The Impacts of the State and Federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Acts

THE IMPACTS OF THE STATE AND FEDERAL WILD AND SCENIC RIVERS ACTS

IN CONSERVATION EFFORTS

ON CALIFORNIA’S TRINITY RIVER

————————

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University, Chico

————————

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirement for the Degree

Master of Arts

History

————————

Michael I. Muraki

Fall 2018 THE IMPACTS OF THE STATE AND FEDERAL WILD AND SCENIC RIVERS ACTS

IN CONSERVATION EFFORTS

ON CALIFORNIA’S TRINITY RIVER

A Thesis by

Michael I. Muraki

Fall 2018

APPROVED BY THE INTERIM DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES:

______Sharron A. Barrios, Ph.D.______

APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Michael F. Magliari, Ph.D., Chair______

______Jesse A. Dizard, Ph.D.______

______Timothy G. Sistrunk, Ph.D.______TABLE OF CONTENTS ———————————————————————————————————————

PAGE

List of Figures ...... iv

Abstract ...... v

CHAPTER

Introduction ...... 1

I. Planning for the Future, The Water Bank of California: 1957-1972 ...... 12

II. The California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the Fight to Preserve the North-

Coast Rivers: 1968-1972 ...... 40

III. The Impacts of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Acts of the Trinity River:

1972-1981 ...... 76

IV. Impacts of the Wild and Scenic River Dual Designation on the Trinity River:

1981-2018 ...... 162

Conclusion ...... 181

Bibliography ...... 193

iii

LIST OF FIGURES ———————————————————————————————————————

Figure 1. Schematic map of runoff: North Coastal Area 3

Figure 2. Map of the geographic distribution of precipitation and runoff in 4 California

Figure 3. Map of the Trinity River Division and neighboring Shasta Division 6

Figure 4. Map of proposed and existing components of a state water in 1957 16

Figure 5. Map of the possible staging of major projects in the north coastal area 20 and west side Sacramento Valley 1964

Figure 6. Schematic of possible features of Trinity River Development in 1964 21

Figure 7. Photograph of Governor Ronald Reagan signing S.B. 107. 74

Figure 8. Map of rivers designated under the CWSRA and their classifications 78

Figure 9. Projected growth of electrical energy by primary source in 1970 104

Figure 10. Graph of California’s population and applied water use from 1960 to 109 2015

Figure 11. Map of the segments of the Smith River originally requested for 141 designation by California in 1980

Figure 12. Map of California’s wild and scenic rivers granted federal designation 142 in 1981

ABSTRACT ————————

River conservationists often proclaim the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and its state counterpart, the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, to be the most effective river-specific pieces of conservation legislation in the United States. The Trinity River, situated in northern

California, was designated as “wild and scenic” under the state act in 1972 and the federal act in

1981. This study recounts the narrative of the Trinity River’s relationship with the state and federal

Wild and Scenic Rivers acts with the goal of evaluating the impacts of both laws on the river and its struggling salmon and steelhead populations.

While its inclusion in the state and federal wild rivers systems was symbolically important as the codification of intensifying public and institutional concern for the health and aesthetics of river ecosystems, this study finds that the acts had only modest practical impacts on conservation efforts along the Trinity River.

Although the laws provided the river with its only formal protections from additional dams and reservoirs, a myriad of other factors suggest that it was highly unlikely that the numerous proposed water impoundment facilities would have been built, regardless of the Trinity’s wild and scenic designations. Because of public and institutional concern for the river’s anadromous fishery, most managing agencies were already taking precautions to prevent harming the river’s ability to support natural fish populations. Most importantly, neither acts contained the language to require the restriction of water diversions by the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project.

INTRODUCTION ————————

Prior to 1964, any raindrop that fell within the Trinity River’s 2,900 square mile watershed would eventually make its way to the Pacific Ocean through the mouth of the Klamath River.1 A raindrop that fell on the west side of Middle Ridge just six miles west of present day Interstate 5, for example, would trickle into the East Fork of the Trinity, glide gently through Trinity Meadows, meander westward through the mountains among the Wintu people, and tumble over large boulders deep within the Burnt Ranch Gorge. It would then flow past villages of the Hupa tribe, meet the Klamath River within the Yurok territory, and finally drop the last 190 vertical feet on its way to present day Klamath Glen on the Pacific coast. The Hupa, Yurok, and Wintu all relied upon the spring and fall runs of salmon and steelhead to sustain their impressive populations. Periodic flooding during the winter and spring would regularly provide these anadromous fish with the cold-water temperatures they needed to journey upstream as well as the gently sloping coarse gravel bars that furnished suitable spawning grounds and fry rearing habitat.

The Trinity was included within a distinct hydrologic region that water experts called the

North Coastal Area. The North Coastal Area encompassed all northern rivers that flowed directly into the Pacific Ocean, rather than converging with the Sacramento River and flowing out of the

San Francisco Bay Estuary. The major river systems in the region, the Smith, Klamath, Mad, Eel, and Russian rivers, flowed westward from their sources directly to the Pacific. The region also included numerous smaller independent watersheds such as the Mattole, Navarro, and Gualala

1 The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Watershed Planning Chapter (Santa Rosa, California, February 2005), 177.

2 rivers and Redwood Creek. The Trinity, Salmon, and Scott rivers, although commonly referred to as distinct watersheds, are instead major tributaries of the Klamath River, while the Van Duzen flows into the Eel River. The Trinity, the Klamath’s largest tributary, represented the region’s third largest river by volume. The Trinity contributed one-third to one-half of all anadromous fish in the

Klamath River system.2 Collectively, the north coast rivers accounted for 40 percent of

California’s total average surface water runoff.3

Although the Trinity River watershed was frequented by trappers and explorers in the

1830s and 1840s, white settlement did not begin in earnest until the California Gold Rush. The century that followed proved disastrous for both the Native American and anadromous fish populations along the Trinity basin. Extensive hydraulic mining and dredging operations, a prospering timber industry, and increasing commercial fishing activities decimated salmon and steelhead runs. Similarly, conflicts with whites during the second half of the 19th century, disease, and declining anadromous fish populations drove the local Wintu to near extinction and confined the Yurok and Hupa to reservations in the lower Trinity and Klamath river basins.

As early as 1911, federal and state officials began recognizing the potential for electricity generation and water storage within the Trinity watershed. A series of plans during the 1920s suggested that this potential be realized. Although these early plans were shelved due to lack of sufficient market need, water planners continued to consider the Trinity and other rivers within the north coastal area as the “water bank” of California. Proponents of dams on the Trinity eventually found a powerful ally in the late 1940s in north state Representative Clair Engle. Thanks to Engle’s

2 “Andrus Gives Trinity Higher Flows, Wild Status,” Trinity Journal, January 22, 1981.

3 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 3-57: The California Water Plan, prepared by the Division of Resources Planning, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, 1957): 12.

Ddddddd Figure 1. “Schematic Map of Runoff: North Coastal Area,” in Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64: Preliminary Edition: North Coastal Area Investigation, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, September 1964).

4 asdf

Figure 2. “Geographic Distribution of Precipitation and Runoff.” Note that the Shaded arrows represent the regions’ proportional share of total statewide runoff. In The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 3-57: The California Water Plan, prepared by the Division of Resources Planning, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, 1957).

5 fervent support, Congress approved The Trinity River Division (TRD) of the Central Valley

Project (CVP) in January 1953.4 Completed in 1964, the TRD included the construction of Clair

Engle (Trinity) Dam and Reservoir, Lewiston Dam and Reservoir, the Clear Creek Tunnel,

Whiskeytown Dam and Reservoir, and the Spring Creek Tunnel and Siphon. This system redirected Trinity River water from the Klamath River watershed eastward into the Sacramento

River in the California Central Valley.

The Bureau of Reclamation originally planned to divert 660,000 acre-feet, or 52 percent of the river’s flow, at the point of diversion, for irrigation purposes in the San Joaquin Valley. By the

1990s, the project was authorized to use 865,000 acre-feet, or 69 percent of the flow. In practice, however, 72-90 percent of the river’s total volume at Lewiston was being diverted for use by San

Joaquin Valley users such as the powerful Westlands Water District in Fresno County.5 Thus, in

1985, a raindrop that fell on the west side of Middle ridge had up to a 90 percent chance of being diverted from the Trinity River watershed east to the Sacramento system and south towards the

San Joaquin Valley. On its 500 or so mile journey south, it might pass through five reservoirs, four major power generation facilities, and be pumped uphill three times before it reached its final destination. These diversions did not occur, however, without protests. A series of conservation measures beginning with the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 and culminating in the

4 Dane J. Durham, How the Trinity River Lost its Water, 2005, 11-21, accessed April 19, 2017, http://www.northtrinitylake.com/water/HowTrinityRiveLostItsWater.pdf.

5 U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Trinity Division Central Valley Project, prepared by Eric A. Stene, 1996. https://web.archive.org/web/20161009163408/http://www.usbr.gov/projects//ImageServer?imgN ame=Doc_1303395907001.pdf.

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Figure 3. “Trinity River Division and Neighboring Shasta Division.” Note that from 1964 to 1997, Trinity Reservoir was named Clair Engle Lake. In “Diversion Facilities and Operations,” Trinity River Restoration Program, accessed October 30, 2018, http

7 passage of the Trinity River Restoration Project in 2000 would challenge these water diversions and ultimately grant more generous flows primarily to restore native anadromous fish populations.

During the 1950s, when the TRD was approved, the river conservation movement was nascent and localized. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, it had gained nationwide organization and influential supporters.6 In 1968, Congress passed the National Wild and Scenic

Rivers Act (NWSRA) to protect rivers that possessed “outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values.” The NWSRA immediately designated 775 river miles on the Clearwater in Idaho (185 miles), the Eleven Point in Missouri (44), the Middle Fork Feather in California (78), the Rio Grande in New Mexico (56), the Rogue in Oregon (85), the Middle Fork Salmon in Idaho (104), and the St. Croix (104) and

Wolf (24) rivers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. These designated stretches, the act stated, “shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations.”7 The NWSRA provided a flexible, but vague, framework for designating and protecting additional stretches of river. The federal agencies managing the affected sections at the time of designation, used a proposed river section’s outstandingly remarkable values, or ORVs, as well as its previous level of development, to classify and designate it as either “wild,” “scenic,” or “recreational.” Management strategies varied widely depending on a river’s classification, existing management agencies, and land use profile. While the NWSRA did not immediately designate the Trinity as wild and scenic, it did

6 Tim Palmer, Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement. 2nd ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 95.

7 An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968): 906-918.

8 create the possibility of a future designation and also provided a blueprint for an analogous state protection system.

In the late-1960s, grandiose state and federal plans to harness the north coast rivers’ flows with a series of large dams and reservoirs provoked tenacious state-wide and local opposition efforts. All major schemes involving transfers of water among major river basins in California, and many proposed regional interstate transfers, included the large undeveloped water supplies of

California's north coastal region.8

Chapter 1, encompassing the years 1957 to 1972, will examine these ambitious state and federal designs to impound the northern rivers and will consider the reasons they failed to materialize by the early-1970s. In 1972, the California state legislature passed the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (CWSRA), immediately protecting more than 1,200 miles on the Klamath

(286 miles), Trinity (203), Eel (394), Smith (340), and American rivers (23).9 Although the

CWSRA mirrored the language and intent of the NWSRA, it did not interact with its Federal counterpart except as a pathway towards federal designation by the U.S. Secretary of Interior.

Chapter 2, covering from 1967 to 1972 roughly, will explore the efforts to establish a state-level river protection program that ultimately resulted in the passage of the CWSRA. Chapter 3 will analyze the impacts of the CWSRA’s designation on conservation efforts on the Trinity River until

1981, when U.S. Secretary of State, Cecil D. Andrus, utilizing a previously underutilized

“secretarial designation” method, added the Trinity and other northern rivers into the NWSRA.

Chapter 4 will examine Andrus and California Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown’s campaign

8 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 105-66: Developing the North Coast: An Action Program: Progress Report, Department of Water Resources, December 1966, 1-3.

9 California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Public Resource Code, Division 5, Chapter 1.4.

9 to include the north coast rivers in the NWSRA, as well as the staunch opposition to their actions from 1980 to 1985. Finally, Chapter 5 will analyze the impacts that the state and federal wild and scenic designations have had on the “federally designated, state administered” Trinity River from

1981 to 2018.

This paper has two main goals: to fill in narrative gaps left by previous scholarship regarding both the passage and implementation of these pieces of legislation, as they pertain to the north coast rivers, and to determine the impacts that both state and federal wild and scenic rivers designations have had on the Trinity River. Scholars have not thoroughly chronicled the inclusion of the north coast rivers in the state and federal WSRAs. The most applicable pieces of literature on the subject are Ted Simon’s The River Stops Here: Saving Round Valley, A Pivotal Chapter in

California’s Water Wars, Tim Palmer’s Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement, and

Dane Durham’s unpublished manuscript, “How the Trinity River Lost Its Water.”10 In The River

Stops Here, Simon chronicled the fight to save Round Valley from the proposed Dos Rios Dam on the Eel River. The struggle over Dos Rios constituted the first and most important success in

California’s river conservation movement. Additionally, the struggle directly inspired the passage of several river-specific protection programs including the CWSRA. Tim Palmer, a photographer, writer, and ardent river advocate, continues to add to an impressive list of publications concerning the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and other related topics. While Palmer has written

10 Ted Simon, The River Stops Here: Saving Round Valley, A Pivotal Chapter in California’s Water Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Tim Palmer, The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America (Covelo, California, Island Press: 1993); and Tim Palmer, Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.: 2004); and Tim Palmer, Wild and Scenic Rivers: An American Legacy (Corvallis, Oregon State University Press: 2017); and Dane J. Durham, How the Trinity River Lost its Water, 2005, 11-21, accessed April 19, 2017, http://www.northtrinitylake.com/water/HowTrinityRiveLostItsWater.pdf.

10 extensively on the NWSRA, none of his works focus on the story of the state and federal acts’ designations of the north coast rivers. Finally, Dane Durham, an attorney from Sonoma County, thoroughly chronicled the history of the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project and its impacts on the Trinity River. The river’s wild and scenic rivers status, however, was entirely absent from Durham’s account.

While exploring this narrative, this paper also seeks to accomplish its second main goal, which is to determine the impacts that both state and federal wild and scenic rivers designations have had on the Trinity River. The California Congressional Research Bureau (CRB), in a study of state-only designated rivers, identified four ways in which the CWSRA could potentially affect state, federal, local, and private conduct on designated rivers. These include modifying the operation of existing, or preventing the creation of new, hydro-projects; conferring special recognition of the rivers’ value; affecting the regulation of projects and activities in and around rivers; and altering the state and federal roles in a given watershed.11 This study will utilize similar criteria to determine the impacts of the CWSRA, from 1972 to present, and both acts, from 1981 to the present, on conservation efforts on the Trinity. The CRB report, along with the acts’ authors, identified dam prevention as the most impactful provision within the acts. This study will therefore place a special emphasis on the extent that the acts prevented the planning and construction of further water impoundment facilities on the Trinity but will also consider other potential impacts.

By evaluating these impacts, it will answer two separate but interrelated questions. First, have the

Wild and Scenic designations achieved the goals that the acts’ authors intended? Second, have the acts functioned as a comprehensive river protection program?

11 Daniel Pollack to Lois Wolk: Re: California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, April 11, 2005, Sacramento, California, p. 2, accessed April 19, 2017. https://www.rivers.gov/documents/impacts- california-wild-scenic-rivers-act.pdf.

River advocates venerate wild and scenic designations. “Designation as a national wild and scenic river,” Tim Palmer declared, “is the ultimate protection for a river, the clearest statement under law that we, as a people, have decided that this river should remain with its qualities intact.”12

This study, however, finds that state and federal designations had only moderate impacts on conservation efforts on the Trinity River. The laws fulfilled their primary function of preventing additional water impoundment facilities on the Trinity River. Their fundamental deficiency, however, resulted from the reality that the Trinity’s essential qualities were not “intact” at the time of the river’s designation under either statute. The Trinity River Division of the Central Valley

Project had already devastated the Trinity’s anadromous fishery. The laws’ language prohibited them from affecting the already existing project and its massive diversions of the Trinity’s flows.

This analysis suggests that, like their authors intended, these laws effectively prevent the further degradation of river segments. River advocates who intend the acts to serve as a means to restore an already damaged river, however, will be disappointed. A better understanding of the north coast rivers’ paths to designation under both the state and federal acts as well as their impacts on the

Trinity River will allow river advocates to more efficiently allocate their time and resources in selecting segments of river that would most benefit from state or federal designations.

12 Palmer, The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America, 8.

CHAPTER 1 ————————

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE, THE WATER BANK OF CALIFORNIA: 1957-1972

Since the completion of the Trinity River Division in December 1963, sportsmen, environmental advocates, and governmental agencies have struggled to maintain the quality of the fishery below Lewiston Dam. Many who currently fight to preserve the Trinity are unaware that during the 1960s state and federal agencies planned extensive hydro-projects with adverse environmental consequences that would have dwarfed those created by the TRD. Illustrative elevation schematics of these physically interlinked projects resembled a staircase beginning at sea-level and climbing nearly three-thousand feet. If these grand schemes had been realized, twenty-first-century fishermen and river advocates would have no visible river to save. The north coast’s anadromous fish could no more climb these proposed dams than they could the three- thousand-foot staircase they resembled. Many of these proposed massive hydro-projects, such as the Ah Pah Dam and Reservoir on the Klamath, were far-fetched and most likely would never have materialized. Water planning agencies, however, seriously considered and planned for other major diversions on the Eel, Trinity, Mad, and Van Duzen rivers, the still largely untapped “water bank” of California.

Until the late 1960s, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the United

States Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) considered further projects on the Trinity and other north coast rivers to be both necessary and inevitable. As late as 1968, William Gianelli, the Director of the DWR from 1967 to 1973, articulated the agency’s viewpoint regarding the development of the north coast rivers:

With regard to the possibility of developing water supplies on north coastal streams other than the Eel, the department’s studies indicate that it is not a case of the Eel or the Trinity rivers but rather a matter of timing of construction or development. Both streams will be needed to meet long-range projections of future statewide water demands. In fact, projects on the Klamath River as well as Trinity will eventually be needed.13

According to DWR’s California Water Plan bulletins, the agency’s stance shifted significantly within two years of Gianelli’s statement. By 1970, the DWR found it difficult to reasonably justify any additional projects on the north coast rivers. So too did the DWR’s federal counterparts. By

1972, both the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) refused to recommend the construction of additional projects on the Trinity. Finally, as will be discussed in

Chapter 3, the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, passed in November 1972, effectively prohibited further construction on the Trinity. A thorough investigation of the 1960s proposals and the reasons for their collapse is essential to determining the most important impact of a wild and scenic designation—the prevention of additional hydro-projects and diversions.

Consequently, this chapter will discuss these ambitious hydro-developments on the Trinity and other north coast rivers, the extent to which state and federal agencies planned them, and the reasons why they failed to materialize by the early 1970s. While private speculators had long considered plans to divert water from the north coast to water deficient areas in California, the decade of the 1960s saw a massive push by state and federal agencies to utilize the north-coast water. By the late 1960s the California Department of Water Resources, the U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had scheduled the construction of major water storage and diversion facilities on all of the remaining free-flowing rivers in Northern California.

By the early 1970s, however, the growth of the modern environmental movement and

13 Ted Simon, The River Stops Here: Saving Round Valley, A Pivotal Chapter in California’s Water Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 285.

14 corresponding public concern over the environmental impacts of the projects, planning agencies’ acknowledgement of their impacts on fish and wildlife, as well as shifting population demographics halted or delayed the planning and construction of these major diversions.

In 1947, the California State Legislature authorized the State-wide Water Resources

Investigation. Bulletins No. 1 and No. 2, published by the State Water Resources Board (SWRB), as well as Bulletin No. 3, published by the Department of Water Resources (DWR), formed in

1956, detailed the state’s investigation that led to California’s first truly comprehensive independent water plan. Bulletin No. 1, entitled “Water Resources of California” and published in

1951, provided a comprehensive inventory of data concerning precipitation, runoff, flood flows and frequencies, and water quality.14 Bulletin No. 2, published in 1955 and entitled “Water

Utilization and Requirements of California,” catalogued present consumption and predicted the state’s “ultimate” water needs.15 The investigation culminated in the 1957 Bulletin No. 3 entitled the “California Water Plan.”16

While the California Water Plan (CWP) is best known as the basis for the State Water

Project (SWP), it also envisioned a highly-developed North Coastal hydrographic region. The plan reported that the surplus of Northern California water could meet the demands of the San Francisco

Bay Area, the Central Coast, the San Joaquin Valley, and the areas to the south of the Tehachapi

Mountains and stated that “continuing development of these water resources as needed is essential

14 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 1-51: Water Resources of California, California State Water Resources Board (Sacramento, 1951).

15 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 2-55: Water Utilization and Requirements of California, California State Water Resources Board (Sacramento, 1955): 57.

16 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 3-57: The California Water Plan, prepared by the Division of Resources Planning, California Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, 1957).

15 to the future welfare of this State.”17 Ultimately, under the plan, the Klamath-Trinity group alone would contribute eight million acre-feet for export to water deficient areas in California.18

Further development on the Trinity was indispensable to the transfer of water from the Van

Duzen River as well as all of the tributaries to the Klamath. The proposed Helena Dam and

Reservoir, with a capacity of three million acre-feet, would inundate much of the North Fork

Trinity as well as the mainstem Trinity nearly to the base of Lewiston Reservoir. Below Helena

Dam, Burnt Ranch Dam and Reservoir would serve as the cornerstone of the inter-basin transfer.

To the south of Burnt Ranch Reservoir, the Van Duzen would be diverted by tunnel from Eaton

Dam and Reservoir to the Mad River. From there, water from both the Mad and Van Duzen would be diverted by tunnel to Eltapom Reservoir on the South Fork Trinity and then to Burnt Ranch

Reservoir on the mainstem Trinity. Additionally, numerous monumental diversions from the

Smith and Klamath rivers would be pumped uphill from Beaver Dam and Reservoir, just below

Hoopa Valley on the mainstem Trinity, to Burnt Ranch Reservoir. Water drawn from the Smith,

Klamath, Mad, Van Duzen, and Trinity would be pumped from Burnt Ranch Reservoir through

Big Flat Tunnel to Kanaka Reservoir on Clear Creek and, finally, discharged into the Sacramento

River.

17 Ibid., xv.

18 Ibid., 41.

Figure 4. Map of proposed and existing components of a state water system. “The California Aqueduct System,” in The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 3-57: The California Water Plan, Division of Resources Planning, California Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, 1957).

In total, the CWP plan for the Klamath-Trinity group consisted of fifteen major dams and reservoirs with a combined capacity of 15,000,000 acre-feet; seven hydroelectric power plants with an installed power capacity of 1,700,000 kilowatts; three pumping plants; six tunnels totaling

76 miles; and an annual export yield of 8,183,000 acre-feet, not counting the already scheduled

Trinity River Division diversions.19 The plan estimated the total cost of these projects to be

$2,315,100,000 ($20,167,404,000 in 2017).20 Water planners assumed that these massive water transfer facilities would be needed because of the massive projected future growth rates of the state’s population and water-use requirements. The CWP estimated the “ultimate water consumption” of the state to be 51 million acre-feet corresponding to an ultimate statewide population of 40 million.21 Compared to actual current figures, the report underestimated the state’s potential population but overestimated its ultimate water consumption. Taken together, these two factors presented an extremely high projected per capita water use. Subsequent DWR reports would anticipate significantly higher population figures. While the DWR’s net water use estimates would remain relatively static until 1966, its population estimates would increase by 14 million. This discrepancy can be explained by state planners’ underestimation of population growth within California’s urban areas, especially the south coastal and San Francisco Bay areas, and their overestimation of the growth in irrigated agriculture during the period.

19 Ibid., 166-72.

20 Ibid., 172. Table 18, entitled “Summary of Capital Costs, Klamath-Trinity Division, California Aqueduct System,” projected the combined capital cost of projects on the Klamath, Trinity, and Clear Creek developments to be $2,315,100,000.

21 Ibid., 14-18. Table 3, entitled “Estimated Present and Probable Ultimate Mean Seasonal Water Requirements,” provided estimates for current and future water requirements for individual hydrographic units as well as the state of California as a whole.

While the DWR acknowledged the potential damage to north coastal fisheries wrought by the numerous dams and reservoirs, it argued that these negative effects could be mitigated or offset.

The DWR presented three arguments regarding fishery health in its 1957 plan. First, it contended that stream flow maintenance dams could improve fisheries on smaller north coast streams, thereby offsetting some loss of anadromous fisheries on larger rivers. Second, it claimed that newly created reservoir fisheries, “while of a different type [of fish species], would provide a probably greater fishing opportunity than is now available.”22 Third, it argued that early stages of the project could actually, albeit temporarily, prove beneficial for anadromous fisheries. The CWP report stated:

It should be pointed out that during the earlier stages of development large reaches of stream channel could be improved by releases from initial upstream reservoirs. Such releases, in conjunction with the operation of fish hatcheries, could possibly improve the present anadromous fishery for a substantial period of time, and it would not be until later stages of development that the Klamath and Trinity Rivers would be inaccessible to the migratory fish23

These alleged “earlier stage” benefits presumably applied to the projects on the Eel, Mad, Van

Duzen, South Fork Trinity, and Mainstem Trinity (except for Beaver Dam and Reservoir) and excluded developments on the Smith and Klamath rivers that would follow many years after the construction of the “earlier stages” and would clearly inundate any remaining spawning habitat.

Water planners would continue to use these three justifications throughout the 1960s.

Because of its colossal scale, the investigation did not examine specific projects in depth.

Rather, the DWR considered the plan to be “a broad and flexible pattern into which future definite projects may be integrated in an orderly fashion.”24 In 1958, just two years after the agency was

22 Ibid., 172.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., xxv.

19 created, the DWR sought to clarify its future plan for the North Coast with a seven-year study entitled The North Coastal Area Investigation (NCAI). In the NCAI, DWR intended to specifically define the major North Coast water projects that would follow the completion of the Feather River

Project component of the State Water Project. The DWR published a preview of its findings in

September 1963, a preliminary edition in September 1964, and seven appendices to the report in

1965 and 1966.25

The preview of the North Coastal Area Investigation provided a more definite strategy for conserving North Coast water for southern use. The NCAI divided Trinity developments into three distinct but physically interlinked systems: the Trinity Diversion Project, the South Fork Trinity

Project, and the Mad-Van Duzen Project. Each system would provide 600,000 acre-feet of water for export at a capital cost of $150 million, $390 million, and $270 million respectively. The NCAI preview’s preferred plan for the Trinity resembled the 1957 CWP but differed by eliminating the need for Burnt Ranch Dam and Reservoir. Instead, water from the Mad-Van Duzen and South

Fork Trinity would be diverted directly to Helena Reservoir through an Eltapom-Helena tunnel. A second Clear Creek Tunnel would then transport water from the Trinity basin to Clear Creek.26

While the NCAI preview did not specify definite construction dates for the projects, it did estimate

25 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-63: Preview of Bulletin No. 136: North Coastal Area Investigation, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, September 1963); The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64: Preliminary Edition: North Coastal Area Investigation, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, September 1964); Appendices. The DWR also published a series of Appendices numbered A through E from 1965 to 1966 as well as a “Final Supplement” in 1966.

