Board of Directors

Gary Seput
Thomas Weseloh
Byron Leydecker http://www.fotr.org

FRIENDS OF TRINITY RIVER NEWSLETTER

December 2007

_____________________________________________________________________________

TRINITY STEELHEAD POPULATIONS INCREASING

Following is a table of steelhead counted at Willow Creek Weir since 2001, with the
last column setting forth total Trinity River steelhead fish escapement for each year
for which we have information available:
Total Escapement
Year Total Hatchery Wild Hatchery Wild
(Estimates)
2001 550 318 232
2002 1,557 1,189 368 14,000 4,700
2003 752 621 131 19,000 4,400
2004 2,026 1,531 495 15,000 4,700
2005 2,132 1,543 589 13,000 5,700
2006 3,819 2,998 821
2007 5,168 4,447 721

As mentioned last year, these figures illustrate a general trend of steelhead populations.
There appears to be a correlation between the increase in flows in the river and numbers
of steelhead. We continue to hope that generally favorable trends continue and scientific
evaluation confirms this correlation. It is somewhat disappointing to see that wild
populations appear to have decreased this year – at least based solely upon weir counts.
As additional restoration measures are implemented it is hypothesized that wild
populations will increase. While the overwhelming majority of returning adults continue
to be hatchery fish, the Trinity River Restoration Program’s (Program) objective is
restoration of 40,000 wild winter steelhead and 10,000 hatchery fish. Goals for summer
steelhead have not been established.
 TRINITY RESTORATION LEGISLATION/FUNDING

A Congressional Hearing before the Water and Power Subcommittee of the House
Natural Resources Committee on Congressman Mike Thompson’s legislation (HR
2733), co-sponsored by Congressman George Miller, that would provide a new and
permanent source of funding for the Trinity River Restoration Program was held
September 18 in Washington, D.C. Tom Weseloh, Friends of Trinity River board
member and Northcoast Manager of CalTrout, testified in support of the proposed
legislation.

If you’re interested in the testimony of all who addressed the Subcommittee, it’s at:
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=54&e
xtmode=view&extid=97

The legislation would provide $17.5 million annually for five years after its passage and
then $11 million annually until 2030, the legislated and presumed final date for Central
Valley Project (CVP) capital cost repayments. Funding would be provided from
irrigator and power beneficiary’s share of capital cost repayment for the CVP that
otherwise would go to the U.S. Treasury.

The December 2000 Trinity Record of Decision (ROD) assumed $15 million annual
funding in the Program’s initial years, and about $5 million a year thereafter. Reality
has been that an average of $9.8 million annually has been appropriated for the Program.

Greater funding in the early years was to provide for completion of major physical
restoration projects. These included channel manipulation and gravel introduction into
the river to replace naturally occurring gravel from sources blocked by Trinity Dam.
Also to be funded was watershed rehabilitation and infrastructure and floodplain
modifications to allow returns of water to the river of as much as 11,000 cubic feet per
second. Finally, the larger initial funding was to be used to create a central element of
the Program’s scientific hypothesis: additional juvenile rearing habitat to restore wild
anadromous fish populations.

Lesser funding thereafter was to be used for continued watershed and tributary
rehabilitation to stop fine sediment from entering Trinity River and to create additional
natural spawning areas in now blocked tributaries. That reduced funding also was to
provide for the operation, maintenance, repair and replacement, and administrative
activities of the Program. In addition, it was to be used to evaluate and to make needed
physical and operational changes deemed necessary to achieve the basic Program
objective: a return of 60 percent of pre-dam wild anadromous fish and wildlife
populations.

Unfortunately, $3.5 million that we asked Congressman George Miller to help provide
for the Program for fiscal year (FY) 2008 that started October 1 was not approved by the
House. He and Senator Barbara Boxer previously had obtained $500,000 in additional
funding for us for the Program in FY2006. Congressman Miller has been an
enormous and crucial supporter of Trinity River restoration for decades.

The issue is that the now Democratic Party controlled Congress has adopted a
requirement that any new expenditure be funded either by reductions in other spending or
by a new source of revenue. It’s called “paygo” in D. C. The requirement was adopted
in an attempt to help reign in the federal government’s massive budget deficits. This
obligation also presents obstacles that HR 2733 must overcome.

In addition, for this session of Congress with just three weeks remaining and just one
appropriations bill passed thus far and with the president saying he will veto essentially
every other domestic spending bill, there’s little to no likelihood the legislation will be
passed in this session of the Congress.

TRINITY RESTORATION PROGRAM

CHANNEL MANIPULATION PROJECTS

Indian Creek

The Indian Creek channel manipulation project, fourth in the series of such projects,
was completed this fall. It was a rather massive project extending from upstream of the
Indian Creek tributary to Trinity River downstream to tributary Weaver Creek. Much
of the work was undertaken on the north (uninhabited) side of the river.

