[env-trinity] Guides, conservationists demand moratorium on Trinity River channel projects

[Dan Bacher]

http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/12/03/guides- 
conservationists-demand-moratorium-on-trinity-river-channel-projects/

Photo of Trinity River courtesy of Wikipedia.



280px-trinityriverca.jpg


Guides, conservationists demand moratorium on Trinity River channel  
projects

By Dan Bacher

History is repeating itself on the Trinity River as fishing guides  
and environmental activists unite to stop a controversial channel  
restoration project funded by the federal government.

In 1993, Byron Leydecker, the late founder of Friends of the Trinity  
River, got stuck in the mud while fishing on the river with Herb  
Burton of Trinity Fly Shop. The sediment was discharged into the  
river by a restoration project funded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The incident so outraged the two anglers that it led to the formation  
of a broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen,  
environmentalists, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, the Yurok Tribe and local  
residents to restore the Trinity River back to its former greatness  
as a fishery.

The river restoration campaign led to the Trinity Record of Decision  
signed by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and former Hoopa  
Valley Tribe Chairman Duane Sherman in Hoopa on December 19, 2000.  
The ROD, for the first time ever since the construction of Trinity  
Dam, allowed 47 percent of the water to flow down the Trinity rather  
than being diverted to the Sacramento River via Whiskeytown Reservoir.

Now the future of the Trinity River is under assault by the same  
misguided projects that spurred the campaign to restore the Trinity  
in the first place. On November 28, the Trinity River Guides  
Association and the California Water Impact Network asked the Trinity  
River Restoration Program to “take a break” to determine if river  
restoration projects completed to date have met their objectives or  
had unintended impacts.

The letter states that there is public concern about significant  
filling of pool habitat for adult salmon and steelhead from excessive  
gravel introduction into the river channel as well as numerous side  
channel failures.

“Numerous side channels constructed in the Trinity River prior to  
and since the 2000 Trinity Record of Decision (Trinity ROD) have  
completely failed,” according to the letter. “The 80,000 tons of  
spawning gravel placed in the river near Lewiston over the past few  
years have continued to overwhelm approximately twenty significant  
adult fish holding/staging pools in the river upstream of Douglas  
City, with no scouring of additional pools to replace them.”

Bill Dickens of the Guides Association said, “There is no choice but  
to oppose this type of project until an evaluation of the existing  
projects is complete. We are just asking the Restoration Program to  
do what is already required as part of the Trinity River Record of  
Decision.”

“As fishing guides, we fully support restoration of the river’s  
fisheries, but we’re not convinced that they are doing it the right  
way. It’s time to take a break and look at what’s been done before  
tens of millions of additional taxpayer dollars are spent,” Dickens  
noted.

Tom Stokely with C-WIN said, “The Interior Department and the  
Trinity River Restoration Program are not responsive to public  
concerns. The Guides Association wrote a letter on March 14, 2011  
that has still not received a response. It’s inexcusable.”

C-WIN is the successor organization to Friends of Trinity River that  
closed earlier this year after the passing of Friends founder Byron  
Leydecker, according to Stokely.

Robin Schrock, the program’s executive director, defended the  
restoration work in an interview with the Redding Record Searchlight  
(http://www.redding.com/news/2011/dec/01/trinity-river-advocates- 
denounce-restoration). She claimed the program has followed the  
guidelines of the Record of Decision authorizing the work.

However, Stokely emphasized that fishery restoration goals for the  
Trinity River Restoration Program are not being met while this  
program continues. A review of DFG data reveals that the goals for  
naturally spawning fall chinook, spring chinook, fall steelhead and  
fall coho were not met in 2010. The hatchery count for steelhead was  
not met either.

The goal for fall chinook salmon is 62,000 naturally spawning adult  
fish and 9,000 adult hatchery fish. The natural spawner count in  
2010, 20,876, was 34 percent of the goal. The number of hatchery fall  
chinooks in 2010, 8,953, was 99 percent of the goal.

The adult spring chinook goal is 6,000 natural fish and 3,000  
hatchery fish. The natural spring run chinook count for 2010 was  
4,477, 75 percent of the goal. The hatchery spring run count was  
3,880, 129 percent of the goal.

The goal for fall steelhead is 40,000 natural and 10,000 hatchery  
adults. The natural steelhead count in 2010 was 3,811 fish, 10  
percent of the goal. The hatchery steelhead count was 4,640 fish, 46  
percent of the goal.

The coho salmon goal is 1,400 natural adults and 2,100 hatchery fish.  
The natural coho count in 2010 was 817, 58 percent of the goal. The  
hatchery coho count was 5,852, 279 percent of the goal.

As of Nov. 12, 4,037 fall and spring run Chinook salmon have been  
counted in traps at the Trinity River Fish Hatchery, according to the  
California Department of Fish and Game.

A copy of the letter can be found at: http://c-win.org/webfm_send/199

The campaign by the river guides and environmentalists to stop the  
controversial restoration project takes place as the Brown and Obama  
administrations are fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan  
(BDCP) to build a peripheral canal or tunnel. The purpose of the  
peripheral canal, referred as “improved conveyance” by state and  
federal officials, is to expedite the export of water from the  
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the Trinity River to corporate  
agribusiness and southern California water agencies.

“The Trinity River is at great risk from increased Delta exports,”  
said Stokely. “Anything that reduces pumping restrictions on the  
Delta adversely impacts the Trinity River by allowing Trinity Lake to  
be drawn down even more than it is already.”

Leonard Masten, chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, on July, 2, 2010  
slammed the state-federal peripheral canal plans in a press release  
that called on the Legislature to repeal the water bond, Proposition  
18, rather than to postpone it until 2012.

Masten noted that the proposition, known as the Safe, Clean and  
Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act, “is not really about drinking  
water.”

“It’s about building and privatizing taxpayer-built dams and  
moving the control of the California’s water from the public trust  
to the private sector,” he said. “The measure also paves the way  
for the construction of a peripheral canal that would more easily  
ship Northern California Water south.”

Masten said he agreed with the statement by Mark Franco, then headman  
of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, that “The peripheral canal is a big,  
stupid idea that doesn’t make any sense from a tribal environmental  
perspective. Building a canal to save the Delta is like a doctor  
inserting an arterial bypass from your shoulder to your hand– it  
will cause your elbow to die just like taking water out of the Delta  
through a peripheral canal will cause the Delta to die.”

Delta and Trinity River advocates oppose the canal because it will  
likely result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead,  
Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt,  
Sacramento splittail and green sturgeon, as well as imperiling  
Trinity River salmon and steelhead runs. 
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