Salmon and steelhead spawning gravel at Sailor Bar. Here they go again...

[Brian Clemens]

In short, 70% of their projects fail, fill in, blow out or just plan dont work.
The river at fall 300cfs minimum flows is shallower now after the projects than it was at the previous minimum flow of 150cfs before the projects. How is the river getting shallower, the rock isn't magically falling from the sky, it's due to their poor placed rock, and horrible project structure. But they wont tell you that.

Look at the Lower Sac project above cypress bridge. If you didn't know that they did work there you would never know. Big rip rap at the front of the islands, they left all the vegetation on the islands including trees. That's how a project should look.

You cant completely rip the vegetation and trees off the areas that you are going to work, place rock in these areas and expect anything to hold. Not gonna happen.

This river is designated wild and scenic, sure doesnt look it with all their projects. You are trying to recreate a river predam, you cant do this when the max flow that can be pushed out of Lewiston is 14,500. Even with the max push, you are now putting people's homes in danger as some homes are close to flood stage at 14,500. 6k coming out of the dam doesnt push rock around and blow things out, it moves rock around and fills in holding water.

Holes like indian creek hole, cemetary hole, rush creek hole, grass valley creek hole all use to be much deeper and longer. Now pretty much filled in from their projects. You can put rock into a river and expect it to not move and travel. But again with a dam, we aren't seeing the flows of 50,60,100k like the river use to see predam. If we did, maybe these projects could work, but we dont, all it's doing is moving their placed rock and filling in all the holding water and making the river shallower. Shallower river, warmer river, unhealthy river and no habitat for spawning or rearing.

They have stated they will sacrifice spawning habitat for rearing habitat. We have seen that first hand with the last project above sky ranch. They said they would never mess with Sheridan riffle, one of the best natural spawning areas in the upper river. They have to drill pilot holes to see the substrate, of course all came back good with good river cobble. Well they start digging and it's all of a sudden all sand. You would think they would stop the project cuz of this find. Nope they have been paid so they have to keep going. Instead of fixing it properly with big rip rap so this sand doesnt erode, they cover their mistake up with more loose rock. I saw this first hand with my own eyes. Now this riffle has 75% less spawning salmon than it did before because this sand/rock covered 90deg wall is eroding into and over the riffle. Yes I said a 90deg curve in the river that they created, it wasn't there before the project. Who in their right mind builds a 90deg turn in a river and not expect it to fail, oh ya it was built by a computer. Ruin the best natural spawning habitat in the upper river for what, a few hundred yards of rearing habitat, bullshit. Oh forgot to mention the hole at the bottom of this riffle where fish would hold and rest while spawning used to be much deeper and a lot bigger, its has filled in 50% since this project in 2017. But again they wont admit it.

They do these projects as the spring run salmon are migrating up the river. The turbidity levels are hideous, sometimes less than 1" viz bit they will tell you they never go over their 20 ntu numbers, again bs.

They have answers for every question we have, they say all their projects are not hurting the river, the river isn't getting shallower, not getting warmer and these issues aren't because of their projects. They did admit the cemetary hole project was a bust, but they cant go back in and fix it, why? Did you spend all the money and have none left allocated for repair a fixed project, is it because you dont want to admit these projects the majority of the time don't work, nope its cuz they supposedly cant get a permit to go back in, bullshit.

There are supposed to be 3 phases to these projects, phase 1, implement project, phase 2 study so called project, phase 3 R&R so called project if needed. All they do is Phase 1 phase 1 phase 1 and phase 1. You need to study these projects, learn from your mistakes and fix them if needed.

These projects were suppose to be started in the secondaries where the majority of our wild winter fish spawn. But instead they are not working on the tribs, but the mainstem instead. Tribs of the trinity are a very important part of this ecosystem and need just as much if not more help that the mainstem.

Over the past 12years of fishing this river I have seen this upper river become a raceway for fish. Getting shallower each year, projects becoming filled in, dry with no flow and the rock placed in them gone. Where does that rock go, fills in all neccessary holding water needed for proper spawning. You cant float Bucktail to Steel bridge in the fall without banging the crap out of your boat and to some even getting stuck. Never was like that when I first started fishing and floating this river.

