Trinity restoration: Promises should be kept

The Bureau of Reclamation under the Bush administration has dragged its feet for years on funding a comprehensive agreement to restore salmon and steelhead in the Trinity River, the Klamath River's largest tributary. Now Congress must step in to force the agency to fulfill its promises.

History holds many lessons for us, and current efforts to force the federal government to honor its financial commitment to a healthy Trinity River conjure up many of them.

The U. S. push westward left behind it many broken treaties with Indian tribes, such as the 1877 seizure of the Black Hills of South Dakota (yes, home of the noble monument at Mount Rushmore), despite a treaty that recognized the Sioux Nation as owner in perpetuity.

In southeastern California's Owens Valley, the 1920s “water wars” pitted valley farmers against the city of Los Angeles, which coveted the rural area's water for itself. Once verdant, the Owens Valley now features a dried-up lake and alkali dust storms. (This tragedy was immortalized in the movie “Chinatown”.)

Also in the 1920s, in northern California, the Hetch Hetchy Valley -- said to be even more beautiful than Yosemite Valley -- was dammed and filled with water to provide a reservoir for San Francisco, despite protests by John Muir and other early environmentalists.

Even closer to home in 1964, the Lewiston Dam began diverting Trinity River water to the Central Valley. The Bureau of Reclamation promised Congress that 45 percent of the water would stay in the Trinity to sustain its abundant salmon and steelhead populations.

That turned out to be a lie. Up to 90 percent of the flow was sent south. Not only did this have a tragic effect on the Trinity itself, depleting the fishery by 80 percent, but the Trinity is the only Klamath River tributary producing harvestable quantities of endangered species of salmon. The Klamath, in turn, is an economic lifeline for native people as well as for commercial and sport fishermen for 900 miles along the California and Oregon coast.

Then in 1992, Congress approved a law to fix rivers damaged by excess water diversion. In 2000, Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed a so-called “Record of Decision,” promising to fund the restoration of the Trinity's water levels and the riverbed. But soon George Bush came into office, and his administration began dragging its feet, despite a 2002 decision by the federal courts upholding the commitment.

Today, the Trinity agreement is five years behind schedule and receiving only half its annual funding, $8 million. Yet fulfilling a promise to the Trinity seems much cheaper that the recent payout of $60 million in federal aid to fishermen and businesses devastated by the 2006 salmon season failure.

That's why North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson is seeking the passage of a bill, HR 2733, mandating that the Bureau of Reclamation do what it promised to do. BOR Director Robert Johnson has made it clear that he won't do it willingly, opposing the bill because it “reduces the discretion of the executive branch.” That's why we support HR 2733, because that's what it will take.

Remember the desolate Owens Valley? In 1997, Inyo County, Los Angeles, farmers and environmentalists signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” laying out how the lower Owens River would be rewatered by June 2003. They're still waiting.