Lake Poisoning Settlement Gets Bogged Down

Fears are growing in the hard-hit Eastern Sierra town of Portola that business owners who lost money when the state poisoned Lake Davis may never see any of the $9.1-million settlement reached with the state last week.

Here’s the hitch: After the California Department of Fish and Game treated the pristine trout lake last October with a chemical called rotenone, the Plumas County district attorney filed criminal charges against the agency alleging negligence.

The settlement, which has yet to be approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Pete Wilson, contains a clause requiring that all criminal charges against the state be resolved before anyone in Portola gets a dime of settlement money.

The Sierra Club has recommended that the Legislature kill the bill, because the clause “could significantly delay access to settlement funds by those who need the help,” the group wrote in a letter to state Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Carnelian Bay), who brokered the settlement.

“We don’t like the way this tries to--in a heavy-handed way--push the D.A. to resolve criminal suits quickly,” said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “It’s a little extortionate.”

In addition to business owners, the city of Portola and Plumas County would also benefit from the settlement.

They would receive reimbursement for costs incurred in the poisoning, such as finding alternative drinking water after their primary source was treated with chemicals to kill the voracious northern pike.

And they too have voiced concerns about the future of the settlement and how soon the region would be compensated for its economic damages.

“We desperately need this settlement to help our community recover from the impacts of the Department of Fish and Game’s poisoning of Lake Davis,” said James Murphy, Portola city manager. “We pray that payment is not delayed for any reason.”

Plumas County Supervisor Fran Roudebush considers what happened to her district to be in the same league as any disaster, be it flood, earthquake or landslide.

“Would you ask a community that’s been through that to wait while any legal problems are worked out?” Roudebush asked. “Our concern for the community is that this was a disaster and the community needs this money as quickly as possible.”

The legislative wrangling over the settlement is just the latest chapter in the Lake Davis area’s nearly four-year saga, which began in 1994 when the nonnative pike were found in the waters.

State wildlife officials wanted to poison the lake to make sure that the pike did not escape, travel 130 miles to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and imperil the already threatened native salmon and steelhead trout populations.

Residents and local officials resisted, because they worried about how long the chemicals would remain and about the treatment’s impact on their tourism economy. But the state went ahead and applied the rotenone, which killed all fish and insects in the lake.

Wildlife officials promised that the chemical would dissipate within a month, that the lake water would soon thereafter be drinkable and that the trout would be restored in short order.

But it took nine months for the lake to be restocked, and it will not be used as a drinking water source until next spring, Portola officials say.

In May, Plumas County Dist. Atty. James Reichle filed criminal charges against the Department of Fish and Game alleging that agency officials violated the state water code when they poisoned the lake. The criminal charges are still pending. Reichle did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

The California Resources Agency, parent of the department facing criminal charges, demanded that Portola get no money through the settlement until all legal challenges were resolved, a source said.

The Sierra Club believes that Portola government and business owners would get their money faster if the bill died and came back in the 1999 legislative session--without the now-controversial clause.

The Consumer Attorneys of California--formerly known as the California Trial Lawyers Assn.--also opposes the settlement, in part because of the same clause.

Resolution of all criminal and civil charges brought after the poisoning “could take years and years, making the goal of expedient redress to Lake Davis’ citizens and others meaningless and holding up the stayed civil claims until evidence is stale,” the group wrote in a letter of opposition.

But Dave Butler, district representative for Leslie, argues that “waiting until next year is a pig in a poke,” especially since the state will have a new governor who might not be as interested in settling with the people of Portola.

“It’s hard for me to understand how the Sierra Club would oppose what is essentially disaster relief--unless they don’t want a town here,” Butler said.