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MONO BASIN STILL NOT RECOVERED -- matthews-ONS -- 25apr07
Rush Creek still waiting to return to its former self
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
MAMMOTH LAKES -- On the eve of this year's trout opener, it's worth considering that more than 20 years after a lawsuit mandated minimum flows and fishery restoration on all of the diverted streams in the Mono Lake Basin to pre-1941 levels, the two people responsible for the litigation against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power say the terms of the final agreement are still not met.
Dick Dahlgren, an artist and avid fly-fisherman who lived in Mammoth Lakes at the time, and Barrett McInerney, a stubborn Irish attorney from Southern California, were the David-team that took on the LADWP-Goliath and won the lawsuit against the giant water agency. Environmental organizations had been trying to find a way for 10 years to force the LADWP to return flows back down four streams to save Mono Lake and its bird life, but the case eventually turned on an obscure Fish and Game regulation that mandated in-stream flows where fisheries exist or had existed.
In spite of what Audubon or the Mono Lake Committee might tell you, the decision that restored water to Mono Lake was never about saving Mono Lake, it was about restoring Rush Creek between Grant Lake and Mono Lake to its pre-diversion days' glory as one of the finest trout fisheries in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.
"The court order is about the fishery as it was in 1941," said Dahlgren from his Idaho home. "And the restoration has never been done. Mono Lake [Committee] got what it wanted with a stable lake level. Audubon got what they wanted for birds. Only the fishermen -- the people behind the lawsuit in the first place -- didn't get what they were entitled to receive."
The story begins in the 1980s when Dahlgren discovered a vibrant trout fishery in Rush Creek below Grant Lake. Snowpack had been huge for several years in a row thanks to an El Nino, and the LADWP could not ship all of the runoff south. Instead of picking up all flows at its diversions on Rush Creek, Walker Creek, Parker Creek and Lee Vining Creek like normal, all four streams had flows that reached all the way to Mono Lake for several years in a row. The trout fisheries came back, and Dahlgren got a taste of what the fishery had been like before they were dried up decades earlier. When he found the flows were about to be cut off, he called his fishing friend Barrett McInerney and they filed for a temporary restraining order to keep the City of Los Angeles from drying up Rush Creek again.
The lawsuits took forever, but they had won the temporary restraining order and water continued to flow down all four streams into Mono Lake. When it actually looked like the lawsuit had merit and could be won, the other conservation groups flocked to help on the case. Dahlgren and McInerney were both members of a fledgling volunteer fishing conservation organization called California Trout, and that organization, along with the Mono Lake Committee and Audubon, became affiliated with the lawsuit.
Eventually, the court ordered permanent flows and mandated restoration of the fisheries. The water was a boon to Mono Lake. It's level came back up. The island in the middle of the lake, a rookery for California Gulls, didn't become a peninsula and is still free of predators. The brine shrimp are thriving and feeding an amazing concentration of migratory birds. And the trout fishery restoration started exceptionally.
Trying to combat 40 years of mostly dry conditions, a stream rehabilitation company was contracted and Rush Creek was literally reconstructed from Grant Lake to Highway 395. Pools were built, riffles created, habitat improved. Parker and Walker creeks were still there, hidden under sediment and banks trampled down by sheep and cattle for decades. They were refurbished above Highway 395, too. Walk those stretches of stream today and you'd never know there were backhoes and bulldozers rumbling along the banks, creating in one summer what nature might take centuries to do. Willows and cottonwood line the banks, trout rise lazily at the tail-out of pools to mayflies.
But then it all stopped. The lower reach of Rush Creek, which needed the most reconstruction and was the best stretch of water before diversions began in 1941, has no pools, no river channel, and not much of a fishery. Because the flows of Walker and Parker creeks join Rush Creek in this stretch, it's a significant river here with the potential to be trophy trout fishery on par with the East Walker River to the north. But more than 20 years later, it's still not worth fishing.
What happened?
McInerney and Dahlgren are blunt, they blame California Trout, Inc. The organization is the representative for fishing interests in the decision and is the group that "has standing" in the court. It would be up to them to go back to the court and point out the restoration is working. They haven't.