26 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-63: Preview of Bulletin No. 136: North Coastal Area Investigation, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, September 1963): 30-32.

Figure 5. “Possible Staging of Major Projects in the North Coastal Area and West Side Sacramento Valley,” The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64, 54.

Figure 6. “Possible Features of the Trinity River Development” in The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64, 85.

22 that the Trinity projects would be constructed in the late 1970s and completed in the early 1980s.27

The publication of the NCAI coincided with a flurry of activity in southwestern water politics. In the age of large hydro-projects, it is not surprising that the fate of the Trinity became intertwined with that of the mighty Colorado River. Beginning in the early years of the twentieth century, and greatly accelerating with the completion of the Colorado River Aqueduct in 1935,

Southern California had become increasingly dependent on water imported from the Colorado.

Colorado River water apportionment was primarily regulated by the 1922 Colorado River

Compact. The compact required Upper Basin states (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, and New

Mexico) to guarantee at least 7.5 million acre-feet per year to Lower Basin states (California,

Arizona, and Nevada) but did not designate specific allocations to individual states.28 During the next four decades, the western states, especially California and Arizona, experienced spectacular growth. Because of this rapid growth, Colorado River water became increasingly vital to the

Southwest’s economic development. By 1963, the Colorado supplied half of southern California’s water.29

27 Ibid. Figure 2, entitled “Possible Staging of Additional Conservation Facilities in the Sacramento River Basin and North Coastal Area to Meet Future Demands Under the State Water Resources Development System,” located between pages 4 and 5, illustrated approximate timeframes for potential projects.

28 Because the Gila River and Little Colorado River watersheds are encompassed mostly in Arizona, it is considered to be both an Upper Basin and Lower Basin state. Arizona’s small allocation as an Upper Basin state is omitted when calculating the Upper Basin total. Also, regardless of drought conditions, the Colorado River Compact prohibited Upper States from depriving Lower States of 7.5 million-acre-feet during any period of ten consecutive years. See U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Washington D.C., January 1964): 2-6.

29 Norris Hundley, The Great Thirst: Californians and Water: A History, revised ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 304.

Incessant disputes between basin states resulted in a series of ten court cases, beginning in

1931, collectively entitled Arizona v. California. In 1952, Arizona initiated the landmark Arizona v. California case to further specify quotas to Lower Basin states that earlier cases left undecided.

Eleven years later, in June 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court reached a decision.30 The conclusions reached by the Supreme Court ostensibly served the interests of both states but were, in practical effect, a triumph for Arizona.31 The 1963 decision limited California to 4.4 million acre-feet per year plus half of any surplus water if the lower Colorado basin received more than 7.5 million acre-feet. Previous studies’ overestimation of an average water year as well as a 1944 treaty guaranteeing Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet resulted in a visibly diminishing Colorado surplus.32

Under the decision, if Mexico and Arizona eventually claimed all the water that they were legally awarded, California would need to reduce its Colorado water consumption by 962,000 acre-feet.

To rectify this deficit, southern California water planners looked to northern California imports that would otherwise be utilized for Central Valley agriculture.33 Consequently, following the 1963

Arizona v. California decision, both Central Valley and southern interests intensified their demands for additional storage facilities on the north coast.

In an effort to establish a comprehensive inter-state regional plan for water development in the southwest, the USBR published the Pacific Southwest Water Plan (PSWP) in August 1963.34

30 U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, January 1964.

31 Hundley, The Great Thirst, 304.

32 U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, 1-10.

33 Hundley, The Great Thirst, 305-7.

34 U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Appendix, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Washington D.C., August 1963).

After submitting the proposal to the states and planning agencies involved, the USBR published a final proposal in January 1964. 35 The establishment of the Pacific Southwest Development Fund to underwrite proposed projects was central to the PSWP. Construction of additional dams and diversions on northern California rivers was similarly crucial to the plan. The PSWP estimated that by 2030, urban and agricultural growth in the Colorado Upper Basin states would result in a decrease of the amount of water available to Lower Basin states from 7.5 to 5.6 million acre-feet annually. To compensate for this deficit, the plan proposed a water salvage and recovery program, consisting of a phreatophyte eradication operation and additional pumping of groundwater in

Lower Basin states to yield 680,000 acre-feet in addition to the annual importation of 1.2 million acre-feet of northern California water.36 Kenneth Holum, the Assistant Secretary of Water and

Power Development, articulated the importance of northern California water to the USBR’s plan by stating:

It is apparent… that water planning for the Pacific Southwest is tied closely with water development programs in northern California. The sphere of coordinating action to be undertaken, at least initially, by such a regional water commission should encompass not only the Lower Colorado River Basin and its service area in California, but the entire State of California as well.37

In its 1963 proposal, the USBR outlined a two-phase plan to amicably solve the southwest water deficit. Phase I of the plan constituted the “immediate action” program for early authorization and Phase II entailed a “continuing project development” program for future

35 U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, January 1964.

36 Committee on Water of the National Research Council, Publication 1689: Water and Choice in the Colorado Basin: An Example of Alternatives in Water Management (Washington D.C.: National Academy of the Sciences, 1968): 25; U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, January 1964, 12-13.

37 U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, 10.

25 expansion. 38 In California under Phase I, the PSWP recommended an incremental enlargement of the California State Water Project (SWP) aqueduct and the Tehachapi Mountain segment to facilitate the conveyance of 1.2 million acre-feet of additional water from northern rivers and a fifty-million-gallon-per-day desalting plant in southern California.39 Phase II entailed the tentative construction of the Trinity Diversion Project and the South Fork Trinity Project as described in the

1963 preview of the NCAI, along with the lining of the Imperial and Coachella Canal systems.40

Because of the lack of adequate detailed studies, the USBR included the Trinity River development projects in Phase II of its plan. Rather than functioning as a vital component of an immediate solution, the specific projects in the second phase, including the Trinity projects, were intended to

“demonstrate one way in which the water problems of the Pacific Southwest could be solved.”41

Governor Pat Brown and his administration, however, more confidently recommended the

Trinity projects. By 1963 and 1964, California water planners considered further large-scale diversions within the Eel and Trinity basins to be a foregone conclusion. In its 1963 State Water

Project update, the DWR expressly planned under the assumption that, by 1990, additional facilities on the Trinity and Eel would be diverting water to the Sacramento River system.42 In

December 1963, the Brown administration submitted its comments on the 1963 PSWP report. The

38 Ibid., 2-3.

39 Ibid.

40 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-63, 30-32; U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, 24-25. A map between pages 24 and 25 of the PSWP, entitled “California North Coast Storage,” illustrated the USBR’s development plans for the North Coast; U.S. Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, 2-4.

41 Ibid., 3.

42 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-63, 113.

California commission largely advocated for a guaranteed 7.5 million acre-feet supply for Lower

Basin states as well as federal and regional funding for California studies and project development.

In its comments, however, the commission addressed the Trinity projects directly.43 The Brown administration recommended that the Trinity and South Fork Trinity projects be included in Phase

I rather than Phase II of the PSWP. They admitted that the two projects, scheduled to begin construction in 1969 and 1973 respectively, were not yet needed by the areas that they would be servicing and were therefore not immediately justifiable. However, they saw the inclusion of the north-coast projects in a regionally coordinated and funded program as a way to expedite their authorization and construction. “Interim use of these temporary surpluses as a source of supply for the Pacific Southwest Region,” they argued, “would enhance economic justification and financial feasibility of the individual projects.”44 They protested that failure to include the projects in the first phase of the plan would “permit several years delay in construction of these features of the

Plan.”45 In its final 1964 report, the USBR adopted the state’s recommendations regarding the

Trinity projects pending satisfactory feasibility studies.46 Although the PSWP ultimately was only implemented on a limited scale as the Central Arizona Project, its planning stages demonstrated the growing momentum to utilize additional north-coast river water on a region-wide scale.

In September 1964, the DWR issued the final findings of its North Coastal Area

Investigation study. In its final NCAI report, the DWR continued to stress the importance of

43 “Comments of the State of California on the ‘Pacific Southwest Water Plan’” in Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, 2-5.

44 Ibid., 11.

45 Ibid.

46 “Discussion of Comments of the State of California” in Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, 1.

27 developing north coast rivers. “Clearly,” the report stated, “if the State's economic growth is to continue, the large quantities of surplus water in the North Coastal area must be tapped.”47 The study concluded that major projects in the north coastal area could reserve 10 million acre-feet of water annually for use throughout California.48 It also established a tentative construction schedule for the proposed projects. The specifics of the project timeline were contingent upon statewide growth estimates for the years 1990 and 2020. The report estimated that California’s population would increase from 15.7 million in 1960 to 56 million by 2020.49

By 1964 the DWR had selected the Upper Eel River development as “the most favorable initial North Coastal development for providing augmentative water supplies to the State Water

Project.”50 The DWR prioritized the Eel River development because of its immediate value in fulfilling local water supply and flood control needs as well as for the versatility of its conveyance system.51 Furthermore, after the Christmas flood of December 1964, demands for flood control in the Eel River basin rose dramatically. Referring to a series of public hearings regarding the NCAI held in March 1965, the DWR concluded that “The message was clear. The people in the North

Coast want projects that include substantial flood control storage, and they want them as quickly as possible.”52 Before the 1964 floods, the DWR concluded that the reservation of storage capacity

47 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64, 1964, v.

48 Ibid., 4.

49 Ibid., 22.

50 Ibid., 7.

51 Ibid., 57.

52 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-66: Implementation of the California Water Plan, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, March 1966): 13.

28 specifically for flood control in the conservation reservoirs of the early stage major North Coastal projects probably would not be economically justified.53 In the years following the 1964 flood however, both the DWR and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reevaluated their flood control assessments, “in an attempt to show justification for more flood control storage.”54 The DWR suggested that further studies should “consider flood control as a major part of all water projects.”55

Once statewide water needs exceeded the capacity of the Upper Eel River projects, the

DWR planned to proceed with major diversion projects in the Trinity Basin. The plan for the

Trinity outlined by the 1964 NCAI changed or elaborated on many features described in the preview report and incorporated some features depicted in the 1957 California Water Plan. Like many proposals before it, the plan, illustrated in Figure 4, divided the Trinity development into three stages: The Trinity Diversion Project, The South Fork Trinity Project, and the Mad-Van

Duzen Project. Unlike the 1963 preview, the 1964 report integrated Burnt Ranch Dam and

Reservoir into its west-to-east conveyance system.

Once water from the Mad, Van Duzen, and South Fork Trinity was pumped uphill to

Helena Reservoir, the DWR proposed two options to transfer water to the Sacramento Valley.

First, a second Clear Creek Tunnel would move water from Helena to a series of five small east- draining reservoirs with associated hydroelectric power plants. Second, the Cottonwood Creek

Route would divert water from Helena through Cottonwood Creek Tunnel to Sylvester Dam and

Reservoir on the Middle Fork of Cottonwood Creek. From Sylvester, water from the three proposed Trinity projects would be released into the northernmost reservoir of the Westside

53 Ibid., 16.

54 Ibid., 17.

55 Ibid., 16.

Conveyance System. The proposed Westside Conveyance System consisted of sixteen dams forming a series of reservoirs that would extend forty miles north-to-south and encompass four distinct east-draining creeks.56 Finally the water would be conveyed to the Glenn Reservoir

Complex, formed by three interconnected reservoirs, that would reregulate flows from the Eel,

Trinity and Klamath projects.57 In the NCAI, many components in these systems were studied extensively. For example, state geologists studied most of the major dams in the Trinity system to the agency’s fourth and final level of evaluation. 58

In 1966 the DWR began publication of the 160 series bulletins to consider the progress of the California Water Plan. Its first bulletin in 1966 entitled “Implementation of the California

Water Plan” still regarded developments on north coast rivers as essential to California’s growth.

The DWR published its 1966 report in the waning years of the post-World War II baby boom.

Except for the period between 1880 and 1900, the population of California had doubled during every twenty-year interval. Because of these astonishing growth rates, the report projected the state’s population to reach 54 million by 2020.59 Additionally, the report estimated that irrigated agriculture in the state would increase by 2.7 million acres to a total of 10.8 million acres by 2020.60

It further estimated that net statewide water requirements, 31.7 million acre-feet in 1960, would increase to 40.8 million in 1990 and 49.7 million acre-feet by 2020.61 To meet these demands in a

56 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64, 92-93.

57 Ibid., 58.

58 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64, 116.

59 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-66, 42.

60 Ibid., 47.

61 Ibid., 55.

30 timely manner, the 1966 report again claimed that major quantities of water from north coast projects would be needed by the late 1980s.62 Overall, the NCAI and the 1966 CWP report represented the apex of north-coast water project planning.

Just four years after the DWR’s publication of its 1966 CWP update, however, the outlook for the north coast projects had drastically changed. Publications by federal and state agencies largely abandoned or suspended plans for further developments on the north coastal rivers. First, in January 1970, the Bureau of Land Management published its Preliminary Impact Report:

Helena Reservoir: Lower Trinity Division North Coast Project California. The report represented the first comprehensive study of the Helena Dam and Reservoir. The BLM, the dominant resource management agency within the project’s affected area, concluded that the Helena project alone would incur $75 million in losses for the agency. Consequently, the report recommended against the construction of the project.63 The report, however, acknowledged that the agency’s interest was only one of many considerations that had to be taken into account. In the event that other agencies deemed the project necessary, the report provided plans to facilitate its construction and management. Other management agencies, however, began to arrive at similar conclusions. By

1972, the Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation had either suspended or significantly delayed further planning on the Trinity and other north coast rivers. Why, when further projects seemed inevitable and necessary only a few years prior, did these agencies abandon plans to tap the “water bank” of California?

62 Ibid., 74.

63 U.S. Department of the Interior, A Preliminary Impact Report: Helena Reservoir, Lower Trinity River Division, North Coast Project, California, by the Bureau of Land Management California State Office (Sacramento, January 1970).

The DWR’s 1970 California Water Plan update demonstrated a notable shift in tone from the agency’s earlier publications. Published in December 1970, the DWR’s Water For California:

The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, showed more concern for fish and wildlife issues and considerably less enthusiasm for large-scale surface water projects on the North Coast. These shifts in the DWR’s policies regarding north coast developments can be explained by three major factors.

First, it reflected the growing cost of public opposition to large hydro-projects as demonstrated by the growth of a national river conservation movement and the success of Richard

Wilson’s campaign against the proposed Dos Rios Dam and Reservoir. Wilson’s movement to block construction of Dos Rios, as well as the concurrent and connected campaign in Trinity

County, will be discussed fully in Chapter 3. This public opposition centered on saving local communities from inundation as well as preventing the destruction of prolific anadromous fisheries.

Second, it expressed the increasing concern within planning agencies for the effects that in-stream projects could have on fish and wildlife resources. The report stated that “future water development planning must be broadened to include more thoughtful consideration and evaluation of environmental and ecological effects.” The impetus for change, however, did not originate from within the DWR. The agency was previously aware of the devastating impacts that the projects would have on the anadromous fisheries. In an appendix to the NCAI published in 1965, the DWR studied the impacts that the proposed projects would have on fish and wildlife. The 1965 report concluded that Helena Dam and Reservoir, alone, would eliminate ninety-percent of the remaining

King Salmon spawning riffles on the mainstem Trinity, leaving only five-percent of the historical

32 salmon spawning grounds above the South Fork Trinity.64 The report noted similarly devastating ramifications of other stages of the project. These crushing impacts, however, did not prevent the

DWR from endorsing and actively planning for additional projects on the north coast rivers in its

1966 update. Rather, emerging public opposition from fishermen, local residents, and environmental organizations forced the agency to increasingly consider environmental concerns.

Third, the report incorporated recently reduced state-wide population and water use growth estimates. While these forecasts had moderately varied during the preceding decade, the sudden and sizable reductions in growth estimates from 1966 to 1970 drastically curtailed the anticipated need for major project construction in the North Coastal region. In 1967, the United States Census

Bureau published new population projections for the entire nation. The Census Bureau provided a series of projections ranging from Series A, the highest estimate, to Series D, the lowest.65 In 1970, just prior to the publication of the 1970 CWP report, The Census Bureau revised its report by eliminating Series A as unrealistically high and adding Series E, a new low estimate. The Bureau scaled down its growth estimates because of unexpectedly low rates of births and migration into

California. The 1970 CWP update utilized Series D, the lowest 1967 and second lowest 1968 projection, in consideration of projected water use estimates in California.66 In 1970, Series D predicted the population of California to reach 29 million in 1990 and 44.7 million by 2020. These

64 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-C: North Coastal Area Investigation: Appendix C, Fish and Wildlife, Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish and Game Water Projects Branch Contract Services Section (Sacramento, April 1965): 206.

65 U.S. Department of Commerce, Current Population Reports: Population Estimates, Series P-25, No. 420, U.S. Bureau of the Census (Washington D.C., April 1969).

66 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR: Water for California: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1970): 12.

33 figures fell substantially below those used in the DWR’s 1966 CWP update, which estimated a

1990 population of 35 million and a 2020 population of 54 million.67 The 1970 projections assumed a future average annual increase of 1.75 percent rather than the 3.5 percent increase that

California experienced from 1940 to 1970.

The 1970 CWP report’s future net water requirement figures mirrored the declining population growth rates as well as the related slowdown of irrigated agriculture’s expansion. The report estimated that net water demands, 28.6 million acre-feet in 1970, would increase to 34.4 million acre-feet in 1990 and 39.8 million acre-feet in 2020.68 These figures represented a sixteen and twenty percent decrease from the corresponding projections made in 1966. Conveniently for the north coast rivers, the nearly ten-million-acre-foot difference between the 1966 and 1970 projections for 2020 water demands equaled the total export yield of all the north coast projects as calculated by the 1964 NCAI.

While the demographic changes reflected in the 1970 CWP report did not preclude future north coast projects or prevent further feasibility studies, especially by federal agencies, it did temporarily curb the momentum of water developers. Even William Gianelli, the director of the

DWR, admitted that this “breathing spell” would “afford additional time to consider alternative sources of water supply and develop policies for the maximum protection of the environment.”69

Consequently, the 1970 update withheld even a tentative timeline for potential projects on the north coast rivers. The update noted that the “breathing spell” allowed for ten additional years before another facility in the SWP or CVP was needed. Resultingly, the report stated that another

67 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-66, 42.

68 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR, 16.

69 Ibid., iii.

34 facility would not be required until the mid-1990s.70 Following the 1970 CWP update, no further

DWR publications would actively plan for future water developments on the Trinity. This twenty to thirty-year “breathing spell” occurred at the ideal time for environmental advocates seeking to protect the rivers and set the stage for major environmental victories. Although the period did not prove as enduring as it was initially projected to last, it impaired the momentum of water developers and provided environmental advocates with a powerful rhetorical tool to argue that additional projects were unnecessary and wasteful.

In the following two years, federal agencies similarly abandoned or indefinitely postponed planning on the north coastal rivers. In three reports published in 1971 and 1972, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation withdrew its support for the development of additional Trinity water for the Central

Valley Project.71 By October 1971, the USBR began expressing major concerns regarding the feasibility of proposed Trinity projects. Most of the agency’s principal reasons for doubting the projects regarded a general increase in their cost. First, the October report noted that, due to further geologic studies, Burnt Ranch Dam and Ironside Dam needed to be dropped in favor of the more expensive Schneider Bar Dam and a diversion dam on the New River. It also noted that the cost of spillways and tunnels had increased in the previous six years as a result of revised regulations

70 Ibid., 8.

71 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Plan Formulation Appendix, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region (Sacramento, October 1971); U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Status Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region (Sacramento, December 1971); U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Concluding Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region (Sacramento, October 1972).

35 and more realistic expectations of construction costs.72 Additionally, the report cited increased interest rates on federal investment. In 1960, the project was subject to a three-percent interest rate.

In 1971, that rate had risen to more than five-percent. The 1971 rate resulted in respective forty- percent and sixty-percent increases in the capital cost of the project for fifty and one-hundred-year amortization periods.73

In addition to a general increase in the projects’ cost, the report also noted that local objections to any additional high-dam projects on the Trinity resulted in the reformulation of the plan’s structure. In May 1970, responding to preservationists’ denunciations of major dam projects, the USBR suspended work on feasibility studies of the division’s proposed in-basin dams.

Like the DWR’s 1970 report, the USBR noted the ten-year “breathing spell” afforded by the slowdown in population growth and statewide water demand. The USBR, however, cautioned that future developments could substantially reduce the length of that period. In particular, the report warned that the State Water Resources Control Board’s (SWRCB) pending decisions regarding

Sacramento River Delta water rights could potentially result in a suddenly increased need for

Trinity water to replace Sacramento water discharged for environmental reasons. Indeed, the

SWRCB’s Decision no. 1379 (1971) required that both the State Water Project and the Central

Valley Project meet water quality criteria in the Delta. According to the USBR, the decision reduced the CVP yield from 2.8 to 1.7 million acre-meet per year.74 Although it was made with

72 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Plan Formulation Appendix, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region (Sacramento, October 1971): 2.

73 Ibid., 4.

74 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Status Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid Pacific Region (Sacramento, December 1971): VI-1.

36 environmental considerations in mind, the decision prompted intensified calls to develop water resources on the north coast.75

Because of the continuing need for additional water in the Central Valley, the BOR’s reports also detailed off-stream storage alternatives called “Direct Diversion Plans.” Under these plans, small diversion dams would collect surplus runoff from points along the Trinity and would convey it via tunnel into Cottonwood Creek. From Cottonwood Creek, the system would transfer the water to the proposed Paskenta-Newville Unit of the CVP. Theoretically, the Direct Diversion

Plans would allow for greater fish passage and supply a considerable quantity of water for export, albeit substantially less than the in-stream storage. The system, however, would entail an $800 million capital cost—fifty-percent more than its in-stream counterpart. Furthermore, the Bureau noted that the proposals suffered from two additional setbacks. First, due to a dearth of studies, the plan was in an embryonic stage. Second, because of the increasing concern for the Trinity’s anadromous fishery, needs for increased in-stream flows could prohibit the diversion of additional water beyond what was already developed through the existing TRD operations.76

Overall, the doubling of the project’s cost along with local protests against dam projects resulted in the USBR deeming the Lower Trinity Project to be only “marginally feasible.” Despite its hesitations, however, the USBR did not wholly discount the prospect of additional projects in the future. The agency had originally planned for water to be available from Helena Reservoir in

75 Ibid., I-3 – I-3a; California State Water Resources Control Board, Decision 1379: Delta Water Rights Decision (Sacramento, July 1971); The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 76-78: Delta Water Facilities: A Program for Delta Protection and Water Transfer, Water Conservation, Water Recycling, Surface and Ground Water Storage, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, July 1978): 30.

76 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Status Report, December 1971, III-2.

1980, Eltapom in 1984, and Beartooth-Schneider Bar in 1987. The October report stated that a shift in this timeframe would not substantially alter the Lower Trinity River Division’s design.77

By December, the USBR had not clarified its final position on additional projects on the Trinity but did substantially revise the justifications for its reluctance to support major diversions.

In a December status update of the Lower Trinity River Division, the USBR cited three critical reasons for its suspension of feasibility studies for major diversion projects on the Trinity.

First, it noted considerable opposition to diversions from locals and preservationists seeking to maintain the health of the river’s anadromous fisheries and wild aesthetic. Second, it acknowledged that reduced population and water-use growth estimates delayed the importance of north-coast water for the rest of California. Third, it recognized that due to minimal development along the riparian corridor and the Trinity’s relatively modest flow contribution to the larger

Klamath River system, flood control could not reasonably be cited as a major use for Trinity reservoirs. The report stated that other considerations such as cost increases were of “minor significance” in the agency’s decision to suspend feasibility studies.78

The USBR did not formally conclude its investigation of the Lower Trinity River Division plan until October 1972. In its summarizing statement, the USBR acknowledged reduced growth estimates as well as increased public concern for environmental degradation:

Latest projections indicate additional water supplies for the Delta may not be needed for another 20 to 30 years. The Bureau of Reclamation has concluded that the near-term environmental considerations outweigh immediate development

77 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Plan Formulation Appendix, October 1971, I-3a.

78 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Status Report, December 1971, I-2.

needs; and has, therefore, suspended all investigations pertaining to water resource development in the Trinity River Basin.79

The USBR’s concluding report also included other agencies’ final opinions regarding the proposed projects. While the Army Corps of Engineers declined to take a strong stance for or against the projects, other agencies stated their opposition to both the in-basin and direct diversion options.

The Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, and the U.S. Bureau of

Sport Fisheries and Wildlife all advised against the projects citing their adverse effect on fish and wildlife.80 The agencies agreed that the lake fisheries, once touted as a substitution for degraded anadromous fisheries, were of marginal value in comparison to the salmon and steelhead.

Additionally, the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation concluded that all projects within the system except for Rancheria Reservoir would have negative effects on recreation.81

The Bureau of Reclamation, however, remained careful not to dismiss the potential for future developments on the Trinity altogether. Consequently, the Interagency Trinity River Basin

Fish and Wildlife Task Force, in its comments on the Lower Trinity River Project’s revised plan, maintained that major diversions on the Trinity remained a significant threat. The task force warned that because of the SWRCB’s Decision no. 1379, “development of the North Coastal rivers

79 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Concluding Report, October 1972, iii.

80 U.S. Department of the Interior, Appendices to the Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Concluding Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region (Sacramento, October 1972).

81 U.S. Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, “Memorandum Report on the LTRD,” in Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Concluding Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region (Sacramento, October 1972).

39 is becoming more imminent.”82 The USBR, however, did concede that wild rivers legislation being debated in the California Legislature could permanently prohibit future diversion projects on the

Trinity.

82 U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, “Memorandum Report on the LTRD,” in Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Concluding Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Washington D.C., October 1972): 1.

