/index.php/letter_commissioners. Then forward this alert to your friends. For the river, Jessie Raeder Bay Area Organizer Tuolumne River Trust 111 New Montgomery, #205 San Francisco, CA 94105 (415) 882-7252 ext. 301 jessie at tuolumne.org www.tuolumne.org www.tuolumne.org/bayarea MARK YOUR CALENDAR: On October 30, their will be two important hearings and the SFPUC will likely decide whether to go with a plan that diverts more water from the river or one that doesn't. October 30 will be the moment of truth; the culmination of several years of campaigning for a project that will not increase diversions from the Tuolumne. We are asking Tuolumne supporters to come out in droves - if folks were to do one major action to protect the source of the Bay Area's drinking water this year - this is it. Take the day off and clear the schedule if you can! We will be in touch again as soon as the times and locations of those hearings are finalized. Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 6278 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Oct 10 13:04:12 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:04:12 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] October Watershed Council Meeting Message-ID: <00e601c92b13$5eb60550$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Cousins" To: "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Andy Baker" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Bernie Aguilar" ; ; "Bill Kuntz" ; "Tom Walz" ; "Colleen O'Sullivan" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Erica Spohn" ; "John Ribinsky" ; "Joyce Andersen/R5/USDAFS" ; "Kenneth Baldwin" ; "Loren Everest" ; "Mark Dowdle" ; "Mark Lancaster" ; "Michele Fortner" ; "Noreen Doyas" ; "Pat Frost - TCRCD" ; "Andy Hill" ; "Sandra Perez" ; "Susan Erwin" ; "Tiffany Riess" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Zack Blanchard" ; "Gary Diridoni" ; "Jim Thompson" Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 9:43 AM Subject: October Meeting > Here is the criteria for the TRRP funding, as well as a project concept > form. > > The October meeting is for the 22nd at 2pm at the Trinity PUD conference > room. > > Alex > -- > Alex Cousins > Trinity County RCD > PO Box 1450 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > > 530-623-6004 (office) > 530-623-6006 (fax) > acousins at tcrcd.net > www.tcrcd.net > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: TRRP Criteria.doc Type: application/msword Size: 26624 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: TRWC Project Concept Form.doc Type: application/msword Size: 91648 bytes Desc: not available URL: From windhorse at jeffnet.org Sat Oct 11 11:52:37 2008 From: windhorse at jeffnet.org (Jim Carpenter) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:52:37 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Tom Stokely Retirement Party In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Greetings, I'd certainly agree with that assessment. Tom has also been a source of inspiration in keeping the Trinity list going, something we have struggled with in the Klamath River Upper Basin for years, as a great tool for keeping the watershed networked and informed. Bon Voyage! Jim -----Original Message----- From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us]On Behalf Of Byron Leydecker Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 9:46 AM To: FOTR List; Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Tom Stokely Retirement Party Tom Stokely, Trinity County Planner, is retiring the end of this month. Attached is an announcement of a party in his honor. Tom has been one of the most competent and effective advocates for the Trinity River's restoration for the past 25 years. He is highly intelligent and a walking encyclopedia of Trinity River facts - Trinity Division history, impacts of diversions upon the Basin and activities of diverted water beneficiaries, as well as an advocate of restoration, and otherwise the person with "on the job" experience and knowledge in all phases of restoration efforts and its hurdles throughout the years. Unhappily, I will not be able to join in this tribute to Tom. However, with CalTrout we did honor him a few years ago for his devotion and for his achievements in the pursuit of Trinity River restoration. He deserves the thanks of all of us for his incredibly constructive work for the river, the Trinity Basin and its economy. Trinity County has been unusually fortunate to have had him in its service. Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Oct 15 13:31:06 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:31:06 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: October Meeting Message-ID: <007801c92f05$d0c36ca0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Cousins" To: "Abbey Stockwell" ; "Andreas Krause" ; "Andy Baker" ; "Arnold Whitridge" ; "Bernie Aguilar" ; ; "Bill Kuntz" ; "Tom Walz" ; "Colleen O'Sullivan" ; "Dave Gaeuman" ; "Erica Spohn" ; "John Ribinsky" ; "Joyce Andersen/R5/USDAFS" ; "Kenneth Baldwin" ; "Loren Everest" ; "Mark Dowdle" ; "Mark Lancaster" ; "Michele Fortner" ; "Noreen Doyas" ; "Pat Frost - TCRCD" ; "Andy Hill" ; "Sandra Perez" ; "Susan Erwin" ; "Tiffany Riess" ; "Tom Stokely" ; "Zack Blanchard" ; "Gary Diridoni" ; "Jim Thompson" Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 1:04 PM Subject: October Meeting >I have attached the agenda for next weeks meeting at the Trinity PUD at > 2 in the afternoon. > > Please bring project concepts so we can update our list and get projects > prioritized for the 2009 TRRP funding cycle. > > Thanks > > Alex > -- > Alex Cousins > Trinity County RCD > PO Box 1450 > Weaverville, CA 96093 > > 530-623-6004 (office) > 530-623-6006 (fax) > acousins at tcrcd.net > www.tcrcd.net > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WSC Agenda 10-22.doc Type: application/msword Size: 34816 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Thu Oct 16 09:22:01 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:22:01 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Newspaper article about Dorothy and the "fake drought" Message-ID: <021e01c92fac$f33ab0c0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Dorothy's memorial is today. TS Dorothy Green's Final Fight: Before She Died, Heal the Bay Founder Said California's Drought Is a Fake "If we managed water differently - better - there would be plenty of water for the state of California." Los Angeles Weekly - 10/16/08 By Judith Lewis I didn't go to talk to Dorothy Green because she was dying. I wasn't looking to do a tribute. I went because I was working up a story about water, about how we use it and abuse it, mismanage it and waste it, and about how the bipartisan water bond being pushed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein - with its provisions for new dams and "water conveyance" projects - is a really bad idea. In August, I had gone to a protest rally against the water bond at which Green had spoken, and in the brief interview we had that day, I realized how much of my thinking about water - about Southern California's wasted storm water, the Central Valley's reckless and polluting agricultural irrigation, the rage that simmers up in me when people call storm drains "sewers" and dump crap into them -traced back to Green. I had never sat down and talked to her. She gave me her card and told me to call. A few weeks after the rally, I did. I told her I wanted to follow up on some of the ideas she'd brought up, specifically her claim that California wasn't really suffering an epic drought. "It's a manufactured drought," she'd told me. "It's being staged so that Big Ag can take control of the water supply and sell it back to consumers at a profit." I asked if we could set up an interview. "Sure," she said, "but you'd better hurry. Because, you know, I'm dying." Two days later, we sat down on the couch in the living room of the Westwood home where she'd lived for 40 years and raised three sons. She spoke haltingly, frequently stopping to scold herself for losing her train of thought. The melanoma she'd fought back for 30 years had resurfaced in 2003 as a brain tumor, "the first of a half-dozen metastases," she explained, and left her struggling to keep her body balanced and her mind from stubbornly wandering. "Oh, brain!" she'd say as she paused, and then continue on in a perfectly articulated explanation of the Reclamation Act of 1902, which stipulated that water subsidized by the state, harnessed and husbanded for agricultural irrigation, should go only to family farms. Her pauses were mitigated by the urgency of her message, by the sense she had that this was her last chance to save the declining species of the California Delta, including the smelt and salmon, and to put right more than a century of corruption that had robbed California's citizens of their right to clean, safe water - to drink, to water their gardens, to swim in. "If water were managed differently - better - there would be plenty of water for the state of California, even with all the people in it now," she insisted. "What we need is for the state to do its job." She was calling for a restructuring of the State Water Resources Control Board, "so that appointees to the board could never be fired for political reasons." She was still working hard to make it happen. And she was still trying to persuade California's lawmakers and citizens that "Big Ag," as she called it, had spent the past century pulling a fast one on the public. At the time of the Reclamation Act, "a family farm was 160 acres," Green explained. "The Central Valley clearly does not have family farms. And yet they exist on water subsidized by the state. It's a huge scandal." As she explains in her 2007 book, Managing Water: Avoiding Crisis in California,the limit was later raised to 960 acres. "But before that, they played a lot of interesting games, setting up farms to make them look like family farms, when they were actually corporations. "What we want to find out now is who really owns the farms in the Westlands Water District, which is the largest water district in the nation. Nobody has really taken a look at this business of Big Ag, of all these corporations. Who are the real owners? How many owners are there, really, of this subsidized water?" And then the phone rang, as it would many times while we talked. She took every call. "I've got many, many good friends," she said, smiling. "Really good friends. I've been lucky." Dorothy Green died on October 13, at the age of 79. She'd been an activist since 1972, and over her lifetime worked on campaign finance reform, lobbied for laws to protect the environment and fought the irresponsible siting of nuclear power plants. But nothing mattered to her as much as water. In 1985, she founded Heal the Bay to address the problem of sewage and other pollution pouring into local coastal waters; 11 years later, she brought together disparate water agencies, politicians and environmentalists to form the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council. She was outspoken, but, unlike her mentor, coastal-protection activist Ellen Stern Harris - who once openly wished a tsunami would wipe away coastal development - Green kept her head. Managing Water, published last year by University of California Press, is a straightforward and sober analysis of where California's water comes from, who gets it and how. There are many things to learn from it, including how to tackle a topic you're passionate about without alienating the people who most need to hear you. # http://www.laweekly.com/2008-10-16/news/dorothy-green-39-s-final-fight-before-she-died-heal-the-bay-founder-said-california-39-s-drought-is-a-fake/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Oct 16 12:02:58 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:02:58 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River to Winter Flows Message-ID: <492D08F665FA4EBBA9084534E86ABAB0@byronPC> Please make the following release change at Lewiston Dam: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) 10/16/08 2000 450 400 10/16/08 2400 400 350 10/17/08 0400 350 300 Ordered by: Peggy Manza (MP - USBR) note: decreasing to winter flow level Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov Thu Oct 16 11:32:33 2008 From: PMANZA at mp.usbr.gov (PEGGY MANZA) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:32:33 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Release Change FYI only Message-ID: An FYI notice for those of you who did not receive this message the first time I sent it out. For those of you who have seen this, I apologize for the duplicate emails. Please make the following release change at Lewiston Dam: date time from (cfs) to (cfs) 10/16/08 2000 450 400 10/16/08 2400 400 350 10/17/08 0400 350 300 Ordered by: Peggy Manza note: decreasing to winter flow level From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Oct 17 10:09:46 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:09:46 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity New York Times October 17 2008 Message-ID: American Journeys | The Trinity Alps California's Overlooked Peaks Jim Wilson/The New York Times The peak that evokes comparisons with the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps, seen from a meadow near Josephine Lake. By JOHN MARKOFF Published: October 17, 2008 IN the far reaches of Northern California, traffic rushes up and down the I-5 freeway corridor without a glimpse of the Trinity Alps, tucked just over the ridge to the west. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Exploring California's Trinity AlpsSlide Show Exploring California's Trinity Alps The Trinity AlpsMap The Trinity Alps Enlarge This Image Jim Wilson/The New York Times The town of Etna. More Photos > For most Californians, the notion of mountains conjures up the vast Sierra Nevada. In contrast, the Trinities are relatively pocket-sized. Sixty miles southwest of Mount Shasta and a five-hour drive from the San Francisco Bay area, the region exudes an off-the-beaten-path feel of a place that time is in the process of forgetting. I have been in the Trinities in every season. The mountains empty out after Labor Day, but they retain their beauty and they remain unspoiled. In years when winter arrives late, I have hiked there well into December. Later there is great cross-country skiing, which lasts until summer. Lore has it that there are really three Trinities: red, green and white. Driving up Highway 3 from the mountain hamlet of Weaverville, it is easy to find the red Trinities in slashes that the road chisels into the rock, revealing the rich hues of igneous peridotite soils found on the eastern slopes. Large swaths of the range provide the green, places where you can walk on seemingly endless vanilla-scented trails under a dense canopy of emerald firs and pines. The crown jewels of this wilderness area, however, are the white Trinities, named for the white granite reminiscent of the Sierras. They lie at the very heart of the mountains, reachable by car only over a 20-mile stretch of the mostly gravel Coffee Creek Road. The public roadway ends at Big Flat Campground, where a trail begins that leads to the Caribou lakes - about a 10-mile hike away. Largely unknown until the early 1970s, when they appeared in a backpacking guide, the Caribous and surrounding lakes are now popular hiking and camping destinations. They are hidden behind Caribou Mountain, which can be viewed from Big Flat, a stunning mountain meadow near the trailhead. >From the same spot, you can also see a bit of the Sawtooth Ridge that snakes through the heart of the white Trinities, linking together a knife-edge serration of granite peaks overlooking more than a dozen lakes. In both ruggedness and splendor, the white Trinities compare favorably to America's most beautiful and remote wilderness regions. >From Big Flat, a private road leads past a locked gate to Josephine Lake, hidden in a glacial cirque, or valley, underneath a granite crag that I had been told evoked comparisons to the Matterhorn. It is a view that is concealed from almost everyone. Tucked away inside the wilderness area and owned for decades by a small group of families, it has long had the forbidden flavor of a hidden treasure. Settlers first came to the Trinities in numbers during the 1850s with the California gold rush, disturbing what for eons had been the summer hunting lands of the Wintu and several other tribes of American Indians. Today the Trinities still bear the scars of extensive gold mining operations, ranging from placer mining that rerouted river and stream beds to a scattering of abandoned mining tunnels, some of which were operated into the 1930s. The miners were followed by the loggers, abetted by the patchwork quilt of private landholdings originally awarded to the railroad companies by the federal government in exchange for building the intercontinental railroads. In 1984 the region was set aside as the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area. Ordinarily a drive around the Trinities is a visual treat. This year, when my wife, Leslie, and I decided to make the trip, huge fires raged in the southwest portion of the mountains, licking up against the Caribou lakes and burning to the north in the Marble Mountain Wilderness. The usually striking blue skies were white for much of the summer. Whenever the winds blew in the wrong direction, an aromatic fog would settle in. Undeterred, we set out for a long weekend. Weaverville, accessible from Highways 3 and 299, serves as the usual southern gateway to the Trinities. But there is also a shortcut. You can duck across a one-lane bridge at Lewiston, once a gold mining town, and save about 10 or 15 minutes on your way to a trailhead at Trinity Alps Resort, a 75-year-old family resort near a horse-pack station, that leads to Morris Meadows. A roughly mile-long mountain meadow and one of the Trinities' most popular hiking destinations, it sits at an elevation of about 4,200 feet and is reached by a hike of about nine miles. It is below Smith Lake, one of the Trinities' most beautiful lakes - accessible only by cross-country routes - and Sawtooth Peak, both at the heart of the white Trinities. Another spot, a few miles up the road, resonates more in my memory: Trinity Lake Resorts, formerly known as Cedar Stock Resort, is set on Trinity Lake, a manmade reservoir that serves as the headwaters for California's Central Valley water system. My memories are from the 1970s and 1980s: steak dinners, salad bars, power boats and water skiing. Cedar Stock was the place to go for a touch of mainstream civilization after spending weeks in the backcountry. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Exploring California's Trinity AlpsSlide Show Exploring California's Trinity Alps The Trinity AlpsMap The Trinity Alps Today, even with a fresh coat of gray paint, the resort feels as if it is quietly fading into the forest. It consists of a main lodge, a string of cabins and a boat dock. Houseboats - bargelike waterborne R.V.'s - have been added to the scene. But this year Trinity Lake is barely more than half full. That leaves a strip-mined quality to the shores, which stretch for hundreds of feet down to the lake's murky, chocolate-colored waters. After a night at the resort, we headed north on Highway 3, a winding forest road that borders the west side of the Trinities, passing through the tiny mountain hamlets of Trinity Center and Coffee Creek. We followed an early stagecoach route that was probably also used by trappers and early settlers. It snaked up over Scott Mountain at the extreme northwest corner of the Trinities and then dipped down to run through Scott Valley, bordering the western flanks of the Marble Mountains, before joining I-5 in Yreka. >From the Scott Mountain summit, a logging road runs west to the border of the Trinity Alps Wilderness, marked by a locked gate. The road parallels the route of the Pacific Crest Trail, a hiking route that extends from Mexico to Canada. From Mount Lassen, the trail runs east-west to make a toe-touch in the Trinities before continuing north. We left the car at the gate, threw on our backpacks and headed for Mosquito Lake and Camp Unalayee, where both of us spent childhood summers and worked on the staff in the '70s. The camp is on private property - we visited friends there - but is adjacent to the Pacific Crest Trail. Big Marshy, a publicly accessible lake with great swimming, lies over a ridge about a mile away Our original plan had been to head from there to where Highway 299 tracks the route of the Trinity River. But fire surrounded the road we had planned to take. So instead we contented ourselves with museum-hopping in Scott Valley. Both Etna and Fort Jones have small museums that reveal a great deal about the Karuks, the indigenous people who lived along the Salmon and the Klamath Rivers, and the miners, loggers and ranchers who displaced them. "Scott Valley is the best place in the world to grow up and the hardest place in the world to find a job," said Maxine, the friendly volunteer who was our guide in the tiny Etna Museum. Driving south on Highway 3, the next afternoon we hiked along a steep trail that parallels the north fork of Coffee Creek from a trailhead that can be found about 12 miles in along Coffee Creek Road. It is a perfect Trinity Alps trail. We didn't follow it all the way up to Hodges Cabin, four miles back inside the wilderness area, but we went far enough up to find a decent natural pool to jump in on a hot summer day. Back at the car, we ran into Charlie Steele, a 70-something-year-old who grew up at the nearby Trinity Mountain Meadow Resort, which his mother sold in the 1970s. He was pumping water from the creek into a truck, under contract with the Forest Service to aid in fighting the fires. When we found him, he was bent over a front tire flattened by a sharp rock. "It was my fault," he said. We spent our final night at the Carrville Inn. Originally a stage-coach stop along the California- Oregon stage road in 1854, the inn is just off Highway 3, at the northernmost tip of Trinity Lake. A pristine hideaway, this summer the inn featured the gourmet cooking of the innkeeper, Dan Dinniene, who used vegetables grown by a neighbor in a garden next door. The inn also keeps animals for show - horses, chickens, a pig and even a few ostriches. Next year the inn's owners, Sheri and David Overly, plan to operate it as a private retreat for family reunions and similar gatherings. In the morning, with Richard and Virginia Lombardi, who were visiting from Dallas, Mr. Dinniene, who has since left the inn, drove us the entire 20 miles to the end of the Coffee Creek Road and then past the locked gate to Josephine Lake. After daydreaming about the spire that hangs over the lake for more than three decades I finally saw it. It did remind me of the Matterhorn. IF YOU GO THE Trinity Alps are about 286 miles from San Francisco International Airport and 67 miles from Redding Municipal Airport in Redding, Calif. For information on the area, see the Web site www.trinitycounty.com, maintained by the Trinity County Chamber of Commerce in Weaverville. Trail permits and backcountry information can be obtained at the Weaverville Ranger Station (360 Main Street, Weaverville, 530-623-2121), open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. The classic guide to the region is "The Trinity Alps: A Hiking and Backpacking Guide," by Luther Linkhart and Mike White (4th edition, Wilderness Press, July 2004). Trinity Lake Resorts and Marinas, formerly the Cedar Stock Resort (45810 State Highway 3, Trinity Center; 530-286-2225; trinitylakeresort.com), rents out boats, houseboats, and cabins that sleep up to 12 people for $89 to $1,560, depending on the size and the season. Trinity Alps Resort (1750 Trinity Alps Road, Trinity Center; 530-286-2205; trinityalpsresort.com) rents 43 cabins for $800 to $1,500 a week and is open from mid-May through September. It also has a general store and the Bear's Breath Bar and Grill. Carrville Inn ( www.carrvillecountryinn.com; 530-266-3000) is at 581 Carrville Loop Road, Coffee Creek, at the north end of Trinity Lake. The inn plans to reopen in the spring of 2009 for retreats for families and groups. On Highway 3, the Etna Museum (520 Main Street, Etna; etnamuseum.org, open June through September, or by appointment at 530-467-3714) displays both American Indian and settler artifacts. The Fort Jones Museum (11913 Main Street, Fort Jones; 530-468-5568; open Memorial Day through Labor Day) has a more ambitious collection, including newspapers from before the turn of the century. In the front of the museum is the "rain rock," which a local Native American tribe is said to have used to control the weather. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 69094 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 7186 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 12315 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 20060 bytes Desc: not available URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Fri Oct 17 14:35:45 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:35:45 -0400 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity New York Times October 17 2008 Message-ID: As many of you know, hiking the Trinity Alps is pretty special. My two visits to Mirror Lake perched high against a cliff in the headwaters of the Stuart Fork drainage are some of my most special high country memories - makes me think about getting in good enough shape to haul a backpack up and over all those boulders. I also remember some sort of geologic structures with year round streams and far more late summer wildflowers than the Sierras. Spreck Rosekrans -----Original Message----- From: Byron Leydecker [mailto:bwl3 at comcast.net] Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 01:16 PM Eastern Standard Time To: FOTR List; Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity New York Times October 17 2008 American Journeys | The Trinity Alps California's Overlooked Peaks Jim Wilson/The New York Times The peak that evokes comparisons with the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps, seen from a meadow near Josephine Lake. By JOHN MARKOFF Published: October 17, 2008 IN the far reaches of Northern California, traffic rushes up and down the I-5 freeway corridor without a glimpse of the Trinity Alps, tucked just over the ridge to the west. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Exploring California's Trinity AlpsSlide Show Exploring California's Trinity Alps The Trinity AlpsMap The Trinity Alps Enlarge This Image Jim Wilson/The New York Times The town of Etna. More Photos > For most Californians, the notion of mountains conjures up the vast Sierra Nevada. In contrast, the Trinities are relatively pocket-sized. Sixty miles southwest of Mount Shasta and a five-hour drive from the San Francisco Bay area, the region exudes an off-the-beaten-path feel of a place that time is in the process of forgetting. I have been in the Trinities in every season. The mountains empty out after Labor Day, but they retain their beauty and they remain unspoiled. In years when winter arrives late, I have hiked there well into December. Later there is great cross-country skiing, which lasts until summer. Lore has it that there are really three Trinities: red, green and white. Driving up Highway 3 from the mountain hamlet of Weaverville, it is easy to find the red Trinities in slashes that the road chisels into the rock, revealing the rich hues of igneous peridotite soils found on the eastern slopes. Large swaths of the range provide the green, places where you can walk on seemingly endless vanilla-scented trails under a dense canopy of emerald firs and pines. The crown jewels of this wilderness area, however, are the white Trinities, named for the white granite reminiscent of the Sierras. They lie at the very heart of the mountains, reachable by car only over a 20-mile stretch of the mostly gravel Coffee Creek Road. The public roadway ends at Big Flat Campground, where a trail begins that leads to the Caribou lakes - about a 10-mile hike away. Largely unknown until the early 1970s, when they appeared in a backpacking guide, the Caribous and surrounding lakes are now popular hiking and camping destinations. They are hidden behind Caribou Mountain, which can be viewed from Big Flat, a stunning mountain meadow near the trailhead. >From the same spot, you can also see a bit of the Sawtooth Ridge that snakes through the heart of the white Trinities, linking together a knife-edge serration of granite peaks overlooking more than a dozen lakes. In both ruggedness and splendor, the white Trinities compare favorably to America's most beautiful and remote wilderness regions. >From Big Flat, a private road leads past a locked gate to Josephine Lake, hidden in a glacial cirque, or valley, underneath a granite crag that I had been told evoked comparisons to the Matterhorn. It is a view that is concealed from almost everyone. Tucked away inside the wilderness area and owned for decades by a small group of families, it has long had the forbidden flavor of a hidden treasure. Settlers first came to the Trinities in numbers during the 1850s with the California gold rush, disturbing what for eons had been the summer hunting lands of the Wintu and several other tribes of American Indians. Today the Trinities still bear the scars of extensive gold mining operations, ranging from placer mining that rerouted river and stream beds to a scattering of abandoned mining tunnels, some of which were operated into the 1930s. The miners were followed by the loggers, abetted by the patchwork quilt of private landholdings originally awarded to the railroad companies by the federal government in exchange for building the intercontinental railroads. In 1984 the region was set aside as the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area. Ordinarily a drive around the Trinities is a visual treat. This year, when my wife, Leslie, and I decided to make the trip, huge fires raged in the southwest portion of the mountains, licking up against the Caribou lakes and burning to the north in the Marble Mountain Wilderness. The usually striking blue skies were white for much of the summer. Whenever the winds blew in the wrong direction, an aromatic fog would settle in. Undeterred, we set out for a long weekend. Weaverville, accessible from Highways 3 and 299, serves as the usual southern gateway to the Trinities. But there is also a shortcut. You can duck across a one-lane bridge at Lewiston, once a gold mining town, and save about 10 or 15 minutes on your way to a trailhead at Trinity Alps Resort, a 75-year-old family resort near a horse-pack station, that leads to Morris Meadows. A roughly mile-long mountain meadow and one of the Trinities' most popular hiking destinations, it sits at an elevation of about 4,200 feet and is reached by a hike of about nine miles. It is below Smith Lake, one of the Trinities' most beautiful lakes - accessible only by cross-country routes - and Sawtooth Peak, both at the heart of the white Trinities. Another spot, a few miles up the road, resonates more in my memory: Trinity Lake Resorts, formerly known as Cedar Stock Resort, is set on Trinity Lake, a manmade reservoir that serves as the headwaters for California's Central Valley water system. My memories are from the 1970s and 1980s: steak dinners, salad bars, power boats and water skiing. Cedar Stock was the place to go for a touch of mainstream civilization after spending weeks in the backcountry. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Exploring California's Trinity AlpsSlide Show Exploring California's Trinity Alps The Trinity AlpsMap The Trinity Alps Today, even with a fresh coat of gray paint, the resort feels as if it is quietly fading into the forest. It consists of a main lodge, a string of cabins and a boat dock. Houseboats - bargelike waterborne R.V.'s - have been added to the scene. But this year Trinity Lake is barely more than half full. That leaves a strip-mined quality to the shores, which stretch for hundreds of feet down to the lake's murky, chocolate-colored waters. After a night at the resort, we headed north on Highway 3, a winding forest road that borders the west side of the Trinities, passing through the tiny mountain hamlets of Trinity Center and Coffee Creek. We followed an early stagecoach route that was probably also used by trappers and early settlers. It snaked up over Scott Mountain at the extreme northwest corner of the Trinities and then dipped down to run through Scott Valley, bordering the western flanks of the Marble Mountains, before joining I-5 in Yreka. >From the Scott Mountain summit, a logging road runs west to the border of the Trinity Alps Wilderness, marked by a locked gate. The road parallels the route of the Pacific Crest Trail, a hiking route that extends from Mexico to Canada. From Mount Lassen, the trail runs east-west to make a toe-touch in the Trinities before continuing north. We left the car at the gate, threw on our backpacks and headed for Mosquito Lake and Camp Unalayee, where both of us spent childhood summers and worked on the staff in the '70s. The camp is on private property - we visited friends there - but is adjacent to the Pacific Crest Trail. Big Marshy, a publicly accessible lake with great swimming, lies over a ridge about a mile away Our original plan had been to head from there to where Highway 299 tracks the route of the Trinity River. But fire surrounded the road we had planned to take. So instead we contented ourselves with museum-hopping in Scott Valley. Both Etna and Fort Jones have small museums that reveal a great deal about the Karuks, the indigenous people who lived along the Salmon and the Klamath Rivers, and the miners, loggers and ranchers who displaced them. "Scott Valley is the best place in the world to grow up and the hardest place in the world to find a job," said Maxine, the friendly volunteer who was our guide in the tiny Etna Museum. Driving south on Highway 3, the next afternoon we hiked along a steep trail that parallels the north fork of Coffee Creek from a trailhead that can be found about 12 miles in along Coffee Creek Road. It is a perfect Trinity Alps trail. We didn't follow it all the way up to Hodges Cabin, four miles back inside the wilderness area, but we went far enough up to find a decent natural pool to jump in on a hot summer day. Back at the car, we ran into Charlie Steele, a 70-something-year-old who grew up at the nearby Trinity Mountain Meadow Resort, which his mother sold in the 1970s. He was pumping water from the creek into a truck, under contract with the Forest Service to aid in fighting the fires. When we found him, he was bent over a front tire flattened by a sharp rock. "It was my fault," he said. We spent our final night at the Carrville Inn. Originally a stage-coach stop along the California- Oregon stage road in 1854, the inn is just off Highway 3, at the northernmost tip of Trinity Lake. A pristine hideaway, this summer the inn featured the gourmet cooking of the innkeeper, Dan Dinniene, who used vegetables grown by a neighbor in a garden next door. The inn also keeps animals for show - horses, chickens, a pig and even a few ostriches. Next year the inn's owners, Sheri and David Overly, plan to operate it as a private retreat for family reunions and similar gatherings. In the morning, with Richard and Virginia Lombardi, who were visiting from Dallas, Mr. Dinniene, who has since left the inn, drove us the entire 20 miles to the end of the Coffee Creek Road and then past the locked gate to Josephine Lake. After daydreaming about the spire that hangs over the lake for more than three decades I finally saw it. It did remind me of the Matterhorn. IF YOU GO THE Trinity Alps are about 286 miles from San Francisco International Airport and 67 miles from Redding Municipal Airport in Redding, Calif. For information on the area, see the Web site www.trinitycounty.com, maintained by the Trinity County Chamber of Commerce in Weaverville. Trail permits and backcountry information can be obtained at the Weaverville Ranger Station (360 Main Street, Weaverville, 530-623-2121), open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. The classic guide to the region is "The Trinity Alps: A Hiking and Backpacking Guide," by Luther Linkhart and Mike White (4th edition, Wilderness Press, July 2004). Trinity Lake Resorts and Marinas, formerly the Cedar Stock Resort (45810 State Highway 3, Trinity Center; 530-286-2225; trinitylakeresort.com), rents out boats, houseboats, and cabins that sleep up to 12 people for $89 to $1,560, depending on the size and the season. Trinity Alps Resort (1750 Trinity Alps Road, Trinity Center; 530-286-2205; trinityalpsresort.com) rents 43 cabins for $800 to $1,500 a week and is open from mid-May through September. It also has a general store and the Bear's Breath Bar and Grill. Carrville Inn ( www.carrvillecountryinn.com; 530-266-3000) is at 581 Carrville Loop Road, Coffee Creek, at the north end of Trinity Lake. The inn plans to reopen in the spring of 2009 for retreats for families and groups. On Highway 3, the Etna Museum (520 Main Street, Etna; etnamuseum.org, open June through September, or by appointment at 530-467-3714) displays both American Indian and settler artifacts. The Fort Jones Museum (11913 Main Street, Fort Jones; 530-468-5568; open Memorial Day through Labor Day) has a more ambitious collection, including newspapers from before the turn of the century. In the front of the museum is the "rain rock," which a local Native American tribe is said to have used to control the weather. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Mon Oct 20 14:55:20 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:55:20 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity River Hydrology Study RFP Public Notice Message-ID: <012201c932fe$a255be20$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> PUBLIC NOTICE REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS- TRINITY RIVER HYDROLOGY STUDY Copies of the Request for Proposals for the TRINITY RIVER HYDROLOGY STUDY are available at the Trinity County Department of Natural Resources and Long Range Planning, PO Box 1445, 60 Glen Road, Weaverville, CA 96093. Five copies of proposals are due no later than 5:00 pm on Monday November 17, 2008. For Further Information, contact Tom Stokely at 530-623-1458, X3407, or e-mail tstokely at trinitycounty.org Publish: October 15, 2008 Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Oct 21 15:30:48 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:30:48 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Talk at Humboldt State University, Nov 20 Message-ID: <042101c933d7$b5f04f20$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Folks, In my "retirement", I'll still be doing Water Wars for the California Water Impact Network. See http://www.c-win.org/ Below is an announcement for a talk I'll give at Humboldt State University on November 20. FYI, I will be retired by then. My last day is Halloween. Tom Stokely November 20 "The Trinity River, the Peripheral Canal, and the Future of Water in California" Tom Stokely Principal Planner (retired), Trinity Co. Planning Department ** Unless otherwise noted, all events are at 5:30 PM in Founders Hall 118. ** Sponsored by the Environment & Community Graduate Program and the Schatz Energy Research Center. For more information call 826-4345 or visit www.schatzlab.org/speaker_series.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Oct 21 19:28:49 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:28:49 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Fresno Bee 10 21 08 Wanger Delta Ruling Message-ID: <1526EA4B57E142F183F78976AA4E28A5@ByronsLaptop> Judge: Delta salmon 'unquestionably in jeopardy' By TRACIE CONE 10/21/08 18:55:36 A federal judge ruled Tuesday that California's canal water systems are placing wild salmon "unquestionably in jeopardy," but stopped short of issuing court-order limits on pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Environmental groups had sought the temporary pumping limits to guard three species of migrating salmon in the delta until a new fish protection is due in March. But U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger declined to do so, after the state Department of Water Resources said last month it would voluntarily reduce pumping to protect the juvenile fish. "Upon initial glance, the department believes that the judge handed down a responsible ruling," said spokesman Ted Thomas. If environmental groups want to make new arguments for court-ordered pumping limits, Wanger wrote, any motion filed would be "heard on an expedited basis," an offer attorneys are considering. "We need to decide whether it's worth doing for this short amount of time or not," said Michael Sherwood, an attorney for Earthjustice. Chinook salmon and steelhead freely migrated on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers until the federal and state system of dams built to deliver water via canals to the state's arid areas blocked their paths. Now up to 42 percent of the endangered juvenile fish die as they are sucked into Delta pumps that send water into canals. Wanger's opinion eased the fears of farmers worried about impacts of mandatory water cutbacks on an agricultural industry already suffering from drought, while validating concerns by environmentalists as well as fishing groups affecting by the collapse of the state's salmon population. "In the meantime, we've got boats tied up this year and probably next," said a frustrated Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, referring to the resulting ban on commercial and recreational fishing. The ruling stems from Wanger's earlier decision that pitted the endangered fish against Central Valley farmers. In that ruling, he said the National Marine Fisheries Service's biological opinion on water projects tied to the delta does not adequately protect salmon and must be rewritten. In the meantime, environmentalists, fishing groups and water users filed briefs over how the delta and its water should be managed until then. Earthjustice had wanted the judge to order a cutback in pumping that would be legally enforceable. Last month, the Department of Water Resources, intervening on behalf of the water districts who depend on canal water for their constituents, said they would operate the water systems to minimize impacts on salmon, especially during the December-January migration of juvenile fish to the ocean, until the new report comes out. Wanger said that testimony under oath made a court order unnecessary. Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1914 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Oct 21 21:50:04 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:50:04 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Associated Press Message-ID: <3DE6C77295DE48DEB4F6D9B4A946CD9D@ByronsLaptop> updated 5:24 p.m. PT, Tues., Oct. 21, 2008 Feds rush to ease endangered species rules 15 reviewers, 200,000 comments, 32 hours to go through all of them WASHINGTON - Rushing to ease endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office, U.S. Interior Department officials are trying to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours, according to an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press. The Fish and Wildlife Service has called a team of 15 people to Washington this week to pore through letters and online comments about a proposal to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams, power plants and other federal projects could harm species. That would be the biggest change in endangered species rules since 1986. In an e-mail last week to Fish and Wildlife managers across the country, Bryan Arroyo, head of the agency's endangered species program, said the team would work eight hours a day starting Tuesday to the close of business on Friday to sort through the comments. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's office, according to the e-mail, will be responsible for analyzing and responding to them. Last week's end to the public comment period initiated the review. 'Last-ditch attempt' Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, whose own letter opposing the changes is among the thousands that will be processed, called the 32-hour deadline a "last-ditch attempt to undermine the long-standing integrity of the Endangered Species program." At that rate, according to a committee aide's calculation, 6,250 comments would have to be reviewed every hour. That means that each member of the team would be reviewing at least seven comments each minute. It usually takes months to review public comments on a proposed rule, and by law the government must respond before a rule becomes final. "It would seem very difficult for them in four days to respond to so many thoughtful comments in an effective way," said Eric Biber, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Along with other law professors across the country, Biber sent in 70 pages of comment. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall told the AP on Tuesday that the short time for processing the comments was requested by Kempthorne and would set a record. "There is an effort here to see if this can be completed" before the administration is out, Hall said. He said the goal was to have the rule to the White House by early November. In May, the administration set a Nov. 1 deadline for all final regulations. Overruling Congress? How fast the rule is finished could determine how hard it is to undo. A new administration could freeze any pending rules. But if the regulation is final before the next president takes office, reversing it would require going through the review and public comment period again, which could take months and sometimes requires years. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama already has said he would reverse the proposal. Congress also could overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer. Sen. John McCain's campaign has not taken a position on the Bush administration's proposed change in endangered species regulations. Environmentalists said the move was the latest attempt by the Bush administration to overrule Congress, which for years has resisted efforts by conservative Republicans to make similar changes by amending the law. Criticism from environmental groups and Democratic leaders prompted the Interior Department to extend the public comment period from 30 days to 60 days. "Somebody has lit a fire under these guys to get this done in due haste," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive director of Defenders of Wildlife and the head of the Fish and Wildlife Service under former President Clinton. The Interior Department received approximately 300,000 comments over the 60-day comment period, many critical of the changes. About 100,000 of them were form letters, Hall said. Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 693 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Oct 22 09:04:37 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:04:37 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] I'm talking at NCRWQCB Meeting Thursday in Wvvl, 9 am Message-ID: <04bb01c9345f$fe9dc620$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> FYI, I'm giving a short talk after my award about the future of the Trinity River if anybody is interested... See agenda below. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/northcoast/board_info/board_meetings/10_2008/ Meeting Announcement - Agenda 9:00 a.m., Thursday, October 23, 2008 Weaverville Victorian Inn 2015 Main Street Weaverville CA View/Download PDF Version Supporting documents for agenda items are posted on our website at least 10 days prior to the scheduled meeting. To view or download documents, go to www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast. Comments on individual agenda items are welcome. A set of draft materials for each agenda item that will be considered by the Regional Water Board is mailed to each person on the interested parties list. If you wish to be added to our interested parties list for a specific agenda item, please contact the staff person listed with the item in this agenda notice. For comments on an agenda item to be considered by the Regional Water Board, they must be submitted on or before the due date listed in the associated hearing notice, which is mailed to interested parties, and posted on the Regional Water Board's website. For any item for which there is no due date specified by a specific hearing notice, all written submittals shall be due no later than 12:00 noon the Friday before the board meeting or workshop. Timely submittal of comments gives the Regional Water Board staff and the Regional Water Board members sufficient time to familiarize themselves with your concerns and for staff to address them. The Regional Water Board may refuse to accept written comments submitted after the due date in the applicable hearing notice. Pursuant to title 23, California Code of Regulations, section 648.4, the Regional Water Board may refuse to admit written testimony or evidence into the administrative record if it is not submitted to the Regional Water Board in a timely manner, unless the proponent can demonstrate why he or she was unable to submit the material on time or that compliance with the deadline would create an unreasonable hardship. Agenda items are subject to postponement. You may contact the designated staff contact person in advance of the meeting day for information on the status of any agenda item. It is the policy of the State and Regional Water Boards to provide a work environment that is free from threats or acts of violence. Threats or acts of violence committed by, or directed at, any employee will not be tolerated. The Board will not tolerate derogatory conduct directed toward any person based on their race, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or similar characteristics. Any person who appears before the Board has an obligation to represent their interest in a professional manner. The Board requests that all persons in or near a Board meeting refrain from engaging in inappropriate conduct. Inappropriate conduct may include disorderly, contemptuous or insolent behavior, breach of peace, boisterous conduct, violent disturbance or other unlawful interference in the Board's proceedings. Such conduct could subject you to contempt sanctions by the superior court (Gov. Code, ?11455.10.). The North Coast Water Board considers items which may result in Board action or direction to staff. We encourage input from all people interested in a given item or issue, so that when we act, our decision is based on all available information. We expect all statements made before this Board to be truthful, with no attempts to mislead this Board by false statements, deceptive presentation or failure to include essential information. All persons desiring to address the Board are required to fill out a speaker card. The Chair may then determine the number of persons who wish to speak on any one item. Cards are normally provided near the entrance to the meeting room. Except for items designated as time certain, there are no set times for agenda items. Items may be taken out of order at the discretion of the Chair. i. Pledge of Allegiance ii. Roll Call and Introductions iii. Board Member Ex Parte Communication Disclosure - Board Members will identify any discussions they may have had requiring disclosure pursuant to Government Code section 11430.50. iv. State Board Liaison's, Board Chair's, Board Members' and Executive Officer's Reports: These items are for Board discussion only. No public testimony will be allowed, and the Board will take no formal action. v. Public Forum: Time will be reserved for the general public to address the Board on any matter within the Board's jurisdiction, excluding those items on the agenda. The Board Chair may limit the public forum to thirty (30) minutes initially, and continue any remaining appearances beyond the thirty (30) minutes at the end of the regularly scheduled business of the day. The Board Chair requests that each person addressing the Board limit their presentation to three (3) minutes. A. Resolution No. R1-2008-0116 in Appreciation of Tom Stokely Resolution No. R1- 2008-0116 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Oct 22 09:16:45 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:16:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] I'm talking at NCRWQCB Meeting Thursday in Wvvl, 9 am In-Reply-To: <04bb01c9345f$fe9dc620$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> References: <04bb01c9345f$fe9dc620$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <856CAAFD53E64F37806E9C64C4D68AF3@byronPC> Congratulations, Tom Much deserved. Sorry I won?t hear your remarks. Send me a copy if you have anything written, if you would. It would be so very nice, Tom, if all Trinity River matters could be conducted in Marin where I live right on 53 percent of the Trinity River. Byron _____ From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Tom Stokely Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 9:05 AM To: Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] I'm talking at NCRWQCB Meeting Thursday in Wvvl, 9 am FYI, I'm giving a short talk after my award about the future of the Trinity River if anybody is interested... See agenda below. Tom Stokely Principal Planner Trinity Co. Dept of Long Range Planning and Natural Resources PO Box 1445 60 Glen Rd. Weaverville, CA 96093-1445 530-623-1458, Extension 3407 FAX 623-1646 tstokely at trinityalps.net or tstokely at trinitycounty.org http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/northcoast/board_info/board_meetings/10_2008/ Meeting Announcement - Agenda 9:00 a.m., Thursday, October 23, 2008 Weaverville Victorian Inn 2015 Main Street Weaverville CA View/Download PDF Version Supporting documents for agenda items are posted on our website at least 10 days prior to the scheduled meeting. To view or download documents, go to www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast. Comments on individual agenda items are welcome. A set of draft materials for each agenda item that will be considered by the Regional Water Board is mailed to each person on the interested parties list. If you wish to be added to our interested parties list for a specific agenda item, please contact the staff person listed with the item in this agenda notice. For comments on an agenda item to be considered by the Regional Water Board, they must be submitted on or before the due date listed in the associated hearing notice, which is mailed to interested parties, and posted on the Regional Water Board's website. For any item for which there is no due date specified by a specific hearing notice, all written submittals shall be due no later than 12:00 noon the Friday before the board meeting or workshop. Timely submittal of comments gives the Regional Water Board staff and the Regional Water Board members sufficient time to familiarize themselves with your concerns and for staff to address them. The Regional Water Board may refuse to accept written comments submitted after the due date in the applicable hearing notice. Pursuant to title 23, California Code of Regulations, section 648.4, the Regional Water Board may refuse to admit written testimony or evidence into the administrative record if it is not submitted to the Regional Water Board in a timely manner, unless the proponent can demonstrate why he or she was unable to submit the material on time or that compliance with the deadline would create an unreasonable hardship. Agenda items are subject to postponement. You may contact the designated staff contact person in advance of the meeting day for information on the status of any agenda item. It is the policy of the State and Regional Water Boards to provide a work environment that is free from threats or acts of violence. Threats or acts of violence committed by, or directed at, any employee will not be tolerated. The Board will not tolerate derogatory conduct directed toward any person based on their race, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or similar characteristics. Any person who appears before the Board has an obligation to represent their interest in a professional manner. The Board requests that all persons in or near a Board meeting refrain from engaging in inappropriate conduct. Inappropriate conduct may include disorderly, contemptuous or insolent behavior, breach of peace, boisterous conduct, violent disturbance or other unlawful interference in the Board's proceedings. Such conduct could subject you to contempt sanctions by the superior court (Gov. Code, ?11455.10.). The North Coast Water Board considers items which may result in Board action or direction to staff. We encourage input from all people interested in a given item or issue, so that when we act, our decision is based on all available information. We expect all statements made before this Board to be truthful, with no attempts to mislead this Board by false statements, deceptive presentation or failure to include essential information. All persons desiring to address the Board are required to fill out a speaker card. The Chair may then determine the number of persons who wish to speak on any one item. Cards are normally provided near the entrance to the meeting room. Except for items designated as time certain, there are no set times for agenda items. Items may be taken out of order at the discretion of the Chair. i. Pledge of Allegiance ii. Roll Call and Introductions iii. Board Member Ex Parte Communication Disclosure - Board Members will identify any discussions they may have had requiring disclosure pursuant to Government Code section 11430.50. iv. State Board Liaison's, Board Chair's, Board Members' and Executive Officer's Reports: These items are for Board discussion only. No public testimony will be allowed, and the Board will take no formal action. v. Public Forum: Time will be reserved for the general public to address the Board on any matter within the Board's jurisdiction, excluding those items on the agenda. The Board Chair may limit the public forum to thirty (30) minutes initially, and continue any remaining appearances beyond the thirty (30) minutes at the end of the regularly scheduled business of the day. The Board Chair requests that each person addressing the Board limit their presentation to three (3) minutes. A. Resolution No. R1-2008-0116 in Appreciation of Tom Stokely Resolution No. R1- 2008-0116 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Oct 22 14:34:45 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:34:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Associated Press on Wanger Ruling Message-ID: <7E59308439A24B2B8448CCDEFBCA031F@byronPC> If anyone would like a copy of the Order, let me know. I'll send it to you. Judge: Delta salmon 'unquestionably in jeopardy' Associated Press - 10/21/08 By TRACIE CONE, Associated Press Writer FRESNO, Calif.-A federal judge ruled Tuesday that California's canal water systems are placing wild salmon "unquestionably in jeopardy," but stopped short of issuing court-order limits on pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Environmental groups had sought the temporary pumping limits to guard three species of migrating salmon in the delta until a new fish protection plan is due in March. But U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger declined to do so, after the state Department of Water Resources said last month it would voluntarily reduce pumping to protect the juvenile fish. "Upon initial glance, the department believes that the judge handed down a responsible ruling," said spokesman Ted Thomas. If environmental groups want to make new arguments for court-ordered pumping limits, Wanger wrote, any motion filed would be "heard on an expedited basis," an offer attorneys are considering. "We need to decide whether it's worth doing for this short amount of time or not," said Michael Sherwood, an attorney for Earthjustice. Chinook salmon and steelhead freely migrated on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers until the federal and state system of dams built to deliver water via canals to the state's arid areas blocked their paths. Now up to 42 percent of the endangered juvenile fish die as they are sucked into Delta pumps that send water into canals. Wanger's opinion eased the fears of farmers worried about impacts of mandatory water cutbacks on an agricultural industry already suffering from drought, while validating concerns by environmentalists as well as fishing groups affecting by the collapse of the state's salmon population. "In the meantime, we've got boats tied up this year and probably next," said a frustrated Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, referring to the resulting ban on commercial and recreational fishing. The ruling stems from Wanger's earlier decision that pitted the endangered fish against Central Valley farmers. In that ruling, he said the National Marine Fisheries Service's biological opinion on water projects tied to the delta does not adequately protect salmon and must be rewritten. In the meantime, environmentalists, fishing groups and water users filed briefs over how the delta and its water should be managed until then. Earthjustice had wanted the judge to order a cutback in pumping that would be legally enforceable. Last month, the Department of Water Resources, intervening on behalf of the water districts who depend on canal water for their constituents, said they would operate the water systems to minimize impacts on salmon, especially during the December-January migration of juvenile fish to the ocean, until the new report comes out. Wanger said that testimony under oath made a court order unnecessary. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Oct 23 12:47:58 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:47:58 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle October 23 Message-ID: Change certain for the delta, report says San Francisco Chronicle - 10/23/08 By Kelly Zito (10-22) 19:43 PDT -- With or without human intervention, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta will change radically in the future, the result of climate change, invasive species and earthquakes, according to a new scientific report. Oakland gets loan to house AIDS-disabled people 10.23.08 With implications for everything from drinking water supplies in California to urban planning, the study's authors hope their work will help policymakers to revive an ecosystem widely recognized as on life support. "The delta is in crisis," said Joseph Grindstaff, director of the CalFed Bay-Delta program, sponsor of the report and the state agency that oversees the delta. "Now and in the next year or two, we'll make really important decisions - this report is a foundation." Grindstaff and others spoke during a gathering in Sacramento on Tuesday for the release of "State of Bay-Delta Science, 2008," a 174-page report detailing the history of the delta and its myriad problems today. The CalFed report, unveiled during a three-day conference on the delta, pulls together information from several other recent, influential studies. A report earlier this year by the Public Policy Institute of California, for instance, recommended the building of a so-called peripheral canal, a massive pipeline that would route water from the Sacramento River to pumps in the southern delta. Last week, the governor-appointed Delta Blue Ribbon Task Force concluded some kind of conveyance system is necessary, along with new dams, reservoirs, desalination technology and a new governing body for the delta that would replace CalFed, an agency often criticized as ineffectual. The CalFed report did highlight a handful of key points, including recent data showing dwindling groundwater supplies and land levels in the Central Delta declining to 30 to 40 feet below sea level by 2200. Of immediate concern is the fate of crashing fish populations within the 1,300-square mile estuary. The delta smelt, a tiny fish that smells like cucumber, remains the most imperiled due to increasing toxicity, warmer water and to large-scale killings by giant pumps that send water around the state. In response, a federal judge last year slashed water exports from the delta, adding urgency to plans to fix the hub of a system that supplies water to 23 million urban and rural Californians. In their report, CalFed scientists said some "last ditch" efforts may be the answer to preserving species like the delta smelt. Those include freezing the fish's genetic material, genetically engineering the fish's ability to withstand higher water temperatures, or creating hatcheries, or "zoos" for the fish. "When you look at how the delta will change, it will probably become uninhabitable for some species ... the delta smelt being one of the prime examples," said Michael Healey, former lead scientist for CalFed and editor of the report. To safeguard the dozens of endangered delta plants, Healey suggested depositing their genetic material into seed banks. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Al Donner acknowledged that smelt populations "are going low, and lower and lower." But he said his agency is focused first and foremost on protecting the species and minimizing any harmful impacts. Donner had not seen the study's discussion of saving genetic material. One of the most significant conclusions of the report had less to do with solutions to a specific problem and more to do with a more comprehensive approach to the delta. Decisions on the delta come not just from global warming and fish spawning data, authors said, but also from diverse groups - urban and rural communities, environmentalists, industry and government. Work on the delta has been characterized by "constant tension," according to report author Richard Norgaard. "The delta depends on all of us working together." Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Oct 24 09:58:53 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:58:53 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] State of Bay-Delta Science Book: Fact or Fiction (Updated Article!) Message-ID: <098501c935fa$ec8e61a0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 5:28 PM Subject: State of Bay-Delta Science Book: Fact or Fiction (Updated Article!) State of Bay-Delta Science Book: Fact or Fiction? by Dan Bacher The CAL-FED "Science" Program yesterday published a book, the "State of Bay-Delta Science, 2008," supposedly summarizing the "significant new knowledge" gleaned from eight years of research into water supply and water quality, ecosystems and levee fragility in the California Delta, according to a CAL-FED news release. However, the question is whether the book is a non-fiction publication based on scientific fact - or actually a highly compromised work of science fiction. For those not familiar with CAL-FED, it is the joint-state federal agency, formed after a "Water Summit" by the state and federal governments in Sacramento in 1994, that has presided over the dramatic decline of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, white sturgeon, striped bass, threadfin shad and other fish in the California Delta-San Francisco Bay Estuary. The collapse of these species has huge implications for fisheries up and down the West Coast, since the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is the largest and most important estuary on the Pacific Coast. Recreational and commercial salmon fishing is closed in ocean waters off California and Oregon for the first time in history this year, due to the collapse of Central Valley fall run chinook salmon populations. Those of us aware of the numerous examples of political manipulation of science to serve corporate agribusiness and water developers under the Schwarzenegger and Bush administrations have become very wary of "political science" masquerading as "natural science" in reports such as this one. For example, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, a supposedly "independent" body appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, released a report last week advocating the construction of a peripheral canal and more dams to "restore" Delta fisheries, even though they would certainly further imperil collapsing populations of Central Valley chinook salmon and Delta fish. The CAL-FED publication was released on the eve of the 5th Biennial CALFED Science Conference, initiating the gathering of 1,200 San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta scientists, managers and policy makers at the Sacramento Convention Center. The effort was led by Michael Healey, a former CALFED Lead Scientist and Science Advisor to the Governor?s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force. ?This is a landmark publication summarizing our current understanding of the Delta by the most knowledgeable experts on the estuary,? claimed Cliff Dahm, CALFED Lead Scientist. ?I envision this as a go-to book for managers and policy makers, as well as interested members of the public that are working to gain a better understanding through science of forces at work in the Delta." One of the key findings, in an apparent attempt by "political biologists" to exonerate the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations from their role in engineering the Pelagic Organism Decline, as well as the collapse of Central Valley salmon populations, appears to dismiss water exports as a primary cause for the unprecedented fishery collapse. "Since 2001, both public and scientific attention has focused on the unexpected decline of several open-water fishes (delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass, and threadfin shad)," the report claims. "It is clear that export pumping is only one of several factors contributing to the decline. Other factors include changes in food supply, loss of habitat and toxic chemicals. (Chapter 4). Even worse is this statement in the same chapter, "Nevertheless, there is no conclusive evidence that export pumping has caused population declines. The lack of unequivocal evidence of pumping of large effects of pumping on fish populations does not rule out such effects, and for rare species such as Delta smelt, caution dictates that potential effects should not be ignored (p. 89). The report admits on Page 87 that "Export pumping has been blamed in part for the declines of species such as striped bass (Stevens et. al 1985), Chinook salmon (Kjelson and Brandes 1989), and Delta smelt (Bennett 2005). However, the document then goes on to say "no quantitative estimates have been made of the population level consequences of the losses of fish caused by export pumping." Now doesn't it make sense that if the CAL-FED scientists were going to do a truly scientific study of the reasons for fish collapses, they would engage in an all-out effort to develop "quantitative estimates" of the losses of fish destroyed by the operation of the massive state and federal pumps that export water to subsidized agribusiness and corporate water developers? As Patrick Porgans, independent natural resources consultant so accurately points out, "if the scientists developed quantitative estimates of fish population losses that unequivocally demonstrated the huge impact of the pumps on imperiled fish populations, that would be the kiss of the death for the operation of the pumps. After all, this is not really about fish, but about the mega corporations that receive subsidized water from the state and federal projects only to sell the public back its own water." The report fails to mention that some of the largest annual water export levels in history occurred in 2003 (6.3 million acre feet), 2004 (6.1 MAF), 2005 (6.5 MAF and 2006 (6.3 MAF). Exports averaged 4.6 MAF annually between 1990 and 1999 and increased to an average of 6 MAF between 2000 and 2007, a rise of almost 30 percent. The Pelagic Organism Decline and the year classes of Central Valley chinook salmon in collapse correspond directly to the years of record exports, but I couldn't find anywhere in the publication where this crucial bit of scientific data is mentioned. Other "key findings"of the report include: ? The Delta of tomorrow will be very different than it is today. Intensifying forces of change, such as land subsidence, rising sea level, species invasions, earthquakes and regional population growth, virtually guarantee that current land and water use in the Delta cannot be sustained. (Chapter 1). ? Many toxic chemicals are a concern in the Delta. Organisms can often be affected by very low concentrations of contaminants. Effects can be magnified though concentration up the food chain or synergistic effects of mixtures. (Chapter 3) ? With climate change, California will become warmer, more precipitation will fall as rain and less as snow, the snowpack will be much reduced, and there will be less groundwater recharge. These changes will challenge the capacity of California?s water management system to provide reliable, high-quality water to satisfy human and environmental needs. (Chapter 6) Other areas of the book deal with Delta history, science, geophysics, water quality and supply, aquatic ecosystems, levees, climate change, policy development and some themes that are crosscutting across areas and issues. The conference where the book was unveiled features seminars on the Pelagic Organism Decline, salmon management and ecology, estuarine food webs, water quality, riparian habitat and a host of other topics. Again, the topic of export pumping is curiously absent from the conference sessions, as far as I can tell, with the exception of two sessions, one entitled "Evaluation of Daily Delta Flows and Delta Smelt Salvage Density Patterns" and "Splittail Population Dynamics and Water Export from the Delta." Ironically, as the conference presentations are being made, our public trust fisheries continue to collapse. CAL-FED, a joint federal-state agency, has spent hundreds of dollars on scientific studies, conferences and "restoration" programs, but has been a dismal failure to date. The reason for its failure is that the state and federal governments have constantly resisted taking the drastic measures needed to restore salmon and other fish populations, including dramatically reducing water exports from the California Delta and taking drainage impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley out of production. The CAL-FED Process to date has produced nothing but the collapse of Central Valley salmon fisheries and the Bay-Delta ecosystem. The CAL-FED process has been an elitist process where the people most impacted by fishery declines - recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and California Indian Tribes - have been excluded from the decision making process. Meanwhile, those who have presided over the destruction of public trust fish populations - the Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Resources - have completely bent over to serve the needs of corporate agribusiness and the state water contractors. Although I think there is some interesting information available at conferences like this and in the CAL-FED book, the problem is that there are lot of agency staff and consultants making good salaries incessantly "studying the issue," often with apparently pre-determined conclusions, while failing to stop the decline. The state and federal governments have set up a de-facto "restoration industry," in cooperation with some corporate funded NGO's, that extracts hundreds of millions of dollars from the taxpayers with fishery collapses the only concrete result! Patrick Porgans often refers to CAL-FED as "CAL FED UP." This is an appropriate term to describe his and my view of the agency that has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars with only unprecedented fishery collapses, yearly conferences and questionable documents to show for all of the money spent while it refuses to study the quantitative impact of the operation of the pumps on fish populations. Copies of the The State of Bay-Delta Science, 2008, will be available to attendees of the CALFED Science Conference October 22-24, at the Sacramento Convention Center. Hard copies are available by contacting Rhonda Hoover-Flores at rhondah [at] calwater.ca.gov. You can also download a copy of he report by going to http://www.science.calwater.ca.gov/pdf/publications/sbds/sbds_2008_final_report_101508.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Oct 24 14:31:35 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:31:35 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Times Standard 10/24/08 Message-ID: <3CDBCA1101524D7481ABA5E90A4688DD@byronPC> Klamath salmon looking good for 2009 Eureka Times Standard - 10/24/08 John Driscoll/The Times-Standard Early indications are good for Klamath and Trinity river salmon next year, although Sacramento River fish -- whose collapse ground ocean commercial and sport fishing to a halt this year -- may still be struggling. Counts of adult fish and 2-year-old chinook salmon, which are a strong indicator of next year's run, have been strong at several weirs on the Klamath and Trinity. While it's still early, the beginning numbers are encouraging. For example, some 1,000 2-year-olds -- called jacks -- have been counted at the Willow Creek weir. Last year at this time there were 50 counted, said California Department of Fish and Game biologist Wade Sinnen. Biologists don't start tabulating all the information on the two rivers until the end of December, Sinnen said, but so far it appears that the run will be average or perhaps a bit better. Counts at other weirs on Klamath tributaries also are up, he said. "It's really all still up in the air," Sinnen said. Klamath River salmon stocks have long limited fishermen's access to typically more abundant Sacramento River fish in the ocean. That's because they mix at sea, and fishery managers try to limit the effect of fishing on the Klamath salmon. Dave Hillemeier, a senior biologist with the Yurok Tribe, said that information collected from the tribe's fishery is promising. In 2006, commercial fishing for hundreds of miles north and south of the Klamath mouth was severely restricted. But this year, it was a radical decline of Sacramento River fish that triggered an even wider closure of both ocean commercial and sport salmon seasons. Both of the crashes were considered disasters, and prompted Congress to provide tens of millions in relief. All eyes are now on the Sacramento, particularly how many 2-year-old and 3-year-old salmon run up the river and its tributaries. Dick Pool with Water4Fish, a fishing advocacy group, said that the figures he's collected from the Sacramento River don't look good. "All evidence is that Sacramento River runs are down," Pool said. The number of fish predicted to return next year must meet a threshold to allow fishing. Also important is that hatcheries are able to collect enough eggs from adult fish, said Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith, also a sportfishing representative. "If they don't, that means they even more have to protect those four-year-olds for next year," Smith said. Four-year-old fish are especially important to the commercial fishery, which generally has a larger size limit than the sport fishery. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Oct 24 14:33:24 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:33:24 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Capital Press 10/24/08 Message-ID: Task Force report: Build peripheral canal Project could threaten delta agriculture Capital Press - 10/24/08 By Hank Shaw Momentum is growing to construct a peripheral canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, but doing so could jeopardize the century-old farming traditional in the estuary. A task force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger voted 6-0 last week to recommend that the state build the canal in conjunction with the existing method of moving fresh water through the delta toward the giant pumps near Tracy. On Friday, Oct. 17, the Delta Blue Ribbon Task Force issued its findings, codified in a report that required five drafts to complete. Its chief recommendation is to hold the environmental health of the estuary as a co-equal to the needs of the farmers and citizens who rely on water from the pumps. Most experts agree something needs to be done to save the West's largest estuary. Thousands of farmers and millions of urban residents drink water moved from Northern California through the delta down to the State Water Project or Central Valley Project aqueducts; the delta serves as the system's hub. But the hub is rusty and broken. Levees that hold water back from the sunken islands are old and leaky. Water quality has deteriorated enough to put the area's ecosystem on the verge of collapse. The entire region is just an earthquake away from disaster and even without a quake, sea levels are rising enough to flood several islands within the next generation. The estuary has been home to some of California's richest farmland since the Gold Rush. Delta asparagus is world-famous and vegetables are the area's moneymaker. Wheat, rice and corn are also grown there. The prospects of the delta remaining so bountiful look dim. The report released Friday does say that "Delta agriculture is the heart of the regional economy and central to the delta's culture and sense of place." Preserving agriculture in the delta will be a priority, even with the canal. But not everywhere in the estuary. Farmers with land outside proposed floodplains and who aren't in the center of the delta would fare the best. The report specifically says farming should be promoted on Twitchell, Sherman and Jersey islands. What farming might look like under the new regime is unclear. The report talks about farming for carbon sequestration or for wildlife - which in practical terms means letting the land return to the tules that once covered the estuary's network of islands. Under the proposal, farmers who plant tules or other crops that lock in greenhouse gases would get credit under the cap-and-trade program the state is developing to fight global climate change. The farmers could then sell that credit for cash. Farmers in the center of the delta may be out of luck. UC-Davis scientist Jay Lund, who helped develop a Public Policy Institute of California study that influenced the task force's decisions, likened those farmers to miners who have played out a mine. "For some of those farmers, (who are) farming on islands that will be flooded, they will be in a different business," Lund said at a forum on the Peripheral Canal held last week. "Essentially we've mined those islands." Tim Quinn, who leads the California Association of Water Agencies, said he predicted that the state would have to buy out many central delta farmers. "One thing that will happen to some of the landowners is that they'll have a lot more money after this is all over and done with," Quinn said at the forum. Building the canal is by no means assured. There is little the task force recommends that can be done without approval by the Legislature and a canal would likely need additional approval by voters in a ballot measure. