Tiny Fish Sparks Big Battle Over Development : Environment: Plans in Mammoth Lakes for luxury hotel and other projects are stymied by the Owens tui chub. Protection of the endangered species prevents drilling of new wells.

Even here on the eastern side of the High Sierra, where the cool lakes and rushing streams are major tourist lures, water is in short supply.

When the drought lingered last summer, residents were allowed to irrigate their lawns and gardens only at certain hours on specific days, if at all. Some even removed sod under a “cash for grass” program to minimize water use.

The drought has faded into memory, but a new water threat has taken its place: a tiny minnow-type fish called the Owens tui chub.

To ensure enough water for upcoming development, the town of Mammoth Lakes would like to drill five wells in a meadow area within the city limits. But the state Department of Fish and Game sued to stop the drilling, citing the tui chub’s endangered status.

Sinking new wells “has the potential to substantially reduce the habitat of the Owens tui chub and to reduce the number of that endangered species,” state biologists argued.

Town officials who want to encourage building of new resorts are chagrined. “The tui chub’s role in our development plans is very significant,” said Mammoth Town Manager Glenn Thompson. “The resorts . . . are all on hold.

“No matter how much funding became available for them, they would not go forward until water is available. And the tui chub is holding up water development.”

The chub lives in springs that feed Hot Creek Fish Hatchery, about six miles downstream from Mammoth Lakes near a popular spot for soaking in hot springs. The state contends that the wells could affect the water supply to the head springs that feed the hatchery.

Mayor Pro Tem Gordon Alper said he is frustrated by the power the fish seems to have over plans for hotels, condominiums, a golf course, homes, an ice rink and a theater in Mammoth. “It’s mind-boggling,” he said. “We’re six miles away from the tui chub habitat, and there is no scientific evidence that our wells would impact it.”

One proposed development, in the Juniper Ridge area near the base of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area’s Chair 15, would bring the first luxury hotel to the Eastern Sierra. Another planned project would redevelop the town’s north village area and add another hotel.

Those two projects and a residential development and golf course have received zoning and environmental clearances from the Mammoth Lakes Town Council but are awaiting final approval and permission to hook up to the town water supply.

The tui chub’s fall into endangered status began when the city of Los Angeles started diverting water from the Owens River in the early 1900s. Starting in the 1950s, the state Department of Fish and Game also had a policy to eradicate the chub as a nuisance fish in the springs that feed the Hot Creek Fish Hatchery, concerned the chub would spread disease to the trout raised there.

State workers no longer poison the chub, but they do dredge out weeds from the springs where the chub live to keep water flowing into the hatchery. The chub was listed as an endangered species in 1985.

The department sued to block the wells after the Mammoth County Water District declined to prepare a full environmental study of the wells’ possible harm to the chub habitat.

Mammoth officials say the state activities are a bigger threat to the chub than the proposed wells.

“Evidence that (Fish and Game) has applied a double standard to the impact of its own activities on the tui chub at Hot Creek comes as a considerable disappointment to us all,” said water board President Paul Rudder.

Rudder and others also said that the state biologists are partly motivated by a desire to discourage growth that could bring changes to Mammoth.

State fisheries biologist Darrell Wong said that the hatchery has actually protected the Owens tui chub from hybridization with other strains. “To say that (Fish and Game) added to the tui chub’s endangered status is stretching it,” Wong said.

Responding to accusations that Fish and Game wants to stymie resort growth in Mammoth, Wong said “Mammoth should look to the long-term future of its community, which does not include just condos.” Although stressing that his department is not trying to halt building, he added that “Mammoth could do without the Disneyland atmosphere.”