Chapter 2 ————————

The California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

and the Fight to Preserve the North-Coast Rivers: 1968-1972

Despite the improving outlook for the Trinity and other northern rivers by the close of the

1960s, they lacked formal protection under state or federal law. While increasing costs and decreasing population growth and water demand estimates made large hydro-projects on the north coast rivers less likely to materialize, they did not ensure permanent protection. Paradoxically, as

Californians became increasingly concerned with the health of the Sacramento River Delta, the demand for water diversions from the north coast to the Sacramento Valley escalated. Fortunately for the northern rivers, national and statewide movements were beginning to champion the cause of the free-flowing river. The tireless efforts of environmentalists and recreationists pressured bureaucrats and legislators to create and modify policies to safeguard important rivers. In 1968, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Wild and Scenic

Rivers Act (NWSRA) to protect certain sections of rivers under federal law. The Middle Fork of the Feather River, however, was the only California river immediately protected under the

NWSRA. The Trinity, Eel, Klamath, Van Duzen, and Smith Rivers would not be designated under the federal act until 1981. In the meantime, however, the California State Legislature adopted important wild rivers legislation with the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (CWSRA) in

1972. In order to determine the subsequent impacts of the CWSRA, it is necessary first to examine the circumstances that led to its enactment as well as the campaigns waged for and against its

41 passage. Examining that struggle is especially important for determining the degree to which the legislation played a decisive role in preventing further diversions on the Trinity.

This chapter will discuss the origins of the CWSRA after first examining the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the change in public sentiment and institutional thinking that allowed for its passage. As writer and river advocate Tim Palmer has written extensively on the subject, this paper will only briefly consider the national river conservation movement.83 It will then examine the California-based river conservation effort that arose regarding the proposed Dos Rios

Dam on the Middle Fork of the Eel River. Since Ted Simon’s The River Stops Here thoroughly discusses the Dos Rios saga, this chapter will comment on Richard Wilson’s campaign to stop the inundation of Round Valley by the proposed Dos Rios Reservoir only as it related to the Trinity

River and the passage of the CWSRA.84 This chapter will highlight the integral role that Trinity

County and several of its outspoken residents played in opposing additional hydro-projects on the north coast rivers. Finally, it will explore the intense struggle to pass a wild rivers bill during the

1971 and 1972 regular sessions of the California legislature.

It is natural to assume that the early twentieth-century battle over Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in California represented the inaugural event of a river protection movement. John Muir and

83 For a more detailed narrative of the development of the nationwide river conservation movement as well as the effort to establish a wild and scenic rivers system see: Tim Palmer, The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America (Covelo, California: Island Press, 1993); and Tim Palmer, Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2004); Tim Palmer, Wild and Scenic Rivers: An American Legacy (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2017); Thomas G. Smith, "Voice for Wild and Scenic Rivers: John P. Saylor of Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania History 66, no. 4 (1999): 554-79; Thomas G. Smith, Green Republican: John Saylor and the Preservation of America's Wilderness (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006).

84 Ted Simon, The River Stops Here: Saving Round Valley, A Pivotal Chapter in California’s Water Wars (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2001), 285.

Gifford Pinchot’s epic debate, however, focused on the preservation of Hetch Hetchy Valley and the integrity of Yosemite National Park, not the Tuolumne River itself. Similarly, the Echo Park

Dam controversy in 1955 condemned the depredation of Dinosaur National Monument and conceded the construction of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. The Echo Park dispute, however, did catalyze a broader wilderness movement and impassioned a cohort of conservationists that was national in membership. Throughout the 1960s, many American attitudes regarding the construction of large dams began to change. High profile controversies put pressure on water agencies to consider alternatives to major dam projects.

Perhaps most emblematic of this shift in national sentiment and corresponding water policies was Stewart Udall’s seemingly contradictory tenure as Secretary of the Interior. As a congressman from Arizona, Udall voted to flood Glen Canyon in the late-1950s. “I was from

Arizona, and so you had to be for water,” Udall later recalled, “you couldn’t go to Congress and be against dams.”85 Subsequently, as the Secretary of the Interior, Udall championed the Bureau of Reclamation’s massive Pacific Southwest Water Plan (PSWP). In addition to the large diversions from northern California discussed in Chapter 2, the PSWP proposed the construction of two dams at Bridge and Marble canyons on the Colorado River within the Grand Canyon. The two dams would flood fifty-three and ninety-three river miles respectively, inundating forty miles within Grand Canyon National Monument and thirteen miles within Grand Canyon National

Park.86 By 1966, construction of these two dams seemed likely. A massive campaign led by the

Sierra Club, however, resulted in what environmental historian Roderick Nash regarded as “one

85 Palmer, The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America, 17.

86 U.S. Department of the Interior, “Effects on Grand Canyon National Park and Monument of Proposed Lower Colorado River Project,” in Pacific Southwest Water Plan, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Washington D.C., 1963): 1-5.

43 of the largest outpourings of public sentiment in American conservation history.”87 In a New York

Times advertisement, the Sierra Club struck a chord with the public by arguing “Should we also flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can float nearer the ceiling.”88 Already sympathetic to conservationists’ goals, Udall reversed his earlier position on the Marble Canyon and Bridge

Canyon dams. After a family rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon,

Udall declared his previous support for the dam projects to have been an “armchair judgement.”89

By 1968, the Bureau of Reclamation had abandoned its plans for the two dam sites and Udall had become one of the most powerful vocal proponents of the idea of a wild rivers bill. Like Udall, many Americans began to demand water resource development policies that would strike a balance between water needs as well as recreational and environmental considerations.

Utilizing an impressive number and variety of first-hand accounts, Tim Palmer, a river advocate, photographer, and prolific writer, has thoroughly chronicled the development of the nationwide river conservation movement, as well as the effort to establish a national wild and scenic rivers system.90 In an interview with Palmer, Robert Eastman, who served as director of the rivers program at the Department of the Interior, described the political environment that allowed for the creation of such as system:

87 Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, fifth ed. (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2014), 230.

88 “Dinosaur and Big Bend. Glacier and Grand Teton, Kings Canyon, Redwoods, Mammoth, Even Yellowstone and Yosemite. And the Wild Rivers, and Wilderness. How Can You Guarantee These, Mr. Udall, If Grand Canyon is Dammed For Profit?,” New York Times, July 25, 1966.

89 Ibid., 233.

90 Palmer, Endangered Rivers and The Conservation Movement; Palmer, The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America; and Palmer, Wild and Scenic Rivers: An American Legacy.

The people were concerned about conservation. They wanted to protect natural places. Secretaries Udall and [Orville] Freeman [of the U.S. Department of Agriculture] wanted to push programs, and Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were receptive. There was money to do things without having to take it out of someone else’s program. Times were good and people didn’t mind spending funds on parks and rivers.91

In addition to a favorable political and economic climate, the wild rivers legislation resulted from the tenacious efforts of individuals and environmental organizations. Conservationists such as Paul

Bruce Dowling, and John and Frank Craighead, as well as politicians and bureaucrats including

Ted Schad, Frank Church, John Saylor, Stanford Young, and Gaylord Nelson worked tirelessly to establish a national system. By 1968, various congressmen had introduced sixteen different wild rivers bills.92

In October 1968, Congress passed, and President Johnson signed, the National Wild and

Scenic Rivers Act. The NWSRA stated:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States that certain selected rivers of the Nation which, with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values, shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Congress declares that the established national policy of dams and other construction at appropriate sections of the rivers of the United States needs to be complemented by a policy that would preserve other selected rivers or sections thereof in their free-flowing condition to protect the water quality of such rivers and to fulfill other vital national conservation purposes.93

91 Palmer, The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America, 25; Thomas G. Smith, "Voice for Wild and Scenic Rivers: John P. Saylor of Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania History 66, no. 4 (1999): 554- 79.

92 Ibid.

93 An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968), 906-918.

The NWSRA immediately designated “wild and scenic” a total of 775 river miles on the

Clearwater (185 miles) and Middle Fork Salmon (104) in Idaho, the Eleven Point in Missouri (44), the Middle Fork Feather in California (78), the Rio Grande in New Mexico (56), the Rogue in

Oregon (85), and the St. Croix (104) and Wolf (24) rivers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It further identified twenty-seven rivers to be studied and temporarily protected to determine their eligibility for future inclusion in the system and directed the Secretary of the Interior to prepare the

Nationwide Rivers Inventory to identify additional potential candidates.94 The NWSRA provided a flexible, but vague, framework for designating and protecting additional stretches of river. The agencies managing the sections at the time of designation used a proposed river section’s

“outstandingly remarkable values,” or ORVs, as well as its previous level of development and public access, to classify and designate it as either “wild,” “scenic,” or “recreational.” The Act defined a “wild” stretch as free of impoundments, generally inaccessible except by trail, and unpolluted by contaminants. The NWSRA characterized “wild” river areas as representing

“vestiges of primitive America.”95 “Scenic” and “Recreational” designations represented an ascending degree of human development and impacts. With the exception of more serious restrictions on mining operations on “wild” sections, the NWSRA did not explicitly necessitate different policies regarding different classifications. Additionally, the NWSRA allowed for, on the same river, a patchwork of “wild,” “scenic,” and “recreational” designations. Management strategies varied widely depending on a river’s classification(s), existing management agencies,

ORVs, and land use profile.

94 Ibid.

95 Ibid.

The NWSRA’s most powerful language prohibited the construction of additional water development projects on stretches already designated or undergoing study as outlined by Section

5 of the Act. Section 7(a) states:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shall not license the construction of any dam, water conduit, reservoir, powerhouse, transmission line, or other project works… on or directly affecting any river which is designated… as a component of the national wild and scenic rivers system or which is hereafter designated for inclusion in that system, and no department or agency of the United States shall assist by loan, grant, license, or otherwise in the construction of any water resources project that would have a direct and adverse effect on the values for which such river was established.96

Section 7 did not, however, prevent or prohibit federal assistance in the construction of diversions and other projects above or below designated stretches of rivers provided that they not “invade the area or diminish the scenic, recreational, and fish and wildlife values” represented in the Act.97

Although it was primarily intended to prevent additional hydro-projects, the NWSRA also affected the management of designated stretches. It authorized the Secretary of the Interior and the

Secretary of Agriculture to acquire private lands within the boundaries of designated stretches but limited acquisitions to an average of one-hundred acres per mile on both sides of the river.

Additionally, the Act prohibited the federal acquisition of state and Indian land without the consent of the entity concerned as long as the state or tribe followed a plan for the management and protection of the land in accordance with the Act. Consequently, the Act provided an avenue for the federal government to condemn lands in cases where states, tribes, and private property owners failed to comply with the provisions of the NWSRA or where the acquisition assisted the protection

96 Section 7(a) in An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968).

97 Section 7(b) in An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968).

47 of the river or its bank. It also stated that if fifty-percent or more of the entire acreage outside the ordinary high-water mark on both sides of the river was publicly owned, neither Secretary was authorized to acquire land unless the condemnation proved necessary to guarantee public access to and along designated stretches.98 It further prohibited the sale of public lands which constituted the bed or bank of a river or were within one-quarter mile of the river’s bank.99

The Act had an intentionally limited effect on the extraction industries. The most restrictive provision of the NWSRA prohibited any mining activity within one-quarter mile of a stretch designated as “wild” but recognized “valid existing rights” granted prior to study or designation under the Act.100 Other provisions were similarly lenient on existing mineral rights along designated stretches. The law stated that “all mining operations and other activities under a mineral lease, license, or permit issued or renewed after inclusion of a component in the system” would be subject to managing agencies’ regulations as prescribed to effectuate the purposes of the Act.101

Activities operating prior to designation, however, would carry on as before. Additionally, the Act omitted explicit mention of policy regarding timber extraction.

The NWSRA created two avenues for designating additional river stretches: one requiring congressional approval and another authorizing state led efforts approved by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. The primary means to designate a river, outlined in Section 3(a) of the federal WSRA,

98 Section 6 in An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968).

99 Section 8 in An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968).

100 Section 9(a)ii in An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968).

101 Section 9(a)i in An Act to Provide for a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, and for Other Purposes, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Statutes at Large 82 (1968).

48 was through direct congressional approval. The second path to designation, defined in section

2(a)(ii) of the 1968 act, authorized the federal Secretary of the Interior to designate a river already protected by a similar state program at the request of that state’s governor. Although rivers designated through Section 2(a)(ii) were held to the same standards as those designated through congressional approval, their administration and management differed in a few critical ways. First, secretarial designation held state and local agencies responsible for the management of the river.

Additionally, the act prohibited federal funding for state and local management on a river designated through Section 2(a)(ii).102 Consequently, secretarial designations relied on strong and well-funded preexisting state and local management in order to be approved by the Secretary of

Interior.

In California, the local river protection movement matured during the Dos Rios Dam dispute. The Eel River, situated mostly within Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt counties, flows northwesterly from its headwaters in the Coastal Range to the Pacific Ocean near the city of

Fortuna. The third largest river system in California, the Eel watershed encompasses nearly 3,700 square miles and produces an average of 6.3 million-acre-feet of water per year.103 Water developers had long planned diversions of the Eel River. The DWR authorized the Upper Eel River

Development in March 1964 as the first additional SWP project. By July 1964 the agency had

102 Interagency Wild and Scenic Rivers Coordinating Council, Designating Rivers Through Section 2(a)(ii) of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, June 2007.

103 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin 136-64, The North Coastal Area Investigation: Preliminary Edition, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, September 1964): 19.

49 initiated advanced planning studies on the project.104 The 1964 Christmas Flood accelerated local demands, and therefore agencies’ justifications, for flood control projects on the North Coast. The

1964 flood reportedly inflicted $58 million worth of damage and claimed nineteen lives in the Eel

River basin alone.105 In 1966, the Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

California Department of Water Resources, and California Soil Conservation Service adopted a joint program for water resources development on the Eel and Mad rivers.

In 1967, the DWR and the Army Corps of Engineers began publicly announcing their intention to construct a 430 feet-high rockfill dam at Dos Rios, on the Middle Fork of the Eel, two- miles above its confluence with the mainstem of the Eel. Water agencies planned to export up to

500,000 acre-feet of Eel river water yearly to the Sacramento Valley through the west-to-east

Grindstone Tunnel or to the Sacramento Delta through Clear Lake and Lake Berryessa. The proposed Dos Rios Reservoir had a storage capacity of 560,000 acre-feet and would inundate the fertile but remote Round Valley. Home to about 2,000 residents, Round Valley hosted a struggling agricultural industry, the small town of Covelo, and the Round Valley Indian reservation.106 The

Round Valley Indian Reservation, occupied primarily by the native Yuki Tribe, also harbored disparate populations of other tribes that had been forcibly relocated to the valley in the nineteenth century.

104 The Resources Agency of California, Department of Water Resources, Bulletin 171-67, Upper Eel River Development: Investigation of Alternative Conveyance Routes, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, August 1967): iii.

105 Ibid., 3.; Ted Simon, The River Stops Here: Saving Round Valley, A Pivotal Chapter in California’s Water Wars, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994), 4.

106 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 136-64: Preliminary Edition: North Coastal Area Investigation, Department of Water Resources (September 1964): 89.

The plan to construct a dam at Dos Rios incensed Covelo rancher and resident Richard

Wilson. Born and raised in Pasadena, Wilson grew up in a privileged southern Californian manner.

A passion for hunting and a penchant for solitude in wilderness had spurred Wilson’s father to purchase a tract of land in Round Valley in the early 1930s. In 1960, after being discharged from the Army, Wilson and his wife Susan chose to permanently relocate to his father’s ranch in

Covelo.107 In Wilson, the water development agencies found an unexpectedly formidable opponent. He was charismatic, persistent, and well connected. Ronald Robie, who served as the vice-chair of the State Water Resources Control Board under Governor Reagan and the Director of the Department of Water Resources for Governor Jerry Brown, remembered Wilson’s contributions to the fight against water developers:

He brought a certain city respectability to what appeared to be a ‘homegrown save- our-territory’ thing. As I recall, his argument was: ‘This is a lovely place. There are Indians here. We shouldn’t flood it.’ He didn’t point the finger at Los Angeles and say, ‘You’re stealing our water.’ It was more focused on why you shouldn’t build the dam.108

Wilson galvanized local white residents, the Round Valley tribes, sportsmen, conservationists, newspapers, and a surprising array of individuals in opposition to the Dos Rios project. During the struggle against Dos Rios, the statewide movement to protect wild rivers matured.

In April 1968, state senator and Chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee,

Robert Lagomarsino, introduced the California Protected Waterways Act (CPWA). A Southern

California Republican senator from Ojai, in Ventura County, Lagomarsino was an ardent sportsman and an acquaintance of Wilson. The CPWA, signed into law in August by Governor

107 Simon, The River Stops Here, 95-109.

108 Ibid., 230-31.

Reagan, directed the California Resources Agency to identify “waterways of the state possessed of extraordinary scenic, fishery, wildlife, or outdoor recreation resources.”109 It further required the identification of public interests surrounding these waterways as well as the threats that they faced. The CPWA served as a preliminary study for a state river protection program. It instructed the Resources agency to select certain waterways deserving of “priority action due to the nature of their resources, and either or both the degree of public interest in such resources and the rapidity of diminution of such resources by human activities.” Finally, the act required the Resources

Agency to propose “standards, and requirements, and administrative and legislative actions, which would extend effective, long range protection” to these waterways and their adjacent land.110

Lagomarsino’s bill was supported by the Planning and Conservation League, the California

Wildlife Association, Associated Sportsmen, and the Northern and Southern California boating associations.111

With fish and game expert Glenn Delisle as director, the commission tasked with implementing Senator Lagomarsino’s California Protected Waterways Act submitted its findings to the state legislature in 1971 as the California Protected Waterways Plan.112 When this task force submitted its proposal, the CPWA, for all intents and purposes, was terminated. While the CPWA

109 “Ch. 1278,” Statutes of California and Digests of Measures 1968, vol. 2, 2403-05; “S.B. 830,” Senate Final Histories: 1968 Regular Session, 226.

110 “Ch. 1278,” Statutes of California and Digests of Measures 1968, vol. 2, 2403-05.

111 Robert Lagomarsino, memorandum to Governor concerning S.B. 830, July 31, 1968, California State Archives, Sacramento, microfilm, GCBF 1968, Regular Session, Ch. 967 - Ch. 1306.

112 Glen E. Delisle, “Protected Waterways and Wild and Scenic Rivers,” Transactions of the Western Section of the Wildlife Society 9 (1973), 41.

52 served only a fact-finding and advisory role, its plan provided the blueprint for subsequent legislation in 1971 and 1972.

Even before it was passed, the CPWA caught the attention of north coast residents and anglers. In June 1968, the Trinity Journal’s “Fish N Gamer” column ran an article praising

Lagomarsino’s bill. The article’s author, Edwin Capps, lamented that, in the past, only a proposal to build a hydro-project on a river could prompt the Department of Fish and Game to devote funds to study the river’s fishery resources. To Capps, the CPWA offered a positive alternative to these reactionary investigations.113

Also a boon to conservationists, Hazel Wilburn was reelected to the Trinity County Board of Supervisors in June 1968.114 Wilburn, born and raised in Mendocino County, spent much of her childhood on a ranch just outside of Covelo. Wilburn’s childhood experiences formed the basis for her passion for nature as well as her love of the Round Valley area. Following her graduation from Humboldt State University, Wilburn worked as a teacher and principal at several schools throughout the north-coast region, including those on the Round Valley and Hoopa reservations.

After moving to Hetten Valley in southern Trinity County, she served as the Justice of the Peace for the Fifth Judicial District of the county and was elected as the Supervisor for the Fifth District in 1960. Upon her election, Wilburn became the first female supervisor elected in far northern

California. During her twelve years in office, she consistently advocated for a greater level of conservation in the north coast region. After her last term as supervisor, Wilburn urged the residents of Trinity County to “wake up and save their natural resources—the fine things they

113 Edwin, Capps, “Fish ‘N Gamer,” Trinity Journal, June 27, 1968.

114 “Remember Back in 1968,” Trinity Journal, December 26, 1968.

53 have.”115 By September 1968, Wilburn had joined Weaverville attorney Alfred Wilkins to campaign for greater protection of the Trinity and other northern rivers.

Al Wilkins, born in Ventura, practiced law in San Diego before his love of fly-fishing and other outdoor activities drew him to Trinity County. In 1965, Wilkins opened a law office in

Weaverville serving as a one-stop-shop for local residents’ civil law needs. In Trinity County,

Wilkins quickly became firmly integrated into the local community. He magnanimously resisted raising his fees and frequently accepted offerings such as vegetables and eggs in lieu of payment.

Reportedly, many community members offered Wilkins additional gifts which he would always decline. Later in his career, for example, Wilkins refused when Bob and Allen Young offered their home. Rather, he convinced the heirless brothers to grant the property to the community in trust.

The Young Family Ranch is currently held by the Trinity Trust and serves as a model and educational facility promoting responsible and sustainable farming practices.116 Upon moving to

Weaverville, Wilkins immediately became involved in environmental planning issues. He met

Richard Wilson when he joined the protest against a proposed real estate subdivision called Travis

Ranch in southern Trinity County.117

Throughout the fall of 1968, Wilkins and Wilburn fought to stir local opposition to the Dos

Rios Dam as well as additional projects on the Trinity. Like Richard Wilson in Covelo, they knew that most Trinity County residents were not the stereotypical environmentalists of the 1960s.

Consequently, they frequently appealed to their audience’s rural attitudes and fiscally conservative

115 “Hazel Wilburn Steps Down After 12 Years,” Trinity Journal, January 4, 1973.

116 “Attorney Wilkins, Friend of the Outdoors, Dead at 88,” Trinity Journal, November 2, 2016; “The Young Family Ranch: Background and History,” Trinity County Resource Conservation District, accessed May 4, 2018, http://tcrcd.net/yfr/about.htm.

117 Simon, The River Stops Here, 253.

54 sensibilities. At a county supervisors’ meeting in September, Wilburn proposed that the county declare its support for the inclusion of the Trinity into the NWSRA system as a means to prevent construction of the Lower Trinity River Division.118 Echoing former Republican president Dwight

D. Eisenhower’s characterization of public works projects as “creeping socialism,” she argued that the dams were a “hoax perpetrated upon the people to create work.”119 She additionally emphasized that large amounts of valuable minerals would be inundated by the proposed projects.120

The Board of Supervisors shelved the issue until October when Wilburn and Wilkins renewed their campaign. At an October 10 meeting, they proposed the establishment of

“committees of correspondence.” These committees, intentionally reminiscent of those created just prior to the American Revolution, would present a united front committed to opposing further project construction on the north-coast rivers. Although the Board took no specific action, it was clear that local opposition to further projects on the Trinity and other northern rivers was extensive.

Local attitudes towards a wild and scenic designation, however, were less consistent. While various sportsmen’s associations supported a designation, Supervisor Gerry Angus opposed the idea of a “wild” Trinity, incorrectly stating that “a buffer strip 10 to 12 miles wide for a wilderness or primitiv[sic] area is usually coupled with the ‘wild rivers’ plans,” thereby prohibiting the extraction of valuable minerals and timber. Angus opposed the construction of dams but proposed an alternative method to prevent the inundation of the river valley. He suggested that the Board

118 “Wilburn Asks for ‘Wild River,’” Trinity Journal, September 19, 1968.

119 Tim Palmer, The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America, 17; and “Wilburn Asks for ‘Wild River,’” Trinity Journal, September 19, 1968.

120 Ibid.

55 request a thorough survey of mineral wealth in the area. Angus predicted that the survey would result in a “second ‘gold rush,’ this time for platinum.”121

The Trinity County Board of Supervisors stated its opposition to additional high dams on the North Coast at a meeting in Weaverville on October 21. The meeting, organized by Wilkins and Wilburn, featured guest speakers Richard Wilson and Joe Paul of the fishermen’s association

Trout Unlimited. In the October meeting, Wilson reiterated his talking points against Dos Rios.

He argued that due to rising construction costs and decreasing prices of desalinization and wastewater reuse, Dos Rios constituted an “economic nightmare.” He further argued what the

Department of Water Resources would only admit two years later—that diminishing growth estimates would allow ten more years before water from the North Coast was needed. Citing the

North Coastal Area Investigation reports, Wilson stressed that water developers would not stop with Dos Rios. After the Upper Eel, the plan would proceed to claim the Trinity as well. At the meeting, Wilkins and Wilburn joined with Wilson’s Save the Eel River Association to form Save the North Coast Rivers Association often referred to as the NCRA. The NCRA, administrated primarily by Wilkins and Wilburn and co-chaired by other local residents and conservation leaders, would prove critical in galvanizing opposition against Dos Rios and later support for wild rivers legislation, especially within the north coast region.122

Wilkins and Wilburn continued to build their coalition through 1969. In January, both the

Trinity County Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Supervisors formally voted to oppose

121 “Local Group to Wage Fight Against Dams,” The Times Standard, Eureka, California, October 10, 1968; “Movement Underway to Oppose Further Dam Projects in Trinity,” Trinity Journal, October 10, 1968.

122 “Trinity Joins in Fight to Save North Coast Rivers from Water Project,” Trinity Journal, October 24, 1968.

56 additional dams in the north coast region.123 Wilburn used her position on the Board of Supervisors to push the NCRA’s agenda. They waged a campaign to build regional opposition to additional dams, recruit members and organizations to the NCRA, and to remove Trinity County from the pro-Dos Rios Eel River Association. By May, the Trinity County Sportsmen had joined the NCRA and the organization had sponsored a series of articles in the Weaverville based Trinity Journal documenting the proposed dams’ projected impacts on fish and wildlife.124

On May 12, 1969, Governor Reagan held a cabinet meeting to discuss the administration’s position on the Dos Rios controversy. Ike Livermore, Reagan’s Secretary of Resources, provided the bulk of the testimony for and against the project. The “points for” list was provided by William

Gianelli. While he presented Gianelli’s opinions, Livermore spoke against the project arguing that authorizing Dos Rios without further consideration would be irresponsible.125 Wilson and

Livermore’s arguments resonated with the Governor. Wilson had shrewdly presented the debate as a fight between “big government” water developers versus small self-reliant communities. The prospect of evicting Native American tribes from their ancestral or involuntarily adopted homeland proved particularly potent in Reagan’s mind. Livermore related later that a separate meeting between Reagan and members of the Round Valley Indian Reservation had left the Governor in

123 “Trinity County Chamber of Commerce Opposes more Dams,” Trinity Journal, January 23, 1969; “Supervisors Vote 3-2 to Oppose Dam Construction,” Trinity Journal, January 30, 1969.

124 “Trinity County Sportsmen Oppose Dams,” Trinity Journal, March 13, 1969; “Dams’ Effect on Fish,” Trinity Journal, February 27, 1969; “Proposed Dams Threaten Deer,” Trinity Journal, March 13, 1969; “Dams’ Effect on Deer,” Trinity Journal, March 20, 1969; “NCRA Questions Necessity of Big Dams,” Trinity Journal, March 13, 1969, Trinity County Recreation Guide; “Weaverville to Ask ICCCNC to Oppose Dams,” Trinity Journal, January 30, 1969.

125 Simon, The River Stops Here, 322-25.

57 tears.126 Following the meeting, the administration issued a statement condemning the effects of the Dos Rios Dam on Covelo and the Round Valley Indian Reservation and requesting the

Resources Agency to examine alternative forms of flood control and water supply.