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders are expected to renew discussions over both a canal and several new dams as part of a larger water bond this winter; talks bogged down last year because of the budget crisis Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cjralph at humboldt1.com Fri Oct 24 21:20:12 2008 From: cjralph at humboldt1.com (C. John Ralph) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:20:12 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] State of Bay-Delta Science Book: Fact or Fiction (Updated Article!) In-Reply-To: <098501c935fa$ec8e61a0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> References: <098501c935fa$ec8e61a0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Message-ID: <49029E7C.3000709@humboldt1.com> Dear Tom, Thank you for a complete and incisive visiting of the document. As usual, you have cut to the somewhat rotten core of the problems facing us. Keep it up! cheers, c.j. -- -----Dr. C. John Ralph --- U.S. Forest Service, Redwood Sciences Laboratory, 1700 Bayview Drive, Arcata, California 95521. (707) 825-2992 (fax: 825-2901) home: 822-2015 cell: 499-9707 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cjralph at humboldt1.com cjr2 at humboldt.edu cralph at fs.fed.us http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/programs/TimberManagement/staff/cralph/ ------------------------------------------------------------------ Tom Stokely wrote: > > > ----- Original Message ----- *From:* Dan Bacher > *Sent:* Thursday, October 23, > 2008 5:28 PM *Subject:* State of Bay-Delta Science Book: Fact or > Fiction (Updated Article!) > > State of Bay-Delta Science Book: Fact or Fiction? > > by Dan Bacher > > The CAL-FED "Science" Program yesterday published a book, the "State > of Bay-Delta Science, 2008," supposedly summarizing the "significant > new knowledge" gleaned from eight years of research into water supply > and water quality, ecosystems and levee fragility in the California > Delta, according to a CAL-FED news release. However, the question is > whether the book is a non-fiction publication based on scientific > fact - or actually a highly compromised work of science fiction. > > For those not familiar with CAL-FED, it is the joint-state federal > agency, formed after a "Water Summit" by the state and federal > governments in Sacramento in 1994, that has presided over the > dramatic decline of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, > longfin smelt, green sturgeon, white sturgeon, striped bass, > threadfin shad and other fish in the California Delta-San Francisco > Bay Estuary. > > The collapse of these species has huge implications for fisheries up > and down the West Coast, since the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta > is the largest and most important estuary on the Pacific Coast. > Recreational and commercial salmon fishing is closed in ocean waters > off California and Oregon for the first time in history this year, > due to the collapse of Central Valley fall run chinook salmon > populations. > > Those of us aware of the numerous examples of political manipulation > of science to serve corporate agribusiness and water developers under > the Schwarzenegger and Bush administrations have become very wary of > "political science" masquerading as "natural science" in reports > such as this one. For example, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task > Force, a supposedly "independent" body appointed by Arnold > Schwarzenegger, released a report last week advocating the > construction of a peripheral canal and more dams to "restore" Delta > fisheries, even though they would certainly further imperil > collapsing populations of Central Valley chinook salmon and Delta > fish. > > The CAL-FED publication was released on the eve of the 5th Biennial > CALFED Science Conference, initiating the gathering of 1,200 San > Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta scientists, managers and > policy makers at the Sacramento Convention Center. The effort was led > by Michael Healey, a former CALFED Lead Scientist and Science Advisor > to the Governor?s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force. > > ?This is a landmark publication summarizing our current understanding > of the Delta by the most knowledgeable experts on the estuary,? > claimed Cliff Dahm, CALFED Lead Scientist. ?I envision this as a > go-to book for managers and policy makers, as well as interested > members of the public that are working to gain a better understanding > through science of forces at work in the Delta." > > One of the key findings, in an apparent attempt by "political > biologists" to exonerate the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations > from their role in engineering the Pelagic Organism Decline, as well > as the collapse of Central Valley salmon populations, appears to > dismiss water exports as a primary cause for the unprecedented > fishery collapse. > > "Since 2001, both public and scientific attention has focused on the > unexpected decline of several open-water fishes (delta smelt, > longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass, and threadfin shad)," the > report claims. "It is clear that export pumping is only one of > several factors contributing to the decline. Other factors include > changes in food supply, loss of habitat and toxic chemicals. (Chapter > 4). > > Even worse is this statement in the same chapter, "Nevertheless, > there is no conclusive evidence that export pumping has caused > population declines. The lack of unequivocal evidence of pumping of > large effects of pumping on fish populations does not rule out such > effects, and for rare species such as Delta smelt, caution dictates > that potential effects should not be ignored (p. 89). > > The report admits on Page 87 that "Export pumping has been blamed in > part for the declines of species such as striped bass (Stevens et. > al 1985), Chinook salmon (Kjelson and Brandes 1989), and Delta smelt > (Bennett 2005). However, the document then goes on to say "no > quantitative estimates have been made of the population level > consequences of the losses of fish caused by export pumping." > > Now doesn't it make sense that if the CAL-FED scientists were going > to do a truly scientific study of the reasons for fish collapses, > they would engage in an all-out effort to develop "quantitative > estimates" of the losses of fish destroyed by the operation of the > massive state and federal pumps that export water to subsidized > agribusiness and corporate water developers? > > As Patrick Porgans, independent natural resources consultant so > accurately points out, "if the scientists developed quantitative > estimates of fish population losses that unequivocally demonstrated > the huge impact of the pumps on imperiled fish populations, that > would be the kiss of the death for the operation of the pumps. After > all, this is not really about fish, but about the mega corporations > that receive subsidized water from the state and federal projects > only to sell the public back its own water." > > The report fails to mention that some of the largest annual water > export levels in history occurred in 2003 (6.3 million acre feet), > 2004 (6.1 MAF), 2005 (6.5 MAF and 2006 (6.3 MAF). Exports averaged > 4.6 MAF annually between 1990 and 1999 and increased to an average of > 6 MAF between 2000 and 2007, a rise of almost 30 percent. The Pelagic > Organism Decline and the year classes of Central Valley chinook > salmon in collapse correspond directly to the years of record > exports, but I couldn't find anywhere in the publication where this > crucial bit of scientific data is mentioned. > > Other "key findings"of the report include: > > ? The Delta of tomorrow will be very different than it is today. > Intensifying forces of change, such as land subsidence, rising sea > level, species invasions, earthquakes and regional population growth, > virtually guarantee that current land and water use in the Delta > cannot be sustained. (Chapter 1). > > ? Many toxic chemicals are a concern in the Delta. Organisms can > often be affected by very low concentrations of contaminants. Effects > can be magnified though concentration up the food chain or > synergistic effects of mixtures. (Chapter 3) > > ? With climate change, California will become warmer, more > precipitation will fall as rain and less as snow, the snowpack will > be much reduced, and there will be less groundwater recharge. These > changes will challenge the capacity of California?s water management > system to provide reliable, high-quality water to satisfy human and > environmental needs. (Chapter 6) > > Other areas of the book deal with Delta history, science, geophysics, > water quality and supply, aquatic ecosystems, levees, climate > change, policy development and some themes that are crosscutting > across areas and issues. > > The conference where the book was unveiled features seminars on the > Pelagic Organism Decline, salmon management and ecology, estuarine > food webs, water quality, riparian habitat and a host of other > topics. Again, the topic of export pumping is curiously absent from > the conference sessions, as far as I can tell, with the exception of > two sessions, one entitled "Evaluation of Daily Delta Flows and Delta > Smelt Salvage Density Patterns" and "Splittail Population Dynamics > and Water Export from the Delta." > > Ironically, as the conference presentations are being made, our > public trust fisheries continue to collapse. CAL-FED, a joint > federal-state agency, has spent hundreds of dollars on scientific > studies, conferences and "restoration" programs, but has been a > dismal failure to date. > > The reason for its failure is that the state and federal governments > have constantly resisted taking the drastic measures needed to > restore salmon and other fish populations, including dramatically > reducing water exports from the California Delta and taking drainage > impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley out of > production. The CAL-FED Process to date has produced nothing but the > collapse of Central Valley salmon fisheries and the Bay-Delta > ecosystem. > > The CAL-FED process has been an elitist process where the people most > impacted by fishery declines - recreational anglers, commercial > fishermen and California Indian Tribes - have been excluded from the > decision making process. Meanwhile, those who have presided over the > destruction of public trust fish populations - the Bureau of > Reclamation and the California Department of Resources - have > completely bent over to serve the needs of corporate agribusiness and > the state water contractors. > > Although I think there is some interesting information available at > conferences like this and in the CAL-FED book, the problem is that > there are lot of agency staff and consultants making good salaries > incessantly "studying the issue," often with apparently > pre-determined conclusions, while failing to stop the decline. The > state and federal governments have set up a de-facto "restoration > industry," in cooperation with some corporate funded NGO's, that > extracts hundreds of millions of dollars from the taxpayers with > fishery collapses the only concrete result! > > Patrick Porgans often refers to CAL-FED as "CAL FED UP." This is an > appropriate term to describe his and my view of the agency that has > squandered hundreds of millions of dollars with only unprecedented > fishery collapses, yearly conferences and questionable documents to > show for all of the money spent while it refuses to study the > quantitative impact of the operation of the pumps on fish > populations. > > Copies of the The State of Bay-Delta Science, 2008, will be available > to attendees of the CALFED Science Conference October 22-24, at the > Sacramento Convention Center. Hard copies are available by contacting > Rhonda Hoover-Flores at rhondah [at] calwater.ca.gov. You can also > download a copy of he report by going to > http://www.science.calwater.ca.gov/pdf/publications/sbds/sbds_2008_final_report_101508.pdf > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > _______________________________________________ env-trinity mailing > list env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Oct 27 12:21:45 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:21:45 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Tom Stienstra's Take on Drought Message-ID: <8EB4489AB3CC4519B142BFE69FC04891@byronPC> Drought, or water heist? San Francisco Chronicle - 10/26/08 By Tom Stienstra (10-25) 15:19 PDT -- Gov. Schwarzenegger is calling the year's lack of rain and snowfall a drought of epic proportions and points to the low lake levels to prove it. The answer, he says, is passing a $9.3 billion water bond next year to build a peripheral canal and several new reservoirs in a program designed to send more water to points south. The facts are that the past two years are only the ninth driest two-year period in the past 88 years, and that California routinely experiences such periods once every 10 years, according to the Department of Water Resources. What happened last year is that water managers were betting on a wet spring. When it didn't happen, many lakes were drained down to nothing in order to send water to L.A. and farmers. Shastina, tucked on the north slopes of Mount Shasta, is a testament to this bad bet. In the past two summers, water was drained from the lake to irrigate hay fields in the Shasta Valley as if there was no end in sight to the water available. The lake hit bottom last month. So when you drive up to the boat ramp, all you can see is exposed lakebed. This isn't a drought. This is a created shortage. True droughts are measured by soil moisture, and in some cases, water levels at wilderness lakes. In a true drought, soil moisture is so low that plants go into artificial hibernation to protect themselves, as in 1992, and that has not happened. Up in the high country, most wilderness lakes - outside the reach of water-grabbers - are full. Even more telling is that along Interstate 5 near L.A., Pyramid Lake, which gets water from Northern California, is 97 percent full right now. Yet while all this is going on, ocean conditions are setting up right now for decent chance of a very wet fall. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Tue Oct 28 11:25:21 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:25:21 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Dan Walters: Delta Vision not likely to succeed Message-ID: <011001c9392b$7aeeb110$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Dan Walters: Delta Vision not likely to succeed Sacramento Bee ? 10/27/08 By Dan Walters The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the Pacific Coast's largest estuary and a critical habitat for wildlife, as well as the state's major source of water ? but it's in crisis with deteriorating levees, threats from global warming and earthquakes, and court-ordered restrictions on pumping due to water quality problems. How often have we been given that dark picture? Countless times, and twice more this month, once in a report from the Delta Vision Task Force, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to lay the basis for new water policy, and again in a state-sponsored scientific study of Delta issues. Delta Vision recommends compromises among the countless competing ideological and economic stakeholders, better conveyance facilities and a unified system of governing water use, land use and other Delta issues, replacing dozens of agencies that have pieces of the authority. How often have we heard that prescription for the Delta? Just about as often as we have heard the list of its ills. So does Delta Vision's vision have any greater chance of succeeding than past efforts, including one called Cal-Fed that spent about $5 billion only to fail? It would be nothing short of a miracle for two very salient reasons. One is that the water conflict isn't really about water. As important as it may be, water is merely the battleground for the larger debate over how California should develop, especially housing, as its population grows. There are other fronts in that battle, most notably transportation. This year's Senate Bill 375 would redirect transportation financing away from roads serving tracts of single-family homes and toward mass transit connected to higher-density development. Water, however, is an even more powerful factor in development than transportation. Simply put ? and this is now state law ? a housing project cannot proceed without having a specific source of water, and the Delta's increasing unreliability for water helps major environmental groups influence development patterns. That's why they persuaded voters 26 years ago to reject a "peripheral canal," which would have improved both the Delta environment and water supply reliability ? the same solution that Delta Vision and other authorities endorse. And that brings us to the second reason why Delta Vision's report is unlikely to generate policy. The state's water stalemate is a symptom of its chronic inability to deal with issues that arise out of a fast-growing and fast-changing society. Given the ability of any major stakeholder on any issue to block any action that it finds noxious (such as the peripheral canal in 1982), a major water policy advance would require virtual unanimity among dozens of interests. That's virtually impossible to achieve. Ergo, don't expect Delta Vision to be any more successful than past efforts at breaking the stalemate, even as the state experiences worsening water shortages and the Delta continues to deteriorate. # http://www.sacbee.com/walters/story/1343871.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Oct 28 20:21:15 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:21:15 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Wild v. Hatchery Decision Message-ID: <4FD8C9881E68435BBBBBDEF24DA9B6F5@ByronsLaptop> Wild v. Hatchery..Quite Relevant to Trinity River. This is third similar federal court decision. Protections for state's steelhead trout upheld Associated Press - 10/28/08 Samantha Young, Associated Press (10-28) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- A federal judge upheld on Monday protections for wild steelhead trout in California rivers, rejecting an argument by forestry groups that argued the success of hatchery-raised steelhead has made the population sufficiently robust Man killed in Visitacion Valley identified 10.28.08 U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno disagreed. He said hatchery-raised fish are no substitute for wild steelhead. Science shows that hatchery-fish can be beneficial, but they also can be detrimental to wild steelhead, Wanger wrote in his 168-page ruling. Steelhead are listed as either threatened or endangered in different parts of California. In a related claim, the judge also rejected a bid by Central Valley farmers to remove steelhead trout from the federal Endangered Species Act. The farmers pointed to an abundance of resident rainbow trout, steelhead that do not migrate to the ocean. The Modesto Irrigation District had argued that rainbow trout are essentially the same species as wild steelhead. Wanger agreed with federal wildlife scientists, who have said wild steelhead are distinct and indispensable to the survival of the species. It is the third instance in two years in which a federal court has rejected arguments that hatchery fish ought to be counted as part of salmon or steelhead populations, said Steve Mashuda, an attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit group that represented the conservation and fishing groups. The groups pressing the cases say federal wildlife managers should assess an entire fish's population - both wild and hatchery-raised - when deciding whether to protect it. Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Wed Oct 29 12:51:05 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:51:05 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Save-the-Date: River Symposium 6 Dec UC Berkeley Message-ID: <017101c939ff$b1d3eef0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Kristen Podolak To: riverrestoration2007 at lists.berkeley.edu Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 12:25 PM Subject: Save-the-Date: River Symposium 6 Dec UC Berkeley Please SAVE THE DATE You are invited to the sixth annual Berkeley River Restoration Symposium Sat 6 December 2008 9a-1p Wurster Hall Auditorium, UC Berkeley campus The symposium (free and open to the public) features: A keynote talk "The Trinity River, the Peripheral Canal, and the Future of Water in California" by Tom Stokely, Trinity County Planning Department, who draws upon his two decades of experience as an active player in restoration of the Trinity River. Graduate student research projects on topics including post-project appraisal of the Chorro Flats restoration project (San Luis Obispo County) a decade after construction, assessment of riparian vegetation establishment at the Tassajara Ck compound channel project (Alameda County), potential applications of the geomorphically active flood concept to a reach of the lower San Joaquin River, a survey of the effectiveness of instream structures, monitoring of bed mobility and bank erosion as a basis for defining setbacks on Carneros Ck (Napa County), and assessment of surface-groundwater interactions on San Gregorio Ck (San Mateo County). A panel discussion of issues raised by student research projects featuring leading professionals in the field, including Stephanie Carlson (Dept Environmental Science, Policy, and Management UCB), HanBin Liang (WRECO Consultants), and Manny DaCosta (Alameda County Public Works). Presented by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Beatrix Farrand Fund, the California Water Resources Center Archives. For updated schedule and abstracts (available soon) see: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/WRCA/227_08.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Sat Nov 1 12:26:33 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2008 12:26:33 -0700 Subject: [env-trinity] Sac Bee October 31 Message-ID: Placer agency sells 20,000 acre-feet jdowning at sacbee.com Published Friday, Oct. 31, 2008 Placer County Water Agency has sold 20,000 acre-feet of water for $2.5 million to the Westlands Water District, which provides irrigation water to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. The sale is the agency's first to a buyer outside the region since 2001, according to Director of Strategic Affairs Einar Maisch. An acre-foot is 325,581 gallons. PCWA and Westlands are still awaiting approval of the water transfer from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Maisch said Wednesday. The sale will not impact the availability of water for the agency's regular customers, he said. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Nov 2 20:46:20 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 20:46:20 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] State Uses Announcement of Proposed Water Cuts to Push Canal and Dams Message-ID: <02d401c93d6f$daff04e0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 4:08 PM Subject: State Uses Announcement of Proposed Water Cuts to Push Canal and Dams State Uses Announcement of Proposed Water Cuts to Push Canal and Dams By Dan Bacher The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Thursday used a news conference announcing proposed drastic cuts of State Water Project (SWP) deliveries to agribusiness and cities as yet another opportunity to push for a peripheral canal and more dams. DWR Director Lester Snow, conjuring up fears of a prolonged statewide ?drought? doomsday scenario, announced an initial allocation of 15 percent for water delivery to the SWP contractors in 2009. This would be the second lowest in the history of the State Water Project. ?This further dramatizes the urgent need for additional investments in water storage and conveyance infrastructure to assure an adequate and reliable water supply,? said Snow, in support of a controversial $9.3 billion water bond proposal by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein to build more dams and a peripheral canal around the California Delta. ?The uncertainly of precipitation patterns due to global warming and deteriorating conditions in the Delta, California?s main water hub, demand immediate action to enhance our ecosystem and keep our economy productive in the 21st century. The Governor has sounded the wakeup call, and the clock is ticking,? Snow claimed. A broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Delta farmers and conservationists is opposing the Governor?s water bond because they believe it will result in increased water exports from the Delta and exacerbate the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, striped bass, threadfin shad and other fish poulations. Although massive opposition to the proposal prevented the Governor and Assemblyman Dave Cogdill from getting legislative approval for the water bond, political insiders expect the pro-canal forces to try to put the bond on the June ballot. Snow said the 15 percent allocation figure reflects ?the low carryover storage levels in the state?s major reservoirs, ongoing drought conditions and court ordered restrictions on water deliveries from the Delta.? The lowest initial allocation figure was 10 percent of SWP Contractors? requests in 1993, but that number was increased to 100 percent during the water year as conditions developed. Last year, the initial figure was 25 percent and it was increased to 35 percent, according to Snow. The Real Reasons Behind the "Drought" Unfortunately, Snow failed to mention that the reason for the low carryover storage was because Shasta, Oroville, Folsom and other northern California reservoirs have been drained to alarmingly low water levels by the state and federal governments to send subsidized water to drainage impaired land in the Westlands Water District and to fill the Kern Water Bank, the Semi-Tropic Water Bank and reservoirs in Southern California. Today?s articles in the S.F. Chronicle, Sacramento Bee and other newspapers about Snow?s announcement failed to mention the real reasons behind the alleged ?drought." Fortunately, Tom Stienstra, S.F. Chronicle outdoor columnist and author, wrote a superb piece, "Drought, or water heist?," in the Chronicle on October 26, exposing this fraud by the Schwarzenegger administration. ?This isn't a drought. This is a created shortage,? Stienstra emphasized. Stienstra cites Department of Water Resources data stating that the past two years are only the ninth driest two-year period in the past 88 years, and that California routinely experiences such periods once every 10 years. ?What happened last year is that water managers were betting on a wet spring,? said Stienstra. ?When it didn't happen, many lakes were drained down to nothing in order to send water to L.A. and farmers.? ?True droughts are measured by soil moisture, and in some cases, water levels at wilderness lakes. In a true drought, soil moisture is so low that plants go into artificial hibernation to protect themselves, as in 1992, and that has not happened. Up in the high country, most wilderness lakes - outside the reach of water-grabbers - are full,? he said. Stienstra contrasts the condition of northern California reservoirs with those of a southern California reservoir that receives its water from the State Water Project. ?Even more telling is that along Interstate 5 near L.A., Pyramid Lake, which gets water from Northern California, is 97 percent full right now. Yet while all this is going on, ocean conditions are setting up right now for decent chance of a very wet fall,? he concluded. Low Carryover a Result of Poor Water Management Mindy McIntyre, the Water Program Manager for the Planning and Conservation League, agrees with Stienstra that the ?drought? is a largely an artificially created phenomenon spurred by bad water management. In two below normal but nowhere near critically dry years, the state pumps delivered massive amounts of water south to the Kern Water Bank, Diamond Valley Reservoir and the Semi-Tropic Groundwater Bank in southern California with apparent disregard for the fact that reservoirs would be drawn down to dangerously low levels. ?The DWR didn?t call for water conservation this year ? so the dry year situation wasn?t taken seriously,? said McIntyre. ?This year we?re going into a potentially dry year without a buffer in the reservoirs, so the state and federal governments have managed themselves into a manmade drought.? The state and federal governments in recent years have pumped record amounts of water out of the California Delta. Some of the largest annual water export levels in history occurred in 2003 (6.3 million acre-feet), 2004 (6.1 MAF), 2005 (6.5 MAF) and 2006 (6.3 MAF). Exports averaged 4.6 MAF annually between 1990 and 1999 and increased to an average of 6 MAF between 2000 and 2007, a rise of almost 30 percent, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. The problem with California water supply won?t be addressed by building a peripheral canal or more dams, but by practicing better water management and increased water conservation, McIntyre contends. ?This is more a failure of water policy and management than it is of infrastructure,? she said. ?We will have a water crisis every year unless we find a way to decrease demand.? While Schwarzenegger and Lester Snow continue to push "improved conveyance" and new reservoirs as the "solution" to California's water problems, a number of recently published reports question the need for new dams and canals. A report published by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LACEDC) compared the price of water produced by conservation, recycling, desalinization, and new dams. "The LACEDC found water from new dams to be the most costly option, which prompted the business group to characterize new dams as a 'non-starter' due to economic and environmental concerns," according to Steve Evans, conservation director of Friends of the River. In addition, a recently published report by the Pacific Institute found that improving agricultural water use efficiency through careful planning, adopting existing cost efficient technologies and management practices, and implementing feasible policy changes can maintain a strong agricultural economy while reducing the need for Delta exports - and new dams and a canal to supply increased exports. These measures could save 3.4 million acre feet or more of water. The report also noted that recent court decisions from lawsuits filed by Friends of the River, Earthjustice, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council and other organizations, scientific assessments, and the Governor?s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force all recognize that Delta exports must be reduced. Why Was Announcement Made a Month Early? The timing of Snow?s ?drought? announcement was curious, since it occurred just days before one of the most contested November elections in California and U.S. history. DWR has historically made this announcement at the end of November to comply with the long-term water supply contracts requiring a December 1 announcement. ?Today?s announcement comes slightly earlier to help local water agencies better prepare for 2009, which is expected to be another dry year,? claimed Snow. "The announcement is part of the department?s effort to implement Gov. Schwarzenegger?s Drought Executive Order (S-06-08) directing DWR to help local water districts and agencies proactively address these conditions." Maybe so, but could it be that the announcement was actually made earlier than normal to buttress support for candidates supporting Schwarzenegger's $9.3 water bond that includes ?improved conveyance? ? a peripheral canal ? and more dams? Water Delivery Facts: SWP contractors deliver water to more than 25 million California residents and more than 750,000 acres of farmland. This year, SWP contractors requested 4,166,376 million acre-feet of water for the 2009 calendar year, the maximum contractual amount allowed. Actual delivery amounts can increase from the initial allocation depending on the year?s hydrologic and water supply conditions. "In preparing the initial allocation, DWR considered a conservative projection of hydrology; SWP operational constraints including additional 2009 Delta export restrictions per the federal district court?s remedy order to protect Delta Smelt; and 2009 contractor demands, including carryover water from 2008," according to DWR. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Mon Nov 3 08:58:45 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 11:58:45 -0500 Subject: [env-trinity] Meaningless early forecast Message-ID: DWR's early forecast is essentially meaningless, as I blogged Friday. But the Chronicle did run a front page story. http://blogs.edf.org/waterfront/ State prepared to slash water deliveries Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Friday, October 31, 2008 (10-31) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- The state could cut as much as 85 percent of the water it delivers to local suppliers, the second-lowest allocation estimate in modern California history, officials said Thursday. The water allocation estimate is the first for 2009 by the state Department of Water Resources, which plans to update its figures each month through spring. Water delivery could be increased if the Golden State's two-year drought ends with a wet winter in the coming months. The decision could have an impact on agencies all over California that receive some of their supply from the state. Those agencies serve 25 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. In the Bay Area, five water agencies would be affected. While the estimate paints a grim picture that could force local water agencies to ration or farmers to let their fields sit idle, it's close to a worst-case scenario, said Lester Snow, director of the state water agency. "It's really a hope-for-the-best, prepare-for-the-worst (scenario)," he said in a conference call with reporters. The lowest water allocation estimate dates back to 1993 at the end of the state's last severe drought. The Department of Water Resources initially estimated it would deliver just 10 percent of the contracted water to local water districts, but a wet winter followed, and the state ended up providing 100 percent. But the state faces new challenges beyond just a possible lack of rain and snow this time around, Snow said. One is a recent federal court ruling that limits the pumping of water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a move to protect the endangered smelt. The other is population growth, which is putting more pressure on the state's water supplies in the midst of the drought, Snow said. Water supplies for agencies such as the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and East Bay Municipal Utility District that don't rely on the state for water won't be affected the state allocation. The five Bay Area agencies that receive water from the state are the Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Solano County Water Agency, Alameda County Water District, Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District Zone 7 and Santa Clara Valley Water District. The agencies said that while the low allocation is discouraging, they already had made contingency plans this summer. "We actually thought the state would come in at 10 percent," said Paul Piraino, general manager of Alameda County Water District, which provides water to Fremont, Newark and Union City. Earlier this year, the district decided to augment its groundwater reserves by moving 10,000 acre-feet of water from its underground reserves in Kern County and an additional 12,000 acre-feet from the San Luis Reservoir. "It's sort of like putting some money in the bank early ... for the not-so-rainy day," Piraino said. The Alameda County Flood Control District also is benefiting from large groundwater storage, said Boni Brewer, the district's spokeswoman. Her agency has socked away about 90,000 acre-feet of water in its local groundwater basin, which should be enough for its 200,000 customers in Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore and parts of San Ramon, even if drought conditions continue next year, she said. Local water agency officials say they also have diversified their sources of water since the last major drought of the late 1980s and early 1990s. David Okita, general manager of Solano County Water Agency, said about only 25 percent of his agency's water is drawn from the state. The agency also takes water from the nearby Lake Berryessa and from local runoff. Still, local water officials say they are keeping their fingers crossed that the coming winter will be a wet one and the state will have more water to give. Despite such contingency plans, if the water picture doesn't change, agencies may consider mandatory rationing, which EBMUD imposed on its users in May. EBMUD required its customers to cut water usage or face a drought surcharge. That effort has resulted in about 11 percent conservation, said Andy Katz, the district's general manager. A more drastic impact has been on California's biggest industry, agriculture, farm officials say. The state's crop losses totaled nearly $260 million this year as farmers either let their fields sit idle or abandoned their crops, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture's latest figures. "The upshot is inevitable," said Chris Scheuring, California Farm Bureau Federation's water expert. "Farmers are going to do some fallowing." And consumers at grocery stores are likely to be affected in the form of higher food prices or seeing certain produce on store shelves for a shortened amount of time if farmers decide to reduce their planting. "This is not an agriculture issue, it's a food-supply issue," Scheuring said. But all that said, water officials say that while they hope rains and snowfall return to the state this winter, Californians also should do their part to cut back water usage. "We're clearly making an extra call for conservation of water across the state," Snow said. E-mail Matthew Yi at myi at sfchronicle.com . http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/31/MN7713RHJI.DTL This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle Spreck Rosekrans Environmental Defense Fund 415-293-6082 http://www.edf.org http://blogs.edf.org/waterfront/ ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Nov 3 09:30:06 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 09:30:06 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chron Op-Ed by Spreck Rosekrans Message-ID: Environmental Defense Fund's Spreck Rosekrans' Op-Ed on Delta. Spreck also is a member of current unchartered Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG), the Trinity River Restoration Program's stakeholders' group. The delta's wake-up call Spreck Rosekrans Monday, November 3, 2008 Wake up, California. Do not hit the snooze button again! Images View Larger Image It's been clear for decades that the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary is in peril. The largest estuary on the West Coast is suffering - from ever-increasing water diversions, pollution and invasive species - to the point where scientists talk openly about the extinction of entire fish species. It is clear that potential failure of the delta's fragile levee system threatens delta communities and could disrupt the water system that supplies part of the drinking water to 23 million Californians and much of California's agricultural lands as well. Last Friday, the governor's Delta Vision Task Force released its strategic plan addressing the bay-delta's ecosystem and water-supply problems. The plan represents a clear-eyed break with the past. The task force recognizes that protecting the environment of the delta is just as important as providing reliable water supplies to cities and farms. The task force urges California to base its water future in the reality that water is a limited resource, that enormous water diversions have adverse consequences, and that ecosystem collapse is not an acceptable option. The Delta Vision report offered by the task force emphasizes the urgent need for expanded habitat and freshwater flows to restore salmon and other decimated fisheries. Its recommendations for improving water-use efficiency, eliminating disincentives for sustainable groundwater management and encouraging sales of water between willing buyers and sellers, so long as local communities are not harmed, are long overdue. The task force's recommendations for a peripheral canal raise questions from both an environmental and a financial perspective. We understand that a canal would enable continued delivery of water from the Sacramento Valley to cities and farms further south, even in the event of a levee failure. But the canal would vastly diminish the flow of freshwater into the delta. The task force's vision does not include a plan for assuring that its design and operation would protect not only salmon and other fisheries, but delta agriculture and communities as well. We are also concerned by the plan's recommendations to pursue additional dams, in part because recent proposals would build them at taxpayer expense without any clear understanding as to how the additional water supply would be distributed. Recent history has shown that when water agencies pay for their own supply projects, they usually find alternative investments such as conservation, groundwater management and cleanup, and purchases from willing sellers to be more cost-effective investments than new dams and reservoirs. Ultimately, success or failure will depend on whether agencies, the California Legislature and communities can work together effectively. We are intrigued by the task force's recommendations for agency reform - including a new council to govern the Delta Vision's coequal goals of water supply and environmental restoration - though simply adding one more agency could be counterproductive if not done right. The Delta Vision plan now moves to the governor and the Legislature. To avoid the mistakes of the past, they must build on the foundation of balance between the ecosystem and water supply. We urge lawmakers to spend taxpayer dollars only to achieve tangible public benefits. Further subsidies are likely to continue the inefficient distribution of water that has led California to its famously costly and fruitless water wars. The Delta Vision report is far from perfect, but ignoring it would put both the delta and California's water supply at risk. If we hit that snooze button, the next wake-up call might come too late. Spreck Rosekrans is a senior analyst with the Environmental Defense Fund in San Francisco and a member of the Delta Vision Stakeholder Coordination Group. To read the Delta Vision report, go to links.sfgate.com/ZFGO Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 10887 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Seth.Naman at noaa.gov Mon Nov 3 10:59:03 2008 From: Seth.Naman at noaa.gov (Seth Naman) Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:59:03 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] thesis defense Message-ID: <490F49F7.1070807@noaa.gov> Hi All, I'm defending my thesis tomorrow on election day at 4:30 pm at HSU. The thesis is titled Predation by Hatchery Steelhead on Natural Salmon Fry in the Upper Trinity Rvier, California. The presentation should last about 45 minutes to an hour. I hope you can make it. Seth Where: Forestry room 107 When: Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 4:30 PM -- Seth Naman Fisheries Biologist NOAA Fisheries Southwest Region 1655 Heindon Rd. Arcata, CA 95521 707-825-5180 fax: 707-825-4840 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: seths thesis defense flyer.