Activities included berm and vegetation removal, extensive floodplain lowering, river
feather edges and some revegetation. The river’s north side floodplain was lowered to
accommodate flows between 1,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) to maximum prescribed
ROD flows of 11,000 cfs. The Indian Creek delta also was excavated, and a side
channel to accommodate high flows was constructed just upstream of Weaver Creek’s
confluence with the Trinity River.

An overview of the project can be seen on our website http://www.fotr.org under

Restoration Projects in the left column of the home page.

Lewiston-Dark Gulch

The Lewiston-Dark Gulch project consists of activities on two different sections of

Trinity River. One extends from below the Hatchery to about 800 yards below Old
Lewiston Bridge. The second part of the project is in an area that starts 300 yards
downstream of Salt Flat Bridge and ends at Bucktail. These areas now are the
headwaters of Trinity River and thus are very sensitive.
Actions to be taken include removal of vegetation, including mature riparian vegetation,
earth movement in both the Trinity River floodplain and within the river, side
channels, material transportation and stockpiling, revegetation, processing and
introduction of gravel into the river, and disposing of excavated materials and the
leftover products of gravel processing.
These project(s) are scheduled to get underway and to be completed next year.
For a complete description of the project, see the Environmental Assessment/Draft
Environmental Impact Statement at:
http://www.trrp.net/documents/Nov07/ncao_trrpdkg_v2eadeir_a_cov_ltr_toc.pdf
And again, an overview of the project can be seen on our website http://www.fotr.org
under Restoration Projects in the left column of the home page.

PROGRAM CONTRACTING PROCESS

The Request For Proposal (RFP) process, the federal process by which grants and
contracts for restoration projects is initiated, is spelled out in the ROD and its
Implementation Plan. We, both FOTR and CalTrout, continually have stressed using
these documents as the Program’s foundation until any of the hypotheses upon which
they are based are invalidated. Within the Program, we also continually have
emphasized science and fiscal accountability as priorities for the Program. The RFP
process is a mechanism to require both by having independent scientific review and open
and/or competitive bidding processes to implement prioritized scientific programs.

Currently, many Program projects submitted by Trinity Management Council (TMC)

members, the Program’s policy/decision making group, do not receive the scrutiny of
the RFP process. Among other benefits, the RFP process envisioned independent
scientific review as the mechanism to avoid conflicts of interest - financial as well as
other - among TMC members when attempting to adopt a budget.

RFPs for completion of projects by other than Program staff have been the subject of
major discussions by the Program’s so-called B-Team and Budget Subcommittee, on
which Weseloh and Leydecker serve. The effort is to have all contracts specify exact
work to be performed so that bidders all will submit bids based upon the same work
requirement. The objective is to obtain bids for work that is both central to the Program
and at the lowest cost. We have strived, along with others, to assure that all RFPs reflect
exact work needed to be performed as determined by the Program’s professional staff
and independently scientifically reviewed.

ASSESSING THE PROGRAM’S SUCCESS

The Integrated Assessment Plan (IAP) process and plan is intended to develop further
scientific priorities for the Program and to feed into the Requests for Proposal (RFP)
process. Development of means of assessing the Program’s success in achieving its
legally required objectives would seem to be a relatively straightforward, simple task. It
is evolving into a rather major effort and is resulting in a rather sizeable document. It
also is creating varying opinions about content by some Program participants.
The Trinity River Flow Evaluation Study and the ROD and its Implementation Plan
provide a restoration strategy, including management actions and associated objectives
for the Program. However, these documents do not provide detailed methods for
assessing the effectiveness of management actions in achieving Program objectives.

A primary restoration strategy of the Program includes a combination of mechanical

alterations and vegetation removal in addition to managed high-flow releases in the
spring that will promote geo-fluvial processes leading to a new channel form and
temperature regime that is expected to provide significantly increased rearing and
spawning habitat for anadromous salmonids.

The purpose of the IAP, therefore, is to identify key assessments that:

1 - Evaluate long-term progress toward achieving Program goals and objectives; and

2 - Provide short-term feedback to improve Program management actions by testing key

hypotheses and reducing management uncertainties.

The central hypotheses of the Restoration Program are:

1- Salmonid habitat diversity below Lewiston Dam, both on the meso and micro scale,
will increase following the implementation of the restoration strategy,

2 - Juvenile salmonid rearing habitat below Lewiston Dam, believed to be limiting smolt
production in the Trinity River, will increase in both quantity and quality following
the creation of a more complex and dynamic channel form, and

3 - Salmonid smolt survival will improve as a result of better temperature conditions that
increase growth and promote extended smoltification and reduced travel time
associated with emigration.

The IAP (Part I) is organized as follows:

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the goals of the Program, the strategy and actions
by which these goals will be achieved, alternative hypotheses regarding the factors
limiting fish production, and the science-based approach of the Program,

Chapter 2 outlines the hierarchy of objectives and sub-objectives required to achieve

Program goals, and

Chapter 3 describes the set of assessments proposed for each of seven major objectives,
emphasizing what is proposed for action and why.

