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

[Brian Clemens]

Jason

Please understand that we not just I have voiced our concerns and we have given our feedback, and it all falls on deaf ears.

We have tried to come to a happy place with this project and well, we are just dumb uneducated fisherman with no degrees and the trrp is destroying my favorite whole. I just saw 400+yrs of valuable spawning and rearing habitat that use to hold fry to adults completely destroyed and now is a slow moving pond for their junky work. Rock placed with placed but the truck load everywhere, and to me looks like my old sand box that I used to play in dump sand into piles all over. I have been told that personally while asking questions, "well do you have an environmental or biology degree" of course I dont, "well we do and we know what we are talking about". But once again its hearsay, it's me being negative Nancy, it's me hearing rumors. Ok, ok, you are all so mighty mighty right and I am so mighty mighty wrong. I think if I was trusted to work on multi billion dollar aircrafts in the USAF, that I have enough brains upstairs to realize from right and wrong and what could, should and wont work.

Here is a question that comes up all the time, daily.
Why in the name of God must you deforest 100s of yardsworth of healthy greens from the back back just to work in and around the river? That's destroying more than just fish habitat.

I hope I can post these pics I took today to show you these "restoration projects" as it truly sickens me to see what they are doing. My phone takes very high rez pics so need to figure it out so you can see second.

If you want to see what this river use to look like, fish anywhere below Pigeon Point and you will see a true wild and scenic Trinity river compared to what man has made it to be above PP.

You all come float with me and I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about. Until then your opinions are yours to have, you have that right. But maybe you should come see it first hand.

Think what you want, but until you are up here season after season, seeing a river that was once untouched and molested chanhe year by year, getting shallower and warmer by the year, then I dont know what to tell you.

I'm done with this conversation as it seems I'm in the wrong, I dont know what the hell I'm talking about and everyone else is right and knows it all.

We shall see who contacts me for a float down the river.

[Fishtopher]

I just saw 400+yrs of valuable spawning and rearing habitat that use to hold fry to adults completely destroyed and now is a slow moving pond for their junky work.

...Why in the name of God must you deforest 100s of yardsworth of healthy greens from the back back just to work in and around the river? That's destroying more than just fish habitat.

No, you didn't. You saw about 50 years of encroached riparian vegetation and historic mining tailings that has effectively channelized the river. I have attached pictures from aerials from the TRRP website where you can see this riparian berm form. Look at the differences in the historical imagery. The Old Lewiston Bridge is on the right side of the picture for reference. Look at the increase in floodplain areas and the reduction of a riparian berm in the 2016 imagery compared to the 2001 and 1980 imagery. Take a look at the 1944 and 1960 (pre-dam) imagery, look at the size of the floodplain and notice there is very little riparian vegetation! The historical imagery can be found here: http://www.trrp.net/dataport/map/.

This berm needs to be removed in order for the river to reconnect to the floodplains. Mechanical channel rehabilitation is by far the quickest way to do this. The riparian vegetation is removed, the berm removed and floodplain lowered, and then suitable riparian vegetation is planted again. Yes it takes a few years for it to become established, but the few years of disturbance will be largely outweighed by the benefits. It looks no different than if a fire or major flood went through the area.

If you want to see what this river use to look like, fish anywhere below Pigeon Point and you will see a true wild and scenic Trinity river compared to what man has made it to be above PP.

The river is entirely different below Pigeon Point. The upper river never looked like the river below PP. The historical imagery shows that. Above PP, the river flows through a large alluvial valley, below it runs through a canyon until it hits Willow Creek. The TRRP has determined that the river acts semi-naturally below PP due to the canyon and tributary input and that is why they focus on the upper 40 miles of the river. Historically, most of the spawning occurred above the North Fork because of the good conditions for spawning in the valley. The TRRP is attempting to restore the river to an alluvial river which it was lost when the dam went in.

