DOUGLAS CITY, TRINITY COUNTY -- For the Trinity River to rise, Donald Tullis will have to move.

Tullis is in the strange position of pulling stakes not to make way for a reservoir as happened in so many places across the West in the past century, but to make room for more water to be sent from the reservoir downstream for fish.

The 79-year-old retired plumber built his little yellow house on a flat stretch of the Trinity River 7 miles outside Weaverville in 1975.

"I wasn't figuring on moving," Tullis said. "I figured I'd die here."

Instead, the federal government bought him out. It's paying to move him to a modular home in Weaverville. It's closer to shopping and to his girlfriend, a good thing given his failing eyesight and a recently replaced knee.

Tullis is resigned. He said he's been treated fairly, and had nice things to say about Denise, the woman who helped broker the agreement. But what about his dog, Heidi, a golden lab who takes to the river several times a day?

"She's gonna miss that," Tullis said.

He said he'll get a pool for her in town.

Sitting on his back deck, where Tullis smokes cigarettes and drinks root beer into the evening this time of year, the Trinity River chortles by.

Water was flowing from Lewiston Dam, 18 miles upstream, at 1,180 cubic feet per second. But when dam operators released 7,000 cfs in May as part of a fisheries restoration effort, the river licked at Tullis' doorstep.

It wasn't the first time. In 1997 -- two years after Tullis canceled his flood insurance -- heavy rains pushed the river into his house. Four feet up the walls.

It also cleared out sand and silt that had settled in salmon spawning grounds following the dam's construction in 1963. In wet years in the future, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation may release up to 11,000 cfs, big water meant to trim gravel berms, recreate flood plains and reshape gravel bars for salmon.

Along with adding pea to softball-sized gravel to reaches 18 miles below the dam -- to make up for what the dam traps in Trinity Lake -- and bulldozing sections of stream bank, the Trinity River Restoration Program hopes to resurrect the river's suppressed salmon runs.

It's part of a 2000 decision by former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. The Hoopa Valley Tribe relied on salmon historically and still catches fish for sustenance and for its cannery operation on its reservation north of Willow Creek.

After nearly 30 years of building scientific support for restoration, the tribe had to fight for the program in court.

Last year, the tribe beat Central Valley irrigators' efforts to undermine the program, getting clearance from the U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals. About three-quarters to 90 percent of the river's water had been diverted from Trinity Lake into the Sacramento River, where it's sent to farmland from pumps in the larger river's delta.

Under Babbitt's decision, just over 50 percent will be sent to the Sacramento.

The tribe's battle may also help revive a sport and commercial fishery in Northern California and Oregon. But threats remain.

The long-standing use-it-or-lose-it standard of the West is a constant concern for the program. In extremely wet years, the program is expected to release 11,000 cfs from Lewiston Dam.

But Tullis' house isn't the only property in the way of such big flows if the Trinity's tributaries are flowing strong. In the Indian Creek area alone, more than a dozen could be affected if those big flows are released while tributaries are also flooding.

"Some litigation surrounding that could be a real stick thrown in the spokes," said Hoopa Valley Tribal Fisheries biologist Mike Orcutt.

He said it's important to wisely use the water that's appropriated for the program to further its goal to restore the fishery. It's also vital to get the full funding to do the mechanical treatments necessary for the water to do its work, he said.

Had the program been in place with Babbitt's signature, many of these issues would be resolved. Litigation slowed down raising bridges, buying houses and closing wells.

"We're trying to be prepared for anything nature throws our way," said Joe Riess, a civil engineer for the project.

That may mean sand bagging property at risk from such high water. With any luck, the weather this winter and coming spring won't be overly wet, giving the program time to work out details. If that luck turns, however, the program may have to consider using, or losing, the water.

It's all about fish.

Byron Leydecker of Friends of the Trinity River and California Trout pleaded with the Trinity Management Council on Wednesday to meet its legal mandate to restore the river's fishery.

The 77-year-old fly fisherman remembers fishing on the river before the dam. He watched the collapse of the salmon runs after the dam. And he has committed himself to the restoration for years.

"I ask you to restore this river in my lifetime," Leydecker said.

All the restoration in the world, though, can't eliminate the fact that every salmon in the Trinity River must swim up the Klamath River for more than 40 miles before turning due south up the Trinity.

Water quality and temperature, disease outbreaks, low flows and a generally hostile environment in the Klamath can wipe out salmon trying to reach the cold, clear Trinity. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has bought billions of gallons of Trinity water from Sacramento Valley contractors again this year to cool and raise the Klamath if conditions become dangerous.

No one wants a repeat of the massive Klamath fish kill of 2002.

Troy Fletcher, a consultant with the Yurok Tribe, told the council that the Klamath's weighty issues must be front and center while restoring the Trinity.

"We're running the risk of wasting our money," he said.

Bureau Deputy Area Manager Christine Karas agreed. But she said there is "big horsepower" behind a conservation program headed up by the agency for the Klamath, and said progress can be made. Reclamation's leadership is no reason not to participate, she said.

The blood is not good between Reclamation and the tribe, which holds the agency responsible for killing tens of thousands of salmon it's obligated to protect.

Fletcher said the conservation program is the bureau's attempt to walk away from its responsibility.

"We don't trust the Bureau of Reclamation or the federal government in general," Fletcher said.

For the most part, the Trinity's heavy flows historically came in the winter. The dam now captures that water. So the program must instead simulate large spring snow melts that probably didn't do the heavy geomorphic work.

That's why bulldozers are needed, coupled with flows from Lewiston Dam to maintain reshaped habitat.

Rod Wittler, a scientist for the program, said the river's role above the dam -- the 109 miles of spawning grounds that were lost -- must now be played out in the 40 miles below the dam.

"Will that be adequate to restore the fishery?" he asked. "That's part of the grand experiment."

Source:  http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2970258,00.html