Feds weigh Trinity water shift

John Driscoll

The Times-Standard

May 6, 2008

Federal water managers are considering a midstream move to cut water releases to the Trinity River during a year when points south are bracing for drought.

The unusual shift would have the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation downgrade flows on the Trinity to what's released in a dry year instead of a normal year. The difference is 630 billion gallons, some of which has already flowed downstream.

Northern California river advocates see the move as a sign that the Sacramento River water system -- to which nearly 50 percent of Trinity water is exported -- has been badly mismanaged, and they worry that the Trinity River's salmon and steelhead fisheries could suffer for it.

Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said that the possible decision just accounts for the exceptionally dry conditions the state experienced in March and April.

”There are people rationing around this state,” McCracken said.

Any decision will be based on information the bureau gets this week from the California Department of Water Resources, McCracken said.

The groundwork for a reduction in flows to the Trinity was set by a Friday directive from the bureau's Mid-Pacific Regional Director Donald Glaser, appointed to the post just last week.

In a Saturday e-mail to the multi-agency, tribal and stakeholder council that helps manage the river, Bureau Area Manager Brian Persons laid out the direction to develop a transition from a normal to a dry year if needed.

The bureau has used April 1 as the cutoff date to get snowpack information for the Trinity. It then sets the releases meant to help restore the river's fisheries, with high flows in April, May and June. Those increased flows have already started, and now the bureau is considering cutting back as soon as this week.

Trinity County Principal Planner Tom Stokely said reclamation may blame the shortfall on nature, but the reality is that increased pumping from the Sacramento delta in recent years is unsustainable. It's led to a crisis for the endangered delta smelt and the collapse of salmon stocks that led to a federal decision to shut down salmon season this year, Stokely said.

”We're next if we keep this up,” he said.

U.S. Judge Oliver Wanger recently ruled in a scalding decision that the National Marine Fisheries Service's blessing of the bureau's 2004 delta plan was “inexplicably inconsistent” with the agency's charge to protect threatened salmon. He also ruled that the agency completely failed to consider the effects climate change might have on fish.

The criteria for Trinity River water releases was set in a 2000 decision signed by former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and was entered into the federal register. The decision was litigated by San Joaquin water interests, and the suit was decided in favor of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and other Trinity River parties.

That record of decision does not allow for changing the flows after April 1. But Persons wrote in the e-mail that the operating plan for the Central Valley Project does consider such a shift.

Environmental Defense Fund analyst Spreck Rosekrans said that the bureau wants to reserve the additional water for uses other than Trinity fisheries, which would be a significant breach of trust.

”We've got a deal and we're in the middle of the game,” Rosekrans said, “and they're trying to change the rules.”

John Driscoll can be reached at 441-0504 or jdriscoll@times-standard.com.

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