"For some reason, the 'Keepers of the Streams' caved in," said Dahlgren, referring to CalTrout's moniker.
McInerney asserts that it's all about money. When he and Dahlgren were involved with CalTrout, it was an all-volunteer organization. Now it has 11 full-time employees and a fund-raising machine to pay those salaries.
"Once you do that, you have to offer your services.... That's why CalTrout backed off," said McInerney. "It's been over 20 years, and not a thing has been done. It was supposed to be restored. You have the deepest pockets in the world to do it, and nothing has been done? Cal Trout has just moved on."
McInerney points out the irony in this by noting that CalTrout built its reputation and membership on the Rush Creek case. It was used as a benchmark for all of its membership drives for years. Once considered an attack dog for fisheries, CalTrout now receives about the lowest rating possible by CharityNavigator.Com, an organization that tracks non-profit groups for efficiency and use of funds.
"Here's an organization that got a slingshot when this stuff came down. They were the heroes." said McInerney.
Dahlgren came back to visit the Eastern Sierra in 2005 after being gone for more than a decade, and he stopped by his favorite haunts on Rush Creek. An annual report on the status of the fishery worried him. It said the stream wasn't all that good. Then his own fishing experiences made him distraught. The reconstructed stretch of the river was good, but more work was needed. Worse, the lower river below Highway 395 was a disaster.
"Letting nature take it's course wasn't working," said Dahlgren. He cites scientific papers written by an avid angler and fishery biologist Eldon Vestal about how good Rush Creek had been before diversions in the 1930s. Vestal told Dahlgren stories about how trophy brown trout could be caught all the way down to Mono Lake. Before his death in 1984, the court order required that fishery, the fishery described by Vestal, be completely restored. Dahlgren says it obviously hasn't.
So Dahlgren took matters into his own hands again and did what he says CalTrout should have done years ago. He created a management design to restore Lower Rush Creek, a plan that would create 21 ponds along the river to give the trout deep-water habitat allowing for larger fish. The ponds would be stand-ins for the beaver ponds and huge pools that originally existed on the river. The river would be reconstructed all the way to Mono Lake -- meeting the requirements of the original court order.
What does CalTrout say? Brain Stranko, the executive director, said "the stream is on a good trajectory for recovery. We're among those who support a natural process for recovery and restoring all the tributaries to Mono Lake."
But he didn't rule out the process of targeted reconstruction. "The concept may have some merit," he said of Dahlgren's plan.
McInerney is a cynic. He believes the whole process is being driven by the LADWP's desire to see the lower portion of the fishery continue to degrade. If there's not a viable fishery on lower Rush Creek, why should the LADWP continue to provide flows there? Maybe people like Vestal were confused about how good this stretch was, they suggest through hired biologists in the fishery reports. The court, with CalTrout's consent, would agree. This would allow the LADWP to pick up the water, divert it through power houses (which generates big money), and eventually ship it to Los Angeles taps. They could send annual surplus flows down to Mono Lake to keep the Mono Lake Committee and Audubon people happy. Today's fishermen never know any better. That's McInerney's take. But this is an attorney who devoted a decade of his life to fighting the agency to get Rush Creek restored and 20 years later the LADWP still has not done the job required by his victory. Some victory.
Dahlgren has forwarded his ponding and reconstruction plan to the State Water Resources Control Board, which is overseeing the restoration because it licenses the LADWP's diversions. But he admits he's looking for a replacement to carry the torch. Dahlgren turns 70 this year. He lives in Idaho now and can't attend the hearings and meetings like he once did. He doesn't think the new CalTrout has the stomach for the fight.
"It's about closure for me," said Dahlgren. "I'd like to see the fishing public put so much pressure on everyone involved that this gets done.
"Eldon Vestal was there when they dried up Rush Creek in 1941, and he was told to shut up about the fishery. He died in 1984 when the first hearings started and was excited about one of his favorite streams being restored. I'm back involved with this because I felt I owed something to him," said Dahlgren.
