Under Pressure On Salmon Run, Feds Back Off Trinity River Diversion Plan

[hatrack]

"The Department of Interior, under pressure from recreational anglers, Indian Tribes and environmental groups, recently withdrew a controversial request to divert cold water from the Trinity River this fall to stop a potential fish kill from taking place on the beleaguered Klamath River. The Bureau of Reclamation on April 22 finalized the Trinity River flow schedule for 2005, following the Trinity Management Council's rejection of its request for a diversion of Trinity water. The flow is designed to implement the objectives of the historic Trinity River of Decision (ROD) issued by Bruce Babbitt in December 2000.

"We called Interior on this attempt to gut the Trinity River Restoration Program and they backed down," said Byron Leydecker, chair of Friends of the Trinity River and consultant to California Trout. "This is a very significant victory for Trinity River restoration. If Interior's request had gone through, it would've been the camel's nose under the tent to destroy the total concept and vision of the Trinity Restoration program." "The Hoopa Valley Tribe is glad that DOI didn't try to re-contour the ROD flows and compromise their integrity, since this is the first year that the Bureau can legally release ROD flows," explained Mike Orcutt, the tribe's fishery program director and representative on the TMC.

Reclamation recently determined this to be a "normal" water year in the Trinity Basin, according to a joint press release by the Bureau and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on April 22. Under the 2000 Record of Decision for this water year type, a total volume of 647,000 acre feet will be released from Trinity Reservoir down the Trinity River this season. The Bureau agreed to adopt a 4 day, 7,000 cubic feet per second flow, as called for by the Trinity Management Council (TMC). This is a minor adjustment of the standard ROD schedule for a normal year calling for a 5 day, 6,000 cfs peak.

"This schedule benefits juvenile salmon and steelhead growth and survival in late spring and early summer," explained Jeff McCracken, spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation. "The peak flows will flush significant accumulations of fine sediment, move and redeposit gravel and scour riparian vegetation that has growing along the channel's edge."

EDIT

http://www.tidepool.org/original_content.cfm?articleid=159392

[mike_c]

1. this was a good decision....

Last summer the Bureau of Reclamation had to make an unscheduled release from the Lewiston reservoir to lower water temperatures in the mainstem Trinity during late August-- the existing flow regime, even under the restoration plan, is barely sufficient to meet flow needs during late summer. The Klamath river should be getting its water from the traditional source: its own watershed. Unfortunately, that water is being diverted to serve agriculture in the arid upper Klamath Valley-- a place which is simply not well suited for agriculture without supplemental water. It's the old western water story all over again.

[XemaSab]

2. The Klamath situation is so complicated

There's the issue of keeping water in the lake for those little endangered endemic fish, then there's the fact that part of the ag land up there is being cultivated as part of the refuge. Also, the whole basin was originally a big lake (probably pluvial) that the gringos drained in the first place.

Removing water from the basin and sending it downriver isn't as simple as it seems.

[mike_c]

3. nonetheless, 100 years ago the Klamath had sufficient flow...

...to support an immense salmonid fishery. That fishery persisted through the middle part of the last century, and its decline is directly correlated with anthropogenic removal of Klamath water and subsequent diminished flow. Land use patterns in the Klamath basin did not help matters. I think it is every bit as simple as it seems. The Klamath is dying because a bunch of disparate human constituencies are all claiming "rights" to its water, so not enough is flowing through the channel, especially during critical times of year.

on edit-- but this thread is about the Trinity, which is bank full and gnarly looking right now. I think they're releasing in the neighborhood of 4500 cfs, combined with late rains that are contributing high spring flows from the tributaries. Right now the Trinity is a big river for the first time in nearly 50 years.

[XemaSab]

4. Yeah, good news on the Trinity

I heard it was Off The Hook.

Nice scouring flow. Wonder what it'll do to the mine tailings.