A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 26, 2007
3. Watersheds
LAKE DAVIS PIKE ERRADICATION PROJECT:
State poisons fish in mountain Sierra Nevada lake - North County Times
DFG rescues stranded trout before Lake Davis poisoning - Plumas County News
State begins new Lake Davis fish kill; Poisoning aims to rid waters of invasive northern pike - Sacramento Bee
Thousands of fish go belly up as poisoning of Lake Davis starts - San Francisco Chronicle
Officials dump poison in Sierra lake to combat northern pike; The move is the latest tactic in the decade-long battle to eradicate the predatory fish from a reservoir near Portola -
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LAKE DAVIS PIKE ERRADICATION PROJECT:
State poisons fish in mountain
By Samantha Young, staff writer
State workers on Tuesday began pouring a toxic chemical into a lake nestled in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada as part of
A fleet of 25 boats set out on
More than 500 officials with the state Department of Fish and Game are pouring 16,000 gallons of the fish poison Rotenone into the 7-mile-long lake and its tributaries. Several hours after they began Tuesday, dead fish were already washing up on the shore.
"We felt we really want to make sure we got those guys," said Department of Fish and Game spokesman
If left alone, biologists say, the toothy northern pike could take over
It is the second time the department has poisoned the lake, a nationally known reservoir for trout fly fishing in the Sierra Nevada back country about 150 miles northeast of Sacramento.
This time, wildlife officials are using a new formulation of liquid Rotenone, an aquatic insecticide that has successfully killed northern pike in other reservoirs. They also have mapped out the area with global positioning technology, Martarano said.
Department of Fish and Game officials treated 137 miles of streams and tributaries in the area the week of September 10.
Wildlife officials have tried overfishing, nets, electric shocks, traps, even explosions to try to kill off the pike population in the last seven years, which nonetheless has exploded and threatens the lake's trout.
The pike -- which are native to the Midwest and
"We've taken 65,000 pike out and it hasn't made an impact," Martarano said. "Now we just have to hope we get all the pike, which we're pretty confident we will."
The state has spent about $20 million on pike eradication efforts in
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09/26/news/state/16_08_229_25_07.txt
DFG rescues stranded trout before Lake Davis
Plumas County
By Diana Jorgenson, Portola Editor
The Pike Eradication Project paused briefly last week to assess the progress of the prior week's stream treatments and to save a few trout.
When the water flow through the dam is completely shut off, sections of the stream below Grizzly Dam will empty and the fish that lived there left high and dry.
To salvage fish in that area of the stream, the California Department of Fish and Game with the help of the Department of Water Resources held a fish rescue operation Friday.
Amber Rossi, Jason Roberts, and Ivan Paulsen, all with DFG's Portola Field Office and Eric See, DWR biologist, donned waders and stun gear to capture trout in the endangered area and placed the fish in buckets for transfer downstream.
The water flow through Grizzly Dam had been reduced by DWR to 2 cfs (cubic feet per second) to assist in the capture.
Rossi wore a backpack electrofisher, which when set at a low voltage, stuns the fish briefly - long enough for Roberts to scoop them into his net and transfer them into Paulsen's waiting bucket.
Rossi swept the long yellow pole in arcs across the water and into grassy areas to locate the fish. The yellow pole is the anode and, trailing behind her, a tail of metal string was the cathode. Between them, an electrical current was set to stun.
A bit earlier, the two had placed a barrier net to chase the fish into for easy capture and to prevent them from returning to the site once they were moved.
All told, the rescue group salvaged 205 trout, of which 95 were over 8 inches in length.
A third of the lucky trout were rainbows while the bulk were brown trout.
Paulsen reported that quite a few brown trout were 18 inches in length.
There was still another reason to move fish from below the dam. While DFG expects to cut off flows from the dam completely for 45 days while the poisons neutralize, they have alternative plans in mind if that is not effective.
This is plan one and it is the alternative preferred by DFG and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, who authorized the permits for downstream neutralization.
Backup plans call for a series of engineered pools within the dam's footprint. The dam flow would be set to .5 cfs to allow controlled amounts of water to be treated with potassium permanganate as a means of neutralization. Plan two.