Frankly, its frustrating that you refuse to acknowledge any of the methods that have been studied for decades. Its frustrating that you and a few guides (a small minority by the way) refuse to acknowledge the expertise of the people working on this project. It's frustrating that you continue to criticize the TRRP without even attempting to understand the science behind these things. I know you have been given the opportunity to float with some of the designers and lead scientists. I've presented you with multiple metrics that the TRRP uses to evaluate itself. It doesn't do me much good to float the river with you when you refuse to acknowledge any of these things. Here is some quick background that may clear up some of your concerns:

"Regulated flows from the Trinity River Division dams have affected the river in numerous ways (see also Flow Overview). The regulated flows lack the force to maintain channel diversity and are unable to reach the historic floodplains. Steady low flows enabled vegetation to grow thickly on low banks of the river. Productive floodplain habitats became inaccessible to fish. Coarse gravel and large woody debris could no longer flow from the watershed past the dams and into the lower river.

Adding to this list of problems, a century of large scale dredge and hydraulic mining preceding the dams created very unnatural channel forms. Floods in the early- to mid-1900’s reworked some of the tailings piles, but flow regulation began long before the river could fully recover a natural form. Steep banks and high terraces remain common features on the river today.

The second element of the Program’s restoration strategy directs the creation of a dynamic alluvial channel exhibiting characteristics of the pre-dam river, but at a smaller scale. This rehabilitation of channel form is intended to work with flows over time to restore the river and its fisheries. This combination of channel rehabilitation and river flow is expected to reconnect the river to its floodplains, promote alternate bar sequences and low-velocity habitat for salmonid fry; increase habitat complexity; and allow the river to maintain itself as an alluvial system in both treated and untreated areas."
http://www.trrp.net/restoration/channel-rehab/

"Floods from winter storms and spring snow-melt previously acted as the ‘pulse’ of the river–freshing the channel, keeping banks from clogging with riparian vegetation, and enabling the river to reform itself following the large-scale mining that had severely altered the river.

The Trinity River Flow Evaluation Study of the 1990s showed that high flows are necessary on the Trinity River to maintain or restore salmon populations. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Interior directed that approximately 50% of the river’s water would remain in the river (not be diverted to the Central Valley) and that the Trinity River Restoration Program would recommend how water was to be released for the restoration of the river and its fisheries.

Restoration flows are intended to clean spawning gravels, build gravel/cobble bars, scour sand out of pools, provide adequate temperature and habitat conditions for fish and wildlife at different life stages, control riparian vegetation, and perform many other ecological functions. In order to mimic some of the inter-annual variation that is naturally found within the Trinity Basin. The ROD defines five water-year types along with the a minimum volume of water to be released into the Trinity River for each (see Typical Releases). The annual flow recommendation development process is described on our Current Flow Release Schedule page.

RESULTS

Sand Reduced
Prior to ROD flows, the Trinity had become a ‘fine sediment impaired river’. Sand volumes that once clogged spawning grounds are now cleared by Restoration Flow Releases. Extensive sediment, bed mobility and scour monitoring conducted on the restoration reach of the Trinity River shows that coarse sediment has increased and fine sediment has decreased in the River near Lewiston, CA. This findings marks important progress in TRRP’s objective of restoration the quantity and quality of habitat for salmon.

Sediments Mobilized
The aim to encourage more natural river processes can be measured by the rate at which gravel and cobble are transported through the river. Transport rates vary widely based on flow velocity, channel substrate and form, as well as many other factors, however monitoring shows that since restoration actions began sediments have been mobilized and are forming new features that promote healthy river processes.

Vegetation Scoured
High flow releases are intended to scour willows from the banks to prevent riparian berms from forming."

http://www.trrp.net/restoration/flows/

[Brian Clemens]

Dude come on man, give us all a break, anyone can copy and paste. Oh and by the way I never said I was floating up top today, so please dont assume. When I wrote that this morning I was floating down the river in the new project, below Evan's bar, did they drop a bomb. I did make a mistake as it should have read 400ft of valuable habitat not 400yrds.

You are right, myself as well as a few guides were given 1day to float with them, 1day, it was supposed to be 2 days, so that got changed. We wanted to float them up river and voice our concerns but they wanted to show us the new project, which is not what we wanted, so that was changed. They brought maps out that they could barely understand and they are the designers with engineering degrees, how are we supposed to understand it. We wanted to talk about the old projects, they wanted to talk about the new and future projects. While we got some info, they didnt want to hear our concerns about the upper river, the river becoming shallower and so on.

Sand, removed, wow, where are you getting your facts from. I physically sunk into sand today in few locations, and there are several sand bars strewn about just in the 2017 project.