Although Reagan’s declaration stated his opposition to the Dos Rios Dam and Reservoir as formulated by the Army Corps of Engineers, he did not preclude alternative dam projects on the Eel. In his proclamation in May 1969, Reagan encouraged investigations into alternatives that would spare Round Valley from inundation. His request resulted in the study published in the

Department of Water Resources’ Bulletin 172, entitled Eel River Development Alternatives.127

The investigation considered sixteen alternatives and selected six of them for further examination.

All of the alternative plans protected Round Valley from inundation. A Dos Rios reservoir in some form, however, remained critical to all proposed alternatives. The Department of Water Resources and Army Corps of Engineers now recommended either a medium sized Dos Rios Reservoir with a dam at the mouth of Mill Creek, to exclude the Valley from inundation, or a small Dos Rios Dam that would create a reservoir that would stop short of Round Valley. Both reservoirs, however, would block the same mileage of river for anadromous fish as the original Dos Rios.128 Alternate plans, including a Yellowjacket Reservoir lower on the Eel, would block the entire Eel River

Watershed from migrating fish. All options included either a southernly or easterly diversion route

126 Bill Press, From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2018), 90.

127 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 172-69: Eel River Development Alternatives, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1969).

128 Ibid., 15-17.

58 and would provide varying degrees of flood control for the Eel watershed as well as 900,000 acre- feet of water for export to the Central Valley.129

Following Reagan’s declaration, river advocates continued to fight for formal protection of the north coast rivers. In July 1969, the Trinity County Board of Supervisors finally voted to remove the county from the Eel River Association. Supervisor Leroy Harrison had led the effort to reject Wilburn’s previous two requests to drop the organization in December 1968 and June

1969. He did so on the grounds that the county was relatively small and needed to show solidarity with its neighboring north counties that held membership in the Eel River Association. Ultimately, the Board voted to withdraw from the Eel River Association and to transfer funding and support to Wilkins and Wilburn’s NCRA once it was fully incorporated as a nonprofit organization.130

When the NCRA officially incorporated in September, Trinity became the first county to formally join the organization, pledging a yearly membership fee.131

From the waning months of 1969 into 1970, water developers faced an entirely different political atmosphere, locally and statewide, than they did just two years prior. For his conservation and legal work, Trinity County named Al Wilkins a citizen of the year.132 In its first issue of 1970, the Trinity Journal asked prominent local citizens and officials to declare their forecasts for the

129 Ibid., 10.

130 “Wilburn Urges County to Pull out of Eel River Association,” Trinity Journal, December 19, 1968; “Subdivision Ordinance, Roads, New Buildings Get Board Attention,” Trinity Journal, June 5, 1969; “County Drops Eel River Assn., Hayfork Dump Still Unsolved,” Trinity Journal, July 10, 1969.

131 “Supervisors Delay Decision on North Coast Rivers Ass.,” Trinity Journal, September 18, 1969; “Trinity County Joins North Coast Rivers Association,” Trinity Journal, October 9, 1969.

132 “Ludden, Snyders, Wilkins, Murrison Named Trinity Citizens of the Year,” Trinity Journal, January 1, 1970.

59 coming decade. “Environment,” Forest Supervisor Paul Statham declared, “is the keyword of the

70’s.”133 Supervisor Ken Loomis reaffirmed Statham’s sentiment stating that “surely in this year to come, the words environmental, ecology, enhancement will become more ‘house-hold’ than that of Spiro Agnew.”134 It was becoming apparent to local officials and citizens that a reliance on the timber and mining industries would only take the county so far. Nearly all of the individuals who provided forecasts stressed the importance of the county’s untrammeled open spaces and their ability to attract tourists to the area. Furthermore, it was clear that Wilkins and Wilburn had solidified the county as reliably anti-dam. Campaigning in Weaverville for the 1970 Democratic nomination for United States Senator, Congressman George E. Brown, Jr., pledged his opposition to the “stealing of more water from Northern California for transport to the south.”135 In August, a pair of Bureau of Reclamation officials held a meeting with the Board of Supervisors to probe the local mood regarding projects on the Eel and potential future projects on the Trinity. “Trinity

County,” Chairman Frank Burks maintained, “is going to take a dim view of any more dams on the Trinity… Can you put a price on fish and wildlife—I don’t think you can.”136

With Trinity County in agreement, Wilkins turned his attention to statewide matters. He increasingly used his legal knowledge to pressure planning agencies that, as the previous chapter discussed, were already undergoing institutional changes. In January, the Bureau of Land

Management released its Preliminary Impact Report on the Helena Reservoir that declared the

133 “And a Look Ahead at What Seventies May Bring,” Trinity Journal, January 1, 1970.

134 Ibid.

135 “Campaign Promise by Congressman George E. Brown to not Steal Water,” Trinity Journal, April 9, 1970.

136 “Supervisors Reaffirm Opposition to More Dams,” Trinity Journal, August 27, 1970.

60 agency’s opposition to the project. Also, in January, Wilkins sued the California Department of

Fish and Game to release a report showing the adverse effects of large dams on fish and wildlife.137

The Trinity County Superior Court ultimately compelled the DFG to release the report. Just days later, the DFG went on record opposing additional dams in the north coastal region.138 Following

Wilkins’ lawsuit, the DFG issued several reports on the state of the Trinity River that later provided powerful testimony for the wild rivers legislation of 1971 and 1972.139

By 1971, the controversy surrounding water projects on the Eel continued to capture a significant amount of the public’s attention. The coalition marshalled by Wilson continued to fight development plans on the Eel, regardless of the fact that Round Valley now would be safe from inundation. The coalition centered around four critical environmental organizations and included many others. Many of the major figures in the movement held seats on multiple boards of directors for the major organizations: The Save the Eel River Association, Save the North Coast Rivers

Association, California Committee of Two Million, and California Trout. The entire California officer staff of Trout Unlimited, including Joe Paul, Richard May, and Al Wilkins, resigned from the parent organization in December 1970 and formed the state-centered California Trout organization.140 Joe Paul audaciously claimed that his recently formed California Committee of

Two Million represented the two-million sportsmen who were issued fishing licenses by the

137 “NCRA Threatens Court Action to get State Reports on Water Needs,” Trinity Journal, December 11, 1969; “NCRA Files Suit Against DFG,” Trinity Journal, January 8, 1070.

138 “Region I Report Opposes Dams,” Trinity Journal, February 5, 1970.

139 “DFG Issues Another Warning About Trinity River Project,” Trinity Journal, September 24, 1970.

140 “Trout Unlimited Officers Resign; Start New Trout Group,” Trinity Journal, December 31, 1970.

61 state.141 In response to the growing river conservation movement, California legislators introduced three significant pieces of wild rivers legislation during the 1971 regular session of the California legislature. The ensuing debate provoked sectional divisions, party politics, and intense personal rivalries. The legislative deliberations over wild rivers would last through the end of the 1972 regular session.

In January 1971, State Senator Peter Behr introduced Senate Bill 107 which sought to create the California Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Behr, a freshman Republican senator from

Marin County, represented Senate District 4 which encompassed parts of Marin, Napa, and

Sonoma counties.142 Within three days of taking his seat in the senate, Behr introduced S.B. 107.143

The bill, coauthored by senators Robert Lagomarsino, James Mills, and Donald Grunsky along with assembly members Bob Moretti, Walter Karabian, Leo McCarthy, John Dunlap, and Dixon

Arnett, closely mirrored the language of the NWSRA.144 Like the national act, S.B. 107 established a system that would designate stretches of river as “wild,” “scenic,” or “recreational.” The authors of the bill chose to include in the proposed system the Eel, Trinity, and Klamath rivers, along with their major tributaries, because the California Protected Waterways Report (CPWR) designated

141 Richard May, “They Can Be Beat,” interview by Huey Johnson, Forces of Nature: Environmental Elders Speak, July 19, 2012, http://theforcesofnature.com/movies/richard-may/; Jim Tarbell, “The North Coast Water War: An Interview with Peter Behr,” 180.

142 Online Archives of California, “The Inventory of the Peter H. Behr Papers, 1971-1978: Biography,” Online Archive of California, accessed March 12, 2018, http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt5g5020c7/entire_text/.

143 Simon, The River Stops Here, 330.

144 California Legislature, “S.B. No. 107,” Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business, 1971, 47.

62 them as “priority A” for inclusion in the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system. 145 Behr excluded many of the smaller coastal streams because they were not ranked as priorities for designation in the CPWR. Additionally, he initially opted to omit the Smith River because he felt that it was not currently threatened by development projects.146

According to Behr, the major purpose of the legislation was to prohibit high dams on the selected north coast rivers.147 The bill prohibited state agencies or officials from approving or constructing diversion projects that would alter the free-flowing character of the designated rivers.

It further prevented state entities from assisting or approving private or federal projects. Behr argued that “you need the cooperation of the state in order to build a federal dam. Without it, you’re dead in the water.”148 S.B. 107 did, however, allow for exceptions regarding diversions to supply local north-coast communities with water as well as flood control projects on the Eel river, with the condition that the state provide compensatory measures to mitigate damage to fish and wildlife resources.

S.B 107 immediately garnered a large base of support from sportsmen and conservation groups. Joe Paul, who Behr credited as the “spiritual father” of the bill, had recently formed the

California Committee of Two Million to advocate for wild rivers legislation.149 Paul took the lead

145 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, Regional Oral History Office, University of California at Berkeley, for the California State Archives State Government Oral History Program, 115.

146 Jim Tarbell, “The North Coast Water War: An Interview with Peter Behr,” in California's Salmon and Steelhead: The Struggle to Restore an Imperiled Resource, ed. Alan Lufkin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 181-85.

147 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 115.

148 Ibid., 116.

149 “Wild River Status Sought for Trinity River,” Trinity Journal, November 6, 1969.

63 in galvanizing support for S.B. 107 throughout the state. All of the state’s sportsmen’s associations, rod and gun clubs, and conservation organizations supported Behr’s bill, which also received support from less obvious sources such as the Native Sons and Native Daughters of the Golden

West, and the California Real Estate Association. Even Ed Henke, a former San Francisco 49er lineman and avid fisherman, used his fame and trucking company to garner support for the bill.150

At the outset of his effort, however, Behr made a critical mistake. Behr’s proposed legislation had little to do with his own district, and he erred badly by failing to notify Senator

Randolph Collier, whose District 1 encompassed all the of the rivers concerned. Collier, known as the “Silver Fox of the Siskiyous,” was the longest-serving Democratic senator and presided as

Chairman of the powerful Senate Committee on Finance.151 Behr’s lack of notification infuriated

Collier. “I never saw anyone more outraged,” Behr later recalled, “he turned red, white, and blue, and purple and could hardly speak, he was so angry. And for good reason.”152 Behr quickly realized his mistake and apologized profusely to Collier.

Despite Behr’s apology, Collier determined to stop S.B. 107.153 Regardless of Behr’s personal affront, the senior Democratic senator’s long record of supporting public works projects and his base of support made it highly unlikely that he would support a prohibition of dam construction on the northern rivers. Collier is well remembered as the father of the California

150 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 120.

151 Wallace Turner, “Obituaries: Randolph Collier ‘Father’ of Coast Freeways,” The New York Times, August 3, 1983.

152 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 116-17.

153 Jim Tarbell, “The North Coast Water War: An Interview with Peter Behr,” 180.

64 freeway system and had extensive experience assembling political coalitions.154 Additionally, he drew much support from the timber industry that was both critical to the northern counties’ economies and adamantly opposed to the wild rivers legislation.155 Lastly, Collier was cognizant of constituents’ calls for flood control solutions on the Eel River. According to Behr, controversy surrounding the Eel provided the main source of contention between the two senators. “Collier said he'd give me the Klamath, he'd give me the Trinity,” Behr stated later, “but the Eel was the water that they wanted.”156 Collier would remain Behr’s primary opponent through the next two years of legislative deliberation on S.B. 107. Collier, however, was hardly the only adversary of

S.B. 107. The entire state’s water industry fervently opposed Behr’s legislation. Every irrigation and water district in the state opposed S.B. 107.157

In April, Collier introduced his own proposal—Senate Bill 1285.158 Like S.B. 107,

Collier’s legislation relied heavily on the California Protected Waterways Report. Collier, the sole author of S.B. 1285, presented his bill as the logical successor to the CPWR, despite

Lagomarsino’s support for Behr’s legislation. The bill stated that the CPWR recommended that

“detailed protected waterways management plans” be prepared for select rivers. Collier proposed that these management plans include “provisions for necessary and desirable flood control, water conservation, recreation, fish and wildlife preservation and enhancement, water quality protection

154 Ibid.

155 Press, From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire, 88.

156 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 124.

157 Ibid.

158 “Ch. 671: An act relating to detailed waterway management plans, and making an appropriation therefore,” Statutes of California and Digests of Measures, 1971, 1508-09.

65 and enhancement, streamflow augmentation, and free-flowing rivers.”159 The bill directed the

Resources Agency to conduct studies on twenty north-coast rivers including the Klamath and its tributaries, the Trinity, Salmon, Shasta, and Scott rivers, the Smith, the Van Duzen, Russian, and

Eel along with other smaller northern streams. In its final form, S.B. 1285 would appropriate

$50,000 from the California Environmental Protection Fund for the Resources Agency by July

1972 and further authorized petitioning for federal funds to conduct the studies.160 Collier’s bill included no provisions banning the construction of large-scale projects on the rivers. Additionally, it did not propose a moratorium on the planning of these projects.

On April 16, just one day after Collier introduced S.B. 1285, Assemblyman Leo McCarthy, coauthor of S.B. 107, introduced Assembly Bill 2979 into the California Assembly. McCarthy initially intended his bill to complement S.B 107 if it passed. In its original form, A.B. 2979 simply stated that the construction of “public facilities or projects may not be approved or otherwise authorized by any official or agency of state government which directly affects sections of rivers which are declared by the Legislature to be wild and scenic rivers.”161 In this form, the bill was redundant and unnerved many state departments. These departments feared that the vague phrasing of “public facilities or projects” and “directly affects sections of rivers” could be interpreted as including a myriad of public services.162 In mid-July, however, Assemblyman John Dunlap and

159 Ibid.

160 Senate Bill 1285, as introduced on April 15, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 1285 1971 Collier, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

161 Assembly Bill 2979, as introduced on April 16, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers A.B. 2797 1971, McCarthy, Dunlap, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

162 California Department of Fish and Game Bill Analysis of A.B. 2979, May 11, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers A.B. 2797 1971, McCarthy, Dunlap, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-

Senators Behr and Lagomarsino joined with McCarthy to coauthor a radically changed A.B. 2979.

McCarthy, Dunlap, Behr, and Lagomarsino, all authors or coauthors of S.B. 107, in most respects, duplicated their senate bill. The assembly bill, however, differed from its senate counterpart in one critical aspect. A.B. 2979 omitted the responsibilities given by S.B. 107 to the Resources Agency to administer the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The authors deliberately discarded this provision to eliminate the fiscal impact of the bill, thereby circumventing Collier’s Senate Committee on

Finance.163 Consequently, their assembly bill could serve as a back-up if the authors’ senate bill failed to pass through the Committee on Finance. The revised A.B. 2979, however, provoked the same apprehensive response as Behr’s senate bill. In a July memorandum to McCarthy, Ike

Livermore demonstrated that although Reagan had stated his opposition to the Dos Rios Project, the administration was reluctant to permanently lock up twenty-five-percent of California’s surface water supply. Livermore stated that Reagan still considered the north coast to be the “water bank” of California.164 For Reagan, it was one thing to deny one dam project that would flood a productive agricultural valley and inundate the ancestral homeland of a Native American tribe.

Permanently locking up twenty-five-percent of California’s surface water for environmental

1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California; California Department of Water Resources Bill Analysis of A.B. 2979, May 18, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers A.B. 2797 1971, McCarthy, Dunlap, Gubernatorial Papers 1966- 1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

163 Resources Agency of California Bill Analysis of A.B. 2979, August 3, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers A.B. 2797 1971, McCarthy, Dunlap, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

164 Resources Agency of California Memorandum from Norman B. Livermore to Leo T. McCarthy, July 22, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers A.B. 2797 1971, McCarthy, Dunlap, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

67 reasons, however, constituted a sizable step beyond his opposition to Dos Rios that he was not yet willing to take.

By mid-September, both bills were in trouble. McCarthy placed A.B. 2979 on inactive file to wait for action on the senate bill.165 Although S.B. 107 had improbably passed through Collier’s

Committee on Finance, it was failing to gain two-thirds approval on the Senate floor. In fact,

Behr’s bill failed to gain even a simple majority. All sitting senators north of San Jose, except for

Collier, voted for S.B. 107. Behr’s legislation, however, received little support from the south. The powerful water industry had convinced many in the south of the necessity of additional north-coast diversions.166 Norman Hill, Livermore’s Special Assistant, attributed Behr’s hardships to the fact that he had “stepped on the toes of some powerful people and that they were retaliating.” He further defined Behr’s opponents as “the wrong people for a freshman senator to antagonize.”167

Meanwhile, Collier’s S.B. 1285 had passed through the legislature and sat on the desk of Governor

Reagan. On September 23, Reagan signed Collier’s bill into law.168 On September 30, after being given reconsideration on its third reading, the Senate refused S.B. 107 passage.169 As Behr’s senate

165 S.B. No. 107, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1971, California Legislature, 47.

166 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 124.

167 Norman Hill, “Wild Rivers Bills,” memorandum to Norman B. Livermore, September 17, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers A.B. 2797 1971, McCarthy, Dunlap, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

168 S.B. No. 1285, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1971, California Legislature, 409.

169 S.B. No. 107, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1971, California Legislature, 47.

68 bill had failed on the Senate floor rather than in the Committee on Finance, the purpose of A.B.

2979 was negated. The assembly bill died on file in December.170

Behr, however had no intention of capitulating after his defeat in 1971. Behr and Collier continued to clash throughout the 1972 legislative session. On January 3, Collier introduced Senate

Bill 4. Again the sole author of the legislation, Collier largely duplicated the 1971 version of S.B

107.171 On January 23, Behr again introduced S.B. 107 in the Senate. Intentionally giving his bill the same number as the prior year, Behr added twelve coauthors to the legislation.172 Similar to the previous year, the question surrounding water export and flood control on the Eel River accounted for the main differences between the two senators. While Collier’s introduction of a duplicate bill confounded Behr, it is clear that Collier meant S.B. 4 to provide an alternative plan that allowed for further projects on the Eel. Whereas Behr’s bill initially provided for a twenty- five-year moratorium on diversion projects on the Eel, S.B. 4 actively encouraged flood control projects on the Eel. Both bills, however, guaranteed the prevention of state support for additional diversion facilities on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers as well as their major tributaries.173

170 A.B. No. 2079, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions 1971, California Legislature, 938.

171 Senate Bill No. 4, as introduced on January 3, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 4 1972 Collier, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

172 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 125; In 1972, S.B. 107 was coauthored by Senators Behr, Alquist, Bendenson, Bradley, Gregorio, Grunsky, Lagomarsino, Mills, Moscone, Nejedly, Petris, Roberti, Rodda, and Wedworth; as well as Assemblymen Karabian, Arnett, Dunlap, Moretti, Burton, Zberg, McCarthy, Campbell, Sieroty, Pierson, Garcia, Ralph, Knox, and Wood, see: S.B. No. 107, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 58.

173 Senate Bill No. 4, as introduced on January 3, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 4 1972 Collier, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California; Senate Bill No. 107, as introduced on

Despite the death of Joe Paul in March 1972, S.B. 107 continued to garner a large base of support.174 With the notable exceptions of Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte Counties, Behr won the support of most northern counties as well as their chambers of commerce. The bill also benefited from the support of organizations and individuals that had previously mobilized for other environmental legislation such as the creation of Redwoods National Park. Most of the support for

S.B. 107, however, continued to come from fishermen and conservation organizations. This list included The California Committee of Two Million, California Trout, Trout Unlimited, The

Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, The Planning and

Conservation League, and numerous other organizations. While most of the bill’s backing originated in Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, some of its other sources of support were more surprising. Resulting from Richard Wilson’s personal connections in Southern

California, for example, the City of Los Angeles agreed to support S.B. 107.175

As the 1972 session proceeded, both Behr and Collier significantly amended their bills.

Every time Behr amended his legislation, Collier would amend S.B. 4 to duplicate the modifications.176 Despite the overwhelming organizational and legislative support for S.B. 107,

January 23, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr (1), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

174 “Wood, Field and Stream: War on Dams,” The New York Times, April 13, 1972.

175 Organizational Support for Senate Bill 107, Senator Behr S.B. 107, LP163: 28-32, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

176 Senate Bill No. 4, as amended in Assembly on November 21, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 4 1972 Collier(1), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California; Senate Bill No. 107, as amended in Assembly on November 21, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(1), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

70 the water industry’s support as well as Collier’s power and presence continued to bolster S.B. 4.

Collier’s bill was supported by the Metropolitan Water District, all of the irrigation districts, the

California Water Resources Association, and the Eel River Water Council, originally created by north-coastal counties but subsequently requisitioned by major water interests.177 S.B. 4 also benefited from its sole author — Collier. “Nobody wanted to offend Collier,” Behr later stated.178

Consequently, even most coauthors of S.B. 107 voted to approve Collier’s bill.179 “I couldn’t stop his bill,” Behr said, “and he couldn’t stop mine.”180 Collier did, however, attempt to use his position as Chairman of the Committee on Finance to stall Behr’s legislation. From May until the end of July, Collier held both bills in his Committee on Finance.181 In July, Richard May, co- founder of California Trout and Joe Paul’s successor as chairman of the CC2M, dubbed Collier a

“consummate politician,” and “consummate bad loser,” calling his failure to pass on S.B. 107 through his committee a “rape of the democratic process” and a “vestige of raw political power.”182

Collier eventually passed Behr’s bill along, but it subsequently hit a second major obstacle when Senator Robert Badham questioned its constitutionality under Article 8 of the California

177 Jim Tarbell, “The North Coast Water War: An Interview with Peter Behr,” 183.

178 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 125.

179 S.B. No. 4, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 6.

180 Jim Tarbell, “The North Coast Water War: An Interview with Peter Behr,” 183.

181 S.B. No. 4, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 6; S.B. No. 107, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 58.

182 “Collier Accused of Preventing Senate Vote on Rivers Bill,” Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1972.

Constitution. Voters had previously approved developments on the north-coast rivers when they approved the bond act financing the State Water Project. The Legislative Council subjected both bills to an investigation examining the constitutionality of preventing the voter-approved bonds from financing new projects on the rivers.183 The council ultimately deemed the bills in accordance with Article IV of Section 8(b) of the California Constitution, but the debate resulted in both bills needing a fast-track to approval by the end of the legislative session. According to Behr he “had to go through the floor of the Senate, through two Assembly committees, and off the floor of the

Assembly; and we had to do it with no changes, or we would have had a conference committee on the Assembly side and we'd be screwed, blued, and tattooed.”184 Then Speaker of the Assembly

Robert Moretti provided the lifeline that Behr’s bill needed. The authors of S.B. 107 chose to put the bill up for a vote on the last night of the Assembly session using Moretti’s position to their advantage. “When the speaker puts a bill up for a vote,” Behr said of the situation, “it goes through because he has the ultimate ability to punish you.” 185 S.B. 4 had passed through the Assembly with sixty-one votes in favor and only a single no, then passed through the Senate with all but Behr

183 California Legislature, “Consideration of Special Order—Senate Bill No. 4,” 1972 Regular Session Assembly Daily Journal, 7880-83; S.B. No. 4, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 6; S.B. No. 107, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 58.

184 Jim Tarbell, “The North Coast Water War: An Interview with Peter Behr,” 183.

185 In an interview with Jim Tarbell in 1988, Behr incorrectly states that Assemblyman Leo McCarthy passed S.B. 107 through as the Speaker of the Assembly. In fact, Leo McCarthy did not become Speaker of the Assembly until 1974. It is likely that Behr misspoke and confused McCarthy with Bob Moretti. Moretti, also a co-author of S.B. 107 in 1971 and 1972, served as speaker from January 1971 until June 1974.

72 voting in favor. S.B. 107 got through the Assembly with fifty to twenty and the Senate with twenty- five to twelve. By December 6, both bills sat on the desk of Governor Ronald Reagan. 186

Despite his approval of the Redwoods National Park and the California Environmental

Quality Act, and his disapproval of Dos Rios Dam and Reservoir, Reagan was not an environmentally-minded individual. Reagan enjoyed the outdoors and relished the time he spent at his ranches with family and friends. He did not, however, consider conservation and environmental protection to be particularly important. Reagan famously said of the Redwoods, “I saw them; there is nothing beautiful about them, just that they are a little higher than the others.”187

Although Reagan held weak feelings towards environmental protection, he was keenly aware of the environmental values held by many California residents.188 According to historian Jeffrey

Stine, “Governor Reagan did not personally initiate efforts to protect the environment, yet he did not stand in the way of others, so long as their proposals did not unduly burden the business sector.”189 Water development projects occupied a peculiar place within Reagan’s political philosophy. While Reagan undoubtedly recognized the agricultural industry’s demand for cheap accessible water, he also had reason to oppose the construction of large public works projects.

186 S.B. No. 4, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 6; S.B. No. 107, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 58.

187 Jefferey K. Stine, “Natural Resources and Environmental Policy,” in The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies, ed. W. Elliot, and Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 234.

188 Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 527-30.

189 Stine, “Natural Resources and Environmental Policy,” 234.

Partisan politics also may have played a small role in the Governor’s position on the bills.

While Behr shared a party affiliation with Reagan and Ike Livermore, Collier was the most powerful Democrat in the Senate. Referring to their party affiliation, Behr later stated that “while some of the gloss had worn off, and there wasn't much gloss to begin with, it made a difference.”190

Behr also noted that because of their strong personalities, Collier and Reagan tended to clash.

There is little evidence, however, to suggest that party politics served as the decisive factor in

Reagan’s deliberation. While Behr was a Republican, many of the co-authors of S.B. 107 were

Democrats.

Ike Livermore, however, likely served as the deciding factor in Reagan’s ultimate choice.

Reagan relied heavily on his cabinet to advise him on controversial legislation. Fortunately for

Behr, Livermore, as the Secretary of the Resources Agency, served as Reagan’s main advisor on water issues. As he did in the fight over Dos Rios, Livermore took the lead in advocating for the protection of the Eel River under S.B. 107. Livermore, also a Marin County resident, was a close personal friend of Behr’s.191 In November, Livermore had proposed that both wild rivers bills seek middle ground regarding dam projects on the Eel River.192 Livermore advised both Collier and

Behr that the cabinet would prefer whichever bill included a twelve-year moratorium on dam construction while including planning provisions to allow for studies regarding everything but dam

190 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, 127.