Complete waste of money and there are no checks and balances put in place for this project. No one will touch it with a 10ft pool, but I wont mention why, but deals with those that live at the mouth of the trinity and in that general area. 9 different agencies and they have figured out the loop holes to do these projects. They even pay off land owners to access the river from their private property to do these projects. How is that legal.

A little more long winded than I wanted to be, but it sad to see what is happening to this river in the upper stretch. Do yourself a favor and float it and see what I'm talking about. Hate to see this river destroyed, it's a phenomenal fishery and ecosystem and dont want to see it destroyed.

It would be nice if they had a few non trrp paid employees out there helping them and giving advise, but that will never happen. Oh ya and these projects use to be bidded out, not anymore. Now its given thos the indians to do the work. Who knows their qualifications behind heavy equipment.

[Darian]

Good (emotional at times) discussion. I've digested the info provided by all and want to make a preliminary observation; I think I understand the purpose of adding gravel, etc., too systems and what the anticipated result will be over the long run as evidenced by the stats provided. However, I've seen no mention of project performance standards or what constitutes a failure. Further, what, if any, action would be taken/planned if a failure is identified (adaptive management)???

Brian Clemens raised an interesting point concerning project impact(s) on short-term local economy or, as in the case of TRRP, potential flooding of businesses/homes. In Brians case, it sounds like he's talking about potential loss of income from guiding when clients fail to materialize or potential damage to his boat(s)/gear. For local motels/ B&B's, etc., potential loss of income. Are those type concerns and mitigation, if needed, considered in projects of this nature???

[Brian Clemens]

Darin

As far as flooding, I was referring to flows and how close houses are to the banks on the trinity. The amount of water that we need to flow down the trinity to help properly move around gravel would not only erode more bank side property which is already a huge issue, but it will put water into homes. Most projects work when there is excessive amounts of water to scourer out these projects and holes creating more and better habitat. Instead there is no scouring like we see on the yuba, just a pushing of rock down the river filling in great holding water needed for migrating and spawning fish.

As far as business goes, there has been talk about them fluctuating flows in the winter months to mimic natural occurring flows above the dams. Our argument is we already have that with the current tribs starting has high as dog wood creek near the hatchery. There are over a dozen tribs just between lewiston dam and the canyon. There is your natural occurring AF, atmospheric flows. By doing what they want to do, which is ramp up the flows coming out of the dam, what if we are seeing 10k above indian creek from the run off from the upper tribs, now you want to add 2k or more to that flow or more, that's just asking for trouble. Let's say there is no af, going on, well now you have made a river unnaturally unfishable, causing loss of revenue for the entire community, not just the guides, this would last for at least 5 days, and they want to do it every few weeks. Stupid. The only part of the river that would get any help from this flow change would be from dog wood creek up, so call it the fly only water, pointless.

I am all about restoration if done properly and within legal means as well as working with the community. But this isn't happening up there. We suggest things and we feel they go out of their way to mess up our suggestions. There have been a few projects where we have said that's not a good idea, or dont go and alter that location because it's a major spawning area or holding area for fish waiting to go up a trib, or just great holding water, and they go right in the following project and purposely screw it up.

Again I'm all for restoring a river and believe it needs to happen in tailwater river systems cuz we dont have the flows predam to move around gravel, even to the point where I'd be willing to loose money for these projects to work. But when the projects make no sense, look like crap and all they do is ruin a river, then I am not ok with it.

Trust me when I say I am not the only one that feels this way about the trrp. I talk to the old timers and they show me pics of how it was before the trrp projects, and it's crazy how much the river has changed for the worse.

Just a waste of money that if spent properly could do great things for that river. But the wrong ppl have their hands in the cookie jar and they wont let it go. There are many ppl that have retired under this project, and are doing extremely well for themselves.

Ask yourself this, why on most restoration projects do they allow outside input from locals, guides, fisherman and just outdoorsman in general. Even letting them help in the project. Why doesnt the trrp? Hiding something? No checks and balances, no way to see how that money is being spent. I've never heard of a restoration project paying landowners to use their private property to access the river to do work. All of the projects besides the trinity river have all been on county, state or BLM land where proper permitting is required and proper osha standards are required when entering the river.