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 78630 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Nov 5 14:35:17 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2008 14:35:17 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] San Jose Mercury News - Opinion November 5 Message-ID: <7164F3E1284A4CAD95BDB64631AB6CDD@byronPC> Pietro Parravano is the former long time president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens' Associations and is a world leader on fisheries issues. Opinion: Oceans are an urgent item for the next president San Jose Mercury News - 11/5/08 By Pietro Parravano Pietro Parravano is a salmon fisherman from Half Moon Bay, president of the Institute for Fisheries Resources and commissioner for the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative. There was a time not long ago when coastal communities from Alaska to Maine enjoyed the rich heritage and prosperity of a thriving fishing industry. As a young fisherman growing up in Half Moon Bay, I witnessed some of the most plentiful salmon fishing the West Coast had ever seen. It saddens me to say those days have passed. Pollution, mismanagement, loss of habitat and new threats from climate change have severely damaged not only my livelihood, but also the amount of seafood on your dinner table. All hope is not lost at sea, however. Despite the countless abuses our waters have endured over the past few decades, oceans are surprisingly resilient and can recover. With proper oversight, guided by strong science and adequate funding, the United States can ensure that our oceans continue to provide valuable resources not only for us, but also for our grandchildren. After a long period of neglect, oceans are returning to the forefront of policymakers' minds. President Bush recently addressed the ocean community to celebrate the opening of the Smithsonian's Ocean Hall in Washington, D.C. He commended the Smithsonian and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for educating the public, and he acknowledged my work with salmon fisheries here in California, emphasizing that even ordinary citizens like me can have an impact. The president's address and the opening of the Ocean Hall demonstrate strong national momentum for better ocean management. This momentum also exists on the regional and state levels. Recently, Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ted Kulongoski (Oregon) and Chris Gregoire (Washington) released the action plan of the West Coast Governors' Agreement on Ocean Health. Additionally, Massachusetts recently passed a groundbreaking plan that requires state leaders to coordinate coastline management. With a national movement in place, it is up to the new White House leadership to keep it going. We have a long road ahead of us. First, we must better understand the challenges. No one knows definitively what caused the decline in the California salmon population. Most biologists see a combination land-based pollution, water diversions, damaged habitat and ocean conditions. To revitalize our fisheries, we must look deeper. Federally supported research and maintenance of ocean monitoring systems are key to understanding the connections between land and sea. Increasing public awareness is also critical, which is why the Smithsonian's Ocean Hall is a stellar accomplishment. Many Americans are aware of the decline in our nation's fisheries. However, many don't recognize how ocean conditions and land-based pollution affect the entire nation, from the food we eat to the beaches we enjoy to the economy upon which we depend. Ocean-related industries generate $138 billion for the United States every year. Saving our oceans and fisheries is a bigger task than any one state or region can accomplish. The problems are symptoms of an unbalanced ecosystem and are urgent calls for coordinated and well-funded action at the state, regional and national level. All of us have a duty to be good stewards of our oceans. The Smithsonian Ocean Hall, the West Coast Governors' plan and the Massachusetts Oceans Act are a good start. And as a fisherman, I urge the next administration to continue this momentum and make this collaborative, bipartisan effort a success. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Thu Nov 6 11:29:29 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 14:29:29 -0500 Subject: [env-trinity] 84 lb chinook Message-ID: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,446686,00.html Spreck Rosekrans Environmental Defense Fund 415-293-6082 http://www.edf.org http://blogs.edf.org/waterfront/ ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 0_61_chinook_salmon_huge.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 30870 bytes Desc: 0_61_chinook_salmon_huge.jpg URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 14:47:56 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 14:47:56 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Eureka Times Standard November 6 - Mud Snails Message-ID: <7CB695D9888D4B00B6CD625C564C12FA@byronPC> Mud snail crops up in four more North Coast watersheds Eureka Times Standard - 11/06/08 John Driscoll, staff writer A prolific invasive snail has now been found in four coastal watersheds, raising the possibility that it will infest a larger part of Humboldt County in the near future. The New Zealand mud snail, first found locally in Big Lagoon in September, has since been confirmed as present in Lake Earl, Tillas Slough off the Smith River, in the lower Klamath River and in the Russian River east of Hopland. Other watersheds infested with the invasive snail have been devastated by their presence. It was first found in the Snake River in Idaho in the 1980s, and now is present in 10 states. Without natural predators, the snails consume algae and plant and animal debris, altering the food chain -- affecting protected salmon, steelhead and other species. While the state is launching an educational campaign to let boaters and fishermen know how to prevent the spread of the tiny snail, it's clear it will not be easy, if even possible. To date, there is no way to eradicate the snail, either. "There's not a whole lot you can do once they get in there," said Fish and Game district watershed biologist Michelle Gilroy. The snails can spread on the feet of wading birds, and can survive in the digestive tracts of fish. To kill them on fishing waders and gear, the California Department of Fish and Game recommends freezing the stuff for eight hours; to scour them from boats, the agency recommends scrubbing them off with hot water. The hope is to at least slow the spread of the New Zealand mud snail. Breck McAlexander, a Fish and Game aquatic species coordinator said that the snails, which thrive in fresh water, could have limitations in brackish waters like lagoons and estuaries. If their introduction into a watershed is reduced, it's conceivable that they might not take hold enough to produce a viable population, he said. But even that is hopeful thinking. "The best strategy is to try to prevent their spread," McAlexander said, "which may or may not be possible." On the American River, biologists have carefully monitored for the presence of mud snails that can be transported by hatchery fish into their destination lakes and streams. Fish and Game policy is to not allow fish from infested hatcheries to be transported to bodies of water not yet infested. Now, with the presence of mud snails not far from the Mad River Hatchery, McAlexander said it is important to monitor that hatchery, too. So far, there have been no mud snails discovered there, and the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District is working to develop ways to prevent the spread of the snails into the upper watershed, in Ruth Lake. Pikeminnow scare is quelled In the effort to keep invasive species in check, there is some good news. The dreaded pikeminnow -- which has voraciously consumed salmon on the Eel River for years -- was believed to have worked its way into the Elk River, which empties into Humboldt Bay. Biologists found a single pikeminnow in Martin Slough, a tributary to Elk River, in August, and feared the worst. Along with other state and federal agencies, the California Department of Fish and Game developed a sampling strategy to detect whether any other pikeminnow were in the watershed. "The implications for restoration around Humboldt Bay with the introduction of these invasive species is pretty frightening," said Fish and Game district watershed biologist Michelle Gilroy. But after a number of attempts to find other pikeminnow, the stream turned up clean. No pikeminnow. While the sampling will continue at least until spring of 2009, biologists are reasonably certain that the fish's presence was an isolated case. The question is how did it get there? Gilroy said that it seems most likely the fish was planted in a nearby pond or in the slough itself. That's illegal; Fish and Game requires a permit to stock fish in private ponds and in no circumstance allows fish to be transported to other streams without permission, Gilroy said. Gilroy said it's also possible the fish got there from the Eel River, although pikeminnow aren't salt-water tolerant, and would have had to travel miles to get into Elk River. Restorationist Mitch Farro with the Pacific Coast Fish, Wildlife and Wetlands Restoration Association said that when the Eel River is running strong, a current can push a stream of fresh water north from the mouth of the river to Humboldt Bay. That could have allowed a pikeminnow to travel into the bay and back into fresh water. "It's a possibility," Farro said. "It's also fairly likely that someone put them there." Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Nov 7 14:52:09 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 14:52:09 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Journal November 5 2008 Message-ID: <87476A6C379842CD80FED038F607AC57@byronPC> County's expert on Trinity River retires By SALLY MORRIS by PHIL NELSON Tom Stokely poses by the river in the Douglas City area. Referred to by many as a walking encyclopedia on Trinity River issues past and present, retiring Trinity County principal planner Tom Stokely's last day on the job was Friday. Though he plans to relocate from Trinity County to Mount Shasta "mostly to ski," he promises to continue his Trinity River advocacy work on a larger scale with the nonprofit California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) of which he has become a director. Stokely, 53, has worked for the County Planning Department for 23 years, establishing the natural resources division in the early 1990s to focus primarily on Trinity County water rights and fishery restoration efforts. He worked with the Trinity River Restoration Program toward the original signing of the Trinity River Record of Decision in 2000 that allocated greater flows to restore salmon and steelhead fish populations. He was also instrumental in completing the supplemental environmental review and legal defense required to ultimately clear the decision through the appellate courts four years later. Stokely then worked on the environmental documents to build four new bridges and modify another on the Trinity River to make way for higher flows. The work included soliciting cooperation from private landowners to modify water and sewage disposal systems along the river to accommodate higher flows, and completing the Indian Creek project designed to reduce floodwater elevations for homes in the area and to provide fish habitat. Upon his retirement, Stokely was presented a resolution of appreciation from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board for distinguished service to the people of Trinity County, the north coast region and the state of California. The resolution cited Stokely's accomplishments on behalf of the Trinity River and also noted that he has administered millions of dollars in grants through the planning department for park improvements, watershed restoration, fish passage and other fish habitat improvements in the county. He was also instrumental in achieving site and time specific temperature objectives for the Trinity River which have led not only to improvement in fish runs but also an enormous increase in whitewater boating in the Trinity River due to higher flows through the summer. Beyond Trinity County lines, Stokely has been a frequent thorn in the side of the Westlands Water District in the San Joaquin Valley, the largest water provider in the federally owned Central Valley Project. He drew the ire of the powerful irrigation district on himself and Trinity County when he testified at the State Water Resources Control Board's Bay-Delta hearings that the Trinity River was dammed and diverted to benefit the Westlands District--and it has been at the expense of the Trinity River, the Delta and the San Joaquin River. He has been tireless in advocating for the retirement of drainage-impaired land in the Westlands Water District, where he claims bad irrigation practices have made a few farmers rich but resulted in the build-up of metals and salts to toxic levels. The effect has placed the federal government under court order to resolve what is anticipated to be a $2.7 billion taxpayer problem to come up with a viable drainage plan that will avert another environmental disaster affecting wildlife as occurred in the 1980s at Kesterson Reservoir. As he goes to work for C-WIN, a nonprofit group of well-known environmental and water rights advocates, Stokely said the group is pursuing a strategy session with experts to explore the best ways to tackle the problem of drainage impaired lands through litigation. CWIN's board of directors selects the cases it fights, hires and raises the funds to pay the attorneys, and oversees the litigation it elects to get involved in. Stokely said he believes he will be better able to pursue his professional goals by working for C-WIN, where he will no longer incur any liability for cash strapped Trinity County. He added that the county's recent reorganization of the planning and building departments has also been a factor in his decision, but not the only one. Noting that he's not being replaced, Stokely said it's more important than ever for the county to be involved in the Trinity River Restoration Program, adding "nobody can look out for our interests but us." The program has a $10 million annual budget and pumps at least $1 million into payroll in Weaverville, "not to mention contracts, road work in watersheds and other ecosystem improvements. Given the budget situation in D.C., the county needs to stay very involved to be sure that it keeps going," he said. As a consultant with C-WIN, he expects to come back to the Trinity County Board of Supervisors seeking support for regional efforts to protect Northern California water rights. In comments to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, he cautioned that the State Water Resources Control Board estimates that the amount of water allocated statewide is about seven times the amount that actually exists, yet contracts have been sold and the water delivered. "The chickens are coming home to roost with the dry conditions and the record pumping from the Delta," he said, noting that Delta pumping in 2007, classified as a dry year, was more than in 2006 - a wet year. Reservoir storage is down statewide, and Stokely predicted that temperature issues for salmon survival will get much worse if the drought conditions continue another year or two. "The drought is real, but it's also artificial," Stokely said, adding that he plans to continue working to reduce the over allocation of "paper water" in the state's water plans. He said the record Delta pumping and reservoir drawdown over the past three years have led to lake levels that are lower now than they were after four to six years of drought in the 1980s and 1990s. He added that proposals to build a peripheral canal to get around pumping restrictions and endangered species protections in the Delta would enable unfettered pumping, which would be to the detriment of the Trinity River without some kind of additional protection. Stokely advised that the only way the Trinity River can be protected is by decreasing demand (through retirement of millions of acres of drainage-impaired lands in the western San Joaquin Valley) and limiting annual Trinity exports to the Central Valley Project in keeping with the increased river flows under the Trinity Record of Decision. An enforceable minimum cold water pool also needs to be established for Trinity Lake to protect in-stream fisheries through the summer months. He told the regional water board, "I'll be working on that in my next career, hopefully, and I'm sure I'll see you again." Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 14806 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Nov 7 14:58:09 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 14:58:09 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Scienceline November 7 2008 Message-ID: <46E22FB0A5FC4EEDB23E5B945309735D@byronPC> Chinook Salmon's Last Meal? A cooler ocean is feeding hungry salmon, but their ultimate survival remains uncertain. Scienceline, NYU - 11/7/08 By Lynne Peeples, posted November 7th, 2008. Young Chinook salmon entering the Pacific Ocean this year are finding cooler waters and more plentiful meals than the sea provided their parents. Because of these improved conditions, fisheries scientists forecast a rebound in coming years for the West Coast's most famous fish. But some researchers and fishermen believe the respite will be temporary, and warn that future generations of Chinook could face even more devastating declines than their ancestors did. "Things are definitely looking up. I'm pretty optimistic," says Bill Peterson, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, whose ocean monitoring detected the changing environment. The good news is a welcome change from the latest Chinook headlines. Despite unprecedented fishing restrictions, only 54,000 Chinook are expected to return to the Sacramento River this fall, according to NOAA. Just five years ago, 775,000 came back to the river, and historic numbers-before California's population boomed with the Gold Rush of 1849-are thought to have been between 1.5 and 2 million. Three years ago, the Pacific Ocean was in particularly poor shape. Researchers documented large numbers of dead sea birds and skinny whales, along with fewer small fish, shrimp and squid for salmon to eat. "It was horrid," says Peterson. "Salmon went to sea in 2005, [then] probably died within a couple weeks of getting there, and that's why there weren't any fish to come back last year and this year." But a recent shift in atmospheric conditions, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, is pushing cold water from the Gulf of Alaska south to the Pacific Coast this year, and with it plenty of plankton-the foundation of the aquatic food chain on which salmon rely. This food source is crucial for oceangoing Chinook that typically spend three years at sea before returning to spawn in freshwater. Returns are therefore expected to fully reflect the ocean's shift in another two or three years. Longer-term projections of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, however, are becoming increasingly difficult. What used to be a relatively predictable cycle of 20- or 30-year warm and cold phases has shortened to 4-year shifts in the past decade. Whether or not these phases are being influenced by climate change remains uncertain. "Maybe in 20 years we'll look back and say, yeah, this is global warming . . . all the cycles have been upset," says Peterson. But for now, his attention is on the pending effects of ocean cooling. The favorable ocean currents "will buy us some time," says Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "But we have to deal with the problems inland in the meantime." The list of freshwater issues is daunting. Hydroelectric dams and water diversions have dried up the Chinook's traditional migratory paths and spawning grounds. The rivers and streams that remain run shallow and warmer-uncomfortable conditions for salmon. Soil erosion and pollution, as well as natural floods and droughts, further destroy viable habitat. On top of all that, the salmon also face overfishing and an altered ecosystem that includes non-native predators and farmed fish.# Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Nov 7 15:33:56 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 15:33:56 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference Announcement and Final Call for Presenter Abstracts Message-ID: Hello, Please find attached (and pasted below) a new and improved announcement for the 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference that will take place this March 4-7, 2009 in lovely Santa Cruz, California. We are very excited about this year's conference. We would greatly appreciate your assistance in getting word about this great event out to the public. Please feel free to share this information with your constituents, co-workers, clients, listservs, newsletters or paste it into your online Events Calendar. Also attached is the Final Call for Presenter Abstracts, which are due Nov. 17. Please send this to any individual or organization who might wish to present successful projects at the Conference. If you would like more information on the Salmonid Restoration Federation or our annual conference, please check out our web site: www.calsalmon.org If you have any questions, please call SRF at 707-923-7501. Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to seeing you in Santa Cruz! Sincerely, Jama Chaplin Salmonid Restoration Federation PO Box 784 Redway, California 95560 (707) 923-7501 jama at calsalmon.org 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference Elements of Watershed Restoration The 27th Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference will be held March 4-7, 2009 in Santa Cruz, California. This year the conference will feature workshops on topics including estuary restoration, fish passage design and implementation, coho use and restoration of off channel habitat, and watershed monitoring and management. All day field tours will include tours of the lower San Lorenzo River: Balancing Habitat, Flood Control, and Public Use, Carmel River restoration projects, Southern Coho Streams and the NOAA lab and broodstock program, Coastal and Santa Clara Valley salmonid creeks, and Coho Salmon and Steelhead Enhancement projects. Concurrent sessions include Water Diversions & Water Wars in California, FERC Relicensing Restoration Opportunities, Central Coast Coho Salmon & Steelhead Conservation, Fire Ecology, Forests, and Fisheries, Dam Removal and Modifications for Salmonid Recovery, Restoration at the Crossroads, Central and Southcoast Steelhead, Hydrologic and Geomorphic Legacy Issues: Solutions for the Past and the Future and Coho Salmon Recovery and Restoration: Putting Theory into Practice. This is the premiere habitat restoration conference in the Pacific Northwest and hosting the conference in Santa Cruz affords wonderful opportunities to view projects on the Central Coast and highlight issues that pertain to coastal watershed and coho salmon recovery. The Plenary session will focus on the state of commercial fisheries in California and elements of watershed restoration. To see the conference agenda or to learn more about the conference, please visit www.calsalmon.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2009ConfAnnouncement_110708.doc Type: application/msword Size: 25088 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2009FinalCallforAbstracts.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 225145 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Fri Nov 7 16:05:35 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 16:05:35 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] New Contact Information Message-ID: <054d01c94135$c4eae3d0$2a28a8c0@trinitycounty.org> Life is good in Mt. Shasta! The Mountain is covered in snow and more is on the way! I'm still getting moved in. Please pass on my new contact information to anybody you think who would be interested. Gleefully, Tom Stokely Water Policy Coordinator California Water Impact Network 504A Lennon St. (USPS) Mt. Shasta, CA 96067 530-926-9727 Tom Stokely tstokely at trinityalps.net for another week, then an AT&T address TBA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Nov 10 13:58:45 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:58:45 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity's Water in Westlands Message-ID: Time Seeping Out For Drainage Debacle? State Regulators Give 90 Days to Act on Half-Century Old Environmental Problem California Progress Report - 11/10/08 By Traci Sheehan Executive Director Planning and Conservation League Fifty years after the Westlands Water District began irrigating drainage-impaired lands in the San Joaquin Valley, causing massive accumulation of toxic selenium and other salts in the soils and drainage water, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Board) has taken action to address the ongoing pollution problem. In a letter last week, the Board gave the water district 90 days to file for a waste discharge permit and present a plan for cleaning up the soils that have been building up salts and toxins for decades. While federal officials knew that providing water to Westlands from the Delta and Northern California would aggravate the naturally occurring salt-loading problems on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation pushed forward with the irrigation project. As a result, the Westlands area is one of the largest, most heavily subsidized, and profitable agribusiness regions in the world as well as one of California's worst environmental legacies. The hard clay soils on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley are naturally impermeable, preventing water and salts from seeping into the earth. In many places in the area, the water table is no more than five feet from the surface of the ground. Toxics and salts from the imported irrigation water mix with the groundwater, compromising crop root systems - a problem people in the business refer to as "drainage impairment." The Board's letter reminds Westlands that discharging toxic laden water is a violation of laws protecting the state's surface and groundwater. We're pleased to see the Board treating the drainage situation as a serious problem and hope their actions mark a turning point in efforts to clean up the area. Traci Sheehan is the Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide, nonprofit lobbying organization. For more than thirty years, PCL has fought to develop a body of environmental laws in California that is the best in the United States. PCL staff review virtually every environmental bill that comes before the California Legislature each year. It has testified in support or opposition of thousands of bills to strengthen California's environmental laws and fight off rollbacks of environmental protections. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From LRLake at aol.com Mon Nov 10 14:36:21 2008 From: LRLake at aol.com (LRLake at aol.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:36:21 EST Subject: [env-trinity] Shasta and trinity lakes Message-ID: All, Several weeks ago there was a letter to the editor piece in the Redding Record Searchlight suggesting an "out of the box" solution to increased CVP storage. Basically, the idea was to excavate Shasta and Trinity reservoirs during times of "low water" as apposed to increasing dam height, etc. This seems like a good idea to me to increase storage. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? My simple appraisal sees increased storage, minimal environmental impact and no change to the existing footprint of the reservoirs. A quick look at a topo map shows a 30-50% increase in storage just by removing the earth behind the dams. Makes sense to me... Lawrence Lake, RPF Redding, CA **************AOL Search: Your one stop for directions, recipes and all other Holiday needs. Search Now. (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212792382x1200798498/aol?redir=http://searchblog.aol.com/2008/11/04/happy-holidays-from -aol-search/?ncid=emlcntussear00000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bhill at igc.org Mon Nov 10 17:52:58 2008 From: bhill at igc.org (Brian Hill) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:52:58 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Shasta and trinity lakes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <021601c943a0$45352930$cf9f7b90$@org> The silt removed may be able to be used as agricultural/potting soil even if organic material, e.g., mulched brush from forest restoration, were added to the silt. Drag-lining or cutter head dredging silt may be practical silt removal techniques. Brian Hill From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of LRLake at aol.com Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 2:36 PM To: env-trinity at mailman.dcn.org Subject: [env-trinity] Shasta and trinity lakes All, Several weeks ago there was a letter to the editor piece in the Redding Record Searchlight suggesting an "out of the box" solution to increased CVP storage. Basically, the idea was to excavate Shasta and Trinity reservoirs during times of "low water" as apposed to increasing dam height, etc. This seems like a good idea to me to increase storage. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? My simple appraisal sees increased storage, minimal environmental impact and no change to the existing footprint of the reservoirs. A quick look at a topo map shows a 30-50% increase in storage just by removing the earth behind the dams. Makes sense to me... Lawrence Lake, RPF Redding, CA _____ AOL Search: Your one stop for directions, recipes and all other Holiday needs. Search Now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From srosekrans at edf.org Mon Nov 10 23:25:11 2008 From: srosekrans at edf.org (Spreck Rosekrans) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:25:11 -0500 Subject: [env-trinity] Shasta and trinity lakes In-Reply-To: <021601c943a0$45352930$cf9f7b90$@org> References: <021601c943a0$45352930$cf9f7b90$@org> Message-ID: Definitely an interesting idea but I wonder what one would do with the dirt and how much it would cost. Dir is at least 75 lbs per cubic foot, or more that 1600 tons per acre-foot - the unit of measure for reservoir capacity. A truck can carry at most 50 tons, so it would take at least 32 truckloads to move the dirt for each acre-foot of increased storage. If each truckload cost $300, that component of the capital cost of new storage would be about $10,000 per acre-foot, well above what anyone has ever been willing to pay. Perhaps if there were a slurry line to haul away the dirt and a location not to distant, it would work, but I am skeptical. Spreck Rosekrans Environmental Defense Fund 415-293-6082 http://www.edf.org http://blogs.edf.org/waterfront/ ________________________________ From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Brian Hill Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 5:53 PM To: LRLake at aol.com; env-trinity at mailman.dcn.org Subject: Re: [env-trinity] Shasta and trinity lakes The silt removed may be able to be used as agricultural/potting soil even if organic material, e.g., mulched brush from forest restoration, were added to the silt. Drag-lining or cutter head dredging silt may be practical silt removal techniques. Brian Hill From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of LRLake at aol.com Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 2:36 PM To: env-trinity at mailman.dcn.org Subject: [env-trinity] Shasta and trinity lakes All, Several weeks ago there was a letter to the editor piece in the Redding Record Searchlight suggesting an "out of the box" solution to increased CVP storage. Basically, the idea was to excavate Shasta and Trinity reservoirs during times of "low water" as apposed to increasing dam height, etc. This seems like a good idea to me to increase storage. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? My simple appraisal sees increased storage, minimal environmental impact and no change to the existing footprint of the reservoirs. A quick look at a topo map shows a 30-50% increase in storage just by removing the earth behind the dams. Makes sense to me... Lawrence Lake, RPF Redding, CA ________________________________ AOL Search: Your one stop for directions, recipes and all other Holiday needs. Search Now . ___________________________________________________ This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorized and may be illegal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Nov 12 14:05:16 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:05:16 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] San Joaquin River Restoration Message-ID: <202C8D27F1AC4905A4B0423270D7BD7A@byronPC> Deal reached on San Joaquin River legislation Associated Press - 11/12/08 By Garance Burke, AP FRESNO - Congress is on track to sign off on a deal to restore California's San Joaquin River, bringing water and salmon back to a now-dry stretch of the waterway that once nourished the state's farm fields, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday. Federal legislation needed to implement a legal settlement for the restoration has been hung up for two years by concerns from various parties. Feinstein told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she had brokered a final agreement with all the parties - including environmental and fishing groups, farmers, irrigation districts and federal agencies - that could get lawmakers' approval during a lame-duck session of Congress expected to begin next week. "I think everybody realizes that this has been an 18-year fight," Feinstein said. "Now that everybody's on the same page, my view is that we should pass this bill, as it is, as early as we can." The legislation would implement a settlement that would return water to a dry 60-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River by 2009 and bring back Chinook salmon no later than Dec. 31, 2012. The San Joaquin is California's second-longest river. The lawsuit stems from the opening of Friant Dam in 1949, which transformed the San Joaquin Valley's main artery from a river thick with salmon into an irrigation powerhouse for more than a million acres of farmland. Under the 2006 settlement, the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents 21 irrigation districts that distribute river water to thousands of farms, agreed to relinquish a set portion of their traditional water supplies to help restore the fish. Friant officials viewed that as preferable to letting a judge rule how much water should be released down the old river bed. California farmers are already facing cutbacks in water supplies following two years of dry weather. Negotiators said the new agreement also resolves the concerns of land owners downstream from the dam, who wanted assurances that their farms wouldn't be flooded or otherwise harmed by the new water releases. "This process has not been easy, but the future of California agriculture rests on our ability to find solutions," said Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, who represents areas of the San Joaquin Valley affected by the legislation. "We cannot afford to do nothing and allow the courts to be river masters." Various disputes erupted that stalled a final deal, including how to satisfy congressional "pay as you go" rules that require a loss to the U.S. Treasury to be offset by other income. The total cost of the bill has been disputed, but plaintiffs with the Natural Resources Defense Council estimate it at between $250 million to $800 million. Under the deal Feinstein announced Tuesday, Friant water districts will over the next 10 years pay back about $200 million they owe the federal government for building the pumps, reservoirs and canals attached to the Central Valley Project, plus $100 million for restoration efforts. The state has committed an additional $200 million in bond revenue, bringing the total restoration funding for the next decade to about $500 million, said attorney Hal Candee, lead negotiator for the NRDC. "This is the last piece that was needed in order to fully implement this historic accord," said Ron Jacobsma, general manager with the Friant Water Users Authority. "This will help set the stage to overcome protracted litigation and uncertainty in resolving other environmental and water supply issues in the West." Feinstein said she hopes to get the deal through Congress during its lame-duck session as part of a larger package of public lands bills currently pending in the Senate, but it still would have to pass the House before going to President Bush for his signature. If that doesn't work, the bill would need to be reintroduced next year, when Congress reconvenes in January under an Obama administration.# San Joaquin River restoration bill nears passage Fresno Bee - 11/12/08 By Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- The San Joaquin River restoration effort, which has had many near-death experiences amid federal budget concerns and farmer worries, now appears poised for congressional approval as early as next week. Seemingly endless rounds of negotiations were capped this week when negotiators resolved the lingering concerns of Los Banos area farmers on the San Joaquin Valley's west side. This isn't the first time negotiators have congratulated themselves, but the latest Capitol Hill progress sounds final. "I think it should satisfy all concerned," Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday. "As far as I'm concerned, this is it." The negotiations answered the lingering concerns of the "exchange contractors," who are Los Banos-area farmers irrigating about 200,000 acres on the San Joaquin Valley's west side. Exchange contractors agreed to give up their historic share of San Joaquin River water in exchange for delta water via the Delta-Mendota Canal, but they reserved the right to reclaim their river allocation. With these farmers mollified about future water supplies, the stage is set for the river restoration bill to be passed as part of an omnibus public lands package. The public lands bill contains upward of 140 separate parks, wilderness and environmental provisions. Feinstein said "the odds are even" the Senate will take up the package during a brief lame-duck session next week; if it doesn't, Congress will consider the legislation next year. "I think this thing is ready to go," Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, said Tuesday. Feinstein is the chief Senate author of the river restoration bill, first introduced two years ago in considerably different form. Radanovich has joined Reps. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, in pushing for the bill as well. The river legislation has stalled since 2006, in part over questions of how to pay for it. The original bill had a federal price tag of $250 million or more. It also alarmed some farmers who worry that restoring water flows and salmon populations to the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam will sap needed irrigation deliveries. The alarm remains in some farm circles, as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, has been fighting a rear-guard action against a bill backed by the Bush administration, the state of California and several dozen irrigation agencies. The river rescue deal is supposed to settle a 20-year-old lawsuit filed by environmentalists unhappy over the decline of the once-teeming waterway. Facing tough budget questions, Feinstein rewrote the $250 million river bill so that it provides only $88 million in guaranteed funding. The rest of the federal funds needed must be sought in future years, though Feinstein maintains the $88 million understates how much funding is likely. The budget maneuver satisfied the congressional pay-as-you-go requirement that all spending be offset. However, it worried the Firebaugh Canal Water District, San Luis Canal Co. and other exchange contractors, which feared they might be shortchanged. The modified bill is supposed to give high priority to exchange contractor projects, such as installing fish screens or fish bypass facilities along the San Joaquin River south of its confluence with the Merced River. The modified bill also conditions the start of interim flows down the San Joaquin River channel, currently slated for October 2009, upon completion of a big environmental study that already is under way. The final revisions, agreed to late Monday night, are meant to ensure future irrigation deliveries with language stating that the river restoration plan will not modify the exchange contractors' existing federal contracts. The exchange contractors insisted on the language, though some lawmakers thought it unnecessary. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 13 08:00:32 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:00:32 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: Seattle Times November 12 08 Message-ID: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - Page updated at 08:05 PM Feds, PacifiCorp reach accord to remove 4 Klamath River dams By Jeff Barnard The Associated Press GRANTS PASS, Ore. The Bush administration today announced a nonbinding agreement with PacifiCorp that details how the utility can turn over control of four Klamath River hydroelectric dams so they can be removed to help struggling salmon. While not a final answer, the deal reached in Sacramento, Calif., represents a milestone toward what would become the biggest dam removal project in U.S. history. It also helps resolve issues at the root of the 2001 shut-off of irrigation to thousands of acres of farmland under enforcement by U.S. marshals and the 2002 deaths of 70,000 adult salmon in the river after irrigation water was restored. The agreement in principle was to be signed Thursday by the U.S. Department of Interior, PacifiCorp and the governors of Oregon and California. Though the Bush administration has opposed removing hydroelectric dams in the Columbia Basin, Interior Department Counselor Michael Bogert said it recognized that removing the four Klamath dams was a key to resolving the Klamath Basin's long-standing problems balancing water between farms and fish. "The president and the secretary (of Interior) were determined in the aftermath of 2001 and 2002 to come up with a comprehensive approach to deal with the issues and images we saw in the Klamath Basin," Bogert said. "This represents our best effort to negotiate what is a business decision for the company." Pressure has been building for years on PacifiCorp to make a deal. California and Oregon's governors pressed for dam removal after commercial salmon fisheries collapsed in 2006. Federal biologists mandated that fish ladders and other improvements costing $300 million be added to the dams before a federal operating license could be renewed. California water authorities have been taking a hard look at the dams' role in toxic algae plaguing the river, and river advocates have sued PacifiCorp to fix that the algae problem. Dean Brockbank, vice president and general council for PacifiCorp Energy, said though the agreement was nonbinding, the utility was committed to seeing it through. He added the company's four key concerns were all met: PacifiCorp is protected from liability; there is a $200 million cap on removal costs to be born by ratepayers; dam removal is far enough in the future to avoid a scramble for replacement power; and PacifiCorp's capital expenditures were held to a minimum. According to a copy obtained by The Associated Press, the agreement is a road map for turning the dams over to a nonfederal entity and starting to remove them by 2020. Deadline for a binding agreement is June 30, and farmers, Indian tribes and other parties that endorse the agreement in principle get a place at the table. Then the federal government undertakes studies to be sure dam removal is feasible and cost-effective. Operations continue without having to clean up toxic algae blooms that are a roadblock to renewal of a federal operating license. The deal embraces a $1 billion environmental-restoration blueprint for the Klamath Basin that has been endorsed by farmers, tribes, fishermen and conservation groups. Besides restoring fish habitat, it guarantees water and cheap electricity for farmers, as well as continued access to federal wildlife refuges for farming. Besides the $200 million in removal costs to be born by ratepayers, the state of California will ask voters to approve a $250 million bond. Surcharges would be about $15 to $20 a year to PacifiCorp's 500,000 customers in Oregon and 45,000 customers in California. Any dam removal costs over $450 million must be worked out later. PacifiCorp also committed to paying California $500,000 a year for fish-habitat improvements until the dams are removed. "The health of the Klamath River is critical to the livelihood of numerous Northern California communities, and with this groundbreaking agreement we have established a framework for restoring an important natural resource for future generations," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. The Karuk Tribe had led demonstrations at PacifiCorp stockholder meetings demanding dam removal, but spokesman Craig Tucker said the agreement represented a new working relationship with the utility "and we are looking forward to working with them as partners in the future." Glen Spain, of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which represents California commercial salmon fishermen, also voiced support. "It is a break out of gridlock into a dam removal pathway that shows great promise." Oregon Wild, a Portland conservation group kicked out of basin restoration talks, blasted the deal, saying the Bush administration was imposing a lot of conditions favorable to PacifiCorp and punting a problem it had failed to resolve in eight years. Built between 1908 and 1962, the four dams block salmon from 300 miles of spawning habitat while producing enough electricity to power about 70,000 homes. MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, owns PacifiCorp, which serves 1.6 million customers in six Western states. Copyright 2008 The Seattle Times Company Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From windhorse at jeffnet.org Thu Nov 13 12:40:40 2008 From: windhorse at jeffnet.org (Jim Carpenter) Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:40:40 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Herald and News Message-ID: Klamath Falls, Oregon ? 