BY PAT ARNOLD
For the Daily News
May 23, 2006

YREKA — A plan by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) to impose restrictions on users of the waters of the Shasta River was not adopted by the RWQCB Board last week. The issue of water quality in the Shasta River will remain unchanged, at least until the end of June.

According to Supervisor Jim Cook who took an active role in opposing the Shasta Basin plan, the RWQCB Board chose not to accept the plan as presented by RWQCB staff until the many amendments that had been made to the original plan could be incorporated into a final document.

Cook, Jim DePree, Siskiyou County's Natural Resource Policy Specialist and Tom and Gail Wetter of the Montague Water District made the trip to Fortuna last week to attend a meeting of the North Coast Water Board that was scheduled to vote on the plan. When the Board declined to adopt the plan as presented, RWQCB staff was told to make corrections and bring a revised plan back to the board for another vote.

The Shasta Basin plan drew a lot of local attention when RWQCB staff came to Yreka in March and proposed drastic restrictions on irrigators who take water along the 42 miles of the Shasta River from Dwinnell Dam at Lake Shastina to where the river empties into the Klamath River at Highway 96.

To remedy high water temperatures and low dissolved oxygen levels which RWQCB claims are causing a decline in salmon populations in the Shasta River, RWQCB recommended an increase in riparian shade, minimizing tail water return flows by irrigators, re-engineering how water districts take water from the river, and increasing flows from Big Springs Creek by 50 percent.

Cook said Siskiyou County representatives tended to focus mainly on increasing stream flows into the river. "We picked out things we thought were the most detrimental that in a few years could come back and take people out of production. Other things, we will just have to handle," Cook said.

Cook added that it was his feeling that water quality issues raised by RWQCB could be resolved without increasing flows.

"We cannot be sure that this is a victory for Shasta River water users, but we get another shot at them which is more than the Scott was able to do," Cook said.

A copy of the revised plan will be presented to Siskiyou County for further comment before the next meeting of the board on June 28. Comments must be submitted at least ten days before the June 28 hearing date.