[env-trinity] Officials: Bill would end Trinity River fish disease preventive flows, county water right

[lrlake at aol.com]

This House bill is 'totally sick'.  I've lived with this crap for nearly 40 years.  Keep the powder dry!  The children in mgmt. these days, need to do real work or risk being dismissed as boondoggle report writers, again.  The SoCal interests hate ANY water that flows to the ocean, period.  Stay vigilant...


Larry


Lawrence Lake, RPF
Redding, CA



-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Stokely <tstokely at att.net>
To: Env-trinity <env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us>
Sent: Sat, Jul 29, 2017 9:51 am
Subject: [env-trinity] Officials: Bill would end Trinity River fish disease preventive flows, county water right



http://www.times-standard.com/general-news/20170728/officials-bill-would-end-trinity-river-fish-disease-preventive-flows-county-water-right



Officials: Bill would end Trinity River fish disease preventive flows, county water right


Local officials say county’s water rights also are at risk

By Will Houston, Eureka Times-Standard

Friday, July 28, 2017




Local tribal and government officials say a bill currently under U.S. Senate review would virtually end Trinity River dam water releases used to prevent fish kills and do away with Humboldt County’s 60-year right to river water in favor of providing more water to Central Valley irrigators. 
California Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) said the bill — HR 23 introduced by California Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) — is but one of several attempts over the years by Central Valley water contractors and suppliers, namely the Fresno-based Westlands Water District, to redirect more Trinity River water for their own interests.

“During the worst of the drought, they packaged it as an emergency drought relief effort,” Huffman said Thursday. “It’s all the same. It hasn’t always been this explicit about the Trinity River. That’s a newer development. That’s because the Department of Interior has finally recognized Humboldt County’s 50,000 acre-feet right [to Trinity River water]. Westlands and others have been working to override that.”
Attempts to contact Westlands Water District’s media representative on Friday were not returned. 

Local officials said this week that the bill would undo longstanding provisions adopted by Congress that protect Trinity River fish and Humboldt County’s water rights. These provisions adopted in 1955 and 1959 gave Humboldt County an annual right to 50,000 acre-feet of water from Trinity Lake and stated that Trinity River water can only be diverted to the Central Valley after enough has been provided to protect fish.
Humboldt County’s water right was not formally recognized by the Interior Department until January 2015, and the water has since been used in recent years to prevent fish diseases that have devastated federally protected salmon species on the lower Klamath and Trinity rivers.

The Hupa people, whose reservation resides along the Trinity River in the lower Klamath River basin, say the bill will greatly endanger fish especially during the lowest return of Klamath River fall-run Chinook salmon on record. State and tribal researchers attribute the low run to fish diseases caused by low-flow river conditions in 2014 and 2015 that killed off juvenile salmon. 
The Hoopa Valley Tribe’s Fisheries Director Mike Orcutt said the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation — which controls the dams on the Trinity River — has used flow releases from the Trinity River’s Lewiston Dam to prevent further spread of parasites and fish diseases on the lower Klamath and Trinity Rivers in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Should H.R. 23 pass, the bureau would be prohibited from releasing these flows, Orcutt said.

“If we get in a situation where there is a disease that is affecting fish, there is water that needs to be made available for release if there is disease,” Orcutt said.
Orcutt said the bill would also prohibit the ceremonial dam water flow releases for the tribe’s boat dance, which is set to begin Aug. 22.
Local officials state Westlands Water District’s fingerprints are on the bill. 
After obtaining hundreds of emails and other public documents, the Center for Investigative Reporting found the Department of Interior’s recently confirmed deputy director and former Westlands lobbyist David Bernhardt frequently consulted with the bill’s author and proponents while the bill was being drafted. The center also found Bernhardt was doing this months after he told the U.S. Senate he had cut ties with Westlands Water District.

Westlands Water District and other Central Valley districts have repeatedly challenged in federal court the fish-kill preventative Trinity River dam releases in recent years, but both a U.S. District Court and U.S. Court of Appeal rejected the challenges as recently as February.
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association salmon and water policy analyst Tom Stokely said HR 23 would not only negate these recent court decisions, but also supercede state water rights by undermining state water quality and flow requirements.

The bill passed in the House of Representatives in a 230-190 vote July 12.
Both Huffman and Stokely said HR 23 will likely die in the Senate committee review process because of opposition from California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.
“I don’t think there is single U.S senator that would champion a bill like this,” Huffman said.
But Stokely said that the House’s approval of the bill will have consequences, and could allow the bill to be resurrected as a rider in an appropriations bill.
“We should remain vigilant,” Stokely said.

Will Houston can be reached at 707-441-0504.






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