[Fishtopher]

Good (emotional at times) discussion. I've digested the info provided by all and want to make a preliminary observation; I think I understand the purpose of adding gravel, etc., too systems and what the anticipated result will be over the long run as evidenced by the stats provided. However, I've seen no mention of project performance standards or what constitutes a failure. Further, what, if any, action would be taken/planned if a failure is identified (adaptive management)???

Brian Clemens raised an interesting point concerning project impact(s) on short-term local economy or, as in the case of TRRP, potential flooding of businesses/homes. In Brians case, it sounds like he's talking about potential loss of income from guiding when clients fail to materialize or potential damage to his boat(s)/gear. For local motels/ B&B's, etc., potential loss of income. Are those type concerns and mitigation, if needed, considered in projects of this nature???

Darian, there are many performance measures listed on the TRRP website or within the foundational documents. YC and myself have given multiple metrics related to fish production that the majority of users care about. Straight from the TRRP website: "The TRRP was established by the Record of Decision (2000) as an adaptive management program. The Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management (AEAM) component of the Program is meant to provide interdisciplinary information for developing and testing hypotheses regarding how the river is responding to restoration work undertaken by the TRRP."

The NEPA documentation goes into all the analyses associated with the program. There is a big problem with communication between the stakeholders and the TRRP currently due to the loss of public stakeholder group which was disbanded by the Trump administration. You can't blame the TRRP for that. There also is the Scientific Advisory Board which is a group of outside scientists who peer-review most of the work coming out of the TRRP. A common theme in this thread is the lack of transparency or oversight which is not accurate at all. Remember since they are a federal partnership, they are subject to FOIA requests.

Almost every statement that Brian has made is a mischaracterization of reality. There are projects going on in tribs, they are evaluating projects as they build them, they are permitted for everything through NEPA, the only homes that are flooding were built without proper permits and/or built on the floodplain, the current flows move rocks, they have been under turbidity thresholds, etc. I could go on and on, but all these things are easily available on the website or can easily be asked for.


“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Issac Asimov

[Brian Clemens]

Fishtoper or what ever your name is, hmmmmm someone with all the answers, would you like to float the trinity. I'll give you a free ride anytime and show you these so called working projects. I'll have one or a few of the old timers go with us and they can tell you what is or isn't a restoration project, and how they are destroying what use to be a wild and scenic river.

With a flow regime like what they have on the trinity, it will never become what it use to be with that regime and dam in place. Thousands of CFS is what moves rock and creates habitat in a river not a dozen. So instead of trying to create a river predam let's work within our cfs regime and what we currently have in the river. Leveling a river and building along its banks does not create habitat, it destroys it and I'm not talking about just the fish.

Oh and this has absolutely nothing to do with politics, this has everything to do with protecting our fisheries from being destroyed. I never once bashed you or your knowledge of what ever you may know or dont know. I gave you my opinion and what I have seen first hand over the past 12yrs on the Trinity. I have talked to those that have 30+yrs on this river and they would have a lot more to say to your information. Your opinion is your opinion, oh and by the way it's pretty easy to falsify documentation to make it look good. I can tell you most definitely 2yrs ago they were out of turbidity tolerances, this came from. Person that works on the projects, there were other things said out of his mouth but I am keeping that as ammunition for the future.

By the way never said houses are flooding, I'm saying that if they were to go through these flow fluctuations like they are trying to get approved there are possibilities that some houses could get water in them.

But once again come float the river with me and I'll show you exactly what I am talking about.

Actually better yet, come up right now, I have the next 3 days available, hows that sound. Or maybe next month when I'm up here mid Sept, or early Oct, maybe end of Oct or early to mid Nov. What ever works best for you. No better way to see these projects that have failed over the years than firsthand. No better way to see the swallowing of the river from these projects than firsthand on a float with knowledgeable ppl.

That is an open invitation......would you like to take me up on it.

[WLREDBAND]

Ummmmmmmmm, dude, Fishtopher is a professional biologist with a MS degree in fisheries biology, and is on the river working more days than you. He doesn't need you to show him around, he already knows it.

[Brian Clemens]

Well maybe he does. That's great he has a degree, I'm on the water 250+ days a year, a good number of those on the trinity. If their projects work so well and are so successful and they learn from their mistakes then why can I rattle off at least a dozen failed projects that will never get fixed or repaired. A degree is all good and dandy, doesnt mean anything when a river is being destroyed by these so called successful projects.