191 Ibid.

192 Cabinet Issue Memo from the Resources Agency to Governor Ronald Reagan, November 9, 1972, Box GO 208, Folder Wild Rivers, Governor’s Office 1967-1975 Series XII Research Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

Figure 7. Governor Ronald Reagan signing S.B. 107 on December 20, 1972, with Dan Frost, Richard Wilson, Peter Behr, Ike Livermore, David Hirsch and others. In Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr (7), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

design and construction.193 In the end, both bills included a twelve-year moratorium on construction on the Eel and permanent protections for sections of the Trinity, Klamath, and Smith rivers along with some of their major tributaries. Additionally, S.B. 4 guaranteed protected sections on the Shasta, and Russian rivers. Behr reduced his from a twenty-year ban on projects on the Eel and guaranteed the additional prohibitions. Collier, however, refused to include the prohibition of dam construction and design studies on the Eel in S.B. 4.194 On December 20, 1972, Governor

193 Summary of Cabinet Meeting, November 14, 1972, Box GO 208, Folder Wild Rivers, Governor’s Office 1967-1975 Series XII Research Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

194 “Governor Signs Tougher of Two Wild Rivers Bills,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1972.

Reagan vetoed S.B. 4 and signed S.B. 107 into law as the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, permanently prohibiting the construction of dams and reservoirs on most of the free-flowing sections of the Klamath, Trinity, Smith, and American rivers.195

195 S.B. No. 4, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 6; S.B. No. 107, Senate Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972, California Legislature, 58; Draft Statement for Veto of S.B. 4, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 4 1972 Collier, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California; Release no. 667 Governor Ronald Reagan announced today that he has vetoed the following bill, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 4 1972 Collier, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

CHAPTER 3 ————————

THE IMPACTS OF THE CALIFORNIA WILD AND SCENIC RIVERS ACT

ON THE TRINITY RIVER: 1972-1981

Upon the passage of S.B. 107, state law immediately prohibited California from participating in the study or construction of water impoundment facilities on the north coast rivers.

In practice, the CWSRA would prevent any additional dams from being constructed on the rivers.

The north coast rivers, however, were so intimately integrated into California’s future water plans that planners had a very difficult time relinquishing them to the wilderness. Nevertheless, water developers would be frustrated again in 1981, when Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus gave the rivers additional protection by designating them under Section 2(a)(ii) of the federal act. From

1972 to 1981, however, the Trinity and other rivers were designated only under the state Wild and

Scenic Rivers Act.

To assess the impacts of the state act on the Trinity, this chapter will first discuss the substance and process of implementation of the CWSRA. Then, it will discuss the impacts of the

Act with a particular emphasis on the prevention of hydro-projects. It is clear that the CWSRA formally prohibited the state from supporting or constructing additional water impoundment facilities on the rivers. It is also important, however to consider whether the dams would have been built without the Act. The purpose of this specific inquiry is to ascertain the extent to which the

CWSRA played a causative role in preventing the hydro-projects. A better understanding of the

Act’s role can suggest its effective use in the future. In addition to the CWSRA, this chapter will consider water demand and supply forecasts through the 1970s as well as alternatives to dams and

77 reservoirs and their effect on the “breathing spell” identified by the DWR’s 1970 Water Plan

Update.

In its final form, the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (CWSRA) borrowed much language and intent from its federal predecessor. It read:

It is the policy of the State of California that certain rivers which possess extraordinary scenic, recreational, fishery or wildlife values, shall be preserved in their free-flowing state, together with their immediate environments, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of the state.196

Like the federal act, the CWSRA subdivided rivers into “wild,” “scenic,” and “recreational” designations. The state act utilized the same criteria for these classifications based on the river section’s previous level of human development in the riparian corridor and availability of access.

The CWSRA did not specifically outline a system of cataloguing a river’s “outstandingly remarkable values,” as did the NWSRA, but it did reference “values for which it [the river segment] was included in the system.”197 Except for potential implications of these vaguely defined “values,” the text of the CWSRA did not suggest individualized treatment for the different designations (“wild,” “scenic,” and “recreational”).

S.B. 107 designated the Klamath, from Iron Gate Dam down to its mouth at the Pacific

Ocean, as well as portions of its major tributaries, including sections of the Scott, Salmon, and

North Fork Salmon, along with Wooley Creek. It also protected the mainstem Trinity from

Lewiston Dam to its confluence with the Klamath near Weitchpec, along with the South Fork of

196 Section 5093.50 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

197 Section 5093.60 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

Figure 8. Map of rivers designated under the CWSRA and their classifications. In U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System: Volume I Appendixes, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (December 1980). the Trinity from its intersection with Highway 36 to its confluence with the mainstem. spacingggg

79 the Trinity from its intersection with Highway 36 to its confluence with the mainstem.

Additionally, the act designated the sections of the North Fork Trinity and New River from the southern border of the Salmon-Trinity Primitive Area to their respective confluences with the mainstem Trinity. It designated the Smith, along with all of its tributaries, granting unprecedented protection to the river. Furthermore, the act designated the Lower American, from Nimbus Dam to its confluence with the Sacramento River as well as the North Fork American, from its source to the high-water mark of the proposed Auburn Reservoir.198

Finally, the act afforded qualified protections to the Eel River. It granted the Eel the same protections as the other rivers in the system but stipulated that, after a twelve-year period, the

Department of Water Resources would reevaluate the state’s need for additional developed water along with local demands for flood control. The State Legislature, considering the DWR’s report, would then hold hearings to determine the desirability of removing certain segments, or all, of the

Eel from the system to accomplish updated statewide water planning goals. If deemed necessary, the legislature could then choose to remove the Eel from the system.199

It is important to note that S.B. 107 did not contain a termination clause for the Eel’s inclusion in the California Wild and Scenic Rivers System. In other words, the Eel would not automatically be removed from the system after the twelve-year moratorium expired. Rather, an act of the legislature was required to withdraw the Eel from the system. While the Eel was ostensibly treated differently than the other rivers in the system; in practice, the legislative action needed to remove the Eel was no different than the process necessary to delete any other river

198 Sections 5093.54 (a) - (e) of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

199 Section 5093.54 (d) of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

80 already designated under the act. S.B. 107 did not specify a procedure to remove sections (or entire rivers) that were already listed as wild and scenic. This did not, however, mean that the designated rivers were immune to expulsion. Although the CWSRA ostensibly protected rivers included within the system in perpetuity, any river could be removed by legislative action. Indeed, in 1982,

Assembly Bill 1349 removed significant stretches of the Smith River tributaries from the system.200

In theory, the CWSRA protected the rivers designated within the system “in perpetuity.”

In practice however, the CWSRA shifted more decision-making power to the California

Legislature and away from the executive agencies. In its bill analysis, the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources and Conservation deemed this shift in power “the most essential policy issue” produced by S.B. 107.201 Prior to the passage of the CWSRA, the state entrusted the fates of the northern rivers to the Department of Water Resources. In 1959, the Burns-Porter Act authorized the DWR to “augment the supplies of water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from multiple purpose dams, reservoirs, aqueducts and appurtenant works in the watersheds of the

Sacramento, Eel, Trinity, Mad, Van Duzen and Klamath Rivers for use in the State Water

Resources Development System.”202 So long as the DWR had sufficient funds, the Burns-Porter

Act authorized, and encouraged, the department to determine the necessity of additional water

200 A.B. No. 1349, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 934.

201 Assembly Committee on Natural Resources and Conservation, “Bill Analysis of S.B. 107,” August 1, 1972, Peter H. Behr papers, LP163:28-32, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

202 California Water Resources Development Bond Act (Burns-Porter Act), California Water Code, Div. 6, Part 6, Ch. 8, Sections 12930-12938 (1959).

81 impoundment projects. In late-1972, however, S.B. 107 granted the preponderance of decision- making power, regarding the future of the north coastal rivers, to the California Legislature.

Unlike Collier’s S.B. 1285 and S.B. 4, Behr’s act did entail the creation of a wild rivers system.203 S.B. 107 entrusted the implementation and administration of the Wild and Scenic Rivers

System to the California Resources Agency. The act required that state agencies, as well as all local governments, “exercise their power in a manner consistent with the provisions of this chapter.”204 It could not, however, directly affect the conduct and policies of federal entities. This limitation was especially significant in the cases of the northern rivers where so much of the riparian land was owned and managed by the federal government and its agencies. The segments of river designated in Trinity River system were predominantly federally owned. The Bureau of

Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service possessed 80 of the 111 designated miles on the mainstem Trinity. The remaining 31 miles were held by private ownership (17) or fell within the

Hoopa Reservation (14). Of the miles designated on the North Fork (14), South Fork (55), and

New River (20), all but one mile were held by the Forest Service.205

S.B 107 directed the Resources Agency to determine which classification (“wild,”

“scenic,” or “recreational”) best fit the river segments designated by section 5093.53, prepare a

203 Section 5093.50 stated “It is the purpose of this chapter to create a California Wild and Scenic Rivers System to be administered in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.” See Section 5093.50 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

204 Section 5093.61 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

205 The BLM owned one mile on the North Fork, just above its confluence with the mainstem. See “Table 2: Federal/Non-Federal Land Ownership Along Proposed Rivers,” in Department of the Interior, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System vol. 1, (Washington D.C., 1980).

82 management plan to administer each river and their adjacent land area, and finally, submit said management plans to the legislature for approval.206 Additionally, prior to approval, the act required that the Resources Agency hold a public hearing in each county affected by the individual management plans.207

The trials facing the implementation of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers System began shortly after its inception. Problems arose surrounding the proposed budget for the CWSRA and the relationship between Collier’s 1971 S.B. 1285 (still in effect) and S.B. 107. On January 3,

1973, state officials met to discuss the relationship between the two laws. They directed Glenn

Delisle, the head of the S.B. 1285 task force, to reconcile the work that had been accomplished towards establishing the Protected Waterways System with the goals and intents of S.B. 107.208

Delisle was further instructed to develop a method to determine the classifications for certain sections of the rivers, determine a budget and plan with the intent to complete studies on the designated rivers and ultimately prepare the Resources Agency to begin administration of the system by March 1974, and finally to determine feasible interim controls on the rivers until that time.209

206 Section 5093.58 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

207 Section 5093.59 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

208 Memorandum from the William Penn Mott to the Office of the Secretary, January 3, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(6), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California; Memorandum entitled “Resources Agency’s Protected Waterways Meeting” from Ford B. Ford to the Department Directors and Board Executive Officers, January 10, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(6), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

209 Memorandum entitled “Assignments Resulting from January 3rd Meeting” from Glenn Delisle to the Protected Waterways Program Staff, January 3, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers

By January 12, Delisle’s task force presented its findings to Livermore and integrated discussions of the California Environmental Quality Act and the Office of Planning and Research

Act, both passed in 1970.210 The ensuing report, entitled “The Administration of the Wild and

Scenic Rivers System Program Budget Statement for Fiscal Year 1973-1974,” designated a four- man professional staff within the Resources Agency and an interdepartmental management committee to administer the program.211 Through the 1972-1973 fiscal year, the staff would develop tentative designation criteria (i.e., for “wild,” “scenic,” or “recreational” classifications) as well as preliminary boundary suggestions for all rivers within the system. The report projected that, by June 1973, the task force would submit an initial draft of a management plan for the Smith

River with plans for the Trinity and Klamath well underway.212 The staff would utilize the 1973-

74 fiscal year to complete management plans for the Smith, Trinity, and Klamath rivers and subsequently submit them to the legislature for review, approval, and appropriation of funds. The management plans would include the following: a description of the waterway; classification and boundary recommendations; types of adjacent land-use practices; local involvement recommendations; proposed public use facilities; and estimates of the costs of administering the

S.B. 107 1972 Behr(6), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

210 Memorandum entitled “SB 107 and SB 1285 Programs” from the Office of the Secretary to Ford B. Ford, January 12, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(7), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

211 “Administration of California Wild and Scenic Rivers System Program Budget Statement for Fiscal Year 1973-74,” from Glenn Delisle to Ford B. Ford, January 12, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(7), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

212 Ibid., 5-6.

84 river under the system. Additionally, the task force would submit a draft management plan for the

Eel River that would prepare for the possible removal of the stream from the system.213 The plan estimated that the process would cost $130,000 and five man-years in the 1972-73 fiscal year, and

$320,000 and ten man-years in the 1973-74 fiscal year, with most of the funding coming from the state’s general fund.214

In late-June 1973, the implementation of the CWSRA hit a legislative snag. In deliberations over the state budget, the Joint Conference Committee on the Budget vetoed a request from the

Resources Agency for funding necessary to implement S.B. 107. The committee denied $25,000 that the Agency sought to appropriate to the development of the river management studies called for under S.B. 107 (Budget Item 196.5) but appropriated $225,000 to studies resembling those called for by Collier’s 1971 S.B. 1285 (Budget Item 196).215 Furthermore, the committee modified the language of the budget item in a way that seemed contradictory to prohibitions on studies on the north coast rivers.216 The budget item allocated the funds for plans that included “provisions for flood control, water conservation, recreation, fish and wildlife preservation and enhancement, water quality protection and enhancement, stream flow augmentation, and preservation of free- flowing rivers” on the Smith, Russian, Eel, and Klamath River systems.217 It is not evident whether

213 Ibid., 6.

214 Ibid., 7.

215 Letter from David L. Hirsch to Governor Ronald Reagan, June 29, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(7), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

216 The California Legislature, “Item 196” in Item Analysis of the Budget Bill (Legislative Analyst’s Office, 1973): 419.

217 Ibid., 419-20.

85 legislators questioned the legality of the budget item, as it related to S.B. 107, but it is clear that

Senator Collier held a prominent position on the committee. While Collier still presided as

Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Donald Grunsky, a coauthor of Behr’s S.B. 107 in

1971 and 1972, served as Chairman of the Joint Committee. Of the six senators sitting on the Joint

Committee, two were coauthors of S.B. 107 in 1972 (Donald Grunsky and Anthony Beilenson), while three voted against the passage of S.B. 107 in November 1972 (Craig Biddle, Randolph

Collier, and Howard Way).218 While it is not immediately evident why the other members of the

Joint Committee chose to acquiesce, it seems apparent that Collier intended to defund Behr’s bill to prevent it from absorbing his S.B. 1285 passed in 1971.

The continuing legislative conflicts demoralized Delisle and his task force. Budget Item

196, included in the state’s 1973-74 budget, stipulated that “such funds shall be used only pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 761 of 1971 [The Waterways Management Planning Program or S.B.

1285].”219 In early-July 1973, Delisle requested clarification from the Attorney General regarding the funds allocated by Budget Item 196. Delisle questioned whether the language within the budget item merely prevented the Resources Agency from preparing the management plans required by

218 Assembly Final History: Final Calendar of Legislative Business 1972 Regular Session, California Legislature, 1234; There was one vacancy on the regularly seven-member committee; In addition to the six senators, seven Assemblymen sat on the Committee including Cullen, Brown, Chappie, Davis, Lanterman, Macdonald, and Mobley. On November 21, 1972, Ray Johnson moved to amend S.B. 107 to provide for dam studies following a six-year moratorium period on the Eel River. The amendment would substantially weaken S.B. 107 from a preservationist’s perspective. Of the assemblymen on the Joint Committee in 1973, four had voted to reject the amendment in 1972 (Cullen, Brown, Davis, and MacDonald), while three voted to approve it (Chappie, Lanterman, and Mobley). See November 21, 1972, Assembly Daily Journal 1972 Regular Session, 7791.

219 “July 1973 Progress Report – Protected Waterways Program” from Glenn Delisle to Ford B. Ford and Norman B. Livermore, August 29, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(7), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

S.B. 107 or was to be considered an act of the legislature effectively repealing the prohibition of planning of dams as enacted by S.B. 107. While S.B. 1285 allowed for the planning of dams, a

Legislative Counsel opinion instructed that the S.B. 1285 plans had to be consistent with the prohibitions in S.B. 107. Delisle’s main question for the Attorney General was the following: if management plans prepared pursuant to the 1973-74 Budget could take into consideration only

S.B. 1285, should the prohibition on dams enacted in 1972 by S.B. 107 be ignored?

By late-August 1973, the Attorney General had still not responded to Delisle’s query. The ambiguity of the task force’s mission resulted in a malaise that began to consume the team. In stark contrast to the task force’s plan outlined in January 1973, Delisle stated on August 30, 1973, that

“no effort has yet been devoted to implementing SB 107 since the state budget was approved in

June.”220 He lamented that his staff was beginning to resign or lose interest in the program. Mike

Doyle, the program representative from the Department of Parks and Recreation, left the program in August while Delisle’s subsequent requests to fill the vacancy went unheeded by the Resources

Agency. Delisle bitterly concluded an August progress report to the Resources Agency with the statement, “Several vacations were taken this month.”221 As a result of this administrative chaos, the Resources Agency would fail to complete any management plans for the major northern rivers, resulting in further conflict for more than a decade. The lack of specific management plans also resulted in a haphazard application of the CWSRA.

220 “August 1973 Progress Report – Protected Waterways Program” from Glenn Delisle to Ford B. Ford and Norman B. Livermore, August 30, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(7), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

221 Ibid.; “July 1973 Progress Report – Protected Waterways Program” from Glenn Delisle to Ford B. Ford and Norman B. Livermore, August 29, 1973.

The prevention of dams, reservoirs, and other water impoundment facilities became effective immediately after the Act’s passage, however, and represented the most substantial potential impact that the CWSRA had on the Trinity and other north coast rivers. This is not surprising considering that it was the primary purpose of the legislation. In an interview with Ann

Lage in 1988, Senator Behr unequivocally declared that “the major purpose of it [S.B. 107] was to exclude high dams.”222 This it did in indisputable language. The non-degradation clause in the act stated:

Except as provided in subdivision (d) of Section 5093.54 [regarding the Eel River], no dam, reservoir, or other water impoundment facility, other than temporary flood storage facilities permitted pursuant to Section 5093.57, shall be constructed on or directly affecting any river, designated in Section 5093.54 after the effective date of this chapter; nor shall any water diversion facility be constructed on any such river unless and until the secretary determines that such a facility is needed to supply domestic water to the residents of the county or counties through which the river flows, and unless and until the secretary determines that facility will not adversely affect its free-flowing condition or natural character.223

The Act also prohibited state support for federal projects and feasibility studies on stretches designated under the state act. With some exceptions for the Eel River, the act further stated that:

No department or agency of the state shall assist or cooperate, whether by loan, grant, license, or otherwise, with any department or agency of the federal, state, or local government, in the planning or construction of any project that could have an adverse effect on the free-flowing natural condition of the rivers included in the system.224

222 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, Regional Oral History Office, University of California at Berkeley, for the California State Archives State Government Oral History Program, 115.

223 Section 5093.55 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

224 Section 5093.56 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

In sum, the CWSRA prevented any subdivision of the state of California from planning, constructing, or assisting in any way in the planning, or construction of, any dam or reservoir on designated stretches. Furthermore, though in less explicit language, the act restrained the planning or construction of water impoundment facilities on river segments below or above designated stretches. Additionally, the CWSRA restricted diversions from designated stretches of river.

There remained, however, several stated and unstated exceptions to the prohibitions on diversion structures. First, provided they did not affect the “free-flowing condition or natural character” of the river, the act allowed for diversions aimed at satisfying local water needs. Second, while dams and reservoirs were prohibited on the Eel, the act allowed for other methods of flood control, presumably dikes, levees, and flood diversion canals, provided they not interfere with the river’s free-flowing character. Third, although it precluded state support for water impoundment and diversion facilities, the CWSRA could not explicitly bar the planning or construction of such facilities by the federal government. Theoretically, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could override the state system and issue a license to construct a dam.225 Behr, however, did not foresee this deficiency as a major impediment. “You need the cooperation of the state in order to build a federal dam. Without it,” he claimed, “you’re dead in the water.”226 Furthermore, although the CWSRA could not technically prevent federal institutions from licensing or assisting water projects on designated segments, it would function as a prerequisite to a federal WSR designation

225 Comparative Analysis of Senate Bill No. 107 and Senate Bill 4, September 14, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(4), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

226 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, Regional Oral History Office, University of California at Berkeley, for the California State Archives State Government Oral History Program, 116.

89 through Section 2(a)(ii) that would subsequently prohibit federal action or cooperation in dam planning and construction.

Since the passage of the CWSRA in 1972, no water impoundment facility has been planned or constructed on any of the originally designated stretches of river. On the Trinity River, the

Trinity and Lewiston dams and reservoirs remain the only major instream water impoundment facilities in the drainage. In addition to these two reservoirs, the Ewing and Buckhorn dams and reservoirs constitute the only other water impoundment facilities within the Trinity River watershed. Ewing Dam and Reservoir, fed by flows from Clear Creek, a tributary to Hayfork Creek and the South Fork Trinity, serves as a local water supply for the Hayfork Valley. Trinity County

Waterworks District #1 completed the Ewing Project, storing a maximum of 820 acre-feet, in

1972.227 While the project was authorized and completed prior to the passage of the CWSRA, it would likely have won approval under section 5093.55 of the act had it been needed.

Buckhorn Dam and Reservoir, completed in 1991 as a part of the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project, are located near Buckhorn Summit on Grass Valley Creek. Owned and managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, Buckhorn does not serve as a water storage facility.

Rather, the Bureau of Reclamation incorporated Buckhorn Dam into the interagency Trinity River

Restoration Program to trap sediment for the health of the Trinity’s anadromous fishery. Because of its unstable granitic soil, Grass Valley Creek discharged large amounts of debris and sediment into the Mainstem Trinity. Large quantities of this fine sediment cemented more coarse gravel, reducing the gravel’s suitability to retain and shelter salmonid eggs. Prior to the construction of

227 The Watershed Research and Training Center, Big Creek Watershed Assessment Report, prepared for the North Coast Regional Water Quality Board (Hayfork, California, July 2008): 2- 3; The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 152-65: Ewing Project Feasibility Study, prepared by the Division of Resources Planning, California Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, September 1965).

90 the Trinity River Division, high spring flows from the upper-reaches of the Trinity sufficiently scoured fine sediment deposited by the creek to ensure the river’s suitability for spawning activity.

Following the construction of the Trinity Division and subsequent diversions to the Sacramento basin, the Grass Valley Creek’s proportion of the upper Trinity basin’s inflow increased by 450 percent. Resultingly, the reduced flows from Lewiston Dam proved insufficient to flush fine sediments from the mainstem’s riverbed. Prior to restoration work and the completion of the

Buckhorn Dam, the Restoration Program estimated that the creek contributed 65 percent of the total sediment load entering the Trinity River.228

Thus, while allowing small-scale projects like Buckhorn and Ewing Dams, the CWSRA appears to have successfully prevented any new water impoundment facilities from being constructed on the Trinity and other north coast rivers designated in 1972. A critical question, however, remains to be answered: how much of a causative role did the passage of the CWSRA actually have in preventing the construction of additional water impoundment facilities on these rivers? In other words, would the state and/or federal agencies and public have approved some of these projects had the CWSRA not been signed into law? To answer this question requires a discussion of the security of California’s water-supply during, and after, the passage of the act. It is particularly important to determine how Californians viewed their future water demands and to what extent those demands would grow in the ensuing decades.

First, it is necessary to note that, had Governor Reagan rejected Behr’s S.B. 107, he would most likely have signed Collier’s S.B. 4. Regarding all rivers except for the Eel, Collier’s 1972 legislation mirrored Behr’s. S.B. 4 would have protected the north coast rivers, aside from the Eel,

228 Trinity County Resource Conservation District, Grass Valley Creek Watershed Restoration Project: Restoration in Decomposed Granite Soils (Weaverville, California, March 1998): 1-5.

91 in the same manner as S.B. 107.229 Without Behr’s initiative and persistence, however, river protection legislation in California would have been far less stringent, especially during the critical years of the early-1970s. It was Behr’s intrusion into his district’s business that provoked Collier to propose S.B. 1285 in 1971 and S.B. 4 in 1972. Had Behr refrained from introducing S.B. 107 in 1971, Collier would not have introduced S.B. 1285. Furthermore, had Behr capitulated after

1971, Collier’s 1971 legislation would have remained the predominant wild rivers legislation in

California. As discussed previously, the principal provision of S.B. 1285 was the preparation of protected waterways management plans.230 It did not immediately protect any of the rivers listed for consideration. Even if Collier or another legislator proposed legislation to act on the management plans’ recommendations, the process would likely have taken years longer.

Consequently, the northern rivers would have remained unprotected until the mid-1970s, if at all.

Additionally, S.B. 1285 did not bar the plans from including additional water impoundment facilities. Before the passage of S.B. 107, the Resources Agency could still recommend the construction of dams and reservoirs on the northern rivers at its discretion.231

At the time of its passage, many Californian’s doubted the staying power of the CWSRA.

Writer Ted Simon argued that even following the enactment of the CWSRA, “[m]ost of the prominent figures on the side of water development remained convinced that sooner or later the

229 Senate Bill No. 4, as introduced on January 3, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 4 1972 Collier(1), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

230 Ch. 671: An act relating to detailed waterway management plans, and making an appropriation therefore,” Statutes of California and Digests of Measures (1971): 1508-09.

231 Section 2 Senate Bill 1285, as introduced on April 15, 1971, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 1285 1971 Collier, Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

92 engineers would return to the north coast.”232 Col. Frank Boerger, the District Engineer of the

Army Corps of Engineers, predicted that, within thirty years, California would again seek additional facilities on the northern rivers. William Fairbank, the former Assistant Director of the

Department of Water Resources and Legislative Representative for the Metropolitan Water

District, echoed Boerger’s assertion, stating that major diversions from the north coast would be necessary within twenty to thirty years.233 Even the Legislative Counsel of California had a difficult time imagining California’s water future without the further development of the northern rivers.

In its report on S.B. 107, the counsel questioned the legal potency of the non-degradation clause of the CWSRA:

Since the bill would cover three of the major stream systems in the state, which contain vast amounts of water wasted annually into the Pacific Ocean, which water, in all probability, will ultimately have to be impounded, not only for flood control purposes, but also to meet the water needs of the people of our state, we seriously doubt that a court would hold that requiring all of such water to flow freely to the ocean is a responsable[sic.] use of the water… In our opinion, therefore, a statute enacted by the legislature which prohibited all water development in the watersheds of the Eel, Trinity, and Klamath Rivers would probably be held not to prohibit the construction by the department of an additional water development facility of the State Water Resources Development System in any such watershed pursuant to Section 12938 [of the Burns-Porter Act].234

The Legislative Counsel held that the CWSRA, if subject to a legal challenge, would not actually impede efforts to construct dams on the north coast rivers.

232 Ted Simon, The River Stops Here: Saving Round Valley, A Pivotal Chapter in California’s Water Wars (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2001), 344.

233 Ibid.

234 George H. Murphy, “Report on S.B. 107,” December 8, 1972, The Legislative Counsel of California, California State Archives, Sacramento, text-fiche, GCBF 1972, Regular Session, Ch. 991 - Ch. 1274.