Plans three and four allow for in-stream neutralization by potassium permanganate, affecting up to a half-mile of Big Grizzly Creek. The difference between these last two options is the difference in flow rates of 1-3 cfs and 3-5 cfs.
Plans three and four were granted by the Central Valley Board only reluctantly as they have the potential for a greater impact on fish in Big Grizzly Creek and would require more fish rescues. Also at issue, residual pollutants and toxins outside of the treatment area.
DFG prefers the first alternative for natural neutralization and has emphasized to the public and to the Central Valley Water Board, that alternatives three and four are contingency plans only.
On Monday, Sept. 24, the second treatment of streams and tributaries began. Ideally, no more dead fish will appear and DFG will consider that part of the project successful. If more fish are found and killed, then still a third application of the poison will be scheduled.
"We have no idea how many pike we killed this go-around," said Ed Pert, DFG Pike Eradication Project director, "About 100 pike were observed dead."
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the body of Lake Davis
The chemical compound, CFT-Legumine, will be sprayed into the water with rotenone pumps fitted with weighted hoses to keep the application sub-surface.
DFG will use 18-20 boats to cover the lake, including three airboats and two johnboats for treating shallow areas.
http://plumasnews.com/news_story.edi?sid=5472
State begins new Lake Davis
Sacramento
By Jane Braxton Little, staff writer
PORTOLA -- Just past dawn Tuesday,
By noon it was roiling with dead fish.
A $16.7 million poisoning project devised by the California Department of Fish and Game was already getting the results officials hoped for.
Designed to protect water bodies throughout the state from non-native northern pike, the project is planned to release 16,000 gallons of chemicals into the
California Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman called northern pike one of the state's premier invasive species. "They can completely eliminate all other fish in any body of water," he said.
Without action, state officials feared they would migrate downstream to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where they would pose a threat to the state's $550 million annual commercial fishery.
To prevent that, the state marshaled 550 Fish and Game Department employees and a squadron of 25 boats. Early Tuesday morning they began loading 55-gallon drums of chemicals onto motorboats and dispensing them in a grid pattern across the 5,000-acre lake.
At Honker Cove, boats piloted by workers in protective white coveralls left a makeshift loading dock laden with black-and-white barrels bearing a skull-and-crossbones logo, the international symbol for poison.
Each vessel trailed a stream of noxious yellow as it moved slowly back and forth across its assigned section of the reservoir.
Small trout and bass at water's edge swam in panicked circles before turning belly-up. Larger trout also turned silver underside up, many with bite marks and obvious scars inflicted by pike.
Pike, the target species of the chemical treatment, were in deeper waters and slower to die. One displayed by Fish and Game officials was 17 pounds and more than 40 inches long. Pike project manager Ed Pert estimated the pike population of
The spiny-tongued predator species has been proliferating in the reservoir near Portola since 1994, when department officials believe it was illegally planted by an angler.
A similar poisoning project in 1997 went badly, leaking chemicals downstream and causing local health problems.
It also generated tremendous local hostility and ultimately cost the state $15 million, some paid in reparations to local property and business owners.
Worse yet, the poisoning failed to eradicate the pike. They showed up 18 months later and have been flourishing ever since in the reservoir built in 1967 as part of the State Water Project.
Fish and Game officials have applied what they learned 10 years ago to the current project, said Pert. They have worked closely with the local community and other agencies to develop a plan that enjoys widespread support, he said.
The chemical formulation, CFT Legumine, is also different. A liquid formulation that includes rotenone, a naturally occurring poison, it contains carcinogens but in smaller doses than the 1997 formulation.
This time department officials are focusing far more attention on tributary streams, where some officials believe pike may have hidden and escaped the 1997 chemical treatment. Since Sept. 10 they have treated 137 miles of tributaries to
"If we don't eradicate pike this time it's probably impossible," said Pert.
That worst-case scenario would force state officials to re-evaluate, he said. "We don't want to have to go through this again."
Neither does the local community, said Jim Murphy, Portola city manager. The rural community used the reservoir as a backup municipal supply but has not tapped it for drinking water since 1997.
That could change next year, when Murphy hopes a new $6 million water treatment plant will be on line to serve the growing city.
