[env-trinity] Spring releases raise Trinity River TRRP addresses concerns amid drought

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/local/article_a2321f84-c5b0-11ec-8c20-0bde63c98700.html

Spring releases raise Trinity RiverTRRP addresses concerns amid drought

   - By Tony Reed The Trinity Journal
   - 4 hrs ago
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[image: Spring flows]
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Along Highway 299 west of Junction City, the Trinity River was noticeably
higher during spring flows.

   - Tony Reed | The Trinity Journal

[image: Ruth Lake]
<http://www.trinityjournal.com/content/tncms/live/#2>

Having some fun aboard personal watercraft, taking advantage of a full Ruth
Lake Sunday.

   - Tony Reed | The Trinity Journal

[image: image.png]
<http://www.trinityjournal.com/content/tncms/live/#3>

TRRP's flow schedule for 2022.

   - Tony Reed | The Trinity Journal

[image: image.png]
<http://www.trinityjournal.com/content/tncms/live/#4>

A measure on the Trinity River in Junction City showed the water height at
just under 7 feet during peak flows. According to the US Geological Survey
which monitors the water there, the typical winter flow level is between 2
and 3 feet.

   - Tony Reed | The Trinity Journal


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It was hard not to notice on a rainy Wednesday morning, April 20, that the
Trinity River appeared to be running much higher than in previous days.
However, it’s not the rain that brought the level up, it was the start of
an intentional discharge of 369,000 acre-feet of water from Trinity Dam.

TPUD Manager Paul Hauser said he refers to the yearly action as the
“artificial spring flood,” adding that he has argued against doing so for
years, to no avail.

“Why are we dumping 369,000 acre-feet of water when we’re in the middle of
a historic drought?” he asked Wednesday morning.

While it seems an obvious question, staff at the Trinity River Restoration
Program say it needs to happen to regulate temperatures, deter certain
species of frogs from breeding and to flush dirt, silt and mosses from the
riverbed to improve fish habitat.

Mike Dixon, Ph.D., executive director of TRRP, said that on April 15, flows
from the dam were bumped up from 1,400 cubic feet per second to a peak of
5,700 cfs by April 21. That amount will level off for the first 17 days of
May before returning to normal rates, he said.

Asked if the increased flows were timed to coincide with a week of rain and
snow showers, Dixon called it a ”happy accident.” He said it was decided to
make a quick release early in spring, rather than extend a slow release out
into the summer months, partly to encourage salmon to head for the ocean
earlier.

He explained that continually releasing cold water into the river
encourages fish to stay, rather than return to the ocean, which can cause a
die-off in the Klamath River.

 “The idea is that when we start our spring release from the dam, depending
on how much water we’re releasing, the flows can drop the temperature of
the river by over 10 degrees Fahrenheit, because that water is coming off
the bottom of the reservoir,” he explained. “When the water is colder, it
slows down fish growth.”

He said one cue that sends fish to the ocean is reaching a certain size, so
keeping cold water in the rivers encourages them to stay longer.

“It’s a nice place to be when the river is nice and cold up here, but
unfortunately, just because it’s nice and cold up here doesn’t mean that
the lower Trinity and the lower Klamath [River] are going to be as
hospitable, so we’ve had big disease problems for many years in the lower
Klamath.” He said the reasons have been many, but it’s determined that
disease is much worse in drought years. Dixon recalled that as many as 90
percent of fish migrating out of the Klamath died. Dixon said fish can
sense declining flows and temperature differences which also indicate they
should head back to the ocean.

*Scour the channel*

Dixon explained that another purpose of the spring flows is to “scour the
channel,” meaning to move silt, gravel and sediment away. He said it’s not
a regular objective, but had not been done following an unprecedented three
years of critically dry conditions. It was determined to be necessary in
order to move gravel and scour willow bushes from river edges. Dixon said a
common issue for the Trinity is a lack of connection to the flood plain.

“Flood plains are really important to fish,” he said. “People think of the
river as the part that has water in it, but the river is the whole valley.
If we build all this habitat for fish by lowering flood plains and creating
these off-channel features, we want to make sure we are managing that water
by getting the habitat wet at the right times.” He said early on, an issue
that disconnected the Trinity from its flood plain was willow bushes.

“We had willows grow right on the edge of the river because we were
releasing the same amount of water every day, 365 days a year,” he said.
When that happened, dense sand would then accumulate and create levies that
kept the river from accessing its flood plain. When flows increase, the
tight channel will speed water flow through an area, confining it to a
tight channel. Dixon said that after 18 years of trying to open the
channel, TRRP is trying to keep the river from returning to the tight
channel condition.

Asked if flushing helps to resolve issues around toxic algal blooms, Dixon
said those typically occur later in the summer when releases are not
happening. However, he said TRRP will sometimes release water in fall to
lower temperatures and increase flows in the lower Klamath River, which can
mitigate or stop the proliferation of blue green algae.

“That’s not an objective, it would just be a convenient consequence,” he
said.

*Because we have to*

“What it really boils down to is that we have to release the water,” he
said. “We have a set allocation for restoration purposes and we are
releasing the minimum amount we are legally allowed to release and we are
doing it in a way that is informed by the 20 years of science we’ve
accumulated since the program started.”

Asked to address common concerns from the public, Dixon noted questions
about why water can’t be retained for recreation or as storage for future
dry years.

