The Endangered Species Act protects steelhead trout, a small population of which are attempting a recovery in the Stanislaus River, which flows out of the Sierra Nevada Mountains into Modesto, in the San Joaquin Valley. So earlier this week a federal fisheries agency—it’s unclear which one, and there are several—told the California branch of the Bureau of Reclamation (another water agency) that the fish needed more water to get out to the Pacific. The bureau in turn passed the order to the South San Joaquin Irrigation District, telling them to let a pulse of water through the dam on the Stanislaus.
But upon receipt, Jeff Shields, the manager of SSJID went rogue: “Whose water will be released down the Stanislaus River to satisfy the second pulse flow?” Not his, in other words.
It was the second such order in the past three weeks. The SSJID complied with the first. According to theManteca Bulletin, a local paper that has been covering the standoff, this flushed out 15,000 acre feet of water and 23 steelhead trout. But this latest order, which would reportedly use another 12,000 acre feet to save only six fish, was too much for Shields. (Fisheries agencies haven’t yet confirmed that count.)
So Lewis said no to the Bureau, and then secured legal counsel. “We tried to work with the Bureau for the last several years. We’ve sent dozens of letters and ideas about how to manage the river more prudently and other issues that we felt needed to be addressed because they were affecting our water,” Shields told the Manteca Bulletin. “I understand that they’re busy and they have a river that they have to manage and water that they have to take care of, but we’re busy as well—we have water that we have to manage and people that we have to look out for as well.” According to Shields, this water is better used on human interests, like agriculture and homes.
Just tell them no, and then dare them to make you. Ally with the human downstream users - the farmers and the local residents - and threaten physical resistance to any effort to release the water. It worked for Bundy the rancher out in Nevada, and it will work for a determined resistance here in California.
After all, who wants to start a water war over six stinking fish?
Petty bureaucrats slugging it out over turf...that's all that it is.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I side with the fish. The anadromous fish, to me, are amazing creatures. I am saddened that dams are causing, and have caused, species of them to go extinct. I would have loved to try to catch one of the extinct salmon that used to average over 100 pounds. And the quantity of fish that used to swim upstream! That said, I recognize humans have needs. Better human management is needed. One human need is simply knowing we didn't have to make a species go extinct because of poor ecosystem management.
ReplyDeleteSo many salmon used to migrate up the central sierra rivers that my grandfather used to pitchfork them out at the town of Jenny Lind. The dams did the damage, but if we want a giant agricultural industry and a 40 million population, we will need to have them. I'll sacrifice six fish for all those acre feet ( and how did they get the number six?).
DeleteIf you like the 'thrill' of catching salmon, get yee to Kodiak and watch the 'natives' prong them into the back of their pickup trucks. Once the bed of the truck overflows, they start again, because they can. They don't use bait on the hooks because they don't need to.
DeleteWhat a mighty sport is fishing in a run.
Uh, ya stealheads, here on lake Erie they also WERE in decline, so the idiots let many more loose in the lake, well now there are so many our once prominent fish the walleye, the worlds tastiest fish, has dwindled because of the steal head feeding on their young...... Great isn't it.........
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