[env-trinity] Trinity to get more water

[Tom Stokely]

Trinity to get more water 

Court OKs request from the Hoopa tribe 




http://www.redding.com/top_stories/local/20040427toplo046.shtml

Alex Breitler
Record Searchlight



April 27, 2004 - 6:15 a.m.
A trio of judges has granted an emergency request from American Indians to send more water down the Trinity River for fish. 

The order, issued late last week by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, means the Trinity will swell with far more water this season than it has in the past five years and possibly longer, officials said. 

Flows had been capped by a federal judge in a lower court while irrigators and power agencies fight with the Hoopa tribe for a limited amount of water. 

That cap represented the amount of water the river would get during a "dry" season. Last year, however, was anything but dry, with a snowpack estimated at 120 percent of normal. 

This year brought another healthy snowpack, and the court agreed that the river should receive a "normal" year's water supply, or about 43 percent more water than the dry year cap allowed. 

But even more encouraging for the Hoopa tribe, the same court is debating the Hoopa's appeal to a successful lawsuit that put off implementation of a Clinton-administration plan in 2000 to restore the river with higher flows. 

A decision is expected in several months. 

"It's a breakthrough," said Mike Orcutt, fisheries director for the Hoopa tribe. "Hopefully, we're heading in the right direction." 

River advocates say the once-mighty channel has declined as more water has been shipped under the mountains to Westlands Water District, which has about 600,000 acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley. 

Since the 1960s, farmers have typically received about 70 percent of the Trinity's supplies. The 2000 plan would reduce diversions to 52 percent. But Westlands sued and the issue has been locked up in court since. 

Nearly two years ago, 34,000 salmon died on the Klamath River below its merger with the Trinity, due in part to low flows. 

"We have no other choice but to continue fighting in court," Hoopa Chairman Lyle Marshall said in a statement. "We don't have another river to live next to. The fish don't have another river to swim in." 

The decision to send more water down the river this year likely won't affect irrigators or power users like the Redding Electric Utility since there's plenty of storage in Trinity Lake, said Tupper Hull, a spokesman for Westlands. But it might cut into water storage for next year, he warned. 

Westlands offered a settlement to the tribe, but it was rejected. So was a similar offer by the Department of Interior. 

"This is exactly the wrong way to manage a fishery restoration," Hull said. "This is why we have been calling for several months for all of the parties who are involved . . . to come together, sit down at a table and discuss it." 

It's dangerous to read into the court's decision, he said, noting that the judges issued just a one-sentence statement. 

"Obviously, it's a concern, but we really don't know how the court reached its decision," he said. 

The announcement sent officials scrambling to find a new flow schedule for the river, said Doug Schleusner of the Trinity River Restoration Program. 

Flows will peak in May at 6,000 cubic feet per second. The flows will prevent vegetation from invading the riverbed and will flush out fine sediments, improving the quality of spawning gravel, Schleusner said. 

The amount of water gives restoration officials more flexibility. 

"They (the tribe) made a compelling case, and we have the water to work with," he said. 
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