"We're confident this lake is going to be chemical-free again," he said.
State health officials will monitor the water for public safety once the chemical treatment is complete. They will not certify the reservoir as free of health risks until they get three consecutive negative samples, said David Spath, who is overseeing the project for the state Department of Health Services.
Most local merchants welcomed the second chemical treatment as an end to the pike population that has decimated the local tourist-based economy.
"It's all good," said Saralyn Bensinger, owner of the Grizzly Store at
A community group opposed to the chemical treatment has consistently raised concerns over the health effects.
None of its members was allowed through the security barriers at the reservoir Tuesday morning.
The dead fish spawned by the project will be placed in double-wrapped plastic bags and hauled to a landfill near
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/399359.html
Thousands of fish go belly up as poisoning of
San Francisco Chronicle – 9/26/07
By Peter Fimrite, staff writer
(09-26) 04:00 PDT Portola, Plumas County - -- The poison began flowing into scenic Lake Davis early Tuesday morning, and by midday thousands of dead fish were washing ashore or floating belly-up in the northern Sierra reservoir.
By the end of the week, the death toll is expected to include all of the lake's famous rainbow trout, many catfish, shiners and other bait fish along with tens of thousands of the voracious invader known as the northern pike.
The people of the historic high Sierra town of Portola are so desperate to get rid of the pike that they are willing to poison the once and future source of their drinking water and kill virtually every living thing in it to accomplish the task.
On Tuesday, state Department of Fish and Game crews went out in an armada of 25 boats and poured 16,000 gallons of the fish poison rotenone into
"It's all good," said Sara Bensinger, the proprietor of Portola's Grizzly Store and Resort, where about 200 people gathered a couple of weeks ago to cheer as a 13-foot-tall papier-mache effigy of the predator was burned to the ground.
"I cannot wait for the pike to be gone," she said. "The last eight years have been a real struggle for me because of the pike situation."
The community, near the northern headwaters of the Feather River in
In 1994, northern pike were illegally introduced into the lake, most likely by anglers who enjoyed fishing for them in the Midwest and
The torpedo-shaped fish soon took over the lake, hiding out in grassy areas and ambushing trout with their razor-sharp teeth. In 1997, a 23-inch pike was caught with a 16-inch trout in its stomach. The trout population has been devastated despite the yearly introduction of tens of thousands of hatchery fish.
The biggest fear among Fish and Game officials is that the pike will escape from the dam and imperil the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The marauders could destroy the already fragile salmon and steelhead populations in
Salmon runs in
"They will take over a system and change the ecology," he said.
This is the second time that state Fish and Game crews have used rotenone in an attempt to exterminate the pike. Spurred by a successful program to eliminate pike from nearby Frenchman Reservoir, fish and game officials proposed in 1997 to do the same thing in
The effort, however, turned into a public relations disaster when residents demanded to know and did not get what they felt were adequate answers about what was being put in their drinking water. Candlelight vigils were held, and 750 people marched to the lake the night before the poisoning began, screaming "baby killer" at state officials.
Portola's mayor pro tem, Bill Powers, and three others were arrested when they chained themselves to a buoy on the lake.
Helicopters buzzed overhead, and about 100 law enforcement officers, including sharpshooters, stood guard as the rotenone was put in the lake.
Fish and Game even dug wells so that the 2,227 people in town could bypass
Fish and Game officials have since held dozens of meetings with residents, community leaders and businesses and tried everything they could think of to rid the lake of the pike. Some 65,000 pike have been taken out of the lake since 2000, using everything from electroshock and fishing nets to targeted explosions, but the fish have been multiplying faster than they can be killed. Studies on draining the lake showed that, too, was impossible and even more environmentally destructive than the poisoning, officials said.
Numerous studies and environmental reports finally convinced most residents that the only solution was another dose of rotenone, a substance that is deadly to gill fish but is considered relatively harmless to people. Derived from the roots of a tropical plant in the bean family, it has been approved for fishery management by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"I've seen the evidence now that there are no public safety issues and that it is a necessary evil," said Powers, now a
In 1997, it all came down to no communication."
