Destruction of a Fishery

The drought and carelessness by water officials have combined to cause the virtual destruction of one of California’s finest trout-fishing streams, the East Walker River in Mono County on the eastern side of the Sierra. The loss is catastrophic, says Rick Rockel, a Bridgeport businessman and area official of California Trout. The organization has talked of bringing a lawsuit to make certain that such a fiasco does not happen again, but that cannot correct the damage that has been done.

As early as last February, California Trout officials warned state and federal officials that there would be controversy over the waters of Bridgeport Reservoir, near the town of Bridgeport, because of the drought. Farmers and ranchers in the Smith Valley and Yerington area of adjacent Nevada have a right to the stored water for the irrigation of crops. The dry conditions made it certain that they would need it all. The fishermen wanted at least 3,000 acre-feet of water left in the reservoir to protect the East Walker’s trout fishery, one of the West’s few self-sustaining fisheries where the trout propagate without the planting of hatchery fish. California law provides for the maintenance of fisheries against water withdrawals.

On Labor Day weekend, however, the reservoir was emptied. In the process, silt from the bottom of the reservoir rushed out with the water, clogging the trouts’ gills and asphyxiating the fish, some of which were nearly two feet long and weighed up to nine pounds. Volunteers and California Fish and Game Department officials managed to save only about 200 fish. Important spawning areas have been severely damaged.

The Nevada farmers cannot be faulted for wanting as much water as they could get. They face massive crop losses. But there is no excusing the negligence of the water officials involved for draining the reservoir in such a manner. Their agencies should be required to pay for whatever restoration of the fishery is possible at this point.