Board & Friends of California Sportfishing Protection Alliance:
Dan released this today via email, I assume it is an article that will run in the next edition of the Fish Sniffer. The point Dan's making is that SMUD should withdraw from the litigation that stoped trintiy water from being used to help limit the Klamath fish kill and that SMUD is playing into the hands of the Westlands Water District by being a plantiff in their litigation which has blocked the implementation of the Interior Plan to restore the Trintiy. Folks who live in the SMUD district should engage ASAP!
John Beuttler
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Board is waiting for the decision of Judge Oliver Wanger, U.S. District Court in Fresno, until it reconsiders its participation in a lawsuit blocking Trinity River restoration. Hopefully, the four recently re-elected board members, the new board member, Bill Slaton, and the other two sitting board members will finally do the right thing and pull out of the lawsuit.
SMUD's decision to continue the lawsuit with Westlands Water District has angered anglers, conservation groups and the Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes, who have spent years trying to restore salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers. The lawsuit blocks the Record of Decision by Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of Interior, in December 2000 to apportion 47 percent of Trinity River flows for fish and wildlife restoration and the other 53 percent to subsidized growers in the Westlands Water District.
"The judge took the litigation under submission," said Dace Udrise, public information specialist for SMUD. "He hasn't given us any idea as to when he will issue the final decision."
The board has said that they would reconsider their participation in the lawsuit only after Wanger makes a decision. Unfortunately, SMUD's continued alliance with Westlands has smeared its reputation in the eyes of the Native American, environmental and fishing communities and many of its customers.
Even worse, SMUD's bears some responsibility for the die off of an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 king salmon on the lower Klamath River this September, since the court order blocked an emergency release of cold water from Trinity Lake that could have alleviated the unprecedented die off.
"When the Klamath Fishery Management Council met on September 25, we asked for flows from Lewiston Dam to be doubled from 450 cfs to 900 cfs," said Mike Orcutt, fisheries director of the Hoopa Valley tribe. "However, any flexibility we had to do this was blocked by the lawsuit by SMUD and Westlands."
Trinity River fish traditionally make 50 percent of the Klamath system king salmon run. "There is a high probability that over 50 percent of the fish that died were Trinity fish, considering the timing of the kill," he said. "However, this has to be verified by the retrieval of coded wire tags by the different agencies involved in the clean up."
In spite of 2002 being a dry year, Orcutt emphasized that the Westlands Water District received up to 70 percent of its water deliveries. Seventy percent of Trinity water is now being diverted to the Central Valley through Westlands, allowing SMUD to buy it at "rock bottom" prices.
However, the payoff for SMUD is only 40 megawatts of power! During peak production, this less than one half of one percent of SMUD's power mix. This would mean an increase in only $2.00 per year for the average SMUD customer, according to Craig Tucker, volunteer programs coordinator for Friends of the River.
The utility's continued participation in the suit is even more puzzling when you consider that the utility plans no rate increases for electricity this year and could be in even better financial condition by 2004, as revealed in the $1.2 billion budget being considered in public hearings at press time.
In the Sacramento Bee on November 12,SMUD board president, Genevieve Shiroma, was quoted as saying,"We're in great fiscal condition, but we mustn't get complacent. We need to continue to be very prudent."
I hope that "prudence" includes pulling out of a lawsuit that that marred the "clean energy" image that SMUD pushes in its press releases and brochures - and contributes to the decline of Trinity River salmon and steelhead.
"In the 1970's, the ecosystem on the Trinity collapsed. The fisheries all but died," said Hoopa Valley Tribal Chair Lyle Marshall.
The Record of Decision attempted to reverse the decimation of the Trinity fishery that occurred because of the diversion of water for the Westlands Water District. Even with statutory priority to water for Trinity fish and wildlife, the Hoopa Valley Tribe cooperated with federal agencies and agreed that 53 percent of the Trinity's River flow may be diverted to the Central Valley. This is more water than the Bureau of Reclamation originally planned to divert in 1952, according to the tribe.
California Trout, Friends of the Trinity River, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisheries Associations and the Yurok tribe are also strongly opposed to SMUD's "dirty little secret" - its continued alliance with the "poster boy" of unsustainable corporate agribusiness, the Westlands Water District.
Besides the tribes and many conservation organizations, State Senator Wesley Chesbro and Assembly Members Virginia Strom-Martin, Kevin Shelley, Carole Migden, Patricia Wiggins, Howard Wayne, Hannah-Bath Jackson and Fred Keeley are challenging SMUD's legal opposition to the ROD.
SMUD should not only pull out of the lawsuit, but actively support Congressmen Mike Thompson's recently introduced bill, H.R. 5698, that would help solve the problems in the Klamath/Trinity Basin that lead to the fish kill.
The utility declares as its mission "to meet the electricity and energy-services needs of our customer-owners safely, dependably, economically and in an environmentally responsible manner while providing value to the community."
Joining in a lawsuit that blocks restoration of a river system - and contributing to the largest fish kill in history on the Klamath River - is not "environmentally responsible." The board should reverse the 6-1 decision to continue the lawsuit, as the tribes recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and environmental activists have requested them to do.
"We're very unhappy with SMUD, who has played into the hands of Westlands Water District by joining the lawsuit," said John Beuttler of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "The irony is that while the utility advocates clean energy, SMUD's fingerprints are all over the dead fish on the Klamath."
I encourage everybody concerned about the restoration of the Trinity River fishery to contact the SMUD Board of Directors, www.smud.org or (916) 732-6155, and ask them to withdraw from the lawsuit!