“It really boils down to the purpose of Trinity Dam, based on what Congress
said,” he explained. “The purpose of Trinity Dam is for irrigation. It’s
not even for flood control. If it controls flood, it’s also a consequence
of holding back water for subsequent diversion for irrigating.” Dixon said
the program gets a set amount of water for restoration purposes, but all
else is available for diversion to the Central Valley Project. He said
there are no minimum constraints to accommodate boat ramps in the reservoir
or recreation, because it’s not the intended purpose of the dam.

“Congress authorized that specifically to hold onto water to use for
irrigation and if we can generate power on the way to irrigation, all the
better,” he said. “That’s why we have some of the cheapest power in
California.”

Asked if the release increases significantly lower the level of Trinity
Lake, Dixon said they can release 369,000 acre feet of water in a
critically dry year, and all but 98,000 acre-feet becomes the summer and
winter base flows.

“The 98,000 extra acre-feet comes out of a total lake storage of 2.5
million acre-feet,” he said. “What we ae seeing right now is fairly small
relative to the capacity of the lake,” he said, “but, to be fair, the
lake’s only at 772,000 acre-feet of storage right now. We’re at, I think,
42 percent of the historical average for the date. It’s quite low, almost
unprecedentedly low, but not quite.”

*For more info*

Asked if he would like the public to know anything about TRRP, Dixon said
staff enjoy sharing information with the public at events or one-on-one.

“We love this stuff,” he said. “We really like communicating and … the
conversation doesn’t happen properly over social media. It’s hard to engage
properly and share the right information.”

As for who makes the decision to release or hold water, it’s rarely one
office.

“We’re an eight-agency partnership who are all here to work together to
restore the river, so these decisions on how and when to release water,
it’s not the Bureau of Reclamation that’s formulating these hydrographs.
It’s the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, it’s the National
Marine Fisheries Service and the Yurok Tribe and Trinity County,” he said.
“All of these entities get together and decide at the technical level and
then, at the policy level, what we’re trying to accomplish this year and
that’s what we end up doing.”

For more information, questions or to schedule an information meeting or
event, send an email to info at trrp.net for the quickest response.

*A different prediction*

Asked if he would like to weigh in, Tom Stokely, representing the Save
California Salmon and other Trinity River groups, began by noting that 2022
will go down as one of the driest years in history, and even after last
week’s rain and snow, the lake will reach its lowest level since 1977.

“Thanks to mismanagement of the cold water pool by the Bureau of
Reclamation, with the blessing of the State Water Resources Control Board,
river temperatures in 2022 are expected to be very warm for all life stages
of salmon and steelhead, particularly during fall spawning. Therefore,
significant salmon spawning failure and pre-spawn mortality is expected in
2022. Spring chinook salmon are listed as threatened under the California
Endangered Species Act, and coho salmon are listed as threatened under the
state and federal ESAs.”

Stokely said the Bureau of Reclamation’s April 6 Draft Temperature
Management Plan predicts Trinity Lake storage at 399,000 acre-feet at the
end of October, with Lewiston Dam outflow temperatures for October at 56.9
degrees Fahrenheit.

“Under water right order 90-5, temperatures should be 56 degrees at the
North Fork confluence in October, 40 miles downstream,” he said. “I don’t
expect the recent precipitation to make a huge difference because the
ground is so dry and a very hot summer is likely.”

Stokely said warm waters in Trinity Lake in the last two months of 2021
resulted in significant mortality and unpermitted take of coho eggs at the
Trinity River Hatchery. He predicted the action will be repeated this year.

“Hydropower will also be adversely impacted by the low storage this year,”
he said. “There will hopefully be strategic powerplant bypasses to provide
colder water for salmon during fall spawning, but it remains to be seen how
much cold water will be left in Trinity Lake at all by October.”

According to Stokely, Save California Salmon, the California Sportfishing
Protection Alliance and California Water Impact Network submitted an
alternative water operations plan for 2021 to the SWRCB that would have
resulted in an additional 500,000 acre-feet of stored water in Trinity and
Shasta reservoirs for 2022.

“Unfortunately, our plan was rejected and now we face a serious salmon and
hydropower crisis,” he said. “Protections for the Trinity River that are
contained in SWRCB Water Right Order 90-5 have been completely ignored.
Save California Salmon is the only organization that has spoken up to the
SWRCB about their failure to protect the Trinity River. “

Stokley asserted that in order to save this year’s run of salmon in the
Trinity River, export of Trinity River water to Whiskeytown Lake and the
Sacramento River should be further curtailed per the letter from
Congressman Huffman to the Commissioner of Reclamation.

“To do otherwise spells disaster for those who depend on Trinity and
Klamath River salmon and steelhead,” he said.

*Ruth Lake full*

Over on Ruth Lake April 19, water was cresting the spillway for the first
time since last October.

Ruth Lake Community Services District Manager Caitlyn Canale said the
spillover happens naturally when the lake is full. Unlike Trinity Lake, the
7-mile-long reservoir in southern Trinity County doesn’t take long to fill.

“We’re rather fortunate, being as small as we are, that one rainstorm can
fill it,” Canale said. “For example, we were pretty low back in October and
one huge storm filled it completely.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, the reservoir was
formed by the damming of the Mad River in 1962. It provides water to
Humboldt County and serves as a recreation area for many.

While the dam does not generate power, it brings tourism revenue to the
area, mostly in fishing-related commerce.

“The lake is popular for largemouth bass fishing and this year, we are
doing three bass tournaments,” she said. “We had one on April 2 and we’ll
have one on April 30 and another on June 4. They usually have really good
turnouts.”

Asked what other fish one can expect to catch in Ruth Lake, Canale said
trout, bluegill and catfish are common.

According to the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, the level of Ruth
Lake on April 19 was 104 percent of capacity.
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