Plan to Kill Off Pike Spawns Less Uproar

Bill Powers doesn’t seem the civil disobedience sort. But it wasn’t too long ago that the Plumas County public official tugged a wet suit on and swam into frigid Lake Davis, chaining himself to a buoy.

The year was 1997, and Powers wanted to keep state wildlife officials from poisoning the High Sierra reservoir in a bid to crush invading northern pike, a fearsome threat to the lake’s trophy trout and downstream salmon and steelhead.

Powers didn’t stop the poisoning; law enforcement officers unceremoniously yanked him from the lake.

And the poison didn’t stop the pike.

But now state Fish and Game officials, saying they’ve learned lessons on many fronts, are pushing to spike Lake Davis once again with a lethal liquid they believe will vanquish the pike, a voracious fish with a chain-saw smile.

This time, Powers doesn’t aim to swim in the way.

“There’s a trust now that didn’t exist before,” said Powers, a Plumas County supervisor. “There’s no guarantees in life, but this is the best shot.”

Besides, he added, “my wet suit won’t fit anymore.”

Since the earlier attempt, which caused howls of protest among citizens of the nearby town of Portola, state Fish and Game officials have taken pains to build a bridge to the local community. Hearings are planned to allow people to vent. And the preferred eradication plan calls for the lake to be drained far lower than in 1997, increasing the odds that the pike will perish.

“One of the problems last time was people didn’t think we looked at alternatives,” said Steve Martarano, a Fish and Game spokesman. “Now people know we’ve done all we can and it’s time for something different.”

Lake Davis has been something of a biological battleground since the pike somehow found their way into the scenic reservoir more than a decade ago (authorities suspect a backwoods saboteur).

The state Fish and Game Department has tried catching them with nets, setting off explosives, shocking them with electricity, even holding pike fishing derbies. Word has it they taste as bad as they look.

In deep water and shallows, the fast-spawning pike have prevailed. By some counts they may number as many as 1 million, though Fish and Game officials say no firm estimate has been made.

The fear is that if these aquatic eating machines ever escape into the Feather River and then down into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, they could obliterate the native fisheries, devouring salmon, steelhead, trout and just about anything else with fins and gills.

“It’s a chance we’re not willing to take,” Martarano said.

The state’s 1997 attempt at chemical treatment spawned lawsuits and a monumental public relations fiasco, as 100 Highway Patrol officers descended on the community, police helicopters buzzed overhead and law enforcement sharpshooters took up posts to protect a community water tank from feared sabotage.

Biologists suspect that a few of the fish escaped death by finding safe harbor in upstream creeks. But the poisoning put Lake Davis off-limits as a drinking water source for Portola, a tiny northern Sierra tourist town an hour’s drive north of Lake Tahoe. To settle a lawsuit filed by residents, the state paid $9.2 million in reparations.

Things have changed in the years since. After pike were discovered anew in 1999, Fish and Game started a Lake Davis Steering Committee, made up of local officials and state representatives.

The department also began engaging in more-productive public debate before launching a new assault on the pike with less intrusive means such as electro-fishing and, on a couple of occasions, deploying explosive detonation cords.

Martarano said the bombing runs yielded only about a dozen dead pike at a time, not even making a dent. Electro-fishing has proved more effective. Since 2000, officials estimate they’ve taken about 55,000 pike from the lake.

But plenty are left.

Locals have been moving toward a renewed poisoning effort for a couple of years. Even old critics such as Powers are now cautious supporters.

Powers’ conversion came with the bureaucratic equivalent of rocking on the front porch swing with an unfriendly neighbor.

“It’s really been this huge turnaround by Fish and Game,” said Powers, chairman of the steering committee. “Before, their attitude was unwavering. They were going to do what they were going to do, and all of us up here had to learn to like it.”

Not only did wildlife officials adopt a kinder, gentler approach, but tests by the city and county confirmed that the worst fears about contaminated wells and environmental degradation were unfounded.

Powers considers the “gut-wrenching” prospect of another poisoning sort of like taking bad medicine to return to health.

Fish and Game has put forth five alternatives to rid the lake of the invaders. Three would involve rotenone, the poison used in 1997. Another calls for completely draining the lake. A last option would be simply to stick to the current tactics -- mostly the electro-fishing.

State officials would prefer to drain the lake by at least 75%, from about 80,000 acre-feet of water when full to as little as 10,000 acre-feet. (An acre-foot is the amount of water that would cover one acre to a depth of one foot, 325,821 gallons.) Instead of using powdered rotenone as in 1997, they would use a liquid version that has been found to be more effective.

Their plan will be presented in public hearings later this month in Portola and Sacramento, then hashed out further over the coming year. At the earliest, the poisoning redux would come in fall 2006.

Aside from expected concerns among residents and businesses over the effects on the environment and commerce, the city of Portola is also voicing a few qualms.

Town leaders expected to open an upgraded water treatment plant in late 2006 to begin tapping Lake Davis as a drinking water source, said City Manager James Murphy. The poisoning would delay that, meaning the city would have to rely on the well water it has used since 1997.

But new standards for arsenic contamination will put those wells out of commission starting in January 2007. So town leaders are expecting to push the state to finance a treatment system for the wells.

That extra well water would be welcome news for Portola for another reason. The town has approved two housing developments that could triple its population, and the need for fresh water, in the next few years.

Most people expect the state to open its wallet -- anything to get rid of the cursed fish.

“We would much prefer if we could write the pike a note to tell them to leave,” Powers said. “That’s not going to happen.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Fighting a fish

The state Fish and Game Department will try again to kill the pike in Lake Davis.

Northern Pike

Native to Northern Hemisphere in North America, Europe and Asia

Slender, cylindrical fish with a long, flattened snout containing rows of sharp teeth

Can reach 40 pounds and 47 inches, with a lifespan of about 25 years

Voracious predators, they feed on other fish and small animals

Source: California Dept. of Fish and Game