The trinity river is shallower plan and simple, it's getting warmer plan and simple, the only rock that is being implemented into the river is by the trrp and no where else.

I'm not gonna sit here and argue with anyone, I see it with my own two eyes on the trinity and the American.

[WLREDBAND]

Ummmm, dude, there is your definition of failed, and then there are other definitions from other people. I've been fishing the Trinity since the 1970's and went through the dark years pre-trrp. Back in the 1990's, before trrp, you wouldn't be able to make a living as a guide, because there weren't many steelhead. I know because I was there. I am an old timer who thinks the TRRP has been a great success story, contrary to your claims.

[Brian Clemens]

Well you sir are one of maybe a few, cuz I myself fish with and know of a few guides that have been fishing and guiding it for 30+yrs and they will admit while the numbers were low, the river was untouched by mans hands and was pristine, not anymore. And if you have fished it pre trrp then you have to admit this river is shallower and warmer than it once was. As far as numbers of fish, the hatchery has a huge roll in that.

They will tell you they are trying to create a coastal river, a coastal river doesnt have 90 deg bends and doesnt meander all over the place, plus this river was and never will be a coastal river because it simple isn't now and wasn't before trrp, it's a freaking tributary and a TAILWATER tributary at that. I must restore it given what we have now, now trying to recreate something that never was or never will be.

Again I'm all for restoration if done properly with the conditions of the river now, which includes, dams, flow regimes, current natural spawning habitats and rearing habitats and so on.

Also do they really need to completely deforest the river banks 100yrds from the banks. You know what that does, it creates erosion.

Its opinions and arsholes we all have them and they all stink. I'll stick to what I see and believe and so can you. Agree to disagree, but you can bet that I will not go down without a fight for this river.

By the way I know who he is, and he knows who I am. He also know my feelings about the project including another's that are the same boat as I. I am not discrediting his knowledge one bit, I'm just speaking on what I see year in and year out. It's not all about numbers of fish, it's about a healthy ecosystem that has an abundance of spawning and rearing habitat as well as healthy tribs.

[JasonB]

So this has been a mostly interesting discussion, with some good information exchanged imo. I think the debate on the TRRP has devolved from a realistic and honest difference of opinions into a mixmash of exaggeration and flat out false criticisms. I am no fisheries biologist, nor am I an “expert” at much of anything, though I have probably spent as high a percentage of my life in and around rivers as any living person here (probably far more honestly). I have had some personal/professional experience with the TRRP, and I have to say that from Brian’s posts the criticisms layed out sound like those of someone who does not very well understand the goals or achievements of the restoration process. I don’t mean that as a personal offense, just an honest opinion that I find some of the inaccuracies of these comments and criticisms as either a bit uninformed or disingenuous.
Brian, there are lots of very intelligent, informed people working on that project who care A LOT about improving the overall heath of the Trinity River and its fish. Quite a few are very avid outdoorsman/women, anglers, locals, concerned people, etc. Maybe there are limitations to what they can/can’t do, perhaps a mistake or two has been made, maybe these efforts are not substantial enough to reconcile the severity of impact of the dam, etc. No doubt there are fair criticisms to be lobbed, no one person or project is perfect; but this is NOT some grand evil scheme, and those dedicated to the TRRP are not our enemies. Your comments came off to me as if you are talking about a bunch of government “boogeymen” determined to ruin every last fishing hole on the river. Whatever your concerns, these kinds of comments are not helpful or productive imo.

FWIW, I have my own concerns regarding any attempts we humans make to recreate, or restore a natural thriving ecosystem. My philosophical opinion is that there is usually more to it than we are able to comprehend or replicate. On the other hand, I have to say that I see these restoration efforts as a huge positive step in the right direction! No; we can never replace what once was before the dams on the Trinity (or The American, or the Yuba, the Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Feather...etc); but this is at the very least an attempt at reversing some of the damages done by our dams. From my own limited exposure, I’m very encouraged by many of the results that I have seen first hand. If any of you who are smarter than I have better specific actions and projects to improve habitat, I would love to get behind it! Seriously!!! I think it’s key to come at this from the stated priority of building fish habitat first, with our own personal (or professional) interests second. I believe we are all on that same page there, so keeping that perspective front and center to discussions such as these might help towards improving our ability to make positive impacts.

Cheers,
JB