It is hoped that Part I will be completed in mid 2008.

Subsequent chapters of the IAP - Part II - are to be completed later in 2008, and will
include a more detailed level of how, where, and when the assessments will be
conducted.

From our point of view, the IAP as a document that includes not just objectives, but
rather also strategies to achieve objectives, and therefore is somewhat similar to some
elements of a Strategic Plan in the private sector. At the same time, much Trinity
Restoration implementation has occurred or is occurring – absent a completed IAP. We
do know that increased water returns to Trinity River are critical for restoration of
anadromous fish populations. And, we do know the ROD has provided that principal
element for Trinity fishery restoration.

Differences of opinion about IAP content involve actions needed to accomplish and
measure Program objectives – watershed and tributary rehabilitation as incorporated in
the ROD or little or none, as an example, and varying opinions about how objectives
should be measured. Measurement of habitat objectives is a subject upon which there is
much debate. Suffice to say, putting the IAP together has proved to be a daunting task.

The process has been lengthy, has consumed many hours of staff and other participants’
time, including Tom Weseloh’s who serves on the IAP steering committee. This,
together with other factors, has resulted in substantial delays in adoption of any of the
IAP by the Trinity Management Council. Current schedule for completion of the IAP
is late 2008. Ultimately, the IAP must be adopted by the TMC so no date is certain.

The bottom line is that the 1955 legislation that created the Trinity Division of the
Central Valley Project provided among other things, “that the Secretary (of the
Interior) is authorized and directed to adopt appropriate measures to insure the
preservation and propagation of fish and wildlife…” Essentially, every piece of
legislation related to the Trinity since that time affirms and reinforces that requirement.
This language has been understood to mean that wild anadromous fish populations should
be restored to pre-dam levels. That’s a pretty good measure of achievement of objectives
over the longer term.

Development of the means and appropriate measurement of all actions – minor to more
major - designed to achieve Program purposes in the shorter term is not a simple
exercise.

TRINITY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL

At its June meeting, the Trinity Adaptive Management Working Group (TAMWG),
the stakeholders group on which both Weseloh and Leydecker serve, along with
representatives of irrigator and power interests as well as others, sent a unanimously
adopted letter urging the TMC to make some changes in its composition and operations.

Among other things, TAMWG asked the Trinity Management Council to add members
from additional entities and to adopt simple majority voting in its decision making.
TMC thus far has not discussed TAMWG’s letter publicly or in detail, nor has it
recommended or taken any action. An unresponsive letter denying the need for
improvements was sent by its chairman a few months later.

In addition to TAMWG’s request to TMC that it add members from other entities and
change its By-Laws to provide for simple majority voting, the Trinity County Board of
Supervisors also sent a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne asking him to
direct staff in the appropriate agencies to change the By-Laws of the TMC to provide for
simple majority voting. The Interior Secretary replied essentially that he was sending
the request back down the command chain toward the TMC and into obscurity.

If anyone would like a copy of any of these letters, just ask. We’ll email a copy to you.

OUR APPRECIATION AND THANKS TO SEVERAL PERSONS

AND TO RENEWAL AND NEW MEMBERS

If you have renewed your membership, or joined FOTR since our last Newsletter
and your name(s) has been omitted below, please let us know – we genuinely want to
recognize your support.

In a few cases in the past, contributions sent to us have not been received. People
notified us and we resolved the issue of mail gone astray.

We express our appreciation to Wade Sinnen of the California Department of Fish

and Game for steelhead escapement data. We also express our appreciation to Program
Staff for its assistance. We also thank Jeff Bright, of Jeff Bright Design who maintains
our website, and to Joel Cohen, John Leydecker and Abbey Stockwell for their help in
FOTR’s continuing efforts. The continued work of Tom Weseloh, FOTR board
member and Northcoast Manager of CalTrout, within the Program is exemplary. His
contributions in advancing the objectives of the Program are significant.

We also express our appreciation and thanks to the following persons who have
joined or renewed membership in FOTR since our last Newsletter:

Clifford Anderson, Ron Angell, In Memory of Joseph Walsh, M.D., Tom Beatty,
Scott Bie, Boler & Associates, Marc Boler, Todd Boler, Connie and Dick Burton,
Lynn Carrico, Calvin S. K. Chin, Joel Cohen, Samuel D. Cohen, Tim Devine, Elise
and Gary Dickenson, Maxine Durney, Stuart Feldman, Sue Ghilotti, Alena and
David Goeddel, Susan Hansen, Betty and Jim Lacy, M.D., Joe Massey, Richard
May, Colleen O’Sullivan, Janice Parakilas and Roy Baker, Marian L. Perry, Frank
Pipgras, Rudy Ramp and Vicky Turner, Robert Riewerts, M. D., Spreck Rosekrans,
Phil Ryan, Lucretia and John Sias, Warren Watkins, Albert White, and James
White.
Friends of Trinity River
P. O. Box 2327
Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327
http://www.fotr.org

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