Trinity fish to benefit from rice water sale
Chico Enterprise Record - 8/23/03
By Heather Hacking, staff writer

Fifty thousand acre-feet of water bought from Sacramento Valley rice farmers this winter will be used to help prevent the deaths of fish in the Klamath River this summer.

The deal involves the federal Bureau of Reclamation and Metropolitan Water District, and will exchange water now being held in Shasta Lake for water in Trinity Lake.

Last fall fish died in the Klamath River due to diseases exacerbated by a large fish migration. An estimated 33,000 salmon and steelhead trout died.

"Biologists are concerned that we do not have two similar events back-to-back," said Doug Schleusner, executive director of the Trinity River Restoration Program.

The water from Trinity Lake will be released into the Trinity River beginning Wednesday and running through Sept. 15, to coincide with the peak of the fall Chinook salmon run.

The Trinity River flows into the Klamath River northeast of Eureka. More water in the Trinity will "tell the fish" to leave the Klamath and go up the Trinity, Schleusner explained.

When too many fish get "stacked up" they become vulnerable to the diseases columnaris and what is called "ich" - ichthyophthirius multifiliis.

Water in the Trinity Reservoir is normally diverted over to the Sacramento River System through the Clear Creek tunnel, and goes into Whiskeytown Lake.

Instead, about 33,000 acre-feet will be used in the Trinity River and another 17,000 acre-feet will be held for emergency reserve. Biologists will be monitoring the fish and taking samples for disease. If disease increases, they'll decide whether more water is needed.

Hoopa Valley and Yurok American Indian tribes and environmentalists sued the bureau, stating more water was needed for fish.

But April 4, federal 9th Circuit District Court Judge Oliver Wanger ruled the bureau wasn't obligated to put in more water than in a dry year. But at its discretion, the bureau could release up to 50,000 acre-feet more if conditions were right, Schleusner said.

The judge also ruled this could only occur if it didn't cause adverse affects to power generation or other water users in the valley.

Trinity Lake is about 88 percent full thanks to a wet spring, and a group called the Trinity Adaptive Working Group started looking to see if the bureau could provide that water.

That's where the exchange with Metropolitan Water District of Southern California came in.

This year Metropolitan made deals to buy 180,000 acre-feet of water from the Sacramento Valley, mostly from rice farmers. Deliveries were to be made through the separate federal and state water systems.

As it turned out, the spring rains meant Metropolitan didn't need that water and couldn't move it through the water system anyway.

The state water system's reservoir - Lake Oroville - was full and Metropolitan lost 30,000 acre-feet.

But the federal government said Metropolitan could rent space in federal reservoirs, for $20 an acre-foot.

One acre-foot equals about 326,000 acre feet, or enough water for one to two households a year.

The deal through the Bureau of Reclamation will mean the 50,000 acre-feet Metropolitan was storing will be used in the Trinity. Metropolitan will save that $20 an acre-foot fee and can receive the water some time between now and 2008.

The other 100,000 acre-feet that Metropolitan has stored at Shasta Lake will also be delivered later, but the water company will pay that $20 holding fee.

Only so much water can be moved through the water systems, due to fish populations, downstream users, pumping capabilities and conditions in the San Francisco Bay Delta.

When Metropolitan finally gets the water, they will store it under deals they have made in Fresno, Bakersfield and the Mojave Desert to pump the water into groundwater storage, said Adan Ortega, a spokesman for Metropolitan.

He praised the cooperation between the various agencies for letting the water switch occur.

"This is why partnerships have been so successful. These are public agencies that have a responsibility to the public trust," Ortega said.

"Our theory is that when we do these transfers, it can be good for the environment and it would permit water in the system at times when there is no water," he said.

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