Winnemem leader challenges Feinstein's idea of 'peace on the river'

Winnemem leader challenges Feinstein's idea of 'peace on the river'

by Dan Bacher

In a letter to participants in the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), California Senator Dianne Feinstein praised the work done on the plan to build a peripheral canal and new dams, drawing criticism from Mark Franco, Headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.

"The work you collectively are undertaking on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is very important," said Feinstein. "This is the closest the state has been, in recent memory, to a meaningful resolution of its constant water supply issues, as well as providing for protection and restoration of our fisheries and the Bay-Delta ecosystems. I hope you will work together to achieve its promise."

She reported on her recent meeting with Jerry Meral, Deputy Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency in charge of the Bay Delta Conservation Planning program, saying she was "encouraged by the new state administration committment to new conveyance and storage opportunities."

"As you know, I am very concerned that California is headed towards becoming a desert state," she continued. "Sea level rise, lack of sufficient water storage, and increased forest fire all put our ecosystems and water supply at risk. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan has long seemed to me to be the best hope for 'peace on the river:' water supply reliability and restoration of the ecosystem."

Mark Franco challenged Feinstein's contention that the construction of the canal and new dams would lead to "peace on the river."

"Now if only the Senator would look at the entire effect of conveyance and storage on the tribe who has suffered because of the projects undertaken without compensation," said Franco. "The Winnemem wait for our 'Peace on the river.'"

"We understand that the desert she speaks of was a desert before and will be again: man can do nothing to stop that, but we can save the salmon and other fishes that indicate the future of us all!"

Until the day he left office, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger relentlessly campaigned for the construction of a peripheral canal and new dams to export more California Delta water to corporate agribusiness and southern California. Governor Jerry Brown and President Obama also support the construction of the highly unpopular canal/tunnel.

California Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists fear that the canal's construction will lead to the extinction of Sacramento River winter and spring run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, the southern resident population of killer whales and other imperiled species.

Tribe continues effort to restore winter run chinook to McCloud

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, along with opposing the peripheral canal and a plan to raise Shasta Dam, is trying to pressure the federal and state governments to support their plan to reintroduce McCloud winter run chinook salmon from New Zealand to the McCloud River above Shasta Lake. Thirty members of the Tribe went to New Zealand last spring to conduct joint ceremonies with the Maori people to bring salmon eggs from winter run chinook, now thriving in the Rakaira and other rivers, back to their native river.

"The salmon were introduced to the river from the fish hatchery on the McCloud in the 1870s and early 1900s," said Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu, at the annual Legislative Fisheries Forum in Sacramento on February 16. "The Ngai Tahu, the Maori Tribe with treaty rights over the salmon, are willing to work with us to return the fish back to the McCloud."

"These fish are of the same DNA as the original McCloud River chinook and they're disease-free," she said. "The New Zealand Fish and Game have given their support to the project. We need to establish a small conservation hatchery to raise the fish from eggs from New Zealand to be released back into the McCloud."

She said that the fish will be able to swim to the McCloud past Shasta Dam by connecting Dry Creek above the dam to Little Cow Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento below the dam, via a short channel. Water from the McCloud River would be channeled to these creeks and flow down to the Sacramento below the dam.

Returning adult chinook salmon would be able to enter these creeks and spill out into the reservoir near the mouth of the McCloud River. Once there, they would be cable to catch the scent of their birth waters and find their way home. There is currently about 1/4 mile of channel that would need to be created to make the connection between Cow Creek and Dry Creek and the lake.

To help the young fry to remember their home waters, Winnemem will rear the salmon in a small, open air hatchery until they're large enough to make the journey to the Pacific and fend off the myriad non-native predators that now inhabit the Sacramento River and the California Delta. The hatchery itself will be modeled on the hatchery on the Rakaira.

"The plan is simple, calls for a very small hatchery and would be far less expensive than the typical government plans to return salmon to traditional spawning grounds above the large dams," she said.

Sisk-Franco emphasized, "We have an obligation to restore the salmon - they are a gauge of how healthy the water is. What happens to the salmon, happens to us."

For more information and to find out how you can help the Winnemem bring their salmon home, visit http://www.winnememwintu.us, 530-275-2737, winnemem [at] gmail.com.