In addition to uncertainties regarding the lasting impact of the CWSRA, the general water supply situation in California until the mid-1970s portended the need for a significant expansion of water supplied by the state water system. In its 1974 update of the CWP, the Department of

Water Resources expressed its concern for the adequacy of existing facilities to meet future needs.

“The extent to which available supplies will cover future requirements,” it stated, “is considerably less certain in 1974 than it appeared to be in 1970.”235 The “breathing spell” afforded by reduced growth projections in the early-1970s proved less enduring than river advocates had hoped. The report cited the establishment of additional water requirements for water quality improvement and salinity control in the Sacramento River Delta, the movement toward locating power plants at inland locations rather than on the coast, and a surge in foreign demand for agricultural products as reasons for this uncertainty. It also noted that the wild rivers legislation, along with the absence of authorization of any new water storage projects in the state, left the department with few options for attaining additional water supplies. Because of this projected growth in demand, a 2.45-million- acre-foot overdraft of groundwater (mostly in the San Joaquin Valley), and no new sources of water, the department issued a grim forecast. It declared that “the prospects of providing water for any large expansion of irrigated agriculture in California to meet increased demands for food and fiber worldwide are not considered optimistic under the general conditions prevailing at the present time.”236

A large portion of the DWR’s trepidation by 1974 stemmed from the recent consideration given to water quality and environmental concerns within the Central Valley. Particularly, an

235 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974): 1.

236 Ibid.

94 increasing concern for water quality and supply within the Sacramento River Delta began to reduce the amount of water available for export to the south. The spotlight on the Delta may have increased the demand for the construction of additional dams and diversions had they not been prohibited on the north coast rivers through the CWSRA. The rivers that flow into the Delta contain roughly fifty-percent of the total streamflow of the state.237 Because the north-coast and Delta- draining rivers collectively account for ninety-percent of California’s streamflow, it is unsurprising that controversies in the Delta had repercussions hundreds of miles to the north. Both the State

Water Project and the Central Valley Project use the Delta as a hub for transporting water to users in the San Joaquin Valley as well as further to the south—an issue that will be discussed, at length, in the subsequent chapter.

A recent State Water Resources Control Board decision had compelled water agencies to guarantee instream flows to delta-feeding rivers, further stretching water resources in the San

Joaquin Valley. First, the SWRCB adopted its Decision no. 1379 in September 1971.238 D-1379 established new water quality standards for the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary as well as a program to monitor conditions within the Delta. The decision required significantly higher outflow requirements from the Delta and could have resulted in a 1.8-million-acre-foot reduction in exports from the CVP and SWP systems.239 The decision left water agencies with two options: curtail

237 U.S. Department of the Interior, Circular 1182: Land Subsidence in the United States, U.S. Geological Survey (Washington D.C., 1999): 84.

238 California Environmental Protection Agency, Delta Water Rights Decision no. 1379, State Water Resources Control Board (Sacramento, July 1971).

239 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974): 57; Jay Lund, et al., Envisioning Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, February 2007): 36; California Environmental

95 exports from the Delta, or increase the amount of water released from upstream reservoirs.240 In a letter to Senator Behr, Ike Livermore described the effect that Decision no. 1379 had on the

”breathing spell” of the late-1960s and early-1970s:

Although the Department of Water Resources Bulletin 160-70 estimated that additional water development would not be needed until 1990, the Delta Water Rights Decision [no. 1379] of the State Water Resources Control Board must be seen as bringing the date for new water development at least five years closer.241

Although several lawsuits brought against it resulted in a stay of execution, the decision initiated a series of battles over water quality and environmental concerns in the Delta.242 In 1978, Water

Rights Decision 1485 (which superseded Decision 1379) and the Delta Water Quality Plan confirmed the SWRCB’s authority to regulate the operation of the CVP and SWP in the Delta and accomplished the key goals of decision no. 1379.243

Protection Agency, Setting Delta Standards, State Water Resources Control Board, (Sacramento, 1994): 1.

240 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 132-73: The California State Water Project in 1973, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, June 1973): 19.

241 Norman B. Livermore, Letter to Peter H. Behr, August 3, 1972, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(6), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California; Draft Press Release, December 18, 1972, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(6), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

242 Lund, et al., Envisioning Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, 36.

243 California Environmental Protection Agency, Water Right Decision 1485: Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta and Suisan Marsh, State Water Resources Control Board (Sacramento, August 1978); California Environmental Protection Agency, Water Quality Control Plan: Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta and Suisan Marsh, State Water Resources Control Board (Sacramento, August 1978); The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-83: The California Water Plan: Projected Use and Available Water Supplies to 2010, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1983): 21.

Despite the declining public enthusiasm for constructing new water impoundment facilities, the DWR, by the mid-1970s, still favored conventional means of obtaining new water supplies. “To make up the loss of water resulting from the decision [no. 1379],” the department’s

1974 CWP update stated, “would require the construction of a new water storage project in the

Upper Sacramento Valley or the North Coast.”244 The DWR, now directed by John R. Teerink, clearly would have preferred the latter of these two options, had it not been barred by the CWSRA.

While the report stated that there was potential for additional developments in the northern

Sacramento Valley, it also noted the exorbitant costs resulting from a dearth of available economical sites.245

To determine the extent that the Trinity and other north coast rivers were immediately threatened by this continuing inclination to construct additional dam projects, it is important to examine the alternative water sources that were becoming available during the 1970s, as well as how Californians viewed these alternatives’ future within the state’s water system. Throughout the

1960s and 1970s, the development of the burgeoning technology of saline water conversion, or desalination, became entwined with plans to develop north coast rivers. Out of all methods to develop new water supplies, river advocates most frequently and vociferously promoted desalination as an alternative to large-scale diversions from the northern rivers during the wild rivers campaign from 1968 to 1972.

Previously the domain of ocean-going ships, desalination gained wide recognition as a potential solution to water-supply problems after the Second World War. In 1952, the Department

244 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974): 19.

245 Ibid., 2.

97 of the Interior created the Office of Saline Water to research the prospective technology.246

Because extracting salt from water was incredibly energy-intensive, hopes for large-scale desalination projects relied on the continued expansion of nuclear power. In 1957, the Department of Water Resources commenced a program to study and evaluate the applicability of nuclear power and saline conversion to water supply and quality in California. In its preliminary studies, the

DWR immediately recognized the largest obstacle to a large-scale desalting program—its cost.

The agency acknowledged that for the foreseeable future, desalination could not compete economically with large-scale reservoirs and inter-basin transfers. It estimated that water obtained through desalination cost two to five times more than water made available through conventional means.247 The concurrent prohibitive cost of desalination, however, did not prevent water planners from further investigation into the technology. The DWR cooperated with the University of

California and the Federal Office of Saline Water to study the future applications of the process.248

Despite its high cost, the notion of providing unlimited quantities of water to dry coastal areas captivated the public. In a 1964 article, The Los Angeles Times predicted that “in the future, huge nuclear power stations will simultaneously generate power and take the salt out of ocean water. They will help to solve the severe fresh water problem.”249 President Lyndon Johnson

246 “Records of the Office of Saline Water,” United States National Archives, accessed June 2, 2018, https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/380.html.

247 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 93-60: Saline Water Demineralization and Nuclear Power in the California Water Plan, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1960): xvi-xvii.

248 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 134-62: Saline Water Conversion Activities in California, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, August 1963): 1-5.

249 10-Yr. Study Planned to Assess Sea Wealth: Virtually Untapped Riches in Food and Minerals Could Reshape Everyone’s Life,” The Los Angeles Times, February 24, 1964.

98 echoed this hopeful sentiment. “Within the next century,” he argued, “desalted water will be the cheapest—the only way to obtain new water supplies in many areas.”250 In the 1960s, desalination seemed to be quickly assuming a critical role in water planning for arid and semi-arid regions.251

In 1960, the California legislature authorized funds to construct, in conjunction with the Office of

Saline Water, an experimental desalination plant at Point Loma, near San Diego. In 1964, the Point

Loma plant was decommissioned and transported for use on the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo

Bay after Cuban Premier Fidel Castro cut off the base’s water supply. Subsequently, the state focused its attention on the Office of Saline Water’s San Diego Test Facility. In 1965, the

Department of Water Resources built a pipeline from the facility to augment San Diego’s municipal water supply.252 Also in 1965, the California Legislature reaffirmed its commitment to developing an economical desalting program when it passed the Cobey-Porter Saline Water

Conversion Law. The law read:

It is hereby declared that the people of the state have a primary interest in the development of economical saline water conversion processes which could eliminate the necessity for additional facilities to transport water over long distances, or supplement the services to be provided by such facilities, and provide a direct and easily managed water supply to assist in meeting the future water requirements of the state.253

250 “Johnson Wants More for Desalination Work,” Los Angeles Times, October 26, 1964.

251 Department of the Interior, Pacific Southwest Water Plan Report, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, January 1964, 2-4.

252 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR: Water for California: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1970): 24.

253 California Water Code, Division 6 Conservation, Development, and Utilization of State Water Resources, Part 6 Water Development Projects, Chapter 9 Saline Water Conversion, Article 2 Declaration of Policy, Section 12946.

Water planners focused on statewide water supply were fascinated by the potential but were unwilling to wait for the nascent technology to mature. While formulating the bond act that later became the Burns-Porter Act in 1959, Governor Pat Brown hoped that water requirements beyond

1990 would be met by desalination. If that proved economically infeasible, however, he hoped that leftover bond money would be sufficient to fund additional dam projects.254 In September 1965,

William E. Warne, then Director of the Department of Water Resources, typified departmental thinking in the mid-1960s in a statement to the Pacific-Southwest Inter-agency Committee. “As long as development of water by construction of dams, reservoirs and aqueducts is more economical than desalination,” he declared, “we will see the interbasin transfer of water on a more and more massive scale.”255

At the end of the 1960s, hopes remained high that desalination would play a large role in augmenting the state’s water supply. In the fight to protect the north coast rivers from development, river conservationists and politicians frequently cited the bright prospects of desalination. Hoping to present viable alternatives to dam projects, conservationists touted desalination as a panacea for

California’s water supply problems. At the outset of her and Al Wilkins’ campaign to prevent further dams on the Trinity, Supervisor Hazel Wilburn proclaimed that in the near future, desalination would provide sufficient water supply to satisfy southern California’s water needs.256

254 Norris Hundley, The Great Thirst: Californians and Water: A History, revised ed. (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2001), 284.

255 “Water Development,” The Coronado Eagle, September 30, 1965.

256 “Movement Underway to Oppose Further Dam Projects in Trinity,” Trinity Journal, October 10, 1968.

100

Wilkins, Wilburn, and other environmentalists frequently utilized the technology’s futuristic appeal to suggest that major inter-basin transfers were archaic and unnecessary.257

During these same years, the Department of Water Resources retained an optimistic perspective towards the near future of desalination. Although it was still economically uncompetitive, desalination had experienced a dramatic decrease in cost during the previous decade. The estimated cost of producing de-salted water from a small capacity plant had decreased from six-dollars per one-thousand gallons in 1960 to one dollar per one-thousand gallons in

1970.258 By comparison, however, water experts interpreted “low cost” desalted water to mean not more than 30 cents per thousand gallons for municipal supplies, or 12 cents per thousand gallons for irrigation water.259 In 1969, The Department of Water Resources published its most comprehensive investigation into desalination’s current and future role in statewide water planning with its Bulletin 134-69 entitled “Desalting, State of the Art.”260 The report articulated the

Department’s hopeful but cautious attitude:

In this period of swift technological change, the practical impact of such change on the economics of desalting is somewhat difficult to envision beyond a decade. Uncertainties can be especially perplexing to policy and decision-makers when required to make a selection among alternatives that are at different levels of technological development. It is important, however, that the decision-makers'

257 “North Coast Rivers Association Questions Necessity of Big Dams,” Trinity Journal, March 13, 1969.

258 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974): 51.

259 E. D. Howe, "Saline Water Conversion Research at the University of California," Proceedings Sea Water Conversion State of the Art Conference, June I8, 1968, Sacramento, California.

260 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 134-69: Desalting, State of the Art, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, June 1969).

101

flexibility not be constrained too early by premature conclusions as to the level of future technological development. The policy-maker must retain his options to deal with future technological changes when and if they come along so as to minimize the adverse effects of underestimating or overestimating technological progress.261

The Department’s 1970 update of the California Water Plan, while still cautious, maintained that desalination of sea water remained a realistic source of additional water supplies on a large scale.

“As desalting techniques are improved and the costs are lowered,” the report asserted, “the feasibility of using desalted water in California will increase.”262 Subsequent reports on the prospective technology, however, would not share the 1970 update’s qualified confidence.

By the mid-1970s, it became clear to the Department of Water Resources that desalination would not serve as the cure-all solution that river advocates and water planners had hoped.

Although the public’s hopes remained high for the outlook of the process, the Department began to consider desalination a solution for isolated instances rather than an encompassing solution. In its 1974 CWP update, the DWR’s tone regarding the future of desalination appeared less enthusiastic. The report stated that “Desalting of sea water on a large scale does not currently appear practical due to high costs and extremely large energy requirements.”263 It cited rising inflation and skyrocketing energy costs as the cause of this shift in the Department’s position.264

At the time of the update’s publication, the U.S. economy was reeling from the repercussions of

261 Ibid., 43.

262 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR: Water for California: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1970): 24.

263 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974): 3.

264 Ibid., 51.

102 theorizations of peak oil production and the 1973 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

(OPEC) oil embargo.265 The energy crisis and resulting economic downturn highlighted the core drawbacks of desalination as a reliable source of large quantities of water. The Department, however, predicted that desalination would be increasingly employed to treat agricultural wastewater as well as brackish groundwater for municipal uses. The DWR was currently investigating desalination’s uses for ten California communities.266 The 1974 report concluded its discussion on desalination by declaring that the process “will probably play an increasing role in water resource management over the next 10 to 30 years, but is not expected to be a major source of supplemental water supply.”267

Desalination’s failure to fulfill its prophesized role resulted, in part, from the fading prospects of nuclear power. Similar to desalination, many Americans presaged a future fueled by nuclear power following the Second World War. In 1946, President Truman established the

Atomic Energy Commission that was succeeded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the

Energy Research and Development Administration in 1974. Nuclear power’s rapid expansion

265 The concept of “peak oil” is attributed to Marion King Hubbard’s 1956 publication: “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels.” The public became enthralled with Hubbard’s theory only after the 1973 oil embargo and it became widely known that U.S. crude oil production peaked in 1970 and subsequently declined, as Hubbard had predicted. See M. King Hubbert, “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels,” paper presented before the Spring Meeting of the Southern District Division of Production of the American Petroleum Institute, March 7-9 1956; and Alfonso A. Narvaez, Obituaries, “M. King Hubbert, 86, Geologist, Research Changed Oil Production,” The New York Times, October, 17, 1989.

266 The report was later published as Bulletin 193-74, see The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 193-74: Desalting Alternatives in Ten California Communities: Reconnaissance Evaluation Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1974).

267 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974): 51.

103 through the 1960s and 1970s reinforced the public’s romantic vision of abundant clean energy.

The number of active nuclear stations in the United States and their total power generation increased from one and two-hundred megawatts (MW), to fifteen and five-thousand megawatts, to seventy-four and fifty-three-thousand megawatts in 1960, 1970, and 1980 respectively.268

In California, power companies immediately seized upon the burgeoning technology. In

1957, Southern California Edison and Atomics International constructed the experimental Santa

Susana Sodium Reactor near Moorpark. Santa Susana was the United States’ first civilian nuclear power plant to supply electricity to the public. The same year, Pacific Gas and Electric and General

Electric completed the Vallecitos Nuclear Power Plant near Pleasanton. The plants, which generated a combined thirty-seven to fifty MW, closed in the mid-1960s but were succeeded by the Humboldt Bay station, the first San Onofre Reactor, and the Rancho Seco Plant completed in

1963, 1968, and 1975 respectively. The new stations collectively generated 1,400 MW. 269

Many environmentalists initially promoted nuclear power as a benign source of clean energy. Early river advocates supported the development of nuclear as an alternative to hydroelectric dams. In the Sierra Club’s campaign to stop the Echo Park Dam in the 1950s, David

Brower, the club’s executive director, considered nuclear power to be a wilderness-saving alternative source of electricity.270 The encouraging growth of nuclear power in California also

268 U.S. Department of Energy, Status of Central Station Nuclear Power Reactors, Significant Milestones, ERDA-30, U.S. Energy and Research and Development Administration, (Washington D.C., July 1976); and U.S. Department of Energy, Monthly Energy Review (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1981): 72-73.

269 The California Natural Resources Agency, “Nuclear Plants in California,” California Energy Commission, accessed June 12, 2018, http://www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html.

270 Thomas Wellock, “The Battle for Bodega Bay: The Sierra Club and Nuclear Power, 1958-1964,” California History 71 no. 2, (Summer 1992): 196.

104

Figure 9. “Projected Growth of Electrical Energy by Primary Source.” In The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR: Water for California: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1970).

suggested that the prospect of economical de-salted water could be realized. In its 1969 report on desalination, the Department of Water Resources professed the auspicious potential of the combined technologies. “Because desalting processes are energy intensive,” the report stated, “the key to low-cost desalted water is the availability of low-cost energy.” It argued that the agency

105 expected that “through improved and advanced nuclear technology, low-cost energy will be available from large capacity nuclear steam supply systems.”271

A combination of factors, however, stunted the growth of nuclear energy in the late-1970s.

An anti-nuclear movement started in the 1960s and galvanized in the 1970s, the Three-Mile accident in Pennsylvania in 1979, and a convoluted licensing system clogged by a profusion of applications combined to impede the growth of nuclear power in the United States.272 In the early-

1960s, the Sierra Club became embroiled in a conflict regarding a proposed nuclear generating station on Bodega Head. David Pesonen, a former club member and head of the Northern

California Association to Preserve Bodega Head and Harbor, led the movement to oppose the plant. Environmentalists argued that the proposed station would result in unwanted urban development of the scenic stretch of coastline. Although Pacific Gas and Electric ultimately conceded, the controversy induced a divide within the conservation movement’s position on nuclear power.273 By the mid-1970s, a debate over the proposed Diablo Canyon Plant prompted many prominent environmental groups to state their opposition to nuclear power.274 Consequently, many river advocates ceased to tout desalination and nuclear power as an alternative to dams and hydropower stations.

271 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 134-69: Desalting—State of The Art, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, June 1969): 23.

272 Susan R. Schrepfer, “The Nuclear Crucible: Diablo Canyon and the Transformation of the Sierra Club, 1965-1985,” California History 71, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 235-6.

273 Thomas Wellock, “The Battle for Bodega Bay: The Sierra Club and Nuclear Power, 1958-1964,” California History 71, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 199-201.

274 Susan R. Schrepfer, “The Nuclear Crucible: Diablo Canyon and the Transformation of the Sierra Club, 1965-1985,” California History 71, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 218.

106

In 1978, only four new orders for nuclear power plants were placed nationwide. In 1979 and 1980, no orders were placed.275 The expansion of plants and generating capacity, however, rebounded in the mid-1980s. California augmented its supply with two new reactors at the San

Onofre plant that generated 2,150 MW combined in 1983 and 1984, as well as two new units at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant that generated 2,160 MW in 1985 and 1986.276 The growth of nuclear energy was again extinguished later in the 1980s amid a growing anti-nuclear movement catalyzed by international protests and accidents including the Chernobyl disaster in Soviet controlled Ukraine.277

The decline in the projected importance of desalination and nuclear energy in California’s water-planning deprived river advocates of a widely appealing alternative to major dams and diversions. This trend suggests that without the CWSRA, the plans to construct major dams on the north-coastal rivers may have been reconsidered as hopes for cheap desalted water faded. As the appeal of nuclear power, and correspondingly, desalination diminished, environmental advocates were left with fewer dam alternatives for river advocates to support. It is possible, however, that the futuristic allure of desalination allowed advocates to relieve some pressure from the push to build new dams during the critical years of the early-1970s.

Although desalinated water failed to live up to its prophesized potential, the DWR began to explore other alternatives during the 1970s. By the late-1970s, the DWR had begun seriously exploring the potential of water conservation measures and waste-water reuse. This shift in

275 Ibid., 297; and U.S. Department of Energy, Monthly Energy Review, 1981, 73.

276 California Energy Commission, “Nuclear Plants in California,” California Energy Commission, accessed June 12, 2018, http://www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html.

277 U.S. Department of Energy, Monthly Energy Review, Energy Information Administration (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 2018).

107 institutional thinking was largely driven by increasing public concern for environmental health.

The DWR noted the shifting public sentiment in its 1974, Water Plan Update:

Public opinion polls taken during the late 1960s and early 1970s showed strong sentiment toward environmental protection, and all levels of government— Congress, the California Legislature, and local boards and commissions— responded to the apparent concern of their constituents.278

It is also important to note that, the removal of the north coast rivers from impoundment may have hastened the DWR’s emphasis on conserving existing water supplies. In its 1978 Delta Plan, the

DWR stated that the “Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and a series of other State, federal, and local actions made clear that new approaches to meeting water needs would have to be explored before additional natural resources were committed.”279

The abrupt evolution of the term “conservation” serves as an enlightening indicator of the

DWR’s change in institutional thinking during the mid-1970s. Until the 1970s, the DWR defined

“conservation” as the storage of surface water in reservoirs. In its 1970 Summary Report of the

160 Bulletin, the DWR used the word “conservation” fifteen times, all referring to the ability for a structure to hold water.280 In its 1974 report, the report used the word, in its original meaning fourteen of eighteen times. Four times that the DWR mentioned “conservation,” however, it was

278 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974): 12.

279 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 201-77: California Water, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, February 1978): 69.

280 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR: Water for California: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1970).

108 referring to a reduction in use. Twice, the Department referred to “conserving” electricity, and twice to reducing water use.281

In 1976, however, at the outset of a drought that would become the worst that the state had seen to-date, the DWR shifted its focus. In 1975 Ronald Robie became the new Director of the

DWR under the newly elected governor, Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown. In May 1976, the DWR published a bulletin entitled “Water Conservation in California.”282 “Bulletin No. 198 presents approaches to the current meaning of water conservation,” the bulletin stated, “conservation has come to mean increasing the efficiency of water use to delay the day when more surface water storage will be needed. By stretching our already-developed supplies, better water management, including greater protection of in-stream uses, is possible.”283 The department conducted a public outreach crusade it called the “Every Last Drop” campaign through the three-year drought. The department issued TV and radio announcements to spread the word to the general public.

Educational programs featuring drought-tolerant gardening practices, or a colorful cartoon character aimed at fourth through sixth graders, named Captain Hydro, informed Californians of water-conservation practices. Finally, with the aid of the newly formed California Conservation

Corps, the DWR issued 180,000 water-saving kits consisting of flow restrictors for showers and devices to detect leaks and reduce the amount of water used by toilets.284 In addition to its public

281 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-74SR: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1974, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, November 1974).

282 Ronald Robie, “Foreword,” in Bulletin No. 198-76: Water Conservation in California, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, May 1976).

283 Ibid.

284 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 201-77: California Water, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, February 1978): 10.

109

Figure 10. While its population continues to increase, California’s total water use has decreased substantially since its peak in 1995. From Jeffery Mount and Ellen Hanak, “Water Use in California,” Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Center, July 2016, accessed April 12, 2018, https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/.

outreach campaign, the DWR formulated a plan to reduce the amount of water used throughout the state system. It estimated that the state could reduce its total water demand by massive amounts.

It predicted that conservation measures could reduce agricultural demand alone by 1.2 million acre-feet annually—twice the amount of water that would be exported by the Upper Trinity River

Development in the North Coastal Area Investigation.285

While the DWR’s 1974 water update still viewed large in-stream reservoirs in a preferential light, by 1978, the DWR’s tone regarding the need for additional water impoundment facilities had markedly changed. In a 1978 overview of Delta water facilities, the DWR forecasted significantly lower long-term Delta exports than it had in 1974. In the years preceding the report’s publication, the DWR had reduced the forecast for Delta export demand in the year 2000 from 8.4

285 Ibid., 3.

110 to 7.7 million acre-feet per year.286 The lower estimate reflected reduced population growth along with “significant water conservation and waste water reclamation measures.”287 This lower estimate accompanied a dramatic alteration of the DWR’s tone regarding the north coast rivers.

“In addition to being illegal,” the report declared, “there is no need to develop any North Coast rivers to meet project needs through the year 2000.288 Because of this conclusion, the DWR rejected the proposals for a modified Dos Rios Reservoir and English Ridge Reservoir within the

Eel River system.

The DWR’s 1978 report on Delta facilities strongly suggested that contemporaneous water demand projections could not justify new dams and reservoirs on the Trinity and other north coast rivers—with or without the CWSRA. The question then, is whether the Trinity River’s designation under the CWSRA prevented additional water impoundment facilities from being constructed during the critical period between the river’s inclusion in 1972 and the DWR’s Delta report in

1978. First, it is important to note that water management agencies and water users always preferred water impoundment facilities on the Eel over those on the Trinity. The North Coastal

Area Investigation and subsequent state and federal plans assumed that the Eel would be impounded first, followed by the Trinity development.289

286 The report stated that the earlier figure could range between 6.2 to 10 million acre-feet per year. See The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 76-78: Delta Water Facilities: Program for Delta Protection and Water Transfer, Water Conservation, Water Recycling, Surface and Groundwater Storage, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, July 1978): 67.

287 Ibid.

288 Ibid., Appendix B, 35.

289 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR: Water for California: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1970): 105.

111

In the absence of the CWSRA, however, even water-projects on the Eel would have been difficult to approve and construct. In addition to the rising costs of dams, the federal government had become more reluctant to finance large water projects. In 1973, the National Water

Commission, formed in 1968 to review nationwide water planning, published a report entitled

“Water Policies for the Future.”290 In the report, the Commission strongly urged Congress and

President Johnson to shift the responsibility of financing large water projects to their primary beneficiaries:

User charges designed to recover all or a major portion of the costs of water-based services are the primary mechanism which the Commission believes will prevent distortion in the allocation of economic resources. Coincidentally, user charges will discourage construction of projects that unnecessarily change the environment and encourage conservation practices that help to protect the environment. User charges appear to offer the best assurance that, insofar as water programs are concerned, the United States will get its money's worth, and that natural economic advantages and consumer choices will be allowed to establish the pattern of production for the Nation's farms, factories, and waterways 291

Although the report did not preclude continued federal assistance to state and local projects, it signaled a notable shift from the federal government’s previously generous public works funding.

Furthermore, the public’s increasing concern, on both state and national levels, for environmental protection and wilderness preservation likely played the most significant role in deterring further water impoundment projects on the north coast rivers. In 1970, the DWR deemed the 1970s “the decade of the environment.”292 The CWSRA, and other environmental legislation,

290 National Water Commission, Water Policies for the Future: Final Report to the President and to the Congress of the United States (Washington D.C., June 1973).

291 Ibid., 2.

292 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-70SR: Water for California: The California Water Plan Outlook in 1970, Summary Report, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1970).