800-275-0982 Make Us Your Home Page Thursday, November 13, 2008 Breaking Print Version | Email this story | Comment (No comments posted.) | Text Size Updated, 7 p.m.: Dams would be removed by 2020 State, feds and PacifiCorp agreement scheduled for signing Thursday Thursday, November 13, 2008 8:43 AM PST Posted 7 p.m., Wednesday: In what is being billed as the largest salmon restoration ever attempted, a nonbinding agreement to be signed today would remove four Klamath River dams by the year 2020. The project is expected to cost $450 million and be paid for in part through surcharges to PacifiCorp customers. Officials from the states of Oregon and California, the Bush administration and Portland-based PacifiCorp were expected to sign the agreement by noon Thursday. They briefed Klamath River Basin stakeholders today at a meeting in Sacramento. When signed, the dam removal agreement would be nonbinding until a final agreement is reached, but one PacifiCorp official lauded the document as ?remarkable.? ?Our full expectation and commitment is to come to a final agreement,? said Dean Brockbank, vice president and counsel to the PacifiCorp. Read the full story in Thursday's Herald and News print edition. Check back at breaking news for more updates. Posted 5:05 p.m., Wednesday: Four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River would be removed by 2025 at a cost of $450 million under an agreement scheduled to be signed Thursday. A press release from the U.S. Department of the Interior called a planned public announcement Thursday ?the first critical step down a presumptive path toward a historic resolution of Klamath River resource issues and the Klamath River dams.? Check back later tonight for more updates and read the full story in Thursday's Herald and News print edition. Posted 2:55 p.m. Wednesday: (AP) ? Farmers, Indian tribes, fishermen and state officials have been briefed on a nonbinding agreement for PacifiCorp to turn over control of Klamath River dams so they can be removed to help struggling salmon. The briefing from Bush administration officials took place Wednesday in Sacramento, Calif. A formal announcement is expected Thursday. According to a copy obtained by The Associated Press, the agreement is a roadmap for starting to remove the dams by 2020, contingent on a favorable cost-benefit analysis, and to allow operations to continue until then. Posted 11:40 a.m. Wednesday: Klamath County Commissioner Bill Brown said today there is an agreement in principle regarding the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. Brown restated his opposition to dam removal ? an aspect of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement ? during the commissioners? public meeting. He said he does not have the document on the agreement but expected to have it soon. The groups and organizations that crafted the restoration agreement are meeting today in Sacramento. Commissioner John Elliot is attending the meeting as a representative of the county and said today while traveling to Sacramento that he had not yet seen a document concerning dam removal. ?That ?s going to be the discussion today,? he said. Look for online updates later today and read the full story in Thursday's Herald and News print edition. www.CarpenterDesign.com 541 885 5450 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: tech.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 13 14:10:35 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:10:35 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath Dams Message-ID: Klamath Riverkeeper Press Release November 13, 2008 For Immediate Release Malena Marvin, Outreach and Science Director - 541-821-7260 Scott Harding, Executive Director - 541-840-1662 Klamath Dams Aren't Out Yet! Dam Removal Advocates Optimistic, but Holding Out for Final Agreement Klamath Riverkeeper is cautiously optimistic about a tentative, non-binding Agreement in Principle to remove four of PacifiCorp's Klamath dams by 2020. While the Agreement in Principle does provide a path toward dam removal, a Final Agreement has not yet been signed and several important issues have not been resolved. Klamath Riverkeeper has served as a watchdog over PacifiCorp's water quality and environmental justice issues over the last several years, and will continue pressuring PacifiCorp to comply with clean water laws until the dams are removed. "After all the work we've put in advocating for removal of these dams, it feels good to hear the words 'dam removal' come out of PacifiCorp headquarters, and we applaud the bold stance stakeholders and policy makers have taken. However, we won't throw our party until we see the Final Agreement, and we're satisfied the terms of that agreement will keep fish alive until 2020 on the Klamath River," said Malena Marvin of Klamath Riverkeeper. "Tribal members, fishermen, conservationists, and local people have logged a lot of miles fighting for this river. We're not about to stop until we see the water flowing free again," added Marvin. In addition to blocking salmon from half the Klamath River for the last 90 years, PacifiCorp's Klamath dams produce devastating water quality conditions for fish, as well as the worst toxic algae problem in America. The dams are currently being evaluated by California for a Clean Water Act Section 401 pollution discharge permit, a process that could block a new operating license from FERC given the dams' exceedingly poor water quality. "We expect California's regulatory process to continue until we have a Final Agreement, and Klamath Riverkeeper will be there every step of the way making sure clean water law is enforced," said Scott Harding of Klamath Riverkeeper. Klamath Riverkeeper was not party to the settlement negotiations, and has instead focused heavily on holding PacifiCorp accountable for clean water violations on the Klamath River, including a lawsuit forcing the 2007 listing of the Klamath as impaired by the algal toxin microcystin by the United States EPA. This listing has presented a serious challenge to PacifiCorp's ability to obtain licenses needed to continue operating the dams. Klamath Riverkeeper has also brought suits against PacifiCorp directly, as well as California's State and Regional Water Boards. Along with a coalition of Tribes and fishermen, Klamath Riverkeeper has organized strategic grassroots actions at PacifiCorp's offices in Portland as well as subsidiary-owner Warren Buffett's Berkshire Shareholders' meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. "We're particularly interested in the interim mitigation measures that will be in place until 2020. From our perspective, a lot rests on the Final Agreement's ability to make PacifiCorp take action for the environmental and public health problems their dams have created for people who live downstream," added Marvin. ___________________________ Malena Marvin Outreach & Science Director Klamath Riverkeeper PO Box 897, Ashland, OR 97520 cell: 541.821.7260, ph/fax: 541.488.3553 http://www.klamathriver.org Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 13 14:19:05 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:19:05 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fresno Bee Editorial San Joaquin Settlement Message-ID: Editorial: River settlement closer Congressional OK would be hard to swallow for ag, but it's necessary. Fresno Bee - 11/12/08 The 20-year struggle to resolve the question of San Joaquin River restoration may be nearing the finish line. Federal legislation essential to the effort appears headed for a vote, either in the lame-duck session of Congress now under way, or by the new Congress early next year. It's not a solution that pleases everyone, but it is in everyone's best interests to settle this issue and move on. The legislation grew out of a settlement of a case brought by environmentalists in 1988. The suit charged that construction of Friant Dam illegally diverted water needed to maintain historic salmon runs in the river. Farmers and water agencies in the Valley reached a settlement in the case that will reduce water for farming as it restores the flow of the river in an effort to bring the salmon back. But they feared they might lose even more if the case ended up being decided by a judge. The settlement requires federal approval and funding. The money was the hang-up over the past two years, as many in Congress balked over the $250 million price tag. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who sponsored the Senate version of the legislation and worked to sort out the knotty details, rewrote the bill to provide $88 million in guaranteed river restoration funding. That helped break the logjam, but it means the balance of restoration funds must be sought in future years. This has been a difficult two-decade passage. It might have saved everyone a great deal of costly litigation if Friant Dam hadn't been built and water diverted from the river. But then a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy wouldn't have grown up and down the east side of the Valley. Dozens of small communities rely on the farms that are supplied by water from behind Friant Dam, and there are plenty of anxieties about what will happen if that water is restored to the river. In this case the law was clearly on the side of the environmentalists, and there was every indication that the courts would have ordered even more water restored to the river if the case had proceeded. It is galling to many in agriculture, but the settlement is almost certainly the best deal they could get. The restoration bill has bipartisan support in Congress, in addition to Feinstein, from Reps. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, although Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, who represents much of the Valley's east side, has been a persistent foe. It may not feel that good, but it's better than the alternative. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 13 18:14:37 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:14:37 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath from Friends of the River Message-ID: <1B0D5CBBE9D1412F995A4B735A617B34@ByronsLaptop> Header600px email2 Tell A Friend Breaking News November 13, 2008 - Federal and state agencies have negotiated an agreement in principal with PacifiCorp that could eventually lead to the removal of four hydroelectric dams and the restoration of the Klamath River's once bountiful runs of salmon and steelhead. The actual agreement did not become available to all Klamath settlement stakeholders until the afternoon of November 12 when members of the Klamath Settlement Group received a briefing from state and federal officials and PacifiCorp. The agreement has not been approved by numerous other stakeholders, including Friends of the River, who have been involved in the federal relicensing of the Klamath River hydro dams for several years. It remains purely a product produced and endorsed by a sub-set of parties. Although Friends of the River believes that a concession in writing from PacifiCorp to remove the dams is a step in the right direction, we have significant concerns about the workability of the agreement in principal. Foremost, the agreement in principal has so many prerequisites that MUST occur before dam removal can happen that it would likely never result in the removal of any dams. To learn more, click here. Friends of the River will continue to be involved in this complicated and controversial process to achieve its goal of restoring the Klamath River. Powered by Convio Home | Tell A Friend | View Message | Unsubscribe Friends Of The River, 1418 20th St., Suite 100, Sacramento CA 95811 888.464.2477 Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 54564 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 528 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.gif Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1510 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Nov 14 12:04:34 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:04:34 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] More Klamath Message-ID: <3F268A0A6E7849F4A758E1A76991C324@byronPC> If anyone is interested in more Klamath stories, here are two and an editorial. Obviously, there are and will be more. I'm not going to send anything more than links to them. New York Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/science/earth/14klamath.html?_r=1 &ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin San Francisco Chronicle article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/11/14/MNA21441S7.DT L San Francisco Chronicle editorial: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/14/EDKK14409E.DTL Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Nov 14 13:17:01 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:17:01 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Klamath Los Angeles Times Article Message-ID: Los Angeles Times article: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-klamath14-2008nov14,0,6605307.story Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Nov 16 10:33:39 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:33:39 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Greg King's My Word : Dam removal 'off-ramps' ahead Message-ID: <00bd01c9481f$d76b9db0$0c659643@trinitycounty.org> Dam removal 'off-ramps' ahead Greg King/My Word/the Times-Standard 11/15/2008 The recently signed "Agreement in Principle" (AIP) to remove dams on the Klamath River may result in dam decommissioning, but it's not likely. Instead, the fragile deal between the states of Oregon and California, the Bush Administration and dam owner PacifiCorp -- but no other Klamath River stakeholders -- could mean that dams will remain in place for a number of years before PacifiCorp takes one of the legal "off-ramps" built into the deal and abandons dam removal altogether. One of the most dangerous off-ramps is spelled out in the U.S. Department of the Interior's own press release lauding the AIP: "The United States will make a final determination by March 31, 2012, whether the benefits of dam removal will justify the costs. ... At that point, the United States shall designate a non-federal dam removal entity (DRE) to remove the dams or decline to remove the dams at which point PacifiCorp will return to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for relicensing." That is, economic considerations, as defined solely by the federal government, could once again trump the needs of the Klamath River's endangered fish species, at least three of which -- Coho salmon, spring run Chinook salmon, and green sturgeon -- are close to extinction. Klamath River chum and pink salmon populations are already extinct. Another off-ramp would allow PacifiCorp to abandon pursuit of a "401" clean water permit, which is required to in order to obtain a new 50-year license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to operate the dams. For PacifiCorp this is a coup. The company was able to delay the 401 process for two years, but the State Water Resources Control Board, which issues 401 permits in California, recently mandated that the company comply with state and federal laws and submit its application for the permit. This process recently resulted in five well attended public hearings throughout the north state, during which dozens of scientists, policy analysts and lay people insisted that the toxic water behind PacifiCorp's dams couldn't possible meet state water quality standards. Without a 401 permit FERC cannot relicense the dams, and they would mostly likely have to be torn down. Now the 401 process is in danger of languishing in legal limbo, which is exactly where PacifiCorp wants it. Another likely deal killer is the need for the states of California and Oregon, as well as the U.S. government, to pass legislation that approves as well as funds dam removal. In the case of California such legislation could be a tough sell, given that it will require a $250 million bond to be passed by California voters. Such passage may occur, but its defeat is just as likely as the state spirals into a financial disaster. This would kill dam removal. In addition, the AIP would codify the 256-page Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA), the uncompleted and highly flawed water giveaway to agriculture that has not been signed by any of the parties that created it. The AIP could also tie the hands of the Obama administration, which undoubtedly would have a much different set of priorities for the Klamath River, such as recovery of salmon. While the KBRA represents a Bush give-away to Big Ag, the Klamath dam AIP represents an even bigger Bush gift to Big Energy. It will allow PacifiCorp to escape from its obligations to clean up the river and protect endangered species, and to abandon dam removal at just about any time between now and 2020. We have come to expect such shams from the Bush administration, and we can certainly expect better from Obama, who should be allowed to help solve one of the nation's most critical river issues. Greg King is executive director of the Northcoast Environmental Center Kier Associates, Fisheries and Watershed Professionals P.O. Box 915 Blue Lake, CA 95525 707.668.1822 mobile: 498.7847 http://www.kierassociates.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at trinityalps.net Sun Nov 16 10:36:21 2008 From: tstokely at trinityalps.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:36:21 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Dan Bacher: Is Schwarzenegger Trading Klamath Dam Removal for the Destruction of the Delta? Message-ID: <00c001c9481f$dc2d9290$0c659643@trinitycounty.org> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 2:18 PM Subject: Is Schwarzenegger Trading Klamath Dam Removal for the Destruction of the Delta? We cannot allow Governor Schwarzenegger to trade the removal of four of PacifiCorp's Klamath River dams for a water bond that funds two new dams and a peripheral canal. arnold_with_chrisman_and_... Is Schwarzenegger Trading Klamath Dam Removal for the Destruction of the Delta?? by Dan Bacher? Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger never misses an opportunity to push his environmentally destructive and enormously costly $ 9.3 water bond proposal to build two new reservoirs and "improved conveyance" - the peripheral canal.? True to his role as the "Fish Terminator," the Governor used a press conference that he appeared at with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Mike Chrisman, California Secretary of Resources, in Los Angeles Friday to promote building new dams in California the day after an agreement in principle was reached between Oregon, California, PacifiCorp and the Bush administration over Klamath Dam removal.? "We are here today to celebrate something really big, which is a great victory for the environment of California," Schwarzenegger gushed. "With the Klamath River Agreement we are making actual history, because this will be the biggest dam removal project ever in the history and the biggest one in the United States. So this is great for California and this is really great also for Oregon."? He then touted the tentative pact as a consensus-style, win-win situation for the Klamath Basin. "And I'm very proud that everyone here worked together, because something like this cannot be done if not everyone is cooperating and working together, if it is environmentalists, if it is the farmers, the Native American tribes, salmon fishermen, the state and the federal agencies, the PacifiCorp, everyone, and I want to thank them all for their great cooperation. Everyone cares so much about the magnificent river and also the water quality and the fish population, and that is why this came about," Schwarzenegger gushed.? After making that statement, of course, Schwarzenegger just had to promote building new dams and sub-surface water storage, although he didn't specifically mention "improved conveyance" - the peripheral canal. In numerous press conferences and photo opportunities over the past two years, Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein have campaigned for a water bond measure that would two new unneeded reservoirs, Temperance Flats on the San Joaquin River and Sites on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, in spite of the fact that water in both watersheds is dramatically over-appropriated already and the chances are that these dams would never fill anyway.? "Now, let me just say that we all know that we have a very serious water problem in California and, of course, we want to make sure that we build more water storage, above-the-ground and below-the-ground water storage, but they have to be strategically located," stated Schwarzenegger, changing from his role as the "Green Governor" to "Arnold the Dam Builder."? "So this is why it is important that we continue building those, even though we want to take four down," Scharzenegger claimed. "I've been worried, of course, about our declining salmon population, and with this agreement here we are setting the stage for the return of the historic salmon runs on the Klamath River."? Missed in most media reports of the agreement is Schwarzenegger's expectation that this agreement could become a "quid pro quo" to sacrifice the California Delta fish and Central Valley chinook salmon species, now in an unpredented state of collapse, for removing dams on the Klamath.? A coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes, conservationists and Delta farmers is strongly opposing Schwarzenegger's campaign to put a water bond including a peripheral canal and more dams on the ballot this coming year. Although massive opposition to dams and the canal prevented the Governor and allies from putting the proposal on the November ballot, dam and canal opponents fear that he and his corporate agribusiness backers will try to get the water bond on the June ballot.? Supporters of fish restoration in the Central Valley and the Delta fear that the water bond will result in building the infrastructure to increase water exports out of the Delta to Southern California and drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, striped bass and other fish populations have crashed in recent years, due to record increases in water exports, declining water quality and other factors. More dams and a peripheral canal would only exacerbate the deplorable condition of Delta fish and Central Valley chinook salmon, fish advocates point out.? After Schwarzenegger spoke, Kempthorne and Chrisman lauded the Klamath agreement also and praised Schwarzenegger for his environmental "leadership."? "If the data collected during the next four years shows that removal is environmentally prudent, the target for removing all four of the dams is the year 2020," said Kempthorne. "I appreciate the great leadership of Governor Schwarzenegger not only for staying at the table for these negotiations, but also for providing a platform by which Californians and Oregonians will have a future in the Klamath Basin through the restoration agreement."? I love it - here we have Kempthorne, the Secretary of the Interior for the worst-ever administration for fish and the environment in U.S. history, praising Schwarzenegger, the worst-ever Governor for fish and the environment in California history, for the Governor's "great leadership" on the environment!? The Yurok, Karuk and Klamath Tribes, California Trout, Trout Unlimited, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, American Rivers, two farming organizations and other conservation groups are touting the pact, after several long years of negotiations in the parallel Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement process, as being an important first step toward dam removal and the restoration of the declining salmon runs of the Klamath River.? The Hoopa Valley Tribe, North Coast Environmental Center and Oregon Wild are opposing the agreement for a variety of reasons, most notably because the agreement is non-binding and unenforceable and could become a bailout for Klamath Basin agriculture.? Friends of the River Questions Pact? Friends of the River, a statewide conservation organization based in Sacramento, is critical of the agreement for a multitude of reasons, including the timing of the agreement's release as well as its controversial content, including the linking of Klamath Restoration to Schwarzenegger's water bond proposal.? "The actual agreement did not become available to all Klamath settlement stakeholders until the afternoon of November 12 when members of the Klamath Settlement Group received a briefing from state and federal officials and PacifiCorp," said Steven Evans and Kelly Catlett of Friends of the River (FOR) in a statement Friday. "The agreement has not been approved by numerous other stakeholders, including Friends of the River, that have been involved in the federal relicensing of the Klamath River hydro dams for several years. It remains purely a product produced and endorsed by a sub-set of parties."? The organization is also wary of the many conditions that need to be met for dam removal to take place. These conditions include:? ? Full protection for PacifiCorp from all liability.? ? Placing a $200 million cap on dam removal costs to be recovered from Oregon and California ratepayers.? ? A commitment from the State of California to provide $250 million in dam removal costs through a water bond to be approved by state voters.? ? A commitment to attempt federal legislation to authorize and fund the controversial $1 billion Klamath Basin Settlement deal, which would provide water and power guarantees to Klamath Basin farmers.? ? Agreement by the states to forego exercising their 401 permitting authority under the Clean Water Act to reduce polluted discharge from the dams.? ? State legislation bypassing the authority of the respective state utility commissions concerning ratepayer cost recovery.? ? Putting the FERC relicensing process on hold until a federal study is completed by 2012 that will determine whether the benefits of dam removal justify the cost.? "Although Friends of the River believes that a concession in writing from PacifiCorp to remove the dams is a step in the right direction, we have significant concerns about the workability of the agreement in principle," Evans and Catlett said. "Foremost, the agreement has so many prerequisites that MUST occur before dam removal can happen that it would likely never result in the removal of any dams."? Echoing my concerns that Schwarzenegger is trying to link Klamath Dam removal to the building of new dams in the Central Valley, Evans and Catlett noted that California will likely rely on a proposed water bond to be approved by the voters in 2009 to provide the $250 million for river restoration outlined in the agreement.? "Conservationists will oppose this water bond if it also includes billions of dollars to build new or enlarge existing dams in California," they stated. "Coupled with the fact that voters may be leery of approving a multi-billion bond as the state economy continues to melt down, the prospect of the state to meet its obligation under the agreement seems dubious."? They also said the agreement in principle does not spell out who will be responsible for dam removal costs above and beyond the $450 million that would supposedly be covered by ratepayers and the State of California.? "The assumption that the federal government will produce the legislation and authorizations needed to implement the Klamath Basin Settlement is also questionable," they contended. "Opposition has delayed by more than two years the congressional approval of similar legislation to implement the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement. With a price tag that is four times larger than the San Joaquin Settlement and given the declining state of the economy, it seems likely that any Klamath Basin Settlement legislation would be subject to similar attacks, particularly since many groups in Oregon and California oppose the Basin Settlement."? The federal and state agencies hope to come to a final agreement with PacifiCorp in June 2009. The process will include other stakeholders moving forward, but in what capacity is still undetermined at this time, according to Evans and Catlett.? They are also concerned that interim measures adopted until dam removal takes place will be not sufficient to protect salmon and steelhead populations hammered by low, warm water conditions nor protect people, fish, animals from the toxic algae blooms created by PacifiCorp's Iron Gate and Copco reservoirs on the Klamath. While recreational and commercial salmon fishing this year was closed in ocean waters off California and Oregon, due to the collapse of Central Valley fall run chinook salmon, in 2006 commercial salmon fishing was severely restricted because of the Klamath River salmon decline spurred by the Bush administration-engineered fish kills of 2002.? "It is unclear whether interim operations measures adopted after the final agreement is signed in June 2009 will be sufficient to reduce pollution in the Klamath River and adequately protect salmon and steelhead," they concluded. "But these are the measures that will be in place until the dams are actually removed."? I have worked closely on both the Klamath and California Delta restoration battles with recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, California Indian Tribes, farmers and environmentalists -and I greatly respect and support all of the stakeholders for the enormous time, money and effort that they have put into the battle to bring down Warren Buffett's Klamath River dams.? I agree with FOR that the unprecedented concession in writing from PacifiCorp to remove the dams on Thursday is a step in the right direction. I also agree with Evans and Catlett in their critical assessment of the Klamath agreement, particularly in regard to the apparent trade off between Klamath dam removal and the construction of new dams that Schwarzenegger and the Bush administration are pushing.? The final agreement is set to be signed by the states, federal government and PacifiCorp in June 2009. This gives us time to put intense and unrelenting political pressure on the incoming Obama administration to remove any connection to a canal/dam water bond in this agreement, as well strike out other troubling provisions of the tentative agreement.? This is a non binding agreement only and hopefully a more fish-friendly and environmentally-proactive administration in Washington willl craft an improved final agreement that doesn't trade dam removal for new dams and a peripheral canal - that doesn't restore the Klamath River at the expense of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest and most significant estuary on the West Coast. We must restore both the Delta and Klamath River at the same time - and must emphasize to the incoming Obama administration the urgent need to restore the declining salmon and other fish populations in both watersheds! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: arnold_with_chrisman_and_kempthorne.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 37086 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at att.net Mon Nov 17 11:06:13 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Thomas Stokely) Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:06:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [env-trinity] New E-mail address- tstokely@att.net Message-ID: <87167.55756.qm@web180001.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I finally got a new e-mail address.? Hooray, no more dialup! Tom Stokely Water Policy Coordinator California Water Impact Network 504A Lennon St. Mt. Shasta, CA 96067 530-926-9727 V/FAX tstokely at att.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kierassociates at suddenlink.net Mon Nov 17 11:09:44 2008 From: kierassociates at suddenlink.net (Kier Associates) Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:09:44 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] New E-mail address- tstokely@att.net In-Reply-To: <87167.55756.qm@web180001.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <87167.55756.qm@web180001.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20081117190948.VNUP3195.omta02.suddenlink.net@kier.suddenlink.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 20 10:28:35 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:28:35 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle Endangered Wild Fish Message-ID: <003e01c94b3d$cd4af620$67e0e260$@net> Most state native game fish face extinction Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer Thursday, November 20, 2008 (11-19) 21:31 PST -- Most of California's native salmon, steelhead and trout species face extinction by the end of the century unless the state acts quickly to provide adequate freshwater and habitat, according to a study released Wednesday by the state's leading salmon expert. _____ Images At Ink Wells waterfall on San Geronimo Creek in the Lagun... 20 specieis in danger (Chronicle Graphic) A steelhead lies on the shore of the Klamath River after ... http://imgs.sfgate.com/graphics/utils/plus-green.gifView Larger Images * NorCal median home price plummets 41 percent 11.20.08 Twenty of 31 species of the prized fishes are in sharp decline, including the Sacramento River winter run of chinook salmon, the Sierra's California golden trout and coastal coho, according to the study by Peter Moyle, a nationally known UC Davis professor of conservation biology. The fish advocacy group, California Trout, that commissioned the study will use the results to try to help persuade legislators and the governor to direct and help the California Department of Fish and Game to better carry out its mission of conserving the state's wild fish. Decades of lax controls on farming, logging, grazing, mining and road-building have filled and polluted streams, the study said, while the removal of streamside vegetation on the North Coast, in Sierra creeks and on inland lagoons has warmed the water and harmed fish. For the past 50 years, ocean salmon that spawn in rivers from the Klamath south to the Sacramento have been blocked by dams and other barriers and deprived of water diverted to farms and cities by state and federal water projects. In some recent years, salmon returning to the ocean to feed and grow have found a poor food supply of krill, squid and smaller fish caused by higher water temperatures that could be related to global warming. "Our fish need cold, clean water to survive, but they're getting less and less of it," Moyle said. "Dams block access. Climate change is now looming to exacerbate the threat, and it increases the urgency. All of these things are pushing our fish toward extinction. "If we allow these fish to go extinct, we've allowed the deterioration of the streams and rivers," Moyle said, adding that the same waterways supply clean drinking water to humans. One species, the bull trout, already has disappeared. The fish was last seen in the McCloud River in the 1970s, and scientists link its disappearance to the Shasta and McCloud dams. In the 316-page study, Moyle calculated the survival chances into the next decades of 12 kinds of salmon, 11 kinds of trout, eight kinds of steelhead and one species of white fish. He based the assessment on size of the habit and population, dependence of the fish on human intervention to save it, tolerance to environmental stressors, vulnerability to genetic disruption and likelihood of doing worse under global warming. Fish and Game Director Donald Koch, in a statement released Wednesday, said the agency looks forward to reading the report. "We thank California Trout for their dedication to California's native fish species," he said. "We appreciate their support and look forward to engaging them and other stakeholders in finding solutions to further our efforts to conserve the state's valuable fish and wildlife resources." Sport and commercial fishing and environmental groups have complained that the agency is mismanaged and underfunded, resulting in a shortage of wardens and other staff members charged with preventing poaching, checking stream quality, running restoration projects and monitoring logging and development plans. Brian Stranko, CEO of the 7,500-member California Trout, praised recent progress in aiding the state's fish. There were two preliminary agreements last week to remove four dams on the Klamath River and a court settlement involving restoration of the San Joaquin River, which aims in part to bring back the spring run on the river that was wiped out by the construction of Friant Dam in the 1940s. Restoration measures work, Stranko said. Volunteers working with state and federal agencies, conservation groups and private parties have begun to bring back the California golden trout in the southern Sierra and the Goose Lake redband trout near the Oregon border. But the most important changes must come from Fish and Game, an agency legally mandated to manage and conserve fish and wildlife, Stranko said. Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, the new chairman of the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, said the state's fiscal crisis will prevent expansion of Fish and Game's resources, which have been depleted by cuts. But Huffman, who plans hearings on the salmon problem early next year, said the state can find other sources of revenue and can consider other ways to reconfigure the agency "so it can fulfill its missions." In some states, the wildlife agency is combined with the parks agency, he said. "The department is understaffed and underfunded. The answer is more than money," Huffman said. "We need a department that is fundamentally more committed to its resource-protection mission. That means it can't be subservient to political interests. "The fishery watchdog agency hasn't had a good track record," he added, referring to court orders to protect smelt that have stopped water deliveries from the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. In 2007-2008, the Sacramento's fall run of chinook was the second lowest on record in recent times. "This is no longer a hook-and-bullet agency," Huffman said. "It has a serious resource mandate as well." State Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, said she would have hearings on Moyle's findings. "It wasn't too long ago that salmon flourished throughout Northern and Central California. In just one generation, we have lost significant salmon and steelhead runs in the Russian, the Eel and the Klamath rivers as well as rivers in the Central Valley," she said in a statement. Wiggins' bill, SB562, was signed into law last year, providing $5.3 million in funding that will be used to gain federal money for salmon monitoring and restoration. She intends to bring a package of bills to the Legislature in January. Unless immediate changes are made to protect the environment, she said, "wild salmon as we know it will disappear from our dinner plates." Fish in peril -- Read the 316-page study at links.sfgate.com/ZFKN. -- For a summary, go to links.sfgate.com/ZFKO. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 5199 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 3798 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: image004.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 20 10:34:09 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:34:09 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle Editorial Native Fish to Extinction Message-ID: <004401c94b3e$943e5ba0$bcbb12e0$@net> Chronicle Editorials New report shows peril to California fish Thursday, November 20, 2008 A downward slide showing dozens of native freshwater fish fading to extinction may not bother Californians who never see a tumbling mountain stream or deep-blue lake. _____ Images http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/05/23/mn-butte_salmon26_498503516_par t1.jpg http://imgs.sfgate.com/graphics/utils/plus-green.gifView Larger Image * New report shows peril to California fish 11.20.08 But a report on the declining numbers makes a bigger point: fresh, clean water is in short supply for fish, and it's needed by humans, too. At first glance, the two-year study by California Trout is all about fish. Of 31 trout, salmon and steelhead species, 65 percent are headed toward extinction this century. Like redwoods, deserts and seashores, these native fish are icons of the state and deserve protection. This heritage must be protected, the organization rightly argues in the 350-page report researched by a team that included Dr. Peter Moyle, a UC Davis professor of fish biology. A combination of factors - farming, timber practices, development and harsh weather brought on by global warming - is the culprit. Water is siphoned off, dirtied or blocked behind dams. The flows that are left are sluggish and warm, unsuitable for wild fish. So far, the state's official answer is a feeble one: a Fish and Game department saddled with increasing duties and a declining budget. As one example, there are 100 fewer game wardens today compared with 2000. These outdoor cops do more than check fishing licenses. They spot illegal water diversions and activities that damage streambeds needed for fish spawning. With a state budget deficit predicted at $28 billion over the next 18 months, it may be foolish to wish for miracles. But an agreement last week holds out hope for removing four dams and restoring fish-friendly flows on the Klamath River. Also, the San Joaquin River is in line for major restoration. The report suggests pushing these plans further via a slice of the sales tax or user fees if the political will is there. There are convincing reasons to safeguard the state's native fish from extinction. But maybe the best reason of all is that by saving these ancient species, California is also saving itself. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: image003.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 20 10:59:49 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:59:49 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Endangered Species Endangered Message-ID: <007301c94b42$2a36f7e0$7ea4e7a0$@net> Bush rushes to weaken endangered species law Dina Cappiello, Associated Press Thursday, November 20, 2008 (11-20) 04:00 PST Washington -- Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Barack Obama can reverse them. * Dems: Napolitano emerges for Homeland Security job 11.20.08 The rules must be published Friday to take effect before Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. Otherwise, he can undo them with the stroke of a pen. The Interior Department rushed to complete the rules in three months over the objections of lawmakers and environmentalists who argued that they would weaken how a landmark conservation law is applied. The latest version has changed little from the original proposal, despite the more than 250,000 comments received since the change was proposed in August, according to a Nov. 12 copy obtained late Wednesday by the Associated Press. The rules eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself it is likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants. Current regulations require wildlife biologists to sign off on these decisions before a project can proceed, at times modifying the design to better protect species. The regulations also bar federal agencies from assessing emissions of the gases blamed for global warming on species and habitats, a tactic environmentalists have tried to use to block new coal-fired power plants. Tina Kreisher, an Interior Department spokeswoman, could not confirm whether the rule would be published before the deadline, saying only that the White House was still reviewing it. But she said changes were being made based on the comments received. "We started this; we want to finish this," said Kreisher. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 145 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Nov 21 10:06:39 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:06:39 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle November 21 08 Hatcheries v Wild Message-ID: <000a01c94c03$e765a160$b630e420$@net> What I have to add is that there is an enormous body of scientific evidence and studies concluding that hatchery fish ultimately destroy wild fish populations if not the entire fishery. This is an issue on which we are working on the Trinity. More later and in Newsletters. Byron Leydecker Putting fish from hatcheries in streams on hold Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer Friday, November 21, 2008 State wildlife officials will stop stocking some streams with hatchery-raised fish while resource managers figure out if the practice harms native fish, amphibians and insects, under an agreement signed Thursday. * Peter Camejo memorial services Sunday 11.21.08 The state Fish and Game Department agreed to interim restrictions on introducing fish into habitat of about two dozen imperiled species, including the California golden trout in the Sierra, McCloud River redband trout, the Sacramento's winter run chinook salmon and the California red-legged frog. Two environmental groups, the Pacific Rivers Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, sued the department, alleging that its stocking program has harmed endangered and threatened species. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette ruled in May 2007 that fish stocking has significant environmental impacts on aquatic ecosystems, particularly on native fish, amphibians and insects. He ordered the department to conduct an environmental review on the possibility of harm under the California Environmental Policy Act by the end of 2008. Because the department will miss the deadline, the environmental groups asked the state to stop fish stocking in the sensitive areas. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danielbacher at fishsniffer.com Fri Nov 21 10:44:39 2008 From: danielbacher at fishsniffer.com (Dan Bacher) Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:44:39 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Angling Groups Hope for Fish Restoration Under Obama In-Reply-To: <000a01c94c03$e765a160$b630e420$@net> References: <000a01c94c03$e765a160$b630e420$@net> Message-ID: Angling Groups Hope for Fish Restoration Under Obama by Dan Bacher The election of Barrack Obama on November 4 in one of the most contentious presidential elections in U.S. history will have wide- ranging implications for California and West Coast fisheries, especially for those in northern California. Sportsmen were on both sides of the battle, with Sportsmen for Obama and other organizations working hard for an Obama election victory and others, such as the National Rifle Association, campaigning for McCain. However, the election is over, the voters have chosen Obama and anglers need to make sure that our needs and input are heard in the new Obama administration that takes power on January 21, 2009. Neither Obama nor McCain are avid outdoorsmen, although Obama, in a September interview in Field and Stream, said he frequently spear fished with his stepfather while he was a child in Hawaii. Hopefully, Obama will make a dramatic break with 8 years of anti-fish policies by the Bush administration that have resulted in fish kills, massive fishing closures and wholesale evisceration of public trust fishing rights in California. In his interviews and public statements, Obama has consistently affirmed his commitment to fishing and hunting. In an interview with Outdoor Life published on September 28, Obama said, ?While I did not grow up hunting and fishing, I recognize the great conservation legacy of America?s hunters and anglers. Were it not for America?s hunters and anglers, including great icons like Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold, our nation would not have the tradition of sound game management and an extensive public lands estate on which to hunt and fish.? Likewise, on National Hunting and Fishing Day this year, Obama said, ?Hunting and fishing are not just recreational pursuits, and they are part of our national heritage. As President, I will protect the right to bear arms, increase access to places to hunt and fish, take on polluters and clean up our streams and lakes, and protect our nation?s important wildlife habitat and wetlands. I will enhance programs that encourage young people to hunt and fish and respect and protect the outdoors.? Many sportsmen are greatly relieved that a new regime will be moving into Washington to replace the Bush administration, one of the worst- ever for fisheries and fishing rights in U.S. history. ?It?s like a big weight has been lifted off our country with the departure of the Bush administration,? said Cal Kellogg, Fish Sniffer Associate Editor. The Bush administration was notable for engineering the Klamath River fish kill of 2002, the largest fishery disaster of its kind in U.S. history. Over 68,000 salmon perished in low, water conditions spurred by a change in water policy that favored agribusiness over fish, fishermen, Indian Tribes and downstream water users. Central Valley rivers were closed to salmon fishing for the first time in history this year, due to the collapse of Central Valley fall chinook salmon. Delta pelagic species including delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass, and threadfin shad have plummeted to record low population levels, due to increased water exports, toxic chemicals and invasive species. And many examples of political manipulation of biological science by Bush administration officials to favor the timber, agribusiness and mining industries at the expense of our public trust fisheries have been showcased over the last 8 years in this and other publications. In a parting shot, the Bush administration is attempting to rewrite the Endangered Species Act at the expense of imperiled fish, wildlife ad plants. Fishing Groups See Healthy Fish Populations as Vital to a Healthy Economy It will take a monumental effort and many years to restore our fisheries just to the level that they were in 2001 when Bush took office, but it must be done! What do key leaders in fishing and conservation organizations think about the prospects of the new administration that goes into office on January 21? ?I?m very encouraged, from what I?ve heard so far, that the policies of Obama will deal with many of the environmental disasters that we have seen in California under the Bush administration,? said Dick Pool, coordinator of Water for Fish (www.water4fish.org.). ?I look forward to him appointing fair and attentive leaders attuned to the need for fishery restoration to key posts, particularly the Secretaries of Interior and Commerce. I got my fingers crossed that the situation with our fisheries will improve under an Obama administration.? John Beuttler, conservation director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, is cautiously optimistic about the future over California fisheries under Obama. ?I don?t think that Obama will let politics override biological science like the last administration did,? he said. ?However, it will be difficult to assess what anybody could do with the financial situation we?re in now, due to the collapse of the mortgage loan industry. We have an economic crisis on hand that could impact funding for federal and fish and wildlife programs.? Beuttler looks at the incoming administration as an opportunity for anglers to demonstrate the billions of dollars that the restoration of Central Valley salmon and Bay-Delta Estuary fish populations will contribute to the economy. ?We need an economic stimulus in all sectors of the economy ? and we have the opportunity to make the case to our government of the benefits of California fisheries to the economy - if they are properly managed. This would stand in stark contrast to the way our fisheries have been managed under the previous regime,? he said. "We look forward to working with the Obama Administration and the new Congress," said Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA). "We were concerned that McCain might have kept some of the Bush folks that had declared war on the environment and the fisheries. Bush talked a good line to recreational fishermen and fish processors, but behind the scenes, his policies were destroying the fish stocks we depend on." "Moreover," Grader continued, "the 'drill, baby, drill' mantra of Bush, McCain, Palin and the oil companies scared hell out of us, as did the Bushies promotion of offshore fish farming and privatizing fish stocks ? turning fishermen into sharecroppers. Obama is a welcome change." Steve Evans, conservation director of Friends of the River in Sacramento, was also optimistic about environmental prospects under the incoming administration, although he tempered it with concerns about some of Obama's positions on energy issues. "The expected focus of the Obama Administration on energy and global warming is hugely positive given the previous administration?s position of denial," said Evans. "But President-Elect Obama?s views on some key issues do raise a few red flags in regard to rivers, including his strong support for water-consumptive ethanol as an alternative fuel, as well as on renewable energy (which could possibly include river-damaging hydroelectric energy produced by big dams).? He is encouraging fish and river advocates to "take every opportunity to educate the new administration on common sense environmental solutions, before firm positions are made." Key Environmental Posts: Sportsmen Endorse Mike Thompson for Interior Secretary The Obama staff is moving quickly to appoint key members of the transition team and cabinet. His transition team is focusing first on top West Wing staff and his economic and national security teams in the 76-day transition period. Democratic Party officials are unsure when Obama will make the selection to key environmental posts. Obama has appointed John Podesta, former Clinton Chief of Staff from 1998 to 2001, as the co-chair of his transition team. Podesta is an outspoken advocate of an end to government secrecy and serves on the board of the League of Conservation Voters. LCV credited him with cleaning up twice as many toxic waste sites during the Clinton administration than in the previous 12 years. ?Podesta started transition planning several months ago out of his office at the Center for American Progress in Washington. On energy and environmental issues, Podesta is leaning on two of his former colleagues from the Clinton era: former U.S. EPA Administrator Carol Browner and former Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes,? noted Darren Samuelson in the Greenwire on November 5. In an interview with Field and Stream in September, Obama said that he would probably appoint a sportsman or sportswoman to be the Secretary of Interior, as well as creating a ?sportsmen?s committee? that advises Interior and other agencies. ?I think that having a head of the Department of Interior who doesn't understand hunting and fishing would be a problem,? Obama said. ?And so my suspicion is that whoever heads up the Department of Interior is probably going to be a sportsman or sportswoman.? He continued, ?And certainly, the idea of setting up a sportsmen's committee that has interaction, interface with various agencies, so that perspective informs the EPA, it informs Interior, it informs the Department of Energy and other agencies that may have an impact on access to public lands and conservation of public lands, I think is extremely important.? Also encouraging is a report in the Huffington Post, November 5, that Obama is considering Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for head of the EPA. Kennedy is a strong advocate of fish restoration and recreational, commercial and tribal fishing rights as the head of the Water Keeper organization. His law firm is currently involved in litigation against PacifiCorp on the Klamath River for water quality violations. Robert Kennedy Jr. said he would serve the next president if asked. " I would be of service in any way that the administration asked me to be," Kennedy told the Post. "But I am also very happy and I believe I am being effective doing the stuff I am doing currently." Ducks Unlimited, the American Sportfishing Association, Bass Pro Shops and 29 other groups are urging Obama to appoint Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) as the Interior Secretary. Thompson has earned high marks from both sportsmen's and environmental groups. He played a key leadership role in obtaining disaster relief for recreational and commercial fishermen and related businesses devastated by the closure of ocean waters off California and Oregon rivers "You have been forthright in your commitment to sportsmen and making their priorities a centerpiece of your land and water conservation agenda," they stated in a letter sent to Obama and his transition team on November 19. "As you review candidates for Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior we hope that you will strongly consider Congressman Thompson for this important post." Obama has a good environmental record in the Senate, though his record has suffered from his frequent absences while campaigning over the past year. The League of Conservation Voters gave him a 67 percent score for 2007 and an 86 percent ?lifetime rating.? Not only did Obama win, but larger pro-environment majorities were elected in both houses of Congress. "These election results just confirm what our polls have shown--sportsmen are looking to hear about more than just gun rights,? said Sue Brown, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund. ?They want conservation candidates who'll champion clean energy solutions. They will be looking to our new Congress and new president to deliver clear results on clean energy and climate." The environmental challenges of the incoming presidential administration and Congress include stopping the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley fall chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, striped bass and other California Delta fish populations. These dramatic population declines were spurred by record water exports by the state and federal Delta pumps, declining water quality and other factors. Will the new administration and Congress step up and begin the hard work to restore the fisheries - or will they side with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and corporate agribusiness and allow these populations to descend into the abyss of extinction? Now is the time for anglers and conservationists to put exert political pressure on Congress and the incoming administration to make sure that the needs of fish, wildlife and sportsmen are aggressively served in the coming years! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at att.net Sat Nov 22 10:34:07 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:34:07 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Push begins for Thompson as interior secretary Message-ID: Push begins for Thompson as interior secretary Thadeus Greenson/The Times-Standard Posted: 11/22/2008 01:24:15 AM PST A congressman who hunts, fishes and grows wine grapes is being promoted for interior secretary by two prominent fellow lawmakers. That congressman just happens to be the North Coast's own Mike Thompson. California Democratic Reps. George Miller and Anna Eshoo recently sent a letter to the incoming administration urging consideration for Thompson as President-elect Barack Obama's appointment for secretary of the Interior, spokespeople for the two representatives confirmed Friday. "Mike Thompson is immensely qualified to be Interior secretary," Miller said in a statement. "He has a strong base of support in conservation, environmental and outdoors community. He is knowledgeable about issues. And he is a person of great integrity and commitment to public service." Nearly three dozen sportsmen's groups, including Ducks Unlimited and Wildlife Forever, also sent a letter supporting Thompson to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Wildlife Forever CEO and President Doug Grann said Friday that Thompson was an easy choice for the organization, which provides funding for a wide variety of conservation efforts and is one of the founders of the American Wildlife Conservation Partnership. "We know of Mr. Thompson's record as a conservationist and a sportsman, and when his name came forward in the many discussions we were hearing out of Washington, D.C., we thought he would be an excellent choice," Grann said. "First and foremost, I was impressed that he's a life-time conservationist and sportsman. He's a hunter and an angler, and thus would represent the constituent base of our membership well in his oversight of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service." The Interior secretary is tasked with overseeing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey and the National Parks Service. Thompson, 57, won re-election in November and will start his sixth term in January. He serves on the Ways and Means and chairs the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence. He also co-founded the Wine Caucus when he arrived in Congress in 1999, is an avid hunter and has pushed legislation and disaster relief on behalf of salmon fishermen in Northern California. According to the California Secretary of State's Office, if Thompson were appointed, the governor would call a special election in California's 1st Congressional District to fill his seat. But, that's far from a sure thing, as Thompson said in a statement that he has yet to be contacted by the incoming administration. "It's an honor to be recognized by the many groups I've worked with over the years, but no one associated with President-elect Obama has contacted me," Thompson said in a statement. But Thompson backers are heartened by comments Obama made in an interview with Field & Stream magazine in September that his Interior secretary probably would be a sportsman or sportswoman. "I think that having a head of the Department of Interior who doesn't understand hunting and fishing would be a problem," the magazine quoted Obama as saying. Like Thompson, Grann also said he's not heard from the Obama team since penning the letter in support of Thompson. But, Grann said, he's still hopeful for Thompson's chances. "I know (the Obama transition team is) busy," Grann said. "It's a big job for the transition team, and I think they're way ahead of the curve. We think it will be a big positive that the Obama organization does value input from various groups. We're hopeful that Mr. Thompson has a good chance at being secretary of the Interior." Thadeus Greenson can be reached at 441-0509 or tgreenson at times-standard.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at att.net Tue Nov 25 21:39:10 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:39:10 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] =?utf-8?q?Field_=26_Stream_Magazine_Gives_Schwarzen?= =?utf-8?q?egger_=E2=80=9COutdoor_Villain_of_the_Year=E2=80=9D_Awar?= =?utf-8?q?d?= Message-ID: <05914A0D22F141FFA0B30B37DE58D230@homeuserPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 4:27 PM Subject: Field & Stream Magazine Gives Schwarzenegger ?Outdoor Villain of the Year? Award Field & Stream Magazine Gives Schwarzenegger ?Outdoor Villain of the Year? Award? A national magazine, Field & Stream, has bestowed California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with the well-deserved top honors in this year?s ?Heroes & Villains Face-Off" ? as a villain - for his absymal record on fish and the environment.? Photo: Schwarzenegger gushes about "solving" global warming while California's salmon and other fish populations collapse, due to his devastating environmental policies. Photo from the Governor's Office. schwarzenegger_at_climate... Field & Stream Magazine Gives Schwarzenegger ?Villain of the Year? Award? By Dan Bacher? National magazines and corporate media have often lauded Governor Arnold Schwarzeegger for being the ?Green Governor.? By failing to research how Schwarzenegger has actually governed since taking office in California in fall 2003, these publications have accepted at face value the constant stream of photos, press releases, video clips and other propaganda from the Governor?s office that portray the former actor as the ?green energy? guru.? Schwarzenegger?s face has graced magazine covers depicting him as the voice of ?responsible? environmentalism in spite of his abysmal record in regards to fish and the environment. While Schwarzenegger jets off to one ?green energy? and ?climate change? conference after another throughout the country, his environmental policies have brought salmon and other fish species to the brink of extinction.? Finally, the editors of a national magazine, Field & Stream, have refused to join the cult of Schwarzenegger worshippers and have bestowed the Governor with the well-deserved top honors in this year?s ?Heroes & Villains Face-Off ? as a villain.? The magazine is blasting the ?Fish Terminator? for slashing funding for salmon and steelhead restoration, attempting to close many state parks and recreational areas, and presiding over the collapse of Central Valley fall chinook salmon.? ?Playing the rake is not new for Gov. Schwarzenegger, whose first turn as the Terminator saw him working to destroy the world instead of saving it,? the magazine said. ?And the governor?s win will not come as any surprise to fishermen in the Golden State, where funding for salmon and steelhead restoration has been dramatically cut despite sharply declining populations for years. During the governor?s tenure, the Chinook salmon fishery in California collapsed, and on May 1, 2008, commercial and recreational salmon fishing were both banned along the West Coast in California and much of Oregon.?? The magazine also criticized Schwarzenegger for signing a ban on .50 caliber rifles and presiding over the dropping of the percentage of licensed hunters in California to 1%.? Worst of all, he?ll "be back" in 2009, according to the magazine, Russian Prime Minter Vladimir Putin, R&B singer Bobby Brown and CBS News Sunday Morning contributor Nancy Giles were also on the Villain list, but considered lesser offenders than Governor Schwarzenegger.? ?Schwarzenegger will be enjoying a stocking full of coal as the biggest outdoor 'Villain' of the year; while country musician Miranda Lambert, named the 'Hero' of the year, should receive a mountain of gifts,? the magazine stated.? I congratulate Field and Stream for doing their research and giving Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor for fish and the environment and California history, the dubious ?villain? award.? In addition to the transgressions that Field & Stream has mentioned, Schwarzenegger has presided over the unprecedented decline of four Delta pelagic fish species ? delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, and juvenile striped bass. The collapse occurred due to increased state water project exports from the California Delta under his administration, in addition to increases in toxic chemicals and invasive species in the West Coast?s largest and most significant estuary.? Rather than trying to restore these rapidly dwindling fish populations, Schwarzenegger has only worked to make matters worse by campaigning for an environmentally destructive and enormously costly $9.3 billion water bond with Senator Diane Feinstein. Although Schwarzenegger and Feinstein failed to generate the political momentum to place the bond measure on the November ballot, there is no doubt that they will be working to get the bailout bond for corporate water contractors on the June ballot this coming year.? Schwarzenegger's $9.3 billion water bond, opposed by a broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes, conservation groups and outspoken farmers, would provide for the construction of two new reservoirs and "improved water conveyance" - the Governor's code language for a peripheral canal.? Most recently, Schwarzenegger promoted his water bond proposal at a press conference with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Mike Chrisman, California Secretary of Resources, in Los Angeles on November 14, the day after ?an agreement in principle? was reached between Oregon, California, PacifiCorp and the Bush administration over Klamath Dam removal? "Now, let me just say that we all know that we have a very serious water problem in California and, of course, we want to make sure that we build more water storage, above-the-ground and below-the-ground water storage, but they have to be strategically located," stated Schwarzenegger, changing from his role as the "Green Governor" to "Arnold the Dam Builder."? These proposed dams and the canal would create the infrastructure to export even more water out of the imperiled Delta when what we actually need is reduced pumping and water exports.? In addition to his push for a water bond, the Governor's war on fish and the environment has included:? ? The refusal of his appointed officials on the State Water Resources Control Board and regional boards to hold agricultural polluters to the same standards as industry and municipalities, in spite of pleas by fishermen, conservationists and farmworkers.? ? His veto of historic suction dredge mining legislation, sponsored by the Karuk Indian Tribe and California Trout, last year. More recently, the Governor pressured the Legislature to remove interim suction dredge mining restrictions that were to have been incorporated as part of an omnibus resource trailer bill, AB 1338 (Huffman) that was adopted by the Legislature last Monday night as part of the state budget package and sent to the Governor.? ? His persistent fast-track advocacy of "no fishing zones" on the California Coast, under the guise of "Marine Protected Areas." These areas kick sustainable commercial and recreational fishermen off the water while doing nothing to stop water pollution, habitat degradation, water diversions and water exports that have resulted in huge fishery declines. Could it be that Schwarzenegger is removing fishermen from the water, forcing them to find work elsewhere, in order to eliminate the most persistent critics of his water policies?? ? The failure by the DFG under the Schwarzenegger administration to support a volunteer rescue of 1831 striped bass, Sacramento and tens of thousands of blackfish, Sacramento split tail, largemouth bass and other species last November when the Bureau of Reclamation drained Prospect Island in the California Delta. Before the volunteers were finally allowed to do the rescue, thousands of fish died, making Prospect Island the largest fish kill ever documented on the Delta and one of the largest fish kills in California history.? ? The vetoing of AB 1806, legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Davis) to provide for fish rescue plans in order to prevent future fishery disasters - like the one at Prospect Island - from taking place.? Finally, a national magazine has recognized Schwarzenegger for the environmental villain that he is. I greatly applaud Field & Stream for refusing to swallow the ?Green Governor? hype hook, line and sinker, pardon the pun, as other publications have done and for actually looking at his dismal record on fish and the environment.? For the complete list of Field and Streams villains and heroes, go to http://www.FieldandStream.com/villains. To read more about all of the 2008 F&S heroes and villains, see ?A Year in Review: The best (and worst) of hunting and fishing? in the Dec. ?08/Jan. ?09 double issue.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: schwarzenegger_at_climate_summit.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 26222 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at att.net Tue Nov 25 21:42:13 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:42:13 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] A framework for dam removal Message-ID: <86B5F618B6FF4D6882AD04B9031CF813@homeuserPC> A framework for dam removal The Times-Standard, 11/22/2008 By Jill Geist Since 2004, 26 diverse parties known as the Klamath Settlement Group have worked to develop the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) built around the simple premise that removal of the four dams preventing fish from reaching 300 miles of habitat is key to the recovery of the Klamath River and her fisheries. Groups supporting the KBRA understand that there are several ways to work towards Klamath Dam removal. A number of Klamath River advocates working towards dam removal are using a variety of approaches, including the regulatory processes such as FERC relicensing, and the water quality 401 certification processes. There is no one 'right pathway' to achieve dam removal, although it bears noting that FERC has never successfully ordered a dam removal nor has a state water board. To date, the only successful dam removal efforts were the product of a negotiated settlement. What is unique about this group's approach is the scope, detail and commitment by federal, state, tribal, local government, fishermen's groups, agricultural, conservation organizations and PacifiCorp to work not only toward dam removal, but a more comprehensive restoration plan that at the same time provides economic benefits to all of the basin's rural communities. This marks a significant departure from the past where groups used litigation as the primary tool to affect change with little progress made by either side. The settlement agreement group has focused primarily on the resources and management of the Klamath River until we had conceptual dam removal agreement from PacifiCorp. There has been a tremendous amount of cynicism, skepticism and even hope by various outside parties that we would fail. But because we are committed to seizing this unique opportunity for Klamath River restoration we have developed understandings of differing views, worked toward providing assurances where uncertainty exists and found points of agreement. As readers will recall, the settlement group released a draft KBRA for public review in January 2008, and that a sub-committee was engaged with PacifiCorp regarding conceptual agreement for removal of four Klamath dams. Parallel discussions were also held between federal, state and PacifiCorp representatives in an effort to break through the dam removal stalemate. These discussions resulted in an Agreement in Principle for the removal of 4 Klamath River dams by 2020. The Agreements in Principle (AIP) are largely consistent with the draft KBRA principles and provisions. The AIP was presented to the group, and we now possess an agreement that recognizes and relies upon our initiative to coordinate and develop the final agreement. At first blush, the AIP contains language that could be construed as troublesome, but it is important to recognize that it provides the framework for removal of four dams, and that the onus is placed on settlement group members to solve these problems, work around constraints, recognize 'off-ramps' and work towards finalizing a comprehensive final agreement that the majority of parties can accept. The Klamath Settlement Group will meet soon to further evaluate the AIP for consistency with the draft KBRA, establish a work plan for development of the hydropower chapter and further revise and refine the existing draft KBRA agreement, with a final agreement target date of June 2009. Jill Geist is Humboldt County's 5th District supervisor. # http://www.times-standard.com/ci_11049853?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 27 10:45:52 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:45:52 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle November 27 Message-ID: <000001c950c0$5fdece30$1f9c6a90$@net> Pass law to cut delta water use, panel says Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, November 27, 2008 Over the next two years, California should pass laws cutting water consumption by 20 percent, shore up strategic levees, study new reservoirs and pass Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $9 billion-plus water bond, according to a set of preliminary recommendations released Wednesday by a Cabinet-level panel. http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/11/26/ba-warming_and_t_421828832_part 1.jpg http://imgs.sfgate.com/graphics/utils/plus-green.gifView Larger Image * Open and closed on the holiday 11.27.08 The Delta Vision Committee, charged with advising policy makers on the future of the failing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, said the proposals are aimed at spurring discussions among committee members and stakeholders who will gather Dec. 5 in Sacramento. In addition to authorizing additional funding and bolstering infrastructure, the committee proposed designating the delta a National Heritage Area, increasing the state's supply of recycled and desalinated water and cracking down on water permits violators. Water rights permits ostensibly set the amount of water that may be diverted from any water source. The preliminary proposals grew out of a 20-month study by the independent, governor-appointed Delta Blue Ribbon Task Force. Last month, the task force, comprised of scientists, policy experts and planners, set two, equal, over-arching goals for work on the delta: Restoration of the ecosystem and the creation of a stable water supply for California. Now, the Delta Vision Committee must decide which nuts-and-bolts steps to include in its recommendations to the governor and Legislature by Dec. 31. The delta, a 1,300-square-mile estuary, acts as a giant funnel, delivering water - mostly from the north - to approximately 25 million Californians, many of them in Central and Southern California. Over the last several years, lawmakers, scientists and water users have watched, unnerved, as water quality has deteriorated and fish populations crashed. Adding insult to injury, the delta is now embroiled in drought and a legal fight pitting environmental interests against operators of the federal and state pumps that send water to cities and farmlands statewide. Taking steps to mend the delta would aid farmers, cities and wildlife alike. However, some critics contend the ambitious effort echoes that of CalFed, a coordinating body formed in the mid-1990s that held many of the same goals as the Delta Vision group. According to the delta task force's analysis, lack of leadership and accountability doomed many of CalFed's initiatives. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8845 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Thu Nov 27 10:47:55 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:47:55 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Friends of the River 2007 Graphs Conservation v. Building Dams Message-ID: <000601c950c0$a9671da0$fc3558e0$@net> Graphs attached Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Dams_vs_Cnsrvtn.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 75040 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Dec 2 10:28:38 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:28:38 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle December 2 2008 Message-ID: <001e01c954ab$cbabe230$6303a690$@net> Group wants chemical-filled farmland retired Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, December 2, 2008 _____ (12-01) 19:17 PST -- The giant state and federal pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that funnel water to 25 million Californians should be shut down until certain Central Valley farmers retire hundreds of thousands of acres of chemical-laden farmland, according to a lawsuit filed today by a state water watchdog. Irrigating agricultural land in the western San Joaquin Valley tainted with selenium, mercury, boron and other toxic substances constitutes an unreasonable use of a public resource protected by state laws and has contributed to the sharp decline of endangered fish species, said the California Water Impact Network. "We think there is a simple solution to California's water problems - to retire all of the drainage-impaired lands in the Central Valley. A second is water conservation - agriculture uses 80 percent of the developed surface water," said Carolee Krieger, president and founder C-WIN. The lawsuit marks the latest twist in the continuing Delta drama. The hub of the state's 1,300-square-mile water system is also at the heart of the fight between uses for food and human needs, and those of wildlife and rare plants. In recent years, failure of the ecosystem forced legal rulings that curbed water exports - a move made more complicated this year by a drought and fears of another dry winter. In the 27-page lawsuit filed in superior court in Sacramento , C-Win, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and an individual, Felix Smith, lays much of the blame for the system's problem on water over-allocation. One culprit, the lawsuit said, is the State Water Resources Control Board, which issues all water permits in the state. Also named were the state Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the two operators of the huge pumps and pipelines that send water, mainly from the north, to water users throughout California. Although turning off the pumps would impact residential, industrial and agricultural users, plaintiffs in the case, as well as environmental and other groups contend that recent, increased pumping by the state and federal agencies through the Delta has killed millions of protected and endangered fish species, including the Delta smelt. Much of the water has gone to watering cropland laden with chemicals that filter into the San Joaquin River and back to the southern Delta. Poor regulation decried "California has regulated its waters like the feds have regulated Wall Street and the result has been a collapse of fisheries and aquatic ecosystems," said California Sportfishing Protection Alliance Chairman and Director Bill Jennings. "We have little alternative but to turn to the courts to prevent the extinction of our historic fisheries." Officials at the state Department of Water Resources, the Water Control Resources Board and the Bureau of Reclamation could not be reached for comment. A spokeswoman for the largest irrigation district in the country, located around Fresno, called the lawsuit "disappointing." To date, about 100,000 agricultural acres have been taken out of production due to poor drainage and chemical saturation, said Sarah Woolf, of the Westlands Water District, which serves 600,000 acres and about 700 farms. Working with state At the same time, the agency has been working with state and federal legislators over the past 25 years to craft a deal that would fix the drainage problems with funds from the water district and landowners. Westlands estimates there are about 100,000 more acres of contaminated acres with poor drainage; Krieger put the number at closer to 1 million acres. "We're moving forward and being aggressive about it," Woolf said. "But really it's the environmental community that's holding it up." Last year, in an effort to curb the fish population decline, a federal judge ordered reduced Delta pumping - a move that critics like Westlands claim has not helped boost the smelt or other fish species. "In the last year we had the biggest cutbacks in pumping in the history of the entire system," Woolf said. "Six hundred acre feet were dedicated to helping fish, and the numbers of the Delta smelt are still down." But Krieger, of C-WIN, said the rapid die-off of the Delta smelt adds more urgency to fixing the ecosystem. "You can't interrupt the food chain without having dire consequences," she said. "It's not just a little fish. It's the bellwether of the Delta." Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Tue Dec 2 11:01:57 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 11:01:57 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Additional Media on Water Litigation Message-ID: <000c01c954b0$731baa60$5952ff20$@net> Additional articles on CWIN/CSPA Lawsuit Contra Costa Times http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_11115464?nclick_check=1 Stockton Record http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081202/A_NEWS/81202032 4/-1/A_NEWS Associated Press - Fresno Bee published http://www.sacbee.com/114/story/1440849.html Los Angeles Times http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2008/12/new-tack-in-old.html Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at att.net Wed Dec 3 13:33:20 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 13:33:20 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Berkeley River Restoration Symposium - Saturday, Dec. 6, 9AM-1PM Message-ID: <4C5E2750BF8E4CA6B0496844B27DE7C6@homeuserPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Kristen Podolak To: riverrestoration2007 at lists.berkeley.edu Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:18 AM Subject: Berkeley River Restoration Symposium - Saturday, Dec. 6, 9AM-1PM You are invited to the Sixth Annual BERKELEY RIVER RESTORATION SYMPOSIUM Saturday 06 Dec 2008 9a-1pm Rm 112 Wurster Hall http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/WRCA/227_08.html 9h Keynote talk: "The Trinity River, the Peripheral Canal, and the Future of Water in California" Tom Stokely, Trinity County Planning Department 9h45 Research Presentations: Impacts of restoring road crossings on alluvial channels, Klamath National Forest. Justin Lawrence Riparian vegetation establishment, Tassajara Creek compound channel, Dublin. Michelle Trinh and Julie Percelay Floodplain reconnection, Chorro Flats, Morro Bay: assessing the project one decade post-construction. Clare O'Reilly and Josh Pollak Break Monitoring channel response to the Basin Complex Fire in the Upper Carmel River. Sarah Richmond Carneros Creek: Assessing restoration implications for a sinuous stream using 1-D and 2-D simulation models Julie Beagle, Rachel Marison, Mary Matella Parallel Passageways: Assessing Salmon Migration on La Honda Creek Chris Alford Step-pool channel for Cerrito Creek, Blake Garden, Kensington. Nathaniel Behrends 18 years of restoration on Codornices Creek Chris Fullmer 12n Panel Discussion: Stephanie Carlson (Dept Environmental Science, Policy, and Management UCB), HanBin Liang (WRECO Consultants), Manny DaCosta (Alameda County Public Works), Clayton Anderson (FWR Ecoresource Consultants, Vancouver BC/Portland State Univ), and Tom Stokely. The symposium is open to the public without charge, but to insure there will be a printed program with abstracts and enough coffee for you, please RSVP to Rune Storesund . Panelist Biographies Tom Stokely (Keynote Speaker) Tom Stokely is a member of the Board of Directors of the California Water Impact Network working on reducing CVP and SWP Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta exports and improving water quality through retirement of selenium-drainage problem lands in the Western San Joaquin Valley. He recently retired after 23 years as a natural resources planner for Trinity County working on developing, adopting and implementing Bruce Babbitt's Trinity River Record of Decision. He has implemented numerous watershed and fish passage restoration projects. He serves on the California Advisory Committee on Salmon and Steelhead Trout advising the California Legislature's Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, as well as the California Coastal Salmon Recovery Peer Review Advisory Committee advising the Department of Fish and Game. He recently moved to Mt. Shasta to have continual access to winter snow surveys and other local attractions. Clayton Anderson Clayton began working on stream restoration projects in 1981 and on urban streams in 1991. Since then he has worked on, designed, constructed and managed hundreds of stream restoration projects throughout the urban area of Vancouver, BC, and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. He is a principal instructor on the multi-semester program in stream restoration at Portland State University. Stephanie Carlson Stephanie Carlson is a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at U.C. Berkeley. Her research focuses on the ecology and evolution of wild fish populations, particularly those subject to human influence. Current projects include evaluating the evolutionary consequences of habitat degradation on Pacific salmon, harvest-induced evolution in wild fish populations, and the importance of population diversity to long-term sustainability of salmon populations. Stephanie plans to teach courses in Fish Ecology and Aquatic Ecology. Manny DaCosta Emmanuel da Costa (Manny) is an environmental consulting specialist with the Alameda County Public Works Agency. Manny has worked for Public Works for the past 10 years developing watershed plans, fisheries assessments, and creek restoration projects throughout unincorporated Alameda County. His most notable project to date is the development of a fish ladder over the infamous "BART Weir" in Alameda Cr. He holds a Master's degree in Aquatic Toxicology from Oregon State University. Lisa Hunt Lisa Hunt is the water quality group director for URS Corporation, an engineering and environmental consulting firm based in San Francisco. Her specialty is ecological risk assessment of pollutants in aquatic habitats, with a focus on the San Joaquin River watershed. Current projects include: preparing the Delta Mendota Canal Recirculation Feasibility Study; evaluating the role of water quality in the pelagic organism decline (POD) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta; assessing various treatment and management options for selenium-laden agricultural discharges; and studying the feasibility of using recycled water for streamflow augmentation. Han-Bin Liang Han-Bin Liang is the founder and president of WRECO, a civil engineering consulting firm with two locations in the Bay Area. Dr. Liang has over 23 years of experience and has been involved in over 300 infrastructure and water resources projects in the State of California. In riverine hydraulics, Dr. Liang's experience includes flood control, floodplain management, storm water management, wetland restoration, sediment transport, bridge hydraulics and scour analysis, and roadway drainage. In coastal and estuarine engineering, his principal areas of interest are wave hydrodynamics, coastal sediment processes, and coastal salt marsh restoration with a strong emphasis on numerical modeling. He obtained his masters and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. For his doctoral dissertation, he analyzed wave processes using time series analysis. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Dec 5 13:38:02 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 13:38:02 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Washington Post 12 04 08 Message-ID: <002501c95721$c034e8c0$409eba40$@net> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2007/09/09/PH200709090169 3.gif Next on Obama's Dance Card, Mother Nature Rep. Mike Thompson might be the next interior secretary. As this shot clearly proves, he's an outdoorsman. Rep. Mike Thompson might be the next interior secretary. As this shot clearly proves, he's an outdoorsman. (Rep. Mike Thompson's Office) http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/gr/ico_enlarge.gif Enlarge Photo > Top 35 Opinion Articles > Most Popular on washingtonpost.com By Al Kamen Friday, December 5, 2008; Page A23 The Obama transition team, moving along smartly to fill Cabinet posts, is planning to trot out nominees as early as next week for three jobs much watched by enviros: the secretaries of energy and the interior and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. There's no shortage of names floating for energy secretary, a job where the majority of the workload in the past has been dealing with nuclear waste, nuclear weapons handling and the various nuclear laboratories. Even so, a cast of luminaries have been mentioned, including Duke Energy executive Jim Rogers, former Energy Department official Dan Reicher, former top Clinton White House environmental aide Kathleen McGinty, FedEx chairman and Republican backer Fred Smith, New Jersey utility chief executive Ralph Izzo, and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.). The chatter about each of them seems to have waxed and waned, doing more of the latter of late. Recently retired California energy utility executive John Bryson, who's well liked by the environmental community, may not make the cut, but Kansas Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius's considerable stock seems to be holding steady for energy -- or at least some Cabinet post. There's buzz that the transition folks are also looking hard at some scientific types for the energy job, including Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at Cal-Berkeley. Chu co-chaired a group producing the international study "Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future." He also shared the Nobel Prize for physics, but that was back in 1997. As for EPA administrator, California state environmental official Mary Nichols and New Jersey environmental agency official Lisa Jackson have long been considered the leading picks for the job. Jackson is said to have been edging up in recent days. There's been a very crowded field in the running for interior secretary. Inslee seems to have faded in the stretch, while former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber and Richard Moe, former vice presidential chief of staff to Walter Mondale and now president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, appear to still be contenders. Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), had been edging up a bit, but his rise may now have stalled. There's talk that Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) may be making a move and could land the job. It's not lost on transition officials that Thompson is an avid hunter and angler whose candidacy has been endorsed by sportsmen's associations. President-elect Barack Obama told Field & Stream magazine in September that he wants a sportsman or sportswoman in the post. "I think that having a head of the Department of Interior who doesn't understand hunting and fishing would be a problem," Obama told the magazine. For more of the article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/04/AR2008120404 249.html Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 8185 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 29487 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.gif Type: image/gif Size: 58 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Dec 8 18:45:40 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 18:45:40 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Trinity Journal December 3 2008 Message-ID: <004501c959a8$396814f0$ac383ed0$@net> Restoring river is hard, but the task can be done By AMY GITTELSOHN http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/2008/1203/front_page/005p1_lg.jpg by PHIL NELSON Doug Schleusner stands on the Biggers Road Bridge, one of four bridges replaced to make room for higher Trinity River flows. Doug Schleusner recalls his first day on the job as executive director of the Trinity River Restoration Program seven years ago. Schleusner, who moved here from Washington, D.C., met former Bureau of Reclamation area manager Mike Ryan at Shasta Dam and was handed a laptop computer, cell phone and car keys. "Weaverville's that way," Ryan told him. There was not a lot of hoopla when Schleusner came on board late in 2001. There was no office. No staff, for that matter. Authorization for the previous Trinity River Restoration Program initiated in 1984 had expired, with approval for the new restoration program coming with former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's signing of the Trinity River Record of Decision in 2000. "I worked out of my home office for the first year," said Schleusner, who moved to Weaverville with his wife Sandy and their two children, teenagers at the time. Schleusner, 55, is set to retire in January. It has been a busy seven years for the restoration program, which has goals of restoring the river, its fisheries and wildlife that have been impacted by water diversions since the completion of Trinity and Lewiston dams in 1963. Born in Yreka, Schleusner came to the program after a 25-year career in land use planning and recreation management with the U.S. Forest Service. Back in 2001, his first task was to set up the field office, which opened at the Tops Super Foods shopping center a year later. He was joined by staff members, with the office now numbering 11, including experts in fisheries, civil engineering, geomorphology and realty, to name a few. He also worked with the eight-member Trinity Management Council, county planning staff, and partners including a 16-member stakeholder group. The restoration program now has an annual budget of just over $10 million a year, including $8 million from the Bureau of Reclamation, $1.5 to $2 million from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and $500,000 from the state Department of Fish and Game. Schleusner said the program benefited from some good decisions made before he came into the picture -- for one thing, putting the office in Weaverville rather than Redding or Sacramento as had been considered. "I think the big advantage is we're becoming part of the community," he said. "We have people in and out of the office all day long." Also, the Trinity River flow study completed in 1999 laid the groundwork for restoration projects and the higher flows. "The work we're doing on the river is really based on some pretty solid science," Schleusner said. Although the restoration program was authorized with the Trinity River Record of Decision in 2000, the higher river flows called for in that decision were blocked by litigation from agriculture interests and physical structures on the river. The flow decision was defended by the federal government, Trinity County and the Hoopa Valley Tribe, prevailing against the final appeal in late 2004. However, due to bridges and other structures by the river, flows from the dam were limited at the time to 6,000 cubic feet per second, whereas the flows decision called for spring flows going up to 11,000 cfs in an extremely wet year. By 2005, the program had replaced four bridges over the Trinity River. Landowners were reimbursed for moving or improving 70 wells. Decks and pump houses were moved. One property was purchased. "That is one of the most important things we could do for this river," Schleusner said. Schleusner said one of his greatest satisfactions was the work he and restoration program staff did "developing a really good working relationship with the local landowners along the river." "We started out from the very beginning saying condemning property is not in our vocabulary," Schleusner said. In addition to making way for higher flows, he noted that these changes have the added benefit of allowing Bureau of Reclamation officials flexibility to keep more water in Trinity Lake through the winter. The ability to have higher releases when necessary can avert draining of the reservoir when storms approach, he noted. In addition to higher flows, the Record of Decision called for channel restoration projects on the river, which has been altered by years of low flows. By the end of this month, the program will have completed restoration projects at 16 sites along the river. Heavy equipment has been used to create side channels and re-contour floodplains, providing slower moving water that juvenile fish use. Gravel has been added to areas for spawning. Schleusner's last duties with the restoration program will be to help prepare the new executive director. His replacement is to be Mike Hamman of Chama, New Mexico. Hamman most recently worked for the Jicarilla Apache Nation where he was CEO of the water utility authority. He worked from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s as a Bureau of Reclamation civil engineer in Albuquerque and has worked for the City of Santa Fe as water utility director. He is to start work with the Trinity River Restoration Program this month. Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 13237 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at att.net Mon Dec 8 22:48:50 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 22:48:50 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Karuk Tribe Joins with Conservation Groups in Supporting Thompson for Interior Secretary Message-ID: <66E2872102ED47BE9FDD126B776828A7@homeuserPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 4:24 PM Subject: Karuk Tribe Joins with Conservation Groups in Supporting Thompson for Interior Secretary ? photo_thompson.jpg Karuk Tribe Joins with Conservation Groups in Supporting Thompson for Interior Secretary? by Dan Bacher? The Karuk Tribe of northern California today joined a broad coalition of fishing, hunting and conservation groups throughout the nation in urging President-Elect Barrack Obama to appoint Representative Mike Thompson as the next Secretary of Interior.? Political insiders are expecting Obama to make a decision this week regarding his choice for the next Secretary of Interior. Although a number of possible contenders for the Interior position have circulated through the rumor mill, the two leading candidates for the position to date are Thompson and Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ).? "Congressman Thompson is a lifelong outdoorsman who understands how to bring rural conservationists and urban environmentalists together to create meaningful and protective natural resource policy," said Tribal Chairman Arch Super. "Congressman Thompson has been a leader on local resource issues in his district working diligently to protect salmon and watersheds that are of cultural and spiritual import to the Karuk Tribe."? Super noted that Thompson has been broadly recognized as a leader outside his district as well, receiving national recognition for his achievements from both environmental and sportsman?s groups. He is unique among Congressmen in receiving both the Sierra Club?s prestigious Edgar Wayburn Award for environmental protection and the legislator of the year award by Safari Club International.? "The Congressman forever endeared himself to members of the Karuk Tribe in 2002 when the Klamath River fish kill left nearly 70,000 adult salmon on the banks of the Klamath River," said Super. "Congressman Thompson made this horrific event an issue of national importance by flying carcasses of these fish back to D.C. to present to his fellow lawmakers as evidence of failed federal policy in the Klamath Basin. With such bold action, Congressman Thompson has illustrated his great devotion to conserving America?s natural resources."? Ducks Unlimited, the American Sportfishing Association, Bass Pro Shops and 29 other national sportsmen's groups are urging Obama to appoint Rep. Thompson as the new Interior Secretary. Besides earning high marks from both sportsmen's and environmental groups, Thompson this year played a key leadership role in obtaining disaster relief for recreational and commercial fishermen and related businesses devastated by the closure of salmon fishing in ocean waters off California and Oregon and in Central Valley rivers this year, due to the collapse of the Sacramento River fall chinook population.? "You have been forthright in your commitment to sportsmen and making their priorities a centerpiece of your land and water conservation agenda," they stated in a letter sent to Obama and his transition team on November 19. "As you review candidates for secretary of the US Department of the Interior, we hope that you will strongly consider Congressman Thompson for this important post."? The Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations (PCFFA), the largest commercial fishing organization on the West Coast, is also strongly supporting Thompson for Secretary.? "We cannot recommend Mr. Thompson highly enough," said Zeke Grader, the PCFFA's executive director, in a letter to Obama on November 24. "We have had the opportunity to work with him for two decades, in both the California Legislature and the U.S. Congress. He is a passionate, thoughtful, intelligent and extremely hard-working individual."? Grader said Thompson would bring to the Department of the Interior "a wealth of knowledge" about water, coastal and marine, lands and recreational issues, as well as having a "long and good working relationship" with the Native American governments in his area.? In addition, California Representatives George Miller, author of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA), and Anna Eshoo recently sent a letter to Obama supporting the appointment of Thompson for Interior Secretary.? Meanwhile, another coalition of conservation organizations is building support behind naming Congressman Ra?l Grijalva as the next Secretary of the Interior, according to a support letter from more than 78 groups sent to President-elect Obama and released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Rep. Grijalva now chairs the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands that has jurisdiction over Interior Department matters.? The 106 groups who signed this latest letter, based in states ranging from New York and Virginia to Colorado and California, represent some of the growing support for Grijalva spanning wildlife, land protection and good government groups, as well as among Congressional colleagues, including Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) who chairs the Natural Resources Committee. Scientists, Indian Tribes and Latino organizations are also backing Grijalva.? Among the pluses highlighted in the support letter is that Rep. Grijalva has "a depth and breadth of experience in complex natural resource issues at federal, state, tribal and county levels." In particular, the letter praised Grijalva for assembling what is regarded as one of the most "far-sighted endangered species protection plans in the nation" that minimized the need for litigation that has plagued Interior.? The letter also praised the Congressman for "expertise in drought management, a growing condition in the parched West" and "leadership in pressing Interior and other federal agencies to integrate global warming issues into their planning and permitting."? "Representative Grijalva is widely respected, with excellent state and local relations, and a proven record of fairness, ethics and conservation," stated Southwest PEER Director Daniel Patterson, who is a newly elected Arizona State Representative who formerly worked with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which controls the most acreage of any Interior agency. "Congressman Grijalva understands wildlife and outdoors issues, as well as energy, water, tribes and natural resources management."? However, Thompson appears to be the more likely candidate for Obama's choice for the Interior post, based on an interview that Field and Stream magazine conducted with Obama in September. Obama then said that he would probably appoint a sportsman or sportswoman to be the Secretary of Interior, as well as creating a ?sportsmen?s committee? that advises Interior and other agencies.? ?I think that having a head of the Department of Interior who doesn't understand hunting and fishing would be a problem,? Obama said. ?And so my suspicion is that whoever heads up the Department of Interior is probably going to be a sportsman or sportswoman.?? While both Thompson and Grijalva have impressive environmental credentials, Thompson is a hunter and angler while Grivalva isn't. This fact could be a key factor in determining whether Thompson, Grijalva or somebody else becomes the next Interior Secretary. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: photo_thompson.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8118 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Fri Dec 12 16:37:51 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:37:51 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Capital Press 12 12 08 Affects Shasta Scott Rivers Message-ID: <002b01c95cbb$08549350$18fdb9f0$@net> California's water wars heat up Proposed incidental take permits could spread elsewhere, change diversion Capital Press - 12/12/08 By Tim Hearden, staff A proposal for irrigation in parts of remote Siskiyou County has statewide implications that have raised the ire of both farm groups and environmentalists. The Department of Fish and Game is preparing watershed-wide permits for streambed changes and incidental takings of threatened coho salmon along the Scott and Shasta rivers, which are key tributaries to the Klamath River. Participation by landowners would be voluntary and those who signed up would be responsible for certain measures to protect salmon, such as adding fish screens. The program could eventually be implemented throughout California, said Bob Williams, an environmental scientist for the Department of Fish and Game based in Redding. Incidental take permits insulate irrigators from having to pay thousands of dollars in fines if their diversions unintentionally kill imperiled fish. A watershed-wide license would encourage compliance by offering an easier and more affordable alternative than if a farmer were to seek a permit on his own, Williams said. But this proposal's potential to spread elsewhere - and its influence on future water diversion policy in California - have made it the latest battleground in the state's ongoing water wars. California Farm Bureau Federation environmental attorney Jack Rice isn't concerned so much about the streambed alteration permit itself, but rather the Department of Fish and Game's interpretation of who needs the permit. It used to be that a streambed alteration agreement was only necessary if an irrigator physically changed the bank or channel, such as by dredging a temporary dam, he said. Now Fish and Game is asserting an irrigator may need the permit if he simply diverts water, Rice said. "What it requires is payment of a fee, and it would require certain terms and conditions," Rice said. "Basically what this (environmental impact report) says is that Fish and Game has the authority to impose whatever terms and conditions it finds reasonable on every water right in California." Environmentalists assert the stricter mandate has always existed but was never fully enforced. For their part, they're concerned that groundwater pumping wouldn't be regulated under the new program and that the permits would be administered by local resource conservation districts. "They (Fish and Game) would actually be ceding their authority as a regulator to the resource conservation districts," said Felice Pace, a longtime environmental activist who lives in Klamath. "Is that even legal, to take the regulatory authority you have and constantly give that to another entity that's appointed by the Board of Supervisors that tends to be farmer-friendly? "There's a place for regulation and a place for restoration and conservation," Pace said. "When you have regulatory laws that have to be enforced, those should be enforced by the state." A 60-day comment period on a pair of draft environmental impact reports on the proposed permits was set to expire Dec. 9. The program, which could apply to as many as 180 water rights holders in the Scott and Shasta valleys, could be approved as early as March, Williams said. The permits are part of a fish-recovery effort developed when coho salmon north of San Francisco were listed as threatened in 2005. As a result of the listing, Fish and Game has been "looking at diversions throughout our region," Williams said. But requiring a streambed alteration permit for a diversion isn't new for the agency, he said. "We're not doing anything with regard to water rights," Williams said. "Water rights are what they are. ...One of the things we are doing is verifying that they're taking the amount they're legally entitled to." However, many of the roughly 50 farmers and ranchers who attended an informational meeting in Yreka on Tuesday, Dec. 2, suspected otherwise. Siskiyou County Farm Bureau board member Jeff Fowel rattled off dozens of perceived problems with the EIRs, including that they didn't consider the economic impacts from anticipated decreases in water diversions. One attendee, organic beef producer Craig Chenoweth, has about 40 cows and calves on 456 acres in Scott Valley. He said the permit program would have little if any impact on his own operation, but he thinks the proposal is a form of "tyranny." "It's about them trying to control us," Chenoweth said. "What Fish and Game wants is control of water on private land. ... They want us to pay for it, too."# Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tstokely at att.net Mon Dec 15 21:08:33 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:08:33 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Federal Agency Releases New Biological Opinion for Delta Smelt Message-ID: <891D6F05CCFE4A0BB83987C4B04CF9A8@homeuserPC> ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Bacher Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 7:06 PM Subject: Federal Agency Releases New Biological Opinion for Delta Smelt ? dsmelt2r_1.gif Federal Agency Releases New Biological Opinion for Delta Smelt? by Dan Bacher? The federal government issued a rewritten management plan for Delta smelt today, declaring that water operations must be dramatically altered to protect the imperiled fish and California's Bay-Delta ecosystem from imminent collapse.? Fishing and environmental groups praised the new decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying it will help restore the ecological health of the West Coast's largest estuary and its threatened fisheries. The ?biological opinion? was issued today in compliance with a federal judge?s order that a Bush administration assessment of risk to the threatened fish from massive water export pumps in the California Delta was illegal and must be rewritten.? In his ruling in May 2007, Judge Oliver W. Wanger of the U.S. District Court in Fresno ordered the agency to rewrite its 2005 opinion, saying "The Delta smelt is undisputedly in jeopardy as to its survival and recovery.The 2005 BiOp's 'no jeopardy' finding is arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law."? "We are delighted that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finally recognized that we have reached the limits of how much water can be pumped out of the Delta without causing the complete collapse of the Delta ecosystem and all the creatures that depend upon a healthy Delta for their survival -- including people,? said Mike Sherwood, Earthjustice attorney. "The Service found that excessive pumping of water out of the Delta over the last several years is driving the Delta smelt, an indicator of the overall health of the Delta, to extinction.?? Sherwood noted that excessive pumping and other operations of the State and Federal Water Projects has also driven California chinook salmon and steelhead to the brink of extinction, resulting in the collapse of the multi-million dollar salmon fishery in northern California and Oregon. Commercial and recreational salmon fishing in ocean waters off California and Oregon was closed for the first time this year, due to the collape of Central Valley salmon. Fishing for salmon in Central Valley rivers was also closed for the first time this year, with the exception of two month season from November 1 to December 31 on the Sacramento River between Knights Landing and Red Bluff.? ?Greater protection for the smelt translates into more protection for the Delta and economically important fish such as the salmon,? emphasized Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen?s Associations, the largest commercial fishing organization on the West Coast. ?To restore the smelt and the salmon, overdrafting water of the rivers and Delta has got to stop.?? ?Fish need water to survive,? said Doug Obegi, staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). ?Today?s opinion reflects the conclusion of numerous scientists and the Governor?s own task force, who all agree that the delta smelt need additional protections to keep them from going extinct. The opinion requires the state and federal water projects to operate in a more environmentally sustainable manner that better protects delta smelt, salmon, and the fishermen and farmers who depend on healthy fisheries and clean water.?? Delta farmers also lauded the decision. ?Delta farmers also depend on water to raise our crops,? said Tom Zuckerman, a Delta farmer who works as special projects manager for the Central Delta Water Agency. ?We know that the water projects have simply been pumping too much water. Delta farmers and our local economy will benefit from adequate protections for the delta smelt.?? California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Director Donald Koch, in issuing a statement reacting to the release of the biological opinion, touted the controversial Bay-Delta Conservation Planning process as a ?more comprehensive approach? to improving conditions for Delta smelt and other fish species.? ?The biological opinion issued today provides measures to address the effects of the operation of state and federal pumps on a single species, the Delta smelt,? said Koch. ?However, the information contained in the document clearly underscores the fact that the Delta as a natural community is in trouble. A more comprehensive approach to improving the condition of the Delta for fish and wildlife is being developed in the Bay-Delta Conservation Planning process.?? ?DFG has been actively involved in the Bay Delta Conservation Planning effort and we are committed to its success,? he added. ?Our goal is to protect and ensure the sustainability of the fish and wildlife species that rely on a healthy Delta.?? Many in the fishing and environmental community feel that the Bay Delta Conservation Planning effort, along with the Governor's Delta Vision process, are politically manipulated processes to produce a pre-determined goal - the building of a peripheral canal and two new Central Valley reservoirs. Fish advocates fear that, in spite of claims otherwise by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the appointed members of the panels that guide these processes, the infrastructure will be created to export more water from the estuary when it is less exports that are needed to restore the estuary.? Scientists regard Delta smelt, a small, translucent fish that lives only in the California Delta, as an indicator of the health of the entire Bay-Delta ecosystem and representative of a much larger decline in local fisheries, including striped bass, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, and Central Vally chinook salmon.? The Biological Opinion includes the following findings:? ? The delta smelt are at their lowest level of abundance since 1967;? ? Continued operation of the projects' pumps, dams, and canals will likely lead to the extinction of the smelt;? ? To survive and recover, smelt need more cold, clean water and improved habitat conditions.? "Contrary to statements by the California Department of Water Resources and the commercial water industry, this will not cause millions of California citizens to go thirsty,? stated Sherwood. ?Instead, limiting pumping of water out of the Delta to sustainable amounts is good for the smelt, good for salmon and the northern California fishing and native American communities that depend upon the salmon, and good for people who depend upon clean water and a healthy Delta.?? Sherwood contends that the amount of water "lost" by this biological opinion can easily be made up by simple conservation measures such as more efficient irrigation systems in farms and by switching from inappropriate and water-intensive crops such as cotton to crops more appropriate for an arid climate.? To read the complete biological opinion, go to: http://www.fws.gov/sacramento/es/documents/SWP-CVP_OPs_BO_12-15_final_OCR.pdf? Background: The End of A Long Legal Battle:? In 2005, U.S. Fish and Wildlife issued a biological opinion on the Long-Term Operational Criteria and Plan (OCAP) for coordination of the Central Valley Project and State Water Projects that found no harm in increasing pumping from the Delta. Water project operators used the wildlife's agency's opinion as justification to increase delta exports and to renew 25- and 40-year contracts to irrigation districts and urban water agencies.? In 2006, conservation groups sued in federal court, arguing that the 2005 Biological Opinion was not supported by science. Attorneys from Earthjustice and Natural Resources Defense Council represented California Trout, San Francisco Baykeeper, Friends of the River, and the Bay Institute in the 2006 court challenge.? In May 2007, federal court judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno vacated the 2005 BiOp finding that increased water exports violated the federal Endangered Species Act. This began the process of writing a new permit that was finalized today.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: dsmelt2r_1.gif Type: image/gif Size: 33449 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at att.net Tue Dec 16 13:25:03 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:25:03 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Obama to pick Sen. Salazar for Interior Message-ID: <6F735EA21E414D3E931E4434061B801B@homeuserPC> Official: Obama to pick Sen. Salazar for Interior The Times-Standard Posted: 12/16/2008 01:27:47 AM PST http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11243255 A transition official for President-elect Barack Obama says Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar will be named Interior Secretary later this week, seemingly ending speculation that the post could go to North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. The appointment will round out Obama's environment and energy team. He unveiled most of the team on Monday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting Obama's upcoming announcement. Salazar is a first-term Colorado Senator who has established a name for himself on public lands and energy resources issues. He headed the Colorado Natural Resources Department from 1990 through 1994. The Interior Department has broad oversight over the nation's energy resources and environment; it oversees oil and gas drilling on public lands and manages the nation's parks and wildlife refuges. Thompson's name remained in the thick of the discussion as late as last week, when the Oregonian reported that the rumor mill was "humming" that Obama would pick Thompson for interior secretary, while the Associated Press had only Thompson and Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva on its list of candidates for the position. Thompson's name first came up as a candidate for interior secretary last month, after a pair of California lawmakers and dozens of sportsmen's groups sent letters to the Obama transition team in support of Thompson, urging his appointment to head the Department of the Interior. But some on the far left ideologically were opposed to Thompson's nomination, attacking his environmental record. The interior secretary is tasked with overseeing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey and the National Parks Service. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Tom Stokely Water Policy Coordinator California Water Impact Network 504A Lennon St. (USPS and UPS) Mt Shasta, CA 96067 V/FAX 530-926-9727 Cell 530-524-0315 tstokely at att.net http://www.c-win.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From truman at jeffnet.org Wed Dec 17 15:08:40 2008 From: truman at jeffnet.org (Patrick Truman) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:08:40 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Weaverville Community Forest Message-ID: <002401c9609c$6760eda0$6801a8c0@HAL> Trinity district may expand community forest By Dylan Darling Wednesday, December 17, 2008 Kenneth Baldwin of Douglas City discusses the Weaverville Community Forest along with other community members during a tour of the area with Bureau of Land Management officials and local politicians in October. The board for the Trinity County Resource Conservation District, which oversees the forest, is set to vote tonight on adding 12,000 acres to the forest. If you're going What: Trinity County Resource Conservation District board meeting. Where: No. 1 Horseshoe Lane, off of Highway 3 in Weaverville. When: 5:30 p.m. today. Agenda includes: Vote on adding 12,000 acres currently managed by the U.S. Forest Service to the Weaverville Community Forest. Already encompassing 1,000 acres, the Weaverville Community Forest could be growing - by 12,000 acres. "We will really have a landscape-wide, community forest," said Colleen O'Sullivan, chairwoman of the board of directors for the Trinity County Resource Conservation District, which oversees the forest. The U.S. Forest Service has already approved a stewardship contract that would give the community responsibility of managing the forest via the district. The district's five-member board votes this evening on whether to sign the 10-year deal. "If all goes well we'll approve it," O'Sullivan said. First brainstormed in 1999, the Weaverville Community Forest was established in 2005 when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management signed a similar stewardship contract with the district. Such contracts had typically been made with timber companies, which would manage the land for harvest, said Alex Cousins, a grant coordinator for the district. While timber is still cut in the community forest, he said, it's done by loggers hired by the district, and proceeds from timber sales are spent on management costs and projects in the forest. Cousins said the funds from typical timber harvesting on federal lands would go into the U.S. Treasury. The BLM had originally planned to swap the 1,000 acres of forest southwest of Weaverville with Sierra Pacific Industries when people in the small town proposed taking care of it on their own. He said they wanted to manage fire risk, preserve the "viewshed" - or the forest's appearance - and enhance recreation. "They felt that if this land was traded out it would be clear-cut and it wouldn't look so good," Cousins said. Cousins said anyone can join the steering committee that helps the district manage the forest. Although the acreage would be increasing by more than tenfold with the addition of the Forest Service acres, Cousins said the district and its steering committee are ready to manage it. "We are not going to take on anything we can't handle," Cousins said. Reporter Dylan Darling can be reached at 225-8266 or ddarling at redding.