And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: This message was forwarded to you from the American Indian Law Forum on Delphi. You can view this message and the related discussion by following this link: http://forums.delphi.com/IndianLaw/messages/?msg=27.1 ============================================================================== Forum: the American Indian Law Forum Subject: Trinity River Flow Study From: (RUNAVAJO) To: (ALL) DateTime: 5/20/99 4:34:06 PM Here we go again. ============================== forwarded message ============================= U.S. to air Trinity water plan By David Anderson The Times-Standard Eureka, CA 5/20/99 HOOPA— U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is scheduled to visit the Hoopa Valley Reservation on Tuesday to release a draft flow recommendation that calls for doubling of the amount of water left in Trinity River. The Trinity would still have only half the water it had before the Lewiston Dam began diverting up to 95 percent of the river's flow to the Central Valley Project. But agricultural interests are girding to fight the proposal. Under legislation authorizing the dam, enough water was supposed to be left in the Trinity to maintain fisheries. But that provision was not enforced, and salmon runs in the river are now a fraction of their former size. Federal legislation in the 1980s mandated return of some of the Trinity water. The Secretary of the Interior was required to announce a new flow schedule for the river by September 1996. The long delay has been blamed on lack of adequate scientific studies on the river. Critics say it was equally attributable to the political touchiness of the issue. The draft flow proposal was developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the fisheries department of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, which has treaty rights to Trinity River salmon. The National Marine Fisheries Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Fish and Game acted as consultants. USFWS officials said the draft calls for half the Trinity's water go to the Central Valley and half to stay in the river. The Trinity would keep from 269,000 acre feet in drought years up to 815,000 in very wet years. Based on past weather patterns, that would amount to an annual average of 590,000 acre feet, about 250,000 acre feet more than the river has now. "Any way you look at it, this is a compromise," said Tom Stokely, a senior Trinity County planner. "The whole concept behind the flow study is to make the Trinity a healthy river for the fish populations to come back." Babbitt is scheduled to make his final decision next year on just how much water should be left in the river to protect fisheries. The draft proposal is already under attack from by Central Valley growers, who say it will cripple their water supply. "It's really ironic that with the stroke of a pen, the secretary can reallocate more water to fish than the $10 billion Cal-Fed program could produce," said Jason Peltier, head of the Central Valley Project Water Association. The Trinity now provides more than a million acre feet annually to the Central Valley Project, a seventh of all its water, and a fourth of its electric power. At present about 75 percent of the river's water is diverted through Whiskeytown Reservoir and a system of channels and tunnels into the Sacramento River. About 25 percent, 340,000 acre feet in an average year, stays in the Trinity. Agricultural interests, led by the Westlands Water District, have fought the return, saying their federal water supply already falls below promised allotments. "The farmers south of the Delta already are getting only 70 percent of their entitlement, and that's after five straight wet years," said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation. "We know a drought is coming, and our concern is what will happen to them after five straight dry years." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