112 represented the codification of the environmental concern exhibited by institutions and the

California public. It is impossible to isolate this public sentiment from the myriad of public policies and programs adopted in the late 1960s and 1970s. For the purpose of determining the degree to which the CWSRA played a decisive factor in preventing dams and reservoirs, however, it is necessary to consider the other factors that dissuaded further development of the northern rivers.

Because of the rapidly changing values regarding environmental protection, it is difficult to imagine that the California public would permit the further destruction of the Trinity’s high-value anadromous fishery in exchange for an in-stream reservoir. Furthermore, increasing costs of large water projects, more modest statewide growth predictions, and institutional recognition that water conservation represented a cost-effective strategy for stretching existing water-supplies complemented a decreasing public preference for large dams and reservoirs. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the Trinity River was safe from any serious threat of additional dams and reservoirs, regardless of the passage of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1972.

Additionally, the CWSRA designation had minimal impacts on the regular management of the Trinity. Three primary factors resulted in the Act’s impotency. First, while the provisions in the Act became effective immediately after its passage, the Resources Agency and state legislature failed to implement the state system in a timely manner, as discussed in the beginning of this chapter. Second, because of this delay, the state failed to develop a management plan to outline the administration of the Trinity under the Act. Third, the state had minimal land holdings along the Trinity’s wild and scenic corridor. Private, state, and local land collectively comprised only fifteen-percent of the designated miles along the river.293 Additionally, all land under state jurisdiction, consisting of sporadic stretches between Lewiston and Junction City, were classified

293 Ibid., 111.

113 as “recreational” segments. Consequently, the state had little land and little basis to oppose private action within its jurisdiction, had it been compelled to do so.

Despite Trinity County residents’ claims that the state act had become “oppressive” by

1980, there is no evidence to suggest that the CWSRA had a significant impact on the regular operations of timber, mining, or farming operations within the watershed.294 By 1972, mining operations had largely ceased along the river corridor. The few mines still in operation had shifted their emphasis from gold production to rock and gravel. Because of their potential to contribute sediment into the riverbed, the Trinity River Basin Fish and Wildlife Task Force placed increasing pressure on these mining operations to minimize their impact on water quality.295 Timber harvesting had decisively replaced mining as the predominant industry within the watershed. In

1972, Trinity County produced 235 million board-feet of lumber, with the Forest Service estimating significant future growth. By the early-1980s however, inflation and high interest rates had induced a depression within the region’s timber industry forcing residents to rely more heavily on the region’s second largest economic driver—recreation and tourism.296

The CWSRA also had minimal impacts on recreational activities in and around the Trinity

River. The act purposefully deferred the regulation of hunting and fishing to the managing

294 “County to Oppose Wild River Status,” Trinity Journal, August 14, 1980.

295 The Resources Agency of California, Mines and Mineral Resources of Trinity County, California, Division of Mines and Geology (San Francisco, 1965): 215; U.S. Department of the Interior, Trinity River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Washington D.C., October 1983): 42.

296 Ibid., 42; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Resource Bulletin PNW-65: Timber Resources of Northern Interior California, United States Forest Service (Washington D.C., 1976): 39.

114 agencies.297 It explicitly stated that the act would not “affect the jurisdiction or responsibility or the state with regard to fish and wildlife.”298 “Hunting and fishing may be permitted,” the act stated, “on lands and waters administrated as parts of the system under applicable state or federal laws and regulations.”299 While recreational activity around the river grew substantially from 1972 to 1981, there is no evidence to suggest that the CWSRA impacted this increase.300 Similarly, despite widespread local suspicion, the CWSRA did not evidently result in any additional condemnation of private land. The Act stated that “nothing in this chapter shall be construed to permit or require the reservation, use, or taking of private property for scenic, fishery, wildlife, or recreational purposes, for inclusion in the system or for other public use, without just compensation.”301

The CWSRA’s inability to affect the operation of the Trinity River Division of the Central

Valley Project was its most glaring shortcoming. The Act included potentially powerful language concerning the rights of in-stream water uses. Referring to the extraordinary values of the river, the Act stated, that “the Legislature declares that such use of these rivers is the highest and most

297 Meeting of Gianelli, Behr, Evans, Cole, Ford, Clark, and Press regarding Amendments to SB 107, December 16, 1972, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(6), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

298 Section 5093.62 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

299 Ibid.

300 U.S. Department of the Interior, Environmental Impact Statement of the Management Flows to Mitigate the Loss of Anadromous Fishery of the Trinity River, California, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Washington D.C. November 1980): C6-3.

301 Section 5093.63 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

115 beneficial use and is a reasonable and beneficial use of water within the meaning of Section 3 of

Article XIV of the State Constitution.”302 Section 3 of Article XIV was the state’s codification of the reasonable and beneficial use doctrine. The language was so powerful that the Legislative

Counsel of California doubted that, if it was challenged, a court would uphold the provision.303

Although the Act contained this potent language, it largely did not apply to the Trinity’s precarious position. The CWSRA act could not grant the state the power to dictate federal agencies’ policies and operations on federally owned land. Nor could it affect the operation of existing upstream water diversions.

Senator Behr did not mean for the Act to restore rivers to their primitive state. Rather, he intended the act to preserve the current condition of the river segments and prevent any additional major development within the river’s corridor—to perpetuate the condition of the river at the time of its designation. More specifically, the act was meant to preserve the rivers’ “extraordinary scenic, recreational, fishery or wildlife values.”304 While the state act did not require that any certain “outstandingly remarkable values” be specified, like the federal act did, the Trinity River’s important anadromous fishery clearly qualified it for designation. Ironically, the state created the

CWSRA, and therefore added the Trinity, at a time when the river’s fisheries were degraded and continuously dwindling. In other words, the Act took a snapshot-in-time of an unhealthy river in

302 Section 5093.50 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259). Article XIV Section 3 (Article X Section 2 in July 2018).

303 George H. Murphy, “Report on S.B. 107,” December 8, 1972, The Legislative Counsel of California, California State Archives, Sacramento, text-fiche, GCBF 1972, Regular Session, Ch. 991 - Ch. 1274.

304 Section 5093.50 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

116 an unsustainable condition. If the management agencies preserved the status quo on the Trinity, the river’s extraordinary values would inevitably be degraded.

Fortunately, managing agencies had already formed an interagency task force to study and remedy problems with the fishery. Biologists began noticing detrimental effects from the Trinity

River Division shortly after its construction. Despite a state-of-the-art fish hatchery below

Lewiston dam, fish populations quickly declined. By March 1971, just months after Behr first proposed S.B. 107 in the Senate, a California Department of Fish and Game study group reported that steelhead runs had declined eighty-two-percent from their pre-TRD levels. In 1971, state and federal agencies created the Trinity River Basin Fish and Wildlife Task Force to study and recommend remedies to the problems plaguing the river.305 The state and federal governments would eventually pour large sums of money into the task force. Because the Bureau of Reclamation stubbornly maintained that the fishery could be restored without the release of additional water from Trinity and Lewiston Dams, however, positive results remained elusive.306

From 1964 to 1980, chinook salmon populations in the Trinity had declined by eighty- percent along with a corresponding sixty-percent decline in steelhead. The TRD eliminated one- hundred miles of fish habitat above Lewiston Dam. Of the fishery spawning habitat remaining, only ten to twenty-percent remained in 1980, largely as a result of excessive stream sedimentation and inadequate flows. Consequently, managing agencies began regulating Indian fishermen in

305 Durham, 46-52.

306 For a more detailed accounts of the task force see Dane J. Durham, How the Trinity River Lost its Water, (2005), accessed April 19, 2017, https://californiawaterimpactnetwork.files.wordpress.com-/2016/05/how-the-trinity-river-lost-its- water-by-dane-durham.pdf; U.S. Department of the Interior, Record of Decision Trinity River Mainstem Fishery Restoration Final Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Washington D.C., December 2000); and U.S. Department of the Interior, Trinity River Flow Evaluation Final Report (Washington D.C., June 1999).

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1977 and had instituted a moratorium on commercial fishing from 1979 to 1980.307 The Trinity’s fishery had clearly suffered tremendous losses resulting from the operation of the TRD. It was apparent, to most concerned parties, that mitigation of the damage to the river’s fisheries could only be achieved with the aid of augmented water releases from the TRD. The CWSRA, however, proved irrelevant as a tool to require the health of the river’s fisheries through flow augmentation.

These conclusions generally corroborate the California Research Bureau’s findings concerning more recent impacts on state designated rivers. Like the CRB’s 2005 report, state management agencies were already operating in a manner that satisfied most provisions of the

CWSRA. Therefore, it is difficult to distinguish which practices resulted from the CWSRA because other legislation, such as the California Environmental Quality Act, mandated similar, if not more stringent, regulations.308 These findings also substantiate a statement made by the frustrated Glenn Delisle in 1973:

Another thing to keep in mind is that the basic premise, or intent, of SB 107 was ‘to stop dam construction.’ This it does in rather strong language. But, and this is an over-simplification, and also not meant to be derisive, it does little else than that.309

Tabulating the shortcomings of the CWSRA’s impacts, many of which were not intended by

Senator Behr, appears unfair. It is essential, however, to explore the inadequacies of the system as

307 “Andrus Gives Trinity Higher Flows, Wild Status,” Trinity Journal, January 22, 1981.

308 Daniel Pollack to Lois Wolk: Re: California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, April 11, 2005, Sacramento, California, p. 3, accessed April 19, 2017. https://www.rivers.gov/documents/impacts- california-wild-scenic-rivers-act.pdf.

309 Glen E. Delisle, “Protected Waterways and Wild and Scenic Rivers,” Transactions of the Western Section of the Wildlife Society 9 (1973): 42.

118 a comprehensive river protection measure in an effort to fully understand its potential utility to the movement to preserve rivers.

Because river advocates intensely promote wild and scenic designations, a full understanding of the legislation’s potential impacts can suggest ways to improve the system or supplement the designation with additional wilderness status. To Behr’s credit, the designation did formally remove the north coast rivers from the threat of impoundment. Furthermore, this removal may have hastened the institutional change within the DWR emphasizing the critical role of water conservation. While Behr’s CWSRA forced the state to relinquish the north coast rivers as a future source of water, water users and legislators would attempt to weaken the system or remove some or all rivers from it. Even after the state legislature passed the CWSRA, water interests still clamored for north coast water. Fortunately for the rivers and their fisheries, the CWSRA would function as a prerequisite to a federal WSR designation.

CHAPTER 4 ————————

THE DESIGNATION OF THE NORTH COAST RIVERS

UNDER THE NATIONAL WILD AND SCENIC RIVERS ACT: 1977-1985

On the evening of January 19, 1981, a sizable stack of paper sat on the desk belonging to the Secretary of the Interior, Cecil D. Andrus. Andrus’ signature on the lengthy document would add more than 1,200 miles of California’s rivers into the National Wild and Scenic Rivers system.

He desperately wanted to sign the document that had been six months in the making, but a preliminary injunction imposed by a U.S. District Court judge stayed his hand. Andrus was one of the few cabinet members to escape President Jimmy Carter’s staffing purge following his

“National Malaise” speech, and one of only two senior officials that White House Chief of Staff,

Hamilton Jordan, described as being “good Cabinet Secretaries.”310

That evening, Andrus was out of his office, attending a farewell gathering at the White

House to say his goodbyes to President Carter and other staffers. Most other Carter appointees had formally submitted their resignations, effective 5 p.m., in accordance with a directive issued by

Hamilton Jordan. Andrus, however, had declined to submit his early resignation to Jordan. It was not that he particularly enjoyed his stay in the nation’s capital. He commonly referred to himself as an “accidental politician,” and declared that the “only reason so many people live on the East

310 Hamilton Jordan, Oral History Interview, Conducted November 6, 1981, The Miller Center, University of Virginia, accessed September 16, 2018, https://millercenter.org/the- presidency/presidential-oral-histories/hamilton-jordan-oral-history-advisor-white-house-chief; “Carter Offered Resignations by Cabinet and Senior Staff, Some Going in Days Aides Say,” New York Times, July 18, 1979.

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Coast is that they don’t know any better.”311 Andrus had decided, months earlier, that he would not stay on in the White House regardless of whether or not Americans reelected Carter that

November. As it turned out, American voters overwhelmingly chose Ronald Reagan to replace

Carter, thus making Andrus’ decision a moot point. Andrus, however, resolved to stay until the last possible moment before Reagan’s inauguration. He saw his work as Secretary of the Interior as important, and more importantly, he had unfinished business. “To hell with that,” he remembered replying to Jordan’s request for resignation, “I’m staying.”312

A few hours into the farewell dinner, Andrus received a message from a White House operator. Late in the afternoon, in the Pacific Time Zone, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had dissolved the preliminary injunction that prevented him from including the California rivers in the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers system. Andrus left the gathering, returned to his office, and summoned a janitor from the hallway to act as his witness. At 7:45 p.m., less than a day before

Reagan’s inauguration, Andrus signed the order to add the Smith, Klamath, Trinity, Eel, and

American rivers, along with many major tributaries, into the NWSRA.313

311 Cecil Andrus and Joel Connelly, Cecil Andrus: Politics Western Style (Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1998): 1-4; “Cecil D. Andrus 85 Carter’s Preservationist Interior Secretary is Dead,” New York Times, August 25, 2017.

312 Cecil Andrus, Oral History Interview, conducted 2005, Resource Renewal Institute for the Forces of Nature: The Elders Speak project, accessed April 20, 2018, http://theforcesofnature.com/movies/cecil-andrus/.

313 Bill Kier, e-mail message to Ronald Robie, August 29, 2017; Office of the Secretary, “Approval for Inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System as State Administered Components, Federal Register 6, no. 15, (January 23, 1981): 7484; Ronald Reagan, "Nomination of James G. Watt to Be Secretary of the Interior," January 20, 1981, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=44156.

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California Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown had requested that Andrus designate the northern rivers through Section 2(a)(ii) of the NWSRA in July 1980. In the months between

Brown’s appeal, and January 1981, the debate over designating the north coast rivers as federal

Wild and Scenic rivers provoked a political firestorm in California. Opponents of the move had tried both judicial and legislative means to stop the process. Indeed, Andrus’ formal signing of the order did not end the fight. Litigation contesting the designations would continue for four years, resulting in intermittent periods where the rivers were not protected under the federal act.

Ironically, the litigation resulting from the designation would not be settled until the day that

Reagan was inaugurated for the second time as president.

The intense controversy regarding Brown and Andrus’ designation of the five rivers resulted from two major water issues coming to a head simultaneously at the end of the 1970s.

First, as the CWSRA established, the California Legislature and Department of Water Resources would reevaluate the need for additional storage projects within the Eel River drainage and consider removing the Eel from the state system in 1984. Second, the north coast rivers would become a gambling chip in the fight over the proposed Peripheral Canal. Adding to the intensity of the debate, irregularly dry winter seasons had resulted in a drought from 1976 to 1977.

First seriously proposed in 1965, the Peripheral Canal represented the beginning of the second stage of the State Water Project. The 43-mile-long canal would be constructed in an arch around the east perimeter of the Sacramento River Delta. It would divert water from the

Sacramento River south of the state capital, release some water into the Delta at select locations to imitate the natural points of inflow, and finally discharge the remainder of the water at the intakes for the CVP’s Delta-Mendota Canal and the SWP’s California Aqueduct. The canal was designed to serve two primary purposes: to mitigate and prevent saltwater intrusion into the Delta from the

122

San Francisco Bay and to ensure a higher quality of water for the southern users of the Delta exports. The canal’s architects also claimed that the project would benefit the struggling Delta ecosystem. In addition to a massive loss in acreage resulting from agricultural reclamation of wetland areas and severely reduced net water inflow because of upstream diversions, the Delta suffered from altered flow directions. Reduced flows from the Tuolumne, Mokelumne, and other tributaries of the San Joaquin, along with the massive diversions by the state and federal pumping plants near Tracy, caused water in the Delta to flow in a southerly, rather than a westerly direction disrupting fish migration and breeding patterns. The canal, along with its periodic water release points, would reestablish more natural flow directions within the delta labyrinth.314

Although the Peripheral Canal was favored by the DWR, Bureau of Reclamation, Army

Corps of Engineers, and the California Department of Fish and Game, it quickly divided the

California public. Proponents of the canal found support among the southern cities, San Joaquin

Valley farmers, and some Delta residents. Many northern Californians, environmentalists and

Delta residents fervently opposed the canal. Opponents cited the lack of knowledge and previous studies concerning the canal’s effects on the incredibly complex Delta ecosystem. Furthermore, as the debate over the canal raged, the project’s ballooning cost provided opponents with ammunition to appeal to fiscally-minded Californians. The preponderance of the critic’s arguments, however, did not concern the direct effects of the canal. Rather, opponents feared what the canal would enable water planners to do in the future. These critics primarily painted the canal as a southern water grab. They saw the project as just another step in the south’s quest to impound every river in northern California to support its own gluttonous growth. Historian Norris Hundley called the

314 California Legislature, “Senate Minority Report on S.B. 346,” January 30, 1978, Journal of the Senate, 1977-1978 Regular Session, Volume 5, 8657.

123 peripheral canal “a symbol of the clashing ideologies that had emerged over traditional water policy.”315 The canal divided Californians along regional as well as ideological lines.

Many environmentalists, sportsmen, and northern Californians were particularly fearful that southern water demand encouraged by the construction of the canal would necessitate the removal of the north coast rivers from the state’s Wild and Scenic Rivers System.316 Their fears were not just speculation. Many supporters of the canal also held a stated goal of removing the northern rivers from the CWSRA.317 In October and November 1976, the Department of Water

Resources held a series of public hearings throughout the state regarding its most recent plan for the Peripheral Canal. The fate of the north coast rivers was commonly discussed at the hearings.

Generally, water users throughout the state favored policies that would ensure their own supply of water. Residents of Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley approved of the canal and disapproved of any proposals to include the north coast rivers in the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers

System. Even many Sacramento Valley residents, when faced with a proposal to pump

315 Norris Hundley, The Great Thirst: Californians and Water: A History, revised ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 313.

316 Hundley, The Great Thirst, 321; “Proposal on Wild Rivers Draws Fire,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1980; David N. Kennedy, Memorandum to Ruben Ayala, Robert Presley, Jim Costa, and Byron Sher, August 30, 1985, Department of Water Resources, Inventory of the California State Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee Records, Series 4 Subject Files 1976-2000, Wild and Scenic Rivers 1985-1987, LP300:37, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

317 “State Water, Farm Groups Win Major Victories in Senate,” Los Angeles Times, December 12, 1980.

124 groundwater in Glenn and Butte counties to supplement SWP flows in dry years, preferred to delist the north coast rivers from the state system to allow for the impoundment of their flows.318

Many legislators continuously attempted to weaken the act or remove the north coast rivers altogether. Legislators introduced two bills in 1977 alone to dismantle Behr’s system.

Assemblyman Barry Keene, a Democrat from Eureka, introduced Assembly Bill 1653 to narrow the scope of the CWSRA. While the bill ultimately failed, it highlighted the northern rivers’ tenuous protection under the CWSRA.319 A.B. 1653 would limit the provisions of the CWSRA to the designated rivers and their “immediate environment,” rather than “adjacent land areas.”

Consequently, the provisions would only apply to what is commonly termed “the ordinary high- water mark.” Logging interests in Keene’s District 2 clearly influenced this proposed modification.

Additionally, the bill specified that water impoundment facilities would be restricted only on designated segments of rivers. This implied that previously protected sections that “directly affected” the designated segments would be fair game under Keene’s bill. Finally, the bill would limit the prohibition on assisting or cooperating in the construction of impoundment facilities to allow for the easier planning and construction of projects for local water supply and flood control needs.320 In sum, A.B. 1653 eliminated several phrases that were crucially ambiguous. Keene

318 California Resources Agency, Department of Water Resources, Delta Water Facilities Program for: Delta Protection and Water Transfer, Water Conservation, Water Recycling, and Surface and Ground Water Storage, Bulletin 76-78 (Sacramento, September 1978): 4-6.

319 A.B. No. 1653, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1977-78 Regular Session and 1977-79 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 1018.

320 Assembly Bill 1653 as introduced April 14, 1977; Section 5093.56 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

125 largely intended to modify the CWSRA for local purposes. Other legislation, however, was intended to affect the statewide water system.

Also in January 1977, a cohort of legislators introduced S.B. 345 which aimed to remove the Klamath, Trinity, Eel, and Smith rivers, along with their tributaries, from the state system.321

Led by state senators Ruben Ayala and George Zenovich, the authors of the bill largely aligned with the regional divisions over the Peripheral Canal fight. While the lawmakers were split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, twelve of fourteen represented the San Joaquin Valley or areas to the south of the Tehachapi Mountains.322 Along with S.B. 345, Ayala authored S.B. 346 to finally authorize the Peripheral Canal. S.B. 346 was a compromise bill which the Senate eventually refused to adopt in November. The bill served as the precursor bill to S.B. 200, introduced in 1980, which fomented a new round of the canal fight.323 “Hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water are being wasted annually, stated James Eller, a lobbyist for the California Farm

Bureau Federation and proponent of S.B. 345, and “our members think they should be put to more essential use.”324 Reminiscent of the arguments for dams a decade earlier, statements like Eller’s were unable to convince most lawmakers. S.B. 345 passed through the Senate Committee on

321 S.B. 345, Senate Final Histories: Showing Action Taken in this Session on All Senate Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent, Joint Resolutions, and Senate Resolutions, 1977- 78 Regular Session, California Legislature, 218.

322 Ibid., 218, 1400-1401; Members of the Assembly California Legislature, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1977-78 Regular Session and 1977-78 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 4-5.

323 Reuben Ayala “Delta Protection—SB 200, Section 11460(b),” August 30, 1980, in Journal of the Assembly, 1979-80 Regular Session July 30,1980 to November 30, 1980, Vol. 11, 19503-19519.

324 “Water Interests Win ‘Wild Rivers’ Battle,” The Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 20, 1977.

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Agriculture and Water Resources (chaired by Ayala) but failed to make it out of the Committee on

Finance.325 To environmentalists, Ayala’s legislation overtly tied the fate of the north coast rivers to the authorization and construction of the Peripheral Canal.326 Environmentalists had a wealth of evidence to argue that the south’s water users intended to utilize the Peripheral Canal in a concerted effort to claim additional northern water.

Although Governor Jerry Brown did not initially embrace the project, the climax of the issue landed squarely within his term of office. Brown’s gubernatorial predecessors, his father

Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and Ronald Reagan had supported the canal. While the state was still constructing the first stages of the SWP by the end of Pat Brown’s tenure, Reagan deferred action due to political and logistical quagmires surrounding the canal — problems that Jerry Brown soon inherited. Brown needed to appeal to a different political base than his father. To appeal to his increasingly environmentally minded constituents, Brown appointed Claire Dedrick, a national board member of the Sierra Club, to be his Secretary of Resources. Three years into his governorship, however, Brown embraced the canal. In 1977, he publicly announced his support for the Peripheral Canal.

To ameliorate the fear that the canal would be used as a justification for building more dams on the wild and scenic rivers, Brown began proposing enhanced protection for the northern rivers to accompany the authorization.327 Governor Brown faced the daunting task of authorizing

325 S.B. 345, Senate Final Histories: Showing Action Taken in this Session on All Senate Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent, Joint Resolutions, and Senate Resolutions, 1977- 78 Regular Session, California Legislature, 218.

326 “Effort to Remove Ban on Damming Wild Rivers Gains,” The Times-Standard, Eureka, California, April 21, 1977; “Scenic Rivers Act in New Senate Test,” San Rafael Independent Journal, March 2, 1977.

327 Hundley, 321-25.

127 a project that affected the entire state’s water supply. Because of the project’s wide-ranging repercussions, any proposal would need to sufficiently satisfy a multitude of interest groups.

Additionally, many of the arguments that critics levelled against the canal concerned its speculative effects. To gain the favor of environmental groups and many northern Californians,

Brown needed to dispel the notion that the canal was truly a southern water-grab which required, in part, disassociating the completion of the canal with proposals to remove the northern rivers from their protected status. To remedy this juxtaposition, Brown had been floating the idea of either adding the rivers to the NWSRA or requiring a two-thirds vote, rather than a simple majority, to remove them from the CWSRA.328

In 1979, Brown suggested a provision requiring a two-thirds vote to remove the rivers from the state system with his overall effort to authorize the canal. Numerous bill proposals and an intense year-and-a-half legislative session resulted in the passage of Senator Ayala’s S.B. 200 by mid-July 1980.329 The authorization bill included important safeguards for water supply and quality concerns in the Delta. Brown finally saw the canal authorized by the California Legislature.

The bill neither removed the northern rivers from the state system or granted them further protection. Because the rivers were concurrently protected under the CWSRA, the bill could not authorize projects even if legislators had intended it.330 Although a provision to protect the rivers

328 Ibid., 324.

329 Ch. 632 Statutes of California and Digests of Measures 1980, 1979-80 Regular Session, Volume 2, 1723-31; S.B. 200, Senate Final Histories: Showing Action Taken in this Session on All Senate Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent, Joint Resolutions, and Senate Resolutions, 1979-80 Regular Session, California Legislature, 142.

330 Reuben Ayala “Delta Protection—SB 200, Section 11460(b),” August 30, 1980, in Journal of the Assembly, 1979-80 Regular Session July 30,1980 to November 30, 1980, Vol. 11, 19510.

128 further was not included in S.B. 200, lawmakers and Governor Brown advocated two efforts that would achieve that goal.

First, in June 1980, the legislature voted to place a constitutional amendment, further protecting the delta and the north coast rivers, on the ballot for the November election. The amendment, authored by senators Lawrence Kapiloff and Ruben Ayala, acted as a supplement to

Ayala’s S.B. 200. Passed within weeks of S.B. 200, the amendment would later be listed on the ballot as Proposition 8. The proposition would require a two-thirds vote before any north coast rivers were removed from the CWSRA and exceeded the delta protections offered in S.B. 200.331

Second, on July 18, Brown simultaneously signed S.B. 200 into law and petitioned U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andrus, to add the north coast rivers to the NWSRA through a Section 2(a)(ii) secretarial designation.332 These efforts would eventually split the existing coalitions supporting the canal and aided in the derailment of the entire project.

