Cold, Dead Fish & Shiny Steelhead Awards For
2002
by Dan Bacher
Dissident Voice
January 15, 2003
2002 will be
remembered as the year when recreational anglers were given the shaft on a number
of fronts by the federal and state governments.
The Bush
administration, in preference for subsidized farmers over fish and wildlife,
the Klamath River tribes and anglers, caused the worst ever fish kill on the
Klamath in September by refusing to release the water necessary to sustain
returning king salmon, steelhead and coho salmon. In October, the California
Fish and Game Commission kicked recreational anglers off the water for eight
months so that it could allow the commercial live rockfish fishery and trawlers
to rape the fishery resource.
On the positive
side, steelhead runs on the Central Valley and North Coast rivers continued to
recover from years of habitat degradation. The Klamath, American and Feather
rivers saw fabulous steelhead fishing at times. The Sacramento River winter
chinook run also continued to recover, with the DFG estimating that 7,996 adult
winter run chinook returned to spawn, the highest figure since 1981.
It’s now the
long awaited time to present the worst and best in fishery conservation in
California in 2001 - the annual “Cold, Dead Fish” and “Shiny Steelhead” awards.
We’ll start out
with the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, who on December 5
caved into pressure from agribusiness and decided to allow agricultural
irrigation water runoff to continue to pollute California’s waterways
essentially free from agency oversight. A waiver that the Board issued in 1982
was scheduled to terminate on January 1, 2003. Although thousands of citizens
had voiced their opposition to the proposed waiver, Board members voted to
waive water quality requirements for agricultural runoff for another two years.
For their lack of courage and continuing subservience to Central Valley
agribusiness, the Regional Board is bestowed the “Big Cave In” award.
Pacific Gas and
Electric Company has been in the news a lot over the past two years because of
its notoriously bad management practices. However, one thing that escaped the
mainstream media’s attention was PG&E’s refusal to release proper flows for
spawning spring run chinooks on Butte Creek, resulting in the death of over
3,000 salmon in August and September. For killing off these threatened species
in August and September, PG&E earns the “Rotting Spring Run Chinook” award.
The California
Fish and Game Commission, after president Mike Flores said at an August meeting
that he would do everything he could to keep anglers on the water, reneged on
its commitment and imposed the most stringent ocean sport fishing regulations
in history, keeping the anglers off the water from November 1 until July. While shore anglers can no longer fish for
rockfish, they can sit on a jetty and watch commercial fishermen unload their
catches at the docks. For this, the California Fish and Game Commission and
Governor Gray Davis receive the “Stab in the Back” award.
The Pacific
Fishery "Management" Council on June 20, in a drastic, unprecedented
action, decided to close indefinitely California’s recreational fishery for
shelf rockfish and lingcod in ocean waters 20 fathoms and deeper south of Cape
Mendocino starting July 1. This measure resulted from the Council’s many years
of poor "management" of commercial trawl, gillnet and longline
fisheries that have decimated rockfish populations. For their decades of
mismanagement, incompetence and imposition of virtually all of the
regulatory burden on anglers, this
“august body” wins the “Disband It - Now!” award.
While the
northern pike count at Davis Lake at press time had reached nearly 18,000, the
DFG under the “leadership” of Director Robert Hight has done virtually nothing
to stop the infestation of these fish. These toothy fish pose a great threat to
salmon and steelhead fisheries, but Hight and other state bureaucrats
apparently don’t regard the pike elimination as a priority. For his inaction,
Hight gets the special “Abysmal Leadership” award.
The worst
fishery disaster of 2002 was the death of 40,000 to 50,000 salmon on the
Klamath River in September, the result of Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior,
refusing to release enough cold, oxygenated water to sustain the returning fall
run chinooks. The Bush administration caved in to the water demands of
subsidized farmers in the Klamath Basin, even though a federal report later
released acknowledged that the water was much more economically valuable to the
economy when used for salmon. For their attack on recreational anglers,
commercial fishermen, Indian tribes and the North Coast economy, President
George Bush and Norton jointly receive the “Rotting Chinook” award.