Rush Creek still waiting to return to its former self
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service
MAMMOTH LAKES -- On the eve of this year's trout opener, it's worth considering that more than 20 years after a lawsuit mandated minimum flows and fishery restoration on all of the diverted streams in the Mono Lake Basin to pre-1941 levels, the two people responsible for the litigation against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power say the terms of the final agreement are still not met.
Dick Dahlgren, an artist and avid fly-fisherman who lived in Mammoth Lakes at the time, and Barrett McInerney, a stubborn Irish attorney from Southern California, were the David-team that took on the LADWP-Goliath and won the lawsuit against the giant water agency. Environmental organizations had been trying to find a way for 10 years to force the LADWP to return flows back down four streams to save Mono Lake and its bird life, but the case eventually turned on an obscure Fish and Game regulation that mandated in-stream flows where fisheries exist or had existed.
In spite of what Audubon or the Mono Lake Committee might tell you, the decision that restored water to Mono Lake was never about saving Mono Lake, it was about restoring Rush Creek between Grant Lake and Mono Lake to its pre-diversion days' glory as one of the finest trout fisheries in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.
"The court order is about the fishery as it was in 1941," said Dahlgren from his Idaho home. "And the restoration has never been done. Mono Lake [Committee] got what it wanted with a stable lake level. Audubon got what they wanted for birds. Only the fishermen -- the people behind the lawsuit in the first place -- didn't get what they were entitled to receive."
The story begins in the 1980s when Dahlgren discovered a vibrant trout fishery in Rush Creek below Grant Lake. Snowpack had been huge for several years in a row thanks to an El Nino, and the LADWP could not ship all of the runoff south. Instead of picking up all flows at its diversions on Rush Creek, Walker Creek, Parker Creek and Lee Vining Creek like normal, all four streams had flows that reached all the way to Mono Lake for several years in a row. The trout fisheries came back, and Dahlgren got a taste of what the fishery had been like before they were dried up decades earlier. When he found the flows were about to be cut off, he called his fishing friend Barrett McInerney and they filed for a temporary restraining order to keep the City of Los Angeles from drying up Rush Creek again.
The lawsuits took forever, but they had won the temporary restraining order and water continued to flow down all four streams into Mono Lake. When it actually looked like the lawsuit had merit and could be won, the other conservation groups flocked to help on the case. Dahlgren and McInerney were both members of a fledgling volunteer fishing conservation organization called California Trout, and that organization, along with the Mono Lake Committee and Audubon, became affiliated with the lawsuit.
Eventually, the court ordered permanent flows and mandated restoration of the fisheries. The water was a boon to Mono Lake. It's level came back up. The island in the middle of the lake, a rookery for California Gulls, didn't become a peninsula and is still free of predators. The brine shrimp are thriving and feeding an amazing concentration of migratory birds. And the trout fishery restoration started exceptionally.
Trying to combat 40 years of mostly dry conditions, a stream rehabilitation company was contracted and Rush Creek was literally reconstructed from Grant Lake to Highway 395. Pools were built, riffles created, habitat improved. Parker and Walker creeks were still there, hidden under sediment and banks trampled down by sheep and cattle for decades. They were refurbished above Highway 395, too. Walk those stretches of stream today and you'd never know there were backhoes and bulldozers rumbling along the banks, creating in one summer what nature might take centuries to do. Willows and cottonwood line the banks, trout rise lazily at the tail-out of pools to mayflies.
But then it all stopped. The lower reach of Rush Creek, which needed the most reconstruction and was the best stretch of water before diversions began in 1941, has no pools, no river channel, and not much of a fishery. Because the flows of Walker and Parker creeks join Rush Creek in this stretch, it's a significant river here with the potential to be trophy trout fishery on par with the East Walker River to the north. But more than 20 years later, it's still not worth fishing.
What happened?
McInerney and Dahlgren are blunt, they blame California Trout, Inc. The organization is the representative for fishing interests in the decision and is the group that "has standing" in the court. It would be up to them to go back to the court and point out the restoration is working. They haven't.
