[env-trinity] Trinity Journal March 30 2011

[Byron Leydecker]

 <http://www.trinityjournal.com/>
http://www.trinityjournal.com/styles/logo.gif

River advocates seek higher intervention

BY AMY GITTELSOHN 

THE TRINITY JOURNAL 

 
<http://www.trinityjournal.com/sites/www.trinityjournal.com/files/images/201
1-03-30/5p1.Large.jpg> Trinity River guides and other river advocates are
asking the federal government to take a step back and evaluate recent river
restoration efforts which they say are having mixed results. PHIL NELSON
|THE TRINITY JOURNAL 

Trinity River guides and other river advocates are asking the federal
government to take a step back and evaluate recent river restoration efforts
which they say are having mixed results. 

A group of Trinity River advocates is urging that Interior Secretary Kenneth
Salazar's office take the reins of the Trinity River Restoration Program.

The March 21 letter to Salazar is signed by some members of the Trinity
Adaptive Management Working Group, the stakeholder advisory group to the
Trinity Management Council. Also signing are three members of environmental
groups. 

The writers say that the restoration program has strayed from provisions of
the Trinity Record of Decision, casting doubt on the program's success. They
ask that the program have direct oversight from the Office of the Secretary,
and decisions the Trinity Management Council (with eight member agencies) is
unable to make because of the super-majority requirement be decided at that
level as well.

Among their complaints: 

. Responsibility has been shunted down to representatives from the Bureau of
Reclamation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who now make final decisions
when the management council is unable to do so because of super-majority
voting provisions.

. The first phase of channel manipulation projects appear to be far greater
in scale than was intended by the Record of Decision, and input from
scientists on independent review panels so far has not been incorporated
into future projects, the letter says. They ask for a pause in projects
until evaluation is complete.

. One of the principal objectives of the program - a return of about 60
percent of pre-dam populations of wild, anadromous fish - has not been met.
The letter states that one of the reasons for this is over-production of
hatchery fish. Recommendations for changes in coho hatchery production were
not adopted because of the objections of two members of the Trinity
Management Council, the letter says.

. The Record of Decision made watershed rehabilitation a central component
of the program and estimated that $2 million a year for at least 30 years
would need to be allocated to rehabilitation of watersheds and tributaries.
Tributaries are the principal spawning grounds of coho and steelhead, and
watershed degradation is the cause of virtually all sediment into the
mainstem. Yet the program has never been allocated more than $500,000 for
watershed and tributary rehabilitation.

. They praise the performance of the acting executive director, but say the
position is an untenable one due to competing objectives and blatant
financial conflicts of some of the Trinity Management Council member
entities.

The letter is signed by six members of the 16-member stakeholder advisory
group Arnold Whitridge (the chair), David Steinhauser, Emelia Berol, Richard
Lorenz, Dana Hord and Joseph McCarthy; and three members of environmental
groups, Carolee Krieger, president of the California Water Impact Network;
Byron Leydecker, chair of Friends of Trinity River; and Tom Stokely, a
member of the California Advisory Committee on Salmon and Steelhead. 

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 land

415 519 4810 mobile

bwl3 at comcast.net 

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org 

http://www.fotr.org

 

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