However, the
most “prestigious” anti-environmental award is enthusiastically given to a
public utility that always pats themselves on the back for being a “green,
environmentally friendly” organization - the Sacramento Municipal Utility
District (SMUD) Board. In spite of pleas by the Yurok and Hoopa tribes,
commercial fishermen and recreational anglers, the board refused to pull out of
a lawsuit with the Westlands Water District blocking restoration of Trinity
River salmon and steelhead. For their dark alliance with Westlands and the role
their lawsuit played in blocking water releases that could have been used to
alleviate the Klamath River fish kill, the SMUD Board is “honored” with the
“Cold, Dead Fish” of the year award!
Now, on a more
positive note, we begin the “Shiny Steelhead” ceremony for those courageous
defenders of fish and wildlife and anglers rights. We’ll start it off with Tom
Stienstra, outdoor writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, who gets the “Fish
Quote of the Year” award for his hilarious slams on Robert Hight, Governor Gray
Davis and the DFG in his “annual quiz.” I especially liked the response to
"How many shipwrecks have occurred within close range of the mouth of the
Bay and Golden Gate? “A. Five,
including the recent USS Davis and its support boat, the USS Hight, with all
hands lost."
Earth Justice,
an environmental advocacy group that has been vilified by certain extremist
wise use, property rights and “sportsmen’s groups” as being an “enemy of
sportsmen,” has probably done more on the legal front than any organization to
fight for the restoration of California fisheries. For doing all of the legal
work on the fight for Klamath River fishery restoration waged by the tribes,
recreational anglers and commercial fishermen, this organization receives a
“Legal Steelhead” award. And for continuing the decades-long battle to restore
salmon and steelhead populations on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers, in spite of
numerous legislative and legal setbacks, the Hoopa Valley and Yurok Tribes are
given the “In it For the Long Haul” award.
Three members of
the Recreational Fishing Alliance-Norcal Chapter, Jim Martin, Randy Fry and Ron
Gaul, and Bob Strickland, president of United Anglers, spent many thankless
hours fighting for the rights of recreational anglers at seemingly endless
meetings this year. Although the Commission and DFG imposed increasing
restrictions on anglers rather than adopting “the Washington Plan,” the
angler’s presence is being felt at the state and federal level. For their many
hours of dedication, four “Hardcore Fishery Activist” awards are given to them.
2002 saw the
death of one of California’s most dedicated sportsmen and fishery activists,
Phil Johnson, the president of Kokanee Power. His energy, dedication and low
key demeanor is missed by everybody in the fishery conservation field. For this
reason, he receives, posthumously, the “Kokanee Forever!” award.
For many years,
anglers have talked about launching a lawsuit against the DFG for their increasing
imposition of punitive regulations on anglers while large scale polluters and
habitat destroyers get off scott-free. Finally, Bob Franko and Tom Mattusch of
the Coastside Fishing Club put the talk into action, announcing the intent to
file against the state agency in October for taking away anglers’ right to
fish. Franko and Mattush are bestowed the Prestigious “Fighting Rockfish” award
for doing what others have talked about but failed to do.
A lot of big
mainstream environmental groups receive lots of publicity for their
conservation efforts, while grassroots groups doing on the ground efforts are
often given little press because they’re too busy doing the hard work of
restoring fisheries.
For this reason,
the “Shiny Steelhead” of the year award goes to two groups: Allen Harthorn and
the Friends of Butte Creek and the Fishery Foundation of California. Friends of
Butte Creek was instrumental in working with landowners, fishermen and
government agencies in rebuilding the Butte Creek spring chinook salmon and
steelhead runs. The Fishery Foundation of California, under the leadership of
Tom Hampson (now in Arizona) and now Thomas Cannon, has been busy restoring
salmon and steelhead runs on the Cosumnes River, as well as conducting
innovative striper rearing programs in the Bay-Delta estuary and San Luis
Reservoir.
Keep up the
great work, fishery activists!
Daniel Bacher is an
outdoor writer/alternative journalist/satirical songwriter from Sacramento
California. He is also a long-time peace, social justice and environmental
activist. Email: danielbacher@hotmail.com