Saw a crap ton of sediment everywhere today too from this new project, inches worth, almost like a soft mud. Surprised I havent seen any fish this year loaded with lamprey eels in their gills and on their bodies like i saw in 2017. Saw newly placed gravel bars from very fine sand to golf ball size rock that wasnt there just a couple months back, right before the new project, wonder where that gravel came from. This was in the 2017 project and where there was a very sharp unnatural bend in the river. All that will do is dump gravel at high flows and fill it in. There is sand all over the place in these projects, I have pictures to prove it. Dont tell me there is less sand when in there projects they are dumping fine tailings with rocks mixed in. I took lots of pics today, floated Evans to Baghdad section today just to see what has changed. I truly didnt want to see the project below Evan's but I did so i could get these pictures.

There is more than a select few of us that have issues with these projects. Maybe if they would work with us it would be a different story. The do not want to hear a word that we have to saw. Prove us wrong and let there be an open community type "non gathering" get the local ppl, business and guides involved. Is that something we will see?

I have said this many many times, I am for restoration projects, and have had my hand in several of them, but if you see what we see then you would question their every move and motive behind these projects.

Website information is 2 dimensional, it deals with a person inputting it, a person in the field getting it and who knows if anything has been fudged, not saying it is or isn't but for a multi million dollar project it better show that it's in the black right. Cuz God forbid these projects dont work.

Again come float the river with me, I'll keep my mouth shut and you can enlighten me. I'm all for learning something new if I am misunderstanding the project or lost in all the ugliness of it. I'll probably bring along one of the old timers if that's ok and we will see what we can all learn from each other. Probably need to be 2 to 3 days worth of floating. What you say you game?

Unfortunately I am unable to upload the photos from today but if anyone is interested in seeing them I'd be more than happy to email them to you. If I had my computer this wouldn't be an issue, but just cant figure it out with this smart phone.

[Brian Clemens]

One more thing to add, until the gill netting ends, and we all know how bad it is down there, until that stops, none of this restoration work means a dam. There is more than just sustenance netting going on down there, and I can sight that second hand.

This is getting old I'm going fishing.

Again let's go for a float, anytime.

[Brian Clemens]

Well here are 5 of 16 that I took today at the new project and the last 3 are of old projects.
I'll keep adding.

[Peter S]

Brian can be your greatest advocate or your worst nightmare, lol!

TRRP needs to find the means to get the stakeholder group reinstated and rebuild relationships, stat!

[Brian Clemens]

Here are pics 6 through 10
More to come

[Brian Clemens]

3 more of the new project.

3 more to come

[Brian Clemens]

Here are my last 3.

Showing fresh clean fines up to golf ball size. They weren't here just a few months prior, they have been recently placed from the new project. As you can see sand and fine tailings in them. This newly placed gravel were placed at a 90deg dog leg in the river. This general area has fill in a great deal and a good amount of it is fresh cleaned gravel. I wish I took a pic of how this run looks now compared to last year.

Next photo shows one of many new sand bars just in the 2017 project, which I believe was only a couple of football fields long.

Last shows an older project that has completely failed, there is a side channel on the other side of this "natural looking burm" that has filled in. There used to be a very large and deep hole in front of and to the right of this log pile (where my boat is). As you can see, hole is gone, its shallow there now, and where is all the gravel that was inside of those trees?

Lots of sand in all the pics shown, lots of loose gravel shown in the pics. The first few you can already see erosion happening to the work.

As far as the barricades go. They have been put in place because they wont be done by the Sept 1st date that was originally stated for this project. Should have spent a few days less clear cutting and more implementing of gravel. Well flows are bumping up to 2500 for the river dance down in Hoopa in Sept 1 and those barricades are there to help protect their unfinished work.

You got that right Peter, I will not stop. See you in Oct.

[Fishtopher]

Brian can be your greatest advocate or your worst nightmare, lol!

TRRP needs to find the means to get the stakeholder group reinstated and rebuild relationships, stat!

You can blame the Trump admin for the disbandment of the stakeholder group. That was a decision straight from Washington. To say that they don't listen to the stakeholders is not true either. It's kind of like how you smile and nod the guy standing on the street corner saying the world is about to end.