"For some reason, the 'Keepers of the Streams' caved in," said Dahlgren, referring to CalTrout's moniker.
McInerney asserts that it's all about money. When he and Dahlgren were involved with CalTrout, it was an all-volunteer organization. Now it has 11 full-time employees and a fund-raising machine to pay those salaries.
"Once you do that, you have to offer your services.... That's why CalTrout backed off," said McInerney. "It's been over 20 years, and not a thing has been done. It was supposed to be restored. You have the deepest pockets in the world to do it, and nothing has been done? Cal Trout has just moved on."
McInerney points out the irony in this by noting that CalTrout built its reputation and membership on the Rush Creek case. It was used as a benchmark for all of its membership drives for years. Once considered an attack dog for fisheries, CalTrout now receives about the lowest rating possible by CharityNavigator.Com, an organization that tracks non-profit groups for efficiency and use of funds.
"Here's an organization that got a slingshot when this stuff came down. They were the heroes." said McInerney.
Dahlgren came back to visit the Eastern Sierra in 2005 after being gone for more than a decade, and he stopped by his favorite haunts on Rush Creek. An annual report on the status of the fishery worried him. It said the stream wasn't all that good. Then his own fishing experiences made him distraught. The reconstructed stretch of the river was good, but more work was needed. Worse, the lower river below Highway 395 was a disaster.
"Letting nature take it's course wasn't working," said Dahlgren. He cites scientific papers written by an avid angler and fishery biologist Eldon Vestal about how good Rush Creek had been before diversions in the 1930s. Vestal told Dahlgren stories about how trophy brown trout could be caught all the way down to Mono Lake. Before his death in 1984, the court order required that fishery, the fishery described by Vestal, be completely restored. Dahlgren says it obviously hasn't.
So Dahlgren took matters into his own hands again and did what he says CalTrout should have done years ago. He created a management design to restore Lower Rush Creek, a plan that would create 21 ponds along the river to give the trout deep-water habitat allowing for larger fish. The ponds would be stand-ins for the beaver ponds and huge pools that originally existed on the river. The river would be reconstructed all the way to Mono Lake -- meeting the requirements of the original court order.
What does CalTrout say? Brain Stranko, the executive director, said "the stream is on a good trajectory for recovery. We're among those who support a natural process for recovery and restoring all the tributaries to Mono Lake."
But he didn't rule out the process of targeted reconstruction. "The concept may have some merit," he said of Dahlgren's plan.
McInerney is a cynic. He believes the whole process is being driven by the LADWP's desire to see the lower portion of the fishery continue to degrade. If there's not a viable fishery on lower Rush Creek, why should the LADWP continue to provide flows there? Maybe people like Vestal were confused about how good this stretch was, they suggest through hired biologists in the fishery reports. The court, with CalTrout's consent, would agree. This would allow the LADWP to pick up the water, divert it through power houses (which generates big money), and eventually ship it to Los Angeles taps. They could send annual surplus flows down to Mono Lake to keep the Mono Lake Committee and Audubon people happy. Today's fishermen never know any better. That's McInerney's take. But this is an attorney who devoted a decade of his life to fighting the agency to get Rush Creek restored and 20 years later the LADWP still has not done the job required by his victory. Some victory.
Dahlgren has forwarded his ponding and reconstruction plan to the State Water Resources Control Board, which is overseeing the restoration because it licenses the LADWP's diversions. But he admits he's looking for a replacement to carry the torch. Dahlgren turns 70 this year. He lives in Idaho now and can't attend the hearings and meetings like he once did. He doesn't think the new CalTrout has the stomach for the fight.
"It's about closure for me," said Dahlgren. "I'd like to see the fishing public put so much pressure on everyone involved that this gets done.
"Eldon Vestal was there when they dried up Rush Creek in 1941, and he was told to shut up about the fishery. He died in 1984 when the first hearings started and was excited about one of his favorite streams being restored. I'm back involved with this because I felt I owed something to him," said Dahlgren.