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: clip_image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 11197 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tstokely at att.net Wed Dec 24 19:56:13 2008 From: tstokely at att.net (Tom Stokely) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:56:13 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Fw: Klamath Tribes are seeing a brighter future, through logging? IHT, 20081224 Message-ID: Klamath Tribes are seeing a brighter future The Associated Press Wednesday, December 24, 2008 http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=18903454 CHILOQUIN, Oregon: Standing in the shadows of a dilapidated lumber mill, Jeff Mitchell picked up a piece of firewood from the pile on the cold concrete floor and held it in the sunlight. "This is the tribes' very first timber-based industry in over 50 years since termination," said Mitchell, a member of the tribal council of the Klamath Tribes. "Five years from now we're going to look back and say this is where it started." The Klamath Tribes were one of the wealthiest in the United States in 1954 when Congress terminated their tribal status. Officially, the decision was supposed to assimilate Indian people into society, but tribes have long felt it was a grab of their valuable timber holdings. The Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin Band of Snake Indians, lumped together on a reservation after being driven from their native territories, lost nearly 900,000 acres (364,200 hectares)_ a parcel that eventually was sold off for private timberlands and ranches, turned into rural subdivisions, and incorporated into two national forests. With the reservation and their identity as Indians gone, many tribal members sank into poverty and left their homeland. But in 1986, the tribes won restoration of their tribal status. Now, 22 years later, they are on the verge of buying back a piece of their old reservation: 90,000 acres (36,422 hectares) of lodgepole pine known as the Mazama Tree Farm. They hope to revive the timber industry that once sustained them as part of a larger campaign to remove dams from the Klamath River to bring salmon back to their territories. The Trust for Public Lands, a nonprofit land conservation organization, helped arrange an option for the Klamaths to buy the 90,000 acres (36,422 hectares) from a holding company. The price has not been disclosed, but $21 million the tribes hope to get from the federal government is expected to cover the bulk of it. The Mazama is the biggest of 32 properties the trust is working to restore to Indian people. It has been a long and bumpy road. Mitchell grew up camping out with his dad at fire lookouts and guard stations, watching over the tribes' forests in the 1950s. "There used to be plenty of work around here then," his dad, Ben Mitchell, said. "We never wanted for anything. Everything was here." When he wasn't working for the tribal forestry program, Ben Mitchell was working for his brother-in-law's logging outfit, setting choker - wrapping the end of the steel cable around the log so it could be yarded up the hill to the landing - or hook tending on the landing where the logs were loaded onto trucks. When he wasn't working, he hunted and fished on forests and creeks now blocked off by subdivisions. All that changed when the tribes lost the only home they'd ever known. Tribal members were paid off from the sales, given checks for thousands of dollars, more money than many had ever seen. Some bought cars, others got drunk. A few, like Edison Chiloquin, a descendant of the chief for whom the town is named, refused to cash the checks and burned a sacred fire until the government gave him 580 acres (235 hectares) back. "We just didn't have sense," said Ben Mitchell. "Back then, everyone looked down upon him. But he was the only smart person in the bunch." Since then, the tribes' hopes would surge and wane with each new development. Amid a water crisis, the Bush administration considered returning national forest lands that came from the reservation, but nothing came of it. Other private parcels came up for sale, but were out of the tribes' reach. Still, they developed a formal plan for managing the forests they hoped to get back. Then, three years ago, a strip of land from the northwestern corner of the old reservation came on the market following a timber company bankruptcy. Fidelity National Financial, primarily a title insurance company, holds a majority share in Cascade Timberlands, LLC, which now owns the 300,000-acre (121,410-hectare) property. They are retaining some of the land but selling off the old Mazama Tree Farm. Chiloquin Mayor Mark Cobb does not expect the tribes to ever get back the parts of their reservation that became the Winema and Fremont national forests - too many old resentments among local folks. But he thinks most folks in the area support the Mazama sale because it will mean jobs at a time when mills in Klamath Falls have been laying off. The property straddles 26 miles (42 kilometers) of U.S. Highway 97 in northern Klamath County. When the tribes lost it, the lodgepole pine had little commercial value. But now it can be milled into posts and poles, 2-by-4 studs, and chips. Drive through the forest and elk tracks come into view, along with weathered stumps dating to the days of tribal logging. Standing on the high point of the Mazama Tree Farm, a volcanic cinder cone called Round Butte, Will Hatcher, the tribes' natural resources director, points out peaks on the crest of the Cascade Range and marshes where the Klamath people harvested water lily pods, ducks and fish. The tribes have already bought an old lumber mill site with a railroad right of way in the middle of the property. They named it Giiwas Green Energy Park after their name for Crater Lake. They have bought machinery that cuts and splits lodgepole pine logs and bundles them into plastic-wrapped packages of firewood to be sold at convenience stores. They plan to buy an 8-megawatt generator that runs off the gas drawn from composting wood wastes, particularly the trees and branches that will come from thinning the thick stands of lodgepole on the Mazama Tree Farm. So far, the only hard evidence of a revived timber industry is several cords of firewood the tribes paid some of their members to cut and pile on the floor of the old mill, for sale later this winter. Jeff Mitchell said once they own the Mazama Tree Farm, the Tribal Forests Protection Act of 2004 will give them greater influence over management of the neighboring national forest lands. They'd like to see more habitat restoration projects for fish and wildlife, and more thinning to reduce fire danger. He acknowledges that the likelihood of getting the whole reservation back is small, but he remains hopeful. "When the Klamath Tribes were their most prosperous, it was because of our land and forest, our ability to create jobs and a future," he said. "We can point to the past to see when that occurred. We are pointing to it now and saying with Mazama, we can move in that direction again." Correction: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ? 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com ____________________________________________________________ Save $15 on Flowers and Gifts from FTD! Shop now at www.ftd.com/17007 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: logoBWSmall.gif Type: image/gif Size: 298 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: nojavascript&WT.js=No&WT.tv=8.0.2 Type: application/octet-stream Size: 67 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Sat Dec 27 16:23:29 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:23:29 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] As Interior Turns, An eight year soap opera in which federal officials screwed the environment, the taxpayers, and each other. By Jonathan Thompson, High Country News, 12.22.08 Message-ID: <001a01c96882$823a5d30$86af1790$@net> As Interior Turns An eight-year soap opera in which federal officials screwed the environment, the taxpayers, and each other. >From the December 22, 2008 issue of High Country News by Jonathan Thompson There's plenty in Washington for the new administration to clean up, but perhaps the biggest messes can be found in one agency: the Department of Interior. Over the last eight years - mostly between 2001 and 2005 - the agency charged with managing millions of acres of public land has been racked by scandal. During a veritable orgy of ethical lapses, federal coffers were deprived of oil and gas royalties, fragile species denied protection, and industry given yet more power to wreck public land in the name of greed. The questionable behavior was department-wide, but three major spheres of controversy stand out: The corruption around J. Steven Griles; the "Minerals Management Service Gone Wild" scandals; and Julie MacDonald's enthronement of ideology over biology. Some may dismiss the incidents as just a few bad apples spoiling the barrel. But the patterns suggest otherwise - in every case, either ideology or money or both were allowed to triumph over common sense. Former lobbyists and industry executives held too many top posts, and links to property-rights and pro-industry organizations were too strong. Interior Secretary Gale Norton was heavily involved in ideologically hard-right causes before she entered public service, and then went to work for the oil industry afterward. Griles was a lobbyist, Rejane Burton the former vice president of an oil and gas exploration company, and so on. In recent weeks, some of these same officials have "burrowed" into - or been shuffled around -- the agency, transformed from political appointees into career employees. That will just make this mess harder to clean up. Here are some of the stars and other players - in As Interior Turns. Once upon a time, Jack Abramoff was a very powerful lobbyist. He could raise money for himself (including millions of dollars in fees from his clients), and for others (more than $100,000 for the Bush campaign). He urged his clients - including various Western tribes -- to donate huge chunks of cash to politicians and to political appointees' pet organizations. In exchange, he provided enviable access to government officials. If this sounds corrupt, it's because it was, and Abramoff finally got caught and was convicted of defrauding Indian tribes and corrupting public officials. He brought plenty of folks down with him, including J. Steven Griles, a top dog at Interior, lobbyists and politicians. He never worked directly for the Bush administration (though they seemed to be working for him, at times), but he has become the primary symbol of the corruption by money of politics during the last eight years. J. Steven Griles was a leading man in As Interior Turns, holding the number-two spot in the agency and ending up in bed with everyone from Jack Abramoff to the coal and electric power industry, to (literally) Italia Federici. He first worked for the feds in the 1980s under James Watt, at the U.S. Office of Surface Mining. In 1995, he founded J. Steven Griles and Associates, a lobbying group that eventually became part of National Environmental Strategies, another lobbying group that worked for the mining and fossil fuel sectors. In 2001, he became Gale Norton's deputy. At the time, he signed onto a special agreement that allowed him to continue being paid (about $1 million) by his former lobbying firm, as long as he didn't meet with former clients; he did anyway. He hung out with officials from the National Mining Association, and pushed for looser mountaintop-removal mining standards. He met with Edison Electric Institute folks, and tried to ease federal clean air rules on power plants. All the fun came to an end when Griles was caught in Abramoff's sticky web - he helped Abramoff navigate Interior on behalf of his clients. Griles resigned in 2004, and two years later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. Though Griles is gone, his legacy remains: Mountaintop removal rules were recently eased up by the Bush administration. Italia Federici was never a part of the Department of Interior, but her tentacles reached into the agency in more ways than one. Federici and Griles began a relationship in 1998, which continued in some form or another after Griles became Norton's lieutenant. Federici then served as a liaison between Abramoff and Griles; in return, Abramoff funneled at least $500,000 from his clients to Federici's charity, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which Norton helped start in the late 1990s. Federici pleaded guilty in 2007 to obstructing the investigation into Jack Abramoff. Sue Ellen Wooldridge was Norton's deputy chief of staff and then counselor before being appointed Interior solicitor in 2004. Then in 2005 she became U.S. assistant attorney in charge of environment and natural resources. She also secretly dated Griles while both were working for the feds (they later got married). In 2005, Griles, Wooldridge and ConocoPhillips executive Don Duncan bought a $1 million beach house together. Wooldridge later gave ConocoPhillips extra time to pay millions of dollars in fines. She resigned under the cloud of scandal in 2007. Matthew McKeown was yet another private-property-rights ideologue who moved into Interior in 2001, at the beginning of the Bush reign. As one of Interior's top legal eagles, he played a large - if unseen - role in getting the Bush agenda implemented on the ground. (He later moved to the Justice Department along with Wooldridge.) He had a primary role in the Healthy Forests Initiative, publicly bashed the Endangered Species Act, negotiated settlements that gutted the Northwest forest plan, and negotiated an agreement between Interior and the state of Utah making it easier for the state to control roads that cross federal land. As Bush prepared to leave office, McKeown was converted from a political appointee to a civil service post, meaning he'll remain in Interior under Obama. --Rejane "Johnnie" Burton was the director of the Minerals Management Services, the agency responsible for collecting billions of dollars of royalty payments from oil companies that operate on federal land. She oversaw MMS during a time when staff members were cavorting with one another and oil industry officials, and as energy companies skirted some $1 billion in royalties that should have gone into federal coffers. She resigned in 2007. Donald Howard, Jimmy Mayberry and Milton Dial were all MMS officials during the Bush administration, and they all pleaded guilty. Howard accepted a hunting trip from an oil industry contractor, and Mayberry and Dial violated conflict-of-interest laws. Greg Smith directed MMS's Royalty in Kind Program, which accepts oil and gas from energy companies in lieu of royalties for drilling on public land. The program was expanded in the late 1990s at industry's behest, after the straight cash royalty program was tightened up to prevent chronic under-collection from oil companies. The program is set up to have very little oversight. (The Government Accountability Office characterized it as operating under an "honors system.") Which was good for Smith, because he apparently had other things on his mind. A federal investigation revealed this year that during his tenure, Smith took drugs with and coerced subordinates into having sex with him. On one occasion, he pestered an employee for cocaine, settling finally for methamphetamines, which he snorted off a toaster oven. Smith also accepted golf outings, drinks and meals from employees of Shell, Chevron and Gary Williams Energy Corp. Meanwhile, he was moonlighting as a salesman for Geomatrix, an environmental services company that sometimes works for oil companies. From his MMS office, he made sales pitches to various energy companies - some of which he was supposed to be collecting royalties from - on behalf of Geomatrix, according to federal investigators. Smith wasn't the only one with dirty hands in the Royalty in Kind branch of the Minerals Management Service. Federal investigators found that at least 1/3 of the staff were hanging out with and accepting gifts from oil industry folks between 2002 and 2006. At least one RIK staffer had a one-night stand with a Shell employee. During that same time, according to the GAO, the MMS could not account for the cost or benefits of the RIK program. Apparently staff was so busy taking ski trips and going to parties on the oil industry's dime that they forgot to keep track of whether those same oil companies were paying adequate royalties. In spite of these problems, Interior has tried to expand the program. By the time she resigned in 2007, Julie MacDonald had become one of the most notorious of the many notorious Interior officials. MacDonald first came to Interior in 2002 as an advisor. Then, in 2004, Norton promoted her to the powerful post of deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. In just a few years, she did more to tinker with her own scientists' findings, and thereby derail protections on endangered species, than anyone in the history of Interior. MacDonald's subordinates suffered under her - she "bullied, insulted and harassed the professional staff," according to a federal investigative report - and she did the same to wildlife. The arroyo toad, white-tailed prairie dog, Preble's jumping mouse, Canada lynx, southwestern willow flycatcher and other species lost protection or critical habitat thanks to MacDonald. (The agency later reconsidered some of MacDonald's decisions.) She was also in cahoots with the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation and the California Farm Bureau, to whom she disclosed confidential info while at Interior. E-mails reveal that MacDonald was working closely with Steven Quarles, a prominent lobbyist for forest, mining, agricultural and development interests, and former Interior official. One message from Quarles to MacDonald requested a meeting to "secure easy 'yeses' to outrageous requests." Quarles continues to work with the Crowell and Moring lobbying firm, with clients such as the Village at Wolf Creek, Plum Creek, Anglogold and Rio Tinto. A Government Accountability Office investigator testified to Congress that other Interior officials should have been examined as part of the MacDonald investigation, including Craig Manson, Brian Waidmann, Todd Willens and Randal Bowman. Though the three were never actually accused of wrongdoing, some did their part aboveboard to stick it to endangered species. Willens was once senior staff advisor to Richard Pombo, the notorious California congressman who attempted to gut the Endangered Species Act. While at Interior, he pushed to remove the Florida manatee and other species from endangered species protection. Willens left Interior in 2008 and - you don't say!? - became a lobbyist. In spite of the fact that the most salacious scandals happened on her watch, former Interior Secretary Gale Norton has stayed above the fray. Bush appointed Norton, a one-time libertarian, protegee of James Watt and member of various right-wing think tanks, in 2001. During her years in Interior, the BLM issued drilling permits at a record pace. Norton favored drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, voided critical habitat on millions of acres, increased the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone, and so on and so forth. She resigned in 2006, just as the Abramoff/Griles connections were coming to light. Abramoff never directly rubbed off on her, but there are many links: Federici, for example, tried to arrange a 2001 meeting between Norton and Lovelin Poncho (Abramoff client and Coushatta tribal chairman). Eventually, the two met at a Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy fund-raising dinner that Abramoff helped coordinate. After leaving Interior, Norton went to work for Shell, and Dirk Kempthorne took her place. Most of the dirtiest scandals stopped after she left, but Interior has continued its questionable approach to the environment, stripping protection from endangered species, opening up 1.9 million acres to oil shale development, pushing through last-minute rules that favor industry, trying to lease thousands of acres for energy development -- even right next to national parks -- and blocking a congressional attempt to stop uranium mining next to the Grand Canyon. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Mon Dec 29 13:30:02 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:30:02 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] Sac Bee 12 29 08 Message-ID: <000301c969fc$9c34a260$d49de720$@net> Yolo County ranch's sale of water prompts lawsuit threat Sacramento Bee - 12/29/08 By Mary Lynne Vellinga The owners of the vast Conaway Ranch in Yolo County this year sold much of its annual allotment of water to an irrigation district in Central California - prompting the threat of a lawsuit by environmental groups. Yolo County leaders who two years ago were in court trying to seize control of Conaway through eminent domain are keeping a wary eye on what its private owners are doing. The county dropped its lawsuit in exchange for greater assurances that the land would not be developed, and that its ample supply of Sacramento River water would not be sold out to outside interests. Conaway Ranch is unusual in the region for its large size, proximity to downtown Sacramento and habitat for myriad waterfowl species. Much of the ranch lies in the Yolo Bypass flood area. "The good news is I haven't seen any real material changes on the ground; they're still farming it," said Supervisor Mike McGowan, who led the eminent domain charge. "I'm not ecstatic about the water transfers," he said. Tovey Giezentanner, a spokesman for the Conaway ownership group, emphasized that the sale of 12,000 acre-feet of water to the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority was for one year only. The county was first given a right to negotiate to buy the water, in compliance with the terms of the court settlement, he said. When the county demurred, and the water was sold, Conaway paid Yolo a 2 percent fee on the $2 million sale. Conaway is owned by the Conaway Preservation Group, which is led by Sacramento developer Steve Gidaro and includes other prominent Sacramento developers and builders. Their purchase of the 17,300-acre property for $60 million in 2004 stoked suspicion that a plan to build on the ranch and sell off its 50,000 acre-feet of Sacramento River water would be forthcoming. An acre-foot of water covers 1 acre a foot deep, enough to supply an average family of five for a year. The land was previously owned by National Gas and Energy Transmission, a successor to PG&E Properties. Conaway Preservation Group has insisted it wants to preserve Conaway - a place where some of its members enjoy hunting ducks - and make money from its attributes as farmland, habitat and flood basin. Giezentanner said the ownership group has pursued that strategy since the county dropped its lawsuit. "We've been hard at work trying to do the right thing," he said. For instance, Giezentanner said, Conaway is negotiating with the city of Davis to use part of the ranch as a disposal site for the city's treated wastewater, which would be used to irrigate crops that would be fed to animals. The city of Davis faces a state requirement that it upgrade its sewage treatment plant, which could cost $200 million. Maintaining the current level of treatment but disposing of the water on Conaway - rather than into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta - could be a much cheaper option. Davis Public Works director Bob Weir said the Davis plant discharges about 5.6 million gallons of treated sewage per day, which now winds up in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The city plans to go before the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board in early February to discuss the possibility of using Conaway instead. "The regional board is interested in promoting the use of recycled water, and they're also supportive of looking at regional wastewater solutions," Weir said. "We believe this meets both of those objectives." He noted, "Our treatment plant is right next to Conaway." Giezentanner said Conaway is discussing a similar agreement to handle sewage from Woodland. In addition, the ranch is viewed as a possible long-term supplier of water to Davis and Woodland. The settlement agreement that ended the county's eminent domain lawsuit contains no guarantees that Conaway's water will remain in Yolo - or even in the Sacramento region. It merely gives the county the right to negotiate for the water before it is sold, and requires Conaway to pay a fee to the county if it sells the water somewhere else. Much of Conaway Ranch is used for rice farming, a water-intensive crop. Still, the ranch is an efficient user of water due to a closed drainage system, and it usually does not draw its full allocation, Giezantanner said. This year, the ranch sold about 12,000 acre-feet of water, he said. In order to make the water available, about 1,000 acres of rice fields were fallowed, and 500 converted to crops that don't require as much water. On Dec. 16, the Butte Environmental Council and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a notice that they plan to sue the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for allowing the transfer. The groups contend the review by the wildlife service did not adequately determine the effect of the water transfers on the endangered giant garter snake, which relies on rice fields for habitat. Leaders of the two groups said water transfers from north to south are becoming an increasingly significant issue after two years of drought and increasing demands on the state's water supply. "Our concern is with the giant garter snake and the habitat," said Lisa Belenky, senior attorney for the San Francisco-based Center for Biological Diversity. "Most of this area was wetlands originally, and it was converted to cropland. The rice crop is more similar to native wetlands, so it was able to be a substitute habitat for species." Byron Leydecker, JCT Chair, Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 land 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary) http://www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bwl3 at comcast.net Wed Dec 31 08:58:53 2008 From: bwl3 at comcast.net (Byron Leydecker) Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:58:53 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle 12 31 09 OpEd Article Message-ID: Agreement to take down Klamath dams? Not likely Ani Kame'enui Wednesday, December 31, 2008 The Klamath Basin agreement for removal of the river's lower four dams, is 32 pages long. I am beginning to wonder if those commenting in support of the it only made it through the first two-and-a-half pages. A thorough read of the document reveals that the devil is most certainly in the details. Images View Larger Image A diverse group has worked for dam removal in one of the West's most debated and ecologically valuable watersheds. Unfortunately, rather than a road map for dam removal, the recently signed tentative agreement is the dysfunctional product of a Bush-led Department of Interior - an agency that has failed the Klamath time and again over the last eight years. It is a mystery why cooperating parties, including the states of Oregon and California, would allow a lame-duck president to lay a faulty foundation for Klamath Basin policy for President-elect Barack Obama. There is no doubt that dam removal is necessary to restore the Klamath River's salmon runs, and the cultures and wildlife that depend on a healthy river. However, the agreement would delay any work to remove the harmful dams until 2020. While the delayed time line is troubling, even worse is the provision that strips Oregon and California of their ability to keep Klamath River water clean. The agreement allows PacifiCorp to bypass Clean Water Act certification, a process viewed as an insurmountable hurdle on the road to dam relicensing. Rather than mandating a change from conditions that led to toxic water and dead salmon, the agreement guarantees status-quo management for at least another decade. Read deeper into the document and realize it is rife with "get out of jail free" cards for dam-owner PacifiCorp. To start, the agreement isn't even a final dam removal deal; it's simply a commitment to talk about a deal. Long before any dam is removed, the agreement requires a cost-benefit analysis of dam removal (even though such studies have already been done); and legislation in by both Oregon and California to raise a combined $450 million from a general bond paid for by taxpayers and rate increases to power customers (despite the fact that PacifiCorp's parent company holds assets worth nearly $40 billion). It is no wonder PacifiCorp has signed onto this deal. There is no guarantee PacifiCorp will ever be required to remove the Klamath River dams. Perhaps the greatest flaw in the agreement is its link to the Bush-backed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which requires nearly $1 billion from federal taxpayers at a time when the national economy is suffering. It would also require Congress to lock in Klamath River flows that fail to meet the scientifically established needs of salmon, and extend commercial agricultural development for another 50 years on the two most important National Wildlife Refuges in the western United States. In order to create long-term resolution to the Klamath Basin's water resource challenges, we must develop a plan that brings water demands back into balance with what the region can naturally provide. Such a balance can be better accomplished through a realistic plan for dam removal without making sacrifices for PacifiCorp, by phasing out commercial agriculture on National Wildlife Refuge land, and using good science to inform local and federal management of river flows and wetlands in the basin. Getting past the hoopla that talk of tearing down dams always creates, we can see the recent agreement on the Klamath for what it really is: an empty promise. Toxic algae will still flow in the river; threatened salmon may still die by the tens of thousands; bald eagles will still alight in a National Wildlife Refuge planted with potatoes bound for market. It is certainly time for a new direction in the Klamath. Sadly, we are being offered more of the same. (Ani Kame'enui is the Klamath campaign coordinator for Oregon Wild, an educational and scientific organization that works to protect and restore Oregon's wildlands, wildlife and water. www.oregonwild.org.) Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image020.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 19358 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image021.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bhill at igc.org Wed Dec 31 10:23:44 2008 From: bhill at igc.org (Brian Hill) Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:23:44 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle 12 31 09 OpEd Article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <042f01c96b74$eb7c9ac0$c275d040$@org> Byron - here's a reply to a friend in Oregon who works in this area; Brian, I know people who have worked long and hard to get the issue to this point. While there is still a long ways to go, the fact that the major players are talking to one another and that we are entering a new administration with at least the framework for further action should not be belittled as too little, too late. Once again the process can always be faulted for its slowlness and insufficiencies, but when people put their hearts and minds together for a collabrative solution to an impossible problem, I don't think criticism helps much. See this article: http://www.dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-time-conservation-conversation Happiest New Year, Johnny From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Byron Leydecker Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 8:59 AM To: FOTR List; Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle 12 31 09 OpEd Article Agreement to take down Klamath dams? Not likely Ani Kame'enui Wednesday, December 31, 2008 The Klamath Basin agreement for removal of the river's lower four dams, is 32 pages long. I am beginning to wonder if those commenting in support of the it only made it through the first two-and-a-half pages. A thorough read of the document reveals that the devil is most certainly in the details. Images cid:image001.jpg at 01C96B31.950D0DC0 cid:image002.gif at 01C96B31.950D0DC0View Larger Image A diverse group has worked for dam removal in one of the West's most debated and ecologically valuable watersheds. Unfortunately, rather than a road map for dam removal, the recently signed tentative agreement is the dysfunctional product of a Bush-led Department of Interior - an agency that has failed the Klamath time and again over the last eight years. It is a mystery why cooperating parties, including the states of Oregon and California, would allow a lame-duck president to lay a faulty foundation for Klamath Basin policy for President-elect Barack Obama. There is no doubt that dam removal is necessary to restore the Klamath River's salmon runs, and the cultures and wildlife that depend on a healthy river. However, the agreement would delay any work to remove the harmful dams until 2020. While the delayed time line is troubling, even worse is the provision that strips Oregon and California of their ability to keep Klamath River water clean. The agreement allows PacifiCorp to bypass Clean Water Act certification, a process viewed as an insurmountable hurdle on the road to dam relicensing. Rather than mandating a change from conditions that led to toxic water and dead salmon, the agreement guarantees status-quo management for at least another decade. Read deeper into the document and realize it is rife with "get out of jail free" cards for dam-owner PacifiCorp. To start, the agreement isn't even a final dam removal deal; it's simply a commitment to talk about a deal. Long before any dam is removed, the agreement requires a cost-benefit analysis of dam removal (even though such studies have already been done); and legislation in by both Oregon and California to raise a combined $450 million from a general bond paid for by taxpayers and rate increases to power customers (despite the fact that PacifiCorp's parent company holds assets worth nearly $40 billion). It is no wonder PacifiCorp has signed onto this deal. There is no guarantee PacifiCorp will ever be required to remove the Klamath River dams. Perhaps the greatest flaw in the agreement is its link to the Bush-backed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which requires nearly $1 billion from federal taxpayers at a time when the national economy is suffering. It would also require Congress to lock in Klamath River flows that fail to meet the scientifically established needs of salmon, and extend commercial agricultural development for another 50 years on the two most important National Wildlife Refuges in the western United States. In order to create long-term resolution to the Klamath Basin's water resource challenges, we must develop a plan that brings water demands back into balance with what the region can naturally provide. Such a balance can be better accomplished through a realistic plan for dam removal without making sacrifices for PacifiCorp, by phasing out commercial agriculture on National Wildlife Refuge land, and using good science to inform local and federal management of river flows and wetlands in the basin. Getting past the hoopla that talk of tearing down dams always creates, we can see the recent agreement on the Klamath for what it really is: an empty promise. Toxic algae will still flow in the river; threatened salmon may still die by the tens of thousands; bald eagles will still alight in a National Wildlife Refuge planted with potatoes bound for market. It is certainly time for a new direction in the Klamath. Sadly, we are being offered more of the same. (Ani Kame'enui is the Klamath campaign coordinator for Oregon Wild, an educational and scientific organization that works to protect and restore Oregon's wildlands, wildlife and water. www.oregonwild.org.) Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 19358 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 54 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bhill at bioverde.net Wed Dec 31 10:26:15 2008 From: bhill at bioverde.net (Brian Hill) Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:26:15 -0800 Subject: [env-trinity] FW: SF Chronicle 12 31 09 OpEd Article Message-ID: <044701c96b75$45527fb0$cff77f10$@net> correction - reply FROM a friend.... From: Brian Hill [mailto:bhill at igc.org] Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 10:24 AM To: 'Byron Leydecker'; env-trinity at mailman.dcn.org Subject: RE: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle 12 31 09 OpEd Article Byron - here's a reply to a friend in Oregon who works in this area; Brian, I know people who have worked long and hard to get the issue to this point. While there is still a long ways to go, the fact that the major players are talking to one another and that we are entering a new administration with at least the framework for further action should not be belittled as too little, too late. Once again the process can always be faulted for its slowlness and insufficiencies, but when people put their hearts and minds together for a collabrative solution to an impossible problem, I don't think criticism helps much. See this article: http://www.dailyyonder.com/speak-your-piece-time-conservation-conversation Happiest New Year, Johnny From: env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:env-trinity-bounces at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Byron Leydecker Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 8:59 AM To: FOTR List; Trinity List Subject: [env-trinity] SF Chronicle 12 31 09 OpEd Article Agreement to take down Klamath dams? Not likely Ani Kame'enui Wednesday, December 31, 2008 The Klamath Basin agreement for removal of the river's lower four dams, is 32 pages long. I am beginning to wonder if those commenting in support of the it only made it through the first two-and-a-half pages. A thorough read of the document reveals that the devil is most certainly in the details. Images cid:image001.jpg at 01C96B31.950D0DC0 cid:image002.gif at 01C96B31.950D0DC0View Larger Image A diverse group has worked for dam removal in one of the West's most debated and ecologically valuable watersheds. Unfortunately, rather than a road map for dam removal, the recently signed tentative agreement is the dysfunctional product of a Bush-led Department of Interior - an agency that has failed the Klamath time and again over the last eight years. It is a mystery why cooperating parties, including the states of Oregon and California, would allow a lame-duck president to lay a faulty foundation for Klamath Basin policy for President-elect Barack Obama. There is no doubt that dam removal is necessary to restore the Klamath River's salmon runs, and the cultures and wildlife that depend on a healthy river. However, the agreement would delay any work to remove the harmful dams until 2020. While the delayed time line is troubling, even worse is the provision that strips Oregon and California of their ability to keep Klamath River water clean. The agreement allows PacifiCorp to bypass Clean Water Act certification, a process viewed as an insurmountable hurdle on the road to dam relicensing. Rather than mandating a change from conditions that led to toxic water and dead salmon, the agreement guarantees status-quo management for at least another decade. Read deeper into the document and realize it is rife with "get out of jail free" cards for dam-owner PacifiCorp. To start, the agreement isn't even a final dam removal deal; it's simply a commitment to talk about a deal. Long before any dam is removed, the agreement requires a cost-benefit analysis of dam removal (even though such studies have already been done); and legislation in by both Oregon and California to raise a combined $450 million from a general bond paid for by taxpayers and rate increases to power customers (despite the fact that PacifiCorp's parent company holds assets worth nearly $40 billion). It is no wonder PacifiCorp has signed onto this deal. There is no guarantee PacifiCorp will ever be required to remove the Klamath River dams. Perhaps the greatest flaw in the agreement is its link to the Bush-backed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which requires nearly $1 billion from federal taxpayers at a time when the national economy is suffering. It would also require Congress to lock in Klamath River flows that fail to meet the scientifically established needs of salmon, and extend commercial agricultural development for another 50 years on the two most important National Wildlife Refuges in the western United States. In order to create long-term resolution to the Klamath Basin's water resource challenges, we must develop a plan that brings water demands back into balance with what the region can naturally provide. Such a balance can be better accomplished through a realistic plan for dam removal without making sacrifices for PacifiCorp, by phasing out commercial agriculture on National Wildlife Refuge land, and using good science to inform local and federal management of river flows and wetlands in the basin. Getting past the hoopla that talk of tearing down dams always creates, we can see the recent agreement on the Klamath for what it really is: an empty promise. Toxic algae will still flow in the river; threatened salmon may still die by the tens of thousands; bald eagles will still alight in a National Wildlife Refuge planted with potatoes bound for market. It is certainly time for a new direction in the Klamath. Sadly, we are being offered more of the same. (Ani Kame'enui is the Klamath campaign coordinator for Oregon Wild, an educational and scientific organization that works to protect and restore Oregon's wildlands, wildlife and water. www.oregonwild.org.) Byron Leydecker, JCT, Chair Friends of Trinity River PO Box 2327 Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327 415 383 4810 415 519 4810 cell bwl3 at comcast.net bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org www.fotr.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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