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<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Feds looking for
extension on Trinity water permits until 2030<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>John
Driscoll/The Times-Standard</span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Posted: 10/27/2009
01:48:17 AM PDT<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Click
photo to enlarge<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><a
href="http://www.times-standard.com/portlet/article/html/render_gallery.jsp?articleId=13649472&siteId=127&startImage=1"
target="_new"><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=180 height=134 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.jpg@01CA56E8.A3B41550"></span></b></a><span style='font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:43.5pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;display:none'><![if !supportLists]><span
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style='mso-list:Ignore'>·</span></span><![endif]><span style='font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";display:none'><a
href="http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_13649472">«</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
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style='mso-list:Ignore'>·</span></span><![endif]><span style='font-family:
"Times New Roman","serif";display:none'><a
href="http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_13649472">1</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
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"Times New Roman","serif";display:none'><a
href="http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_13649472">»</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation is asking for a decades-long extension of state water permits on
the Trinity River to give it more time to find uses for the water -- a move
river advocates say could threaten the water available for salmon and
steelhead. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The petition to
the State Water Resources Control Board was first filed in 1985, but the bureau
never acted further on it. Reclamation has revived the application for an
extension of its water rights on the Trinity and other Central Valley rivers
until 2030, but didn't identify in the application what water projects are on
tap that would allow it to use the water. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The request also
does not include the 2000 U.S. Interior Department's decision to reduce
diversions to the Sacramento River from the Trinity River to aid salmon. It has
led some conservationists to voice concern that Reclamation might continue to
divert large amounts of water from Trinity Lake reservoir and risk the
availability of cold water for fish. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>”I think
what it shows is the bureau is not really serious about protecting the Trinity
River fishery,” said Tom Stokely with the California Water Impact
Network. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The network and
Trinity County are among the parties protesting the petition. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The
Trinity River, like most rivers in California, has more water rights attached
to it than it has water. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation holds rights to some 16
million acre feet of Trinity water -- enough to cover 16 million acres to the
depth of one foot -- even though the annual runoff into the river averages less
than 1.4 million acre feet. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Applying the
full allocation of Reclamation's water rights, wrote Trinity County in its
protests, could deplete cold water needed for fish and prevent development of
local water projects. The watershed would suffer “grave harm” if
Trinity River water is used to fill in the huge deficit of water in the Central
Valley Project, into which Trinity River water is diverted. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b>Reclamation's Deputy Regional Resources Manager Richard Stevenson said
that the larger project is declared “integrated” by Congress, and
that the Trinity permits and their proposed extensions can't be separated from
the permits and extensions of the other elements of the project. The extensions
are being requested because the extent of the larger project hasn't yet been
realized, Stevenson said, and can't yet be put forward for licensing. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>”We're not ready because we don't think the usage of the Central Valley
Project as a whole has been developed and defined,” Stevenson said. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>State water law is based on the use-it-or-lose it concept. In
Reclamation's request, it holds that construction of projects to put the full
amount of water to use is complete, but also said that it's unable to determine
what the ultimate diversions from the Central Valley Project will be.
Permitting, conservation plans and requirements of the federal Endangered
Species Act all make such a prediction uncertain, Reclamation said. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>State Water Resources Control Board spokesman Dave Clegern said that
extensions are granted if the applicant has been diligent in trying to find
uses for the water, if progress has been delayed due to circumstances beyond
its control and whether it can provide a detailed road map of how it intends to
use the water in the near future. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Diversions from Trinity Lake last fall and winter lowered the amount of
water to about half the reservoir's capacity. Spring rains improved the
situation slightly. Reclamation has begun diverting water to the Sacramento
River, lowering an already low reservoir, with the expectation that the past
three dry years will be the last of a drought and that winter rains will
replenish the reservoir. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>That same strategy last year was in part what pushed the reservoir so low
this summer. The bureau must make sure that the water it releases down the
river is around 50 degrees to protect salmon and steelhead. But when the lake
level drops, water at the surface is too warm to send downstream, and it must
look to the diversion's lowermost outlet to tap cold water, bypassing the
project's power plant. Trinity River water is also used to keep temperatures
down in the Sacramento River. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>While Reclamation has to confer with the National Marine Fisheries
Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when the lake gets that low,
there is no strict procedure in place to handle the issue. That's led critics
to claim there is no plan to deal with extended drought, and question whether
water for salmon could be sacrificed in extreme circumstances. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Mike Orcutt, senior fisheries biologist with the Hoopa Valley Tribe, said
that Reclamation is betting on a good water year to refill the reservoir. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>”Nobody has a crystal ball to predict that,” Orcutt said. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Because
of that, the California Water Impact Network and Trinity County want to see the
interior secretary's 2000 decision included in Reclamation's water rights
extension. Trinity County holds that Reclamation also shouldn't be allowed to
continue to hold onto water rights for water it cannot prove it will use in the
future<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Chair, Friends
of Trinity River</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Mill Valley, CA
94942-2327</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 383 4810
land</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 519 4810
cell</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
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