The rotenone was released in a white stream Tuesday through hoses trailing behind the boats. Over the past two weeks, 52 miles of tributaries feeding
Officials say that within five weeks, there will be no trace left of the substance.
There are still some in town who are opposed to using chemicals in the lake and killing the fish. State officials have closed off the forests and campgrounds around the lake for fear that eco-saboteurs might try to reintroduce pike, as many suspect could have happened in 1997. Several locals threatened to do just that, and persistent rumors tell of mountain men with fish ponds full of pike.
"Although we've been told the long-term effect of rotenone on other species is negligible, I'm not convinced," said a bearded 60-year-old resident of a cabin near the lake, who did not want to be identified.
Most of the 2,200 residents in town, however, believe they had no choice but to support Fish and Game in their effort to eradicate the pike, regardless of the collateral damage.
"I have to support it, not willingly, but if the pike are going to devastate the fishing industry, then we have to get rid of them," said Bill Spiersch, 75, as he sat on the porch of his home on a hill above the lake. "I sympathize with all the businesses here. It just wipes them out."
Claudia Wronker, who is on the Lake Davis Steering Committee, said a new water-treatment facility is being built, and by next year residents will be drinking lake water again. The lake, she said, is the town's lifeblood.
"We all depend on this water," said Wronker, 67, who has lived on nearby
Down by the lake Tuesday, more and more fish were bobbing up to the surface as the day went on, including one giant pike that officials said weighed close to 20 pounds. Catfish were swimming around, gulping for air. Mass death loomed as Pert and others crossed their fingers.
"If we don't eradicate the pike this time, it's probably impossible," Pert said. "I don't want to go through this again. I don't think anybody wants to go through this again."
Online resources
Learn more about efforts to exterminate the
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Facts about the voracious northern pike
Appearance: Northern pike have a long body and a head shaped similarly to a duck's bill. They have stout, sharp teeth and are generally green in color with yellowish specks. In
Range: Northern pike can be found in parts of northwestern Europe, northern Asia and the northern part of
Introduction: Scientists believe the pike was brought to
Habitat and spawning: Northern pike prefer water that is full of vegetation and less than 13 feet deep. They can survive brackish water. They spawn in the spring and may migrate from lakes to tributary streams. They occasionally spawn at age 1 year but most reach sexual maturity after 2 to 5 years.
Diet: Juvenile pike feed generally on aquatic insects, but as they grow they eat other fish. Scientists fear they could wipe out some salmon and steelhead runs if they get out of
Source: Data complied by the California Department of Fish and Game. #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/09/26/MNISSD6A3.DTL
Officials dump poison in Sierra lake to combat northern pike; The move is the latest tactic in the decade-long battle to eradicate the predatory fish from a reservoir near Portola
By Eric Bailey, staff writer
State crews were dumping more than 15,000 gallons of a Rotenone formulation into
"It's a really monumental effort," said state Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman, noting the numerous eradication attempts that led up to this.
The state first poisoned the lake in 1997, prompting outrage among Portola residents worried about the effects on their health, the drinking water supply and the local economy.
Pike reappeared within 18 months, and chastened state Department of Fish and Game officials worked hard over subsequent years to build a better relationship with community leaders. They tried just about every other possible remedy, including hiring commercial fishermen and using explosives and electric shocks, to rid the lake of pike.
When all that failed to stem the pike population explosion, officials decided to turn again to poison.
This time most local residents have grudgingly gone along, seeing the poisoning as a necessary evil to eradicate the pike and restore the
Authorities fear that the pike could escape downriver to wreak havoc on endangered species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a key source of water exports to
The lake poisoning began shortly after sunrise Tuesday, as a fleet of about two dozen boats hit the water loaded with big drums full of poison. A day earlier, crews had begun dumping Rotenone into the creeks and other tributaries where pike have been known to lurk.
By midmorning Tuesday, scores of dead fish were appearing along the shoreline. Authorities said they expect to have most of the fish netted and hauled off to a landfill by late this week.
"If we don't eradicate the pike this time, it's probably impossible to do," said Ed Pert, Fish and Game's
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pike26sep26,0,2842141.story?coll=la-home-center
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The early registration deadline is October 20.
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