As described in Chapter 3, the NWSRA contained two avenues to designate segments of river: through congressional legislation [Section 3(a)], and through secretarial action at the request of the state’s governor [Section 2(a)(ii)].333 Most NWSRA designations before 1980 resulted from congressional action. Congressmen had attempted to include the northern rivers in the NWSRA through section 3(a) since its passage in 1968. Jerome Waldie, a member of the U.S. House of

331 Hundley, 324-25; “Proposal on Wild Rivers Draws Fire,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1980.

332 “Proposal on Wild Rivers Draws Fire,” Los Angeles Times; David N. Kennedy, Memorandum to Ruben Ayala, Robert Presley, Jim Costa, and Byron Sher, August 30, 1985, Department of Water Resources, Inventory of the California State Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee Records, Series 4: Subject Files 1976-2000, Wild and Scenic Rivers 1985- 1987, LP300:37, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

333 Sections 3(a) and 2(a)(ii) of Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Code, Title 16, Ch 1271 (1968).

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Representatives from California and vociferous opponent of the Peripheral Canal, had tried to protect the northern rivers under the federal system in 1969. Waldie was still unsuccessfully pushing a congressional designation for the rivers when Behr proposed S.B. 107 in 1971.334

Section 2(a)(ii) had not been invoked to protect the north coast rivers for two main reasons.

First, additional federal protection of the state’s rivers disagreed with Governor Reagan’s underlying ideology of cutting government overreach. Second, prior to 1978, the section contained a catch-22 involving state-administered, federally-designated rivers surrounded by large expanses of federally-owned land. Section 2(a)(ii) required that the system be administered “without expense to the United States.”335 Secretarial designation required that all funding to administer the river to come from the state requesting the inclusion, rather than the federal government.

This provision, however, resulted in a dispute when the Department of the Interior objected to a request by Tom McCall, Governor of Oregon, to designate several rivers in the NWSRA through secretarial designation. The Department of the Interior argued that the language of the act prevented the expenditure of any federal funds within the river corridor. Consequently, a wild and scenic rivers designation would have prohibited the federal government from managing its lands surrounding the river. To remedy this, the National Parks Recreation Act, an omnibus bill passed in 1978, clarified the language of the NWSRA to allow for existing federal management to continue within designated stretches provided that it conformed to the standards of the system.

Additionally, the 1978 act clarified that designation did not require any transfer of lands from the

334 Peter H. Behr, Oral History Interview, Conducted 1988 and 1989 by Ann Lage, Regional Oral History Office, University of California at Berkeley, for the California State Archives State Government Oral History Program, 114.

335 Section 2(a)(ii) of Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Code, Title 16, Ch 1271 (1968).

130 federal government to the state. Finally, it stated that federal funds available to states under the

Land and Water Conservation Act of 1965 did not represent an “expense to the United States.”336

The 1978 legislation thus eliminated key financial disincentives for the states requesting designation, as well as managerial issues for the Secretary of the Interior. Consequently, the number of secretarial designations soared in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Brown knew that he needed to act fast if he intended to designate the north coast rivers through Section 2(a)(ii) of the NWSRA. President Jimmy Carter’s popularity rating had plummeted as a result of a stagnating national economy. As the summer of 1980 progressed, it became increasingly apparent that Carter could lose the upcoming election to former California

Governor Ronald Reagan. Although his record was nuanced, Carter is known to river advocates today as the United States’ most river-friendly president. During his presidency, he was certainly the most powerful river-enthusiast in the world. Carter famously enjoyed canoeing and rafting.

River advocate and writer Tim Palmer stated that “Eisenhower golfed, Ford skied, and Carter paddled.”337 Upon his election in 1977, Carter compiled a “hit list” of water projects to reevaluate and potentially cut. While many of these projects outlived his presidency, Carter’s policies contributed to ending the era of large pork-barrel projects in the western United States.338

Although Carter fostered a national atmosphere hostile to the authorization of large federally-funded water projects, his Secretary of the Interior, Cecil Andrus, played a more direct

336 Interagency Wild and Scenic Rivers Coordinating Council, Evolution of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act: A History of Substantive Amendments 1968-2013 (November 2014): 3-4; National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978, Public Law 95-625, 95th Congress (November 10, 1978), 3467-550.

337 Tim Palmer, Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2004), 221.

338 Ibid., 227.

131 role in the designation of California’s norther rivers under the NWSRA. Born on August 25, 1931, in Hood River, Oregon, Cecil Andrus grew up with an intimate knowledge of the natural resources that would define his political career. Andrus was an avid fisherman and could recall seeing native fishermen at Celilo Falls, on the Columbia River, prior to their inundation by the Dalles Dam in

1957.339 He served in the Korean War and followed in his father’s footsteps by working in the timber industry before moving to Idaho and switching to the insurance industry. From 1962 until

1995, Andrus served as an Idaho state senator and governor for four non-consecutive terms (from

1971 to 1977 and 1987 to 1995), as well as Secretary of the Interior for Carter from 1977 to 1981.

Throughout his political career, Andrus actively advocated the preservation of wilderness areas.

As Secretary of the Interior, Andrus quickly illustrated his stance toward the river conservation movement. Just months after his appointment in 1977, Andrus reaffirmed his commitment to wild rivers in a speech given to the National Wildlife Federation:

We cannot have too many wild and scenic rivers. For, to protect is not to sacrifice or destroy. Wild rivers are an asset, not a handicap. Each represents a treasure too precious to be squandered or abused by ill-planned and unjustified water projects… Common sense dictates that we shouldn't dam up every river, stream or creek in America. Let me suggest that we may have developed the best of the hydroelectric sites, that we have built some of the best reclamation projects, and that having done this, the law of diminishing returns requires that we proceed with ever increasing caution. We are coming to the end of the dam building era in America, and before any new barriers are constructed, we must weigh each proposal with a genuine process that considers all factors in an honest evaluation. We must, with the help of Congress, establish a water policy that will protect this most valuable resource for all Americans.340

339 “Cecil D. Andrus 85 Carter’s Preservationist Interior Secretary is Dead,” New York Times, August 25, 2017.

340 Remarks of Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus Before the National Wildlife Federation, Washington D.C., March 26, 1977.

132

Andrus’ personal convictions were highly valuable to Brown’s efforts to designate the north coast rivers through secretarial designation.

Section 2(a)(ii) required that the rivers proposed for inclusion should be “permanently administered as wild, scenic or recreational rivers by an agency or political subdivision of the State or States concerned.”341 Consequently, in order to qualify for federal protection under Section

2(a)(ii), the rivers needed to be previously included in a state river protection system and permanently administered as such by the state involved. Upon Brown’s application, the law required that Andrus complete an Environmental Impact Statement for the designations as required by the National Environmental Protection Act. It also stipulated that Andrus consult the Federal

Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of Agriculture, Army Corps of Engineers, and other federal agencies affected by the designations.

On August 4, 1980, The Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (HCRS) announced its intent to draft an EIS assessing Brown’s request.342 On August 7, the Department of the Interior reported that four hearings, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Eureka, and Fresno, would be held the following week to discuss the inclusion of the five rivers in the national system.343 In most counties, the coalitions that grew to oppose or support Brown’s move largely aligned with those in the peripheral canal debate. Southern water interests predictably protested the proposal. Despite the rivers’ existing protection under state law, these interests still viewed the north coast rivers as the future of California’s water supply. “The San Joaquin Valley looks to the north coast rivers to

341 Section 2(a)(ii) of Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Code, Title 16, Ch 1271 (1968).

342 Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, “Intent to Prepare Environmental Statement,” Federal Register 45, no. 154 (August 7, 1980): 52459-61.

343 Ibid., 52460; “Hearings Set on 5 California Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1980.

133 solve its overdraft problems,” declared Brent Graham, the manager of the Tulare Lake Basin

Storage District, at a public hearing.344

The northern California counties reacted to Brown’s request with distrust and alarm. The mining and timber industries that coveted the minerals and prolific forests surrounding the rivers, zealously entered the fight against the designations.345 In 1980, the timber industry provided

Trinity County with forty-percent of its employment, and timber yield tax guarantees comprised sixty-percent of the county’s property tax revenues.346 Northern counties argued that the designations would cost them $1 million annually in tax revenue.347 Northern residents were similarly worried about the potential for a federal designation to lock away resources vital to the economic wellbeing of the northern coast and mountain communities. Hazel Wilburn and Al

Wilkins frequently argued, when advocating for state designation in 1972, that additional reservoirs on the Trinity River would inundate prime mineral deposits and timber stands. In 1980,

Trinity County residents were fearful that a federal designation would have the same effect as the proposed reservoirs.348

Furthermore, many residents in the northern counties held a deep-seated distrust of the federal government. This distrust bred a profusion of misinformation regarding the federal act within the first few months after Brown’s request to Andrus. Many residents were especially

344 “Proposal on Wild Rivers Draws Fire,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1980.

345 “Hearings Set on 5 California Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1980; “Energy, Environment: Hayakawa Joins Cranston on Park Bill,” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1980.

346 “Wild Rivers Issue Set Again Monday,” Trinity Journal, March 12, 1981.

347 “Energy, Environment: N. California Wind Turbine Site Chosen,” Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1980.

348 “County to Oppose Wild River Status,” Trinity Journal, August 14, 1980.

134 concerned with the federal government’s ability to condemn land under the act. Whereas a secretarial designation would not, in fact, grant federal agencies any additional authority to condemn land along the Trinity River corridor, residents and local officials seemed confused by the language of the law. Trinity County Supervisor Ralph Modine feared that a NWSRA designation of the Trinity would “provide a vehicle for the Feds to take the land.” Although he prefaced his comment by stating that he may not have read the act correctly, Supervisor James

Smith claimed that “under the Federal Act the land within one fourth mile on both sides of the river would be taken by the Federal government by condemnation.” On August 11, the Trinity

County Board of Supervisors stated their intention to oppose Brown’s request.349 District Attorney

Ron Barbatoe, who attended the public hearing in Eureka later that week on behalf of Trinity

County, reported that the “overwhelming opinion” in the north coast ran against the wild rivers proposal. Citing residents’ apprehension over the potential effects on the local economies,

Humboldt and Siskiyou Counties, along with the Nine Northern Counties Supervisors Association, stated their opposition to Brown’s request in late-August.350

By fall 1980, the debates over the Peripheral Canal, Proposition 8, and Brown’s request all converged and reached a crescendo. On September 16, 1980, the Heritage Conservation and

Recreation Service submitted its draft EIS to the U.S. EPA and the public record, and scheduled another round of hearings for late-October 1980.351 Opponents criticized the effects as well as the process of Brown and Andrus’ proposal. Opponents such as the California Chamber of Commerce,

349 Ibid.

350 “County Gets Wild River Support,” Trinity Journal, August 21, 1980.

351 U.S. Department of the Interior, Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (September 1980).

135

Association of California Water Agencies and San Joaquin Valley Water Users, criticized the process as rushed. Indeed, the HCRS took only forty-three days to complete the EIS for the inclusion of all five northern rivers in the NWSRA. Patrick Nevis, the Environmental Program

Coordinator for the Resource Agency’s Division of Mines and Geology noted the insufficiency of time given to assess the mineral resources on the rivers in a memo to Jonas Minton, the Director of the DWR. “I am sorry that the quick time frame of your request does not allow a more in-depth answer,” Nevis stated, “only a quick survey of available data will be possible.”352

On October 23, 1980, Del Norte, Siskiyou, Trinity, and Humboldt counties, along with several logging companies and associations, asked a federal court to block Brown’s request. The plaintiffs filed suit on the grounds that Andrus and the HCRS failed to follow two timing regulations mandated by the federal EIS process. Despite federal and state officials clarifying many widely-held misconceptions, residents of the north coast and mountains remained skeptical of Brown and Andrus’ effort.353 The residents of Trinity County worried that the easy passage of the Peripheral Canal Bill (SB 200) could result in an ambitious southern water grab. Perhaps more than in 1972, residents desperately wished to prevent the construction of any new dams on the

Trinity. Like in 1972, however, they were horrified of a distant center of power consolidating more control over their communities. Many in Trinity County felt that even the state act represented too much government oversight. Claiming that the CWSRA was “getting oppressive” and “more stringent,” the Trinity County Board of Supervisors had backed Senator Keene’s A.B 1653 to

352 Patrick Nevis, Memorandum to Jonas Minton, “EIS, Wild and Scenic Rivers Areas,” Resources Agency of California, Records of Division of Mines and Geology, Dept of Conservation, Series: Legislation Federal, 1980-81, R188.100, Box 49, ff 5-9, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

353 “HCRS Official Talks About Wild Rivers Plan,” Trinity Journal, October 16, 1980.

136 weaken the state system years prior.354 Former District Attorney, Bill Neill, captured the local’s distrust in a meeting with key state officials:

When I hear all this—that everything will be the same—it makes me nervous. It’s been the Feds giving us trouble… I think there is some kind of motivation—it isn’t because they have the best interests of the people of Trinity County at heart… We need a law to block dams on the river, but beyond that I don’t want to see any more control by the Federal government over the County… It makes me very, very nervous—and I can’t believe nothing’s going to change.355

Many in the county, however, seemed reluctant to openly oppose Brown’s request. “It really is a dilemma,” Supervisor James Smith lamented, “to stop the dams, but the medicine may be more than we can take.”356 Al Wilkins, the champion of the wild rivers cause a decade prior felt that greater involvement with the federal government was a necessary evil. He argued, “I don’t trust the legislature or the people down south… I don’t trust the Federal government either, but we ought to see that no dams go on that river.” Furthermore, considering recent attacks on the potency of the CWSRA, Wilkins doubted that the state act would exist a few years down the road.357

Despite these misgivings, Trinity joined with the other northern counties and the Pacific Lumber

Company filing suit against Brown.358

The November 4, 1980, election further disoriented the coalitions for and against the

Peripheral Canal. Californians voted to approve Proposition 8 in a 54-to-46-percent vote, requiring

354 “County to Oppose Wild River Status,” Trinity Journal, August 14, 1980.

355 “County Joins Lawsuit on Wild Rivers Plan,” Trinity Journal, October 23, 1980.

356 “Some Light Shed on Wild Rivers Plan,” Trinity Journal, October 23, 1980.

357 “County Joins Lawsuit on Wild Rivers Plan,” Trinity Journal, October 23, 1980.

358 “Energy, Environment: N. California Wind Turbine Site Chosen,” Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1980.

137 a two-thirds majority rather than simple majority to remove the north-coast rivers from the

CWSRA.359 The enactment of Proposition 8, however, was qualified. The constitutional amendment approved by Proposition 8 would not take effect unless the Peripheral Canal gained approval. Late in 1980, the canal’s future appeared uncertain. Following the passage of S.B. 200 in July, opponents of the canal had collected enough signatures to call for a public referendum on the canal plan.360 Consequently, both the Peripheral Canal and the protections for the north coast rivers afforded by Proposition 8 would be subject to public referendum in June 1982.

Also, on November 4, Ronald Reagan dominated Jimmy Carter in the presidential election, carrying forty-four states and winning ninety-one-percent of the electoral votes. Reagan’s victory, as well as the corresponding Republican victories in the U.S. Congress, reaffirmed to Brown and

Andrus that their only opportunity to designate the north coast rivers was slipping away. For the remainder of Brown’s tenure as governor, Republicans would control the White House and the

U.S. Senate. Although as governor, Reagan played a pivotal role in designating the rivers under the CWSRA, he never embraced environmental protection as an important issue. During the 1980 campaign season, both candidates rarely invoked natural resources and the environment as a substantive issue. Reagan ran on promises to reduce the size and scope of the federal government and subdue the inflationary economy of the 1970s. He also vowed to reduce the regulatory burden placed on business and to reassign federal regulatory responsibilities to state and local government

359 Hundley, 325; “Time and the Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1980.

360 “The Delta Canal,” The Sacramento Bee, July 19, 1980

138 where necessary.361 A federal designation of the northern rivers, therefore, was antithetical to

Reagan’s creed and campaign promises.

Brown and Andrus’ opponents recognized and had anticipated the implications of a Reagan presidency. In the months following the election, groups disputing the designations simultaneously pursued two avenues to delay the process until the change in administration—legislative action and litigation. Despite Brown’s best effort to persuade congressmen otherwise, on December 12,

1980, a U.S. House-Senate Committee approved an amendment to a general appropriations bill that would prevent Andrus from acting on the north coast rivers. Authored by James A. McClure, a Republican senator from Idaho, the amendment would block, for sixty days, Andrus’ ability to designate the northern rivers.362 Additionally, the McClure amendment would permanently prevent the Secretary of the Interior from conferring wild and scenic status upon rivers through

Section 2(a)(ii) without the approval of the chairman and ranking minority leader of the appropriate congressional committee. Likely not by coincidence, McClure was scheduled to become the chairman of the appropriate committee in the Senate, the Energy and Natural Resources

Committee, when the new 97th Congress convened a month later. 363

In addition to the McClure amendment, two cases filed in federal court impeded Andrus’ ability to act on the designations. First, the suit filed by the northern counties resulted in a

361 Jefferey K. Stine, “Natural Resources and Environmental Policy,” in The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies, ed. W. Elliot, and Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 233.

362 “State Water, Farm Groups Win Major Victories in Senate,” Los Angeles Times, December 12, 1980.

363 “Tahoe Preservation Bill Wins OK, But Wild Rivers Proposal Faces Trouble in New Senate,” Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1980; “Senate Kills Bill to Protect Big Sur, Cranston Vows to Revive $130 Million Measure Next Year,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1980.

139 temporary restraining order on Andrus. On November 14, U.S. District Court Judge William

Ingram ordered a restraining order to prolong the draft EIS comment period. The waiting period, he ruled, would extend until January 21, the day after Reagan’s inauguration.364 While the state court concluded on December 1, 1980 that it did not have the power to require that Governor

Brown withdraw his federal designation request, the plaintiffs appealed the decision and the restraining order stood. Another case filed by logging companies in Oregon placed a similar injunction on the Secretary.365 U.S. District Court Judge James M. Burns, in Oregon, prevented the Secretary of Interior from designating the northern rivers until January 26, 1981, when he would hear arguments whether or not to make the order permanent.366

On December 16, however, an unexpected legislative proceeding breathed new life into

Brown and Andrus’ effort. In the final hours of the 96th Congress, the general appropriations bill containing McClure’s amendment fell through. The McClure amendment and another provision granting a one-year exception to the Bureau of Reclamation’s 160-acre rule were just two of 143 special amendments added to the bill. The heavily laden bill ultimately sank due to the weight of a disputed and unrelated congressional pay raise. Congress replaced the appropriations bill with a trimmed down version without most of the extraneous amendments. The failure of the general appropriation bill eliminated any legislative prohibition on Andrus unilaterally imposing NWSRA

364 County of Del Norte v. Brown, No. 292019 (California Superior Court, Sacramento, 1980); County of Del Norte v. United States of America, Association of California Water Agencies v. United States of America, Environmental Defense Fund, Intervenors-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, 732 F.2d 1462 (9th Cir. 1984); “Energy, Environment: Rulings Cloud Future for 5 Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1981.

365 Steven L. Evans and Ron Stork, “The California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act,” (Friends of the River, January 2005): 13.

366 “Energy, Environment: Rulings Cloud Future for 5 Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1981; County of Josephine v. Watt, 539 F. Supp. 696 (N.D. Cal. 1982).

140 protection on the north coast rivers. Andrus’ opponents appeared disappointed but undeterred. The

Metropolitan Water District vowed to continue battle through the judiciary.367

Although all legislative impediments to the designations had ended, Brown and Andrus’ prospects remained bleak. The two court injunctions placing a prohibition on secretarial action would bar Andrus from finalizing the process that they had initiated six months prior. When

Andrus attended the farewell banquet for President Carter on the evening of January 19, 1981, it appeared as though their efforts would be fruitless. Late in the afternoon in California, however, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a joint decision that because Andrus had not yet designated the rivers, it lacked the jurisdiction to evaluate the Department of Interior’s actions.

Consequently, the appeals court dissolved both temporary restraining orders on Andrus.368

When, on January 19, 1981, Andrus signed the order to include the state designated rivers in the federal system, he protected 1,261 miles of river—far less than the 4,000 originally proposed by Brown.369 Seventy-eight-percent of the miles originally proposed, however, were all named tributaries of the Smith River. Likely in an effort to pacify northern mining and logging interests, the HCRS limited its proposed mileage on the Smith to twelve-percent of that requested by

367 “Major California Measures Die as Congress Adjourns,” Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1980.

368 County of Josephine v. Watt, 539 F. Supp. 696 (N.D. Cal. 1982).

369 U.S. Department of the Interior, Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (September 1980): ii.

141

ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd Figure 11. The segments of the Smith River originally requested for designation by California in 1980. In U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System: Volume I Appendixes, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (December 1980).

142

Figure 12. “California’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Proposed for National Designation.” Brown’s final proposal requested a substantially reduced number of miles on the Smith River. In U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System: Volume I Appendixes, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (December 1980).

143

Brown.370 The federal act, however, designated all of the 200 miles proposed within the Trinity

River watershed, the same sections that were already listed under the CWSRA.371 Furthermore, three days before he signed the wild rivers order, Andrus permanently increased the required flows from the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project. In an effort to reverse the decline in salmon and steelhead populations, in the spring of 1979, Andrus had ordered that Lewiston Dam temporarily more than double its release from 120,500 acre-feet to 287,000 acre-feet annually. On

January 16, 1981, he ordered that those levels be maintained and gradually increased to 340,000 acre-feet on normal-water years.372

Worried that the incoming Reagan administration, would seek to reverse the order,

Governor Brown sent his director of Water Resources, Ron Robie, to sit in the Office of the Federal

Register for two days following the inauguration to ensure a public notice of Andrus’ decision was posted.373 While the notice was successfully posted in the Federal Register on January 23,

Reagan’s appointment of James Watt as Secretary of Interior reaffirmed Brown’s worries. Watt differed from Andrus in many respects. Prior to his appointment, Watt served as the president and chief legal officer of the Mountain States Legal Foundation. Reagan’s press release characterized

Watt’s work as the foundation as being “dedicated to bringing a balance to the courts in the defense

370 Brown proposed that 3,100 miles of river and stream within the Smith River watershed be designated under the federal act. See Table 1: Mileage of Rivers Proposed by the State for National Designation, in U.S. Department of the Interior, Draft Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (September 1980).

371 The state and federal acts protected 111 miles on the Mainstem, 14 miles on the North Fork, 55 miles on the South Fork Trinity, and 20 miles on the New River.

372 “Andrus Gives Trinity Higher Flows, Wild Status,” Trinity Journal, January 22, 1981.

373 Ronald Robie, e-mail to Bill Kier, Tom Stokely, Larry Baird, Tim Palmer, Art Bauer, and others, August 29, 2017.

144 of individual liberty and the private enterprise system.”374 Watt would soon become one of

Reagan’s most controversial appointments. Grandiloquent and crass, he quickly offended many

American’s public sensibilities. By 1983, Watt would receive a disapproval rating of forty-one- percent in the western states. He would resign from the position as Secretary of Interior in October

1983 after a tenure in office that the Washington Post termed “2 1/2 of controversy.”375 Before his appointment, Watt described environmentalists as “the greatest threat to the ecology of the West.”

Furthermore, Watt had made his position on river conservation clear in his involvement with a dispute over motorized rafts in the Grand Canyon.376 After a rafting trip down the esteemed Grand

Canyon of the Colorado, he described the first day as “thrilling,” the second day as “a little tedious,” and by the fourth day he was “praying for helicopters” to take him out of the canyon.377

“I don’t like to paddle,” Watt declared, “and I don’t like to walk.”378

Shortly after Andrus added the five rivers into the federal system, his opponents resumed their assault on the designation. On January 26, 1981, Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Humboldt counties, the Eureka Chamber of Commerce, the Association of California Water Agencies, and the timber interests filed a new suit against the Department of the Interior claiming two major grievances: the

374 Ronald Reagan, "Nomination of James G. Watt to Be Secretary of the Interior," January 20, 1981, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=44156.

375 David Hoffman, “Watt Submits Resignation as Interior Secretary,” The Washington Post, October 19, 1983.

376 Byron Hayes, “Motorized Rafting—An Illegitimate Industry?: The 35 Year Wilderness War for Grand Canyon,” The Waiting List 3, no. 2 (May 1999).

377 “Congress Expanding Scenic Rivers System,” Congressional Quarterly, November 24, 1984, 2985.

378 Ibid.

145 inadequacy of the time-period for comments and the inadequacy of the EIS report itself. When the

San Francisco law firm of Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro contacted Trinity County regarding the suit, the Board of Supervisors voted three-to-two to join. 379 The supervisors agreed to join the suit for the same reasons that they did so in October 1980—uncertainties about what the designations meant for timber, mining, and private property interests along with a deep distrust of the federal government. The supervisors claimed that the clear majority of feedback from their constituents favored the county’s participation in the suit. The county, however, appeared decidedly less resolved about its position in 1982 stating that “the law suits would go forward whether our name is added or not.” Additionally, the supervisors reminded residents that the lawsuit would not cost the county as the timber companies were footing the entire bill.380

The issue did not remain uncontested in Trinity County for long. Through February and

March, support for the county’s participation in the suit deteriorated. In February, the students in

Trinity High School’s conservation class petitioned the Board of Supervisors to reconsider their stance. In a letter accompanying the petition, student Eric Horstman pleaded with the supervisors to withdraw from the suit:

I cannot believe that the Board of Supervisors, who pledged to help save our dying river, would turn around and try to block a far-sighted effort to save it… the inclusion of the Northern California rivers will force southern Californians to drain their swimming pools and conserve the water they’ve got.381

379 “Reagan Administration Backs Decision of Ex-Interior Chief to Protect Wild Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1981; “County Joins in Wild Rivers Suit,” Trinity Journal, January 29, 1981.

380 “County Joins in Wild Rivers Suit,” Trinity Journal.

381 “Students Ask Board to Change River Stand,” Trinity Journal, February 12, 1981.

146

The student petition resulted from an in-class task debating the proposed inclusion where, as

Horstman phrased it, “the side for designation won easily.” Subsequently, all sixteen students in the class signed the petition.382 The same week, the Trinity Journal published an article written by

Pat Hamilton that described, in vivid detail, the DWR’s prior plans to dam the Trinity as part of the North Coast Area Investigation.383 Furthermore, in late-February, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors, previously listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, reversed its stand.384

In response, the Board of Supervisors scheduled a series of meetings in March to reevaluate its support for the suit. In the meetings, individuals representing various regions and interests throughout Trinity County would state their opinions. Most representatives worried about the unknown effects of the designation on the mining and timber industries, as well as private property rights. Although state and federal representatives had, on multiple occasions, clarified the specifics of these issues, many counties wanted the guarantees on paper. Residents were suspicious of agreeing to the designations without a specific management plan. Because a designation under

Section 2(a)(ii) entailed state administration of the rivers, the management plans prepared following the passage of the state act would have served as the blueprint for a federally designated river. Unfortunately, the state had not yet completed the management plan for the Trinity that was mandated by the CWSRA.385

382 Ibid.

383 “State Water Plan: Story Behind Passage of State Wild Rivers Act,” Trinity Journal, February 19, 1981.

384 “Wild Rivers Arguments Here Monday,” Trinity Journal, March 5, 1981.

385 Section 5093.59 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Div. 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

147

Up to that time, management plans had been prepared for the Van Duzen, Salmon, and

Scott rivers—all tributaries to the major rivers considered as the “five rivers.” While a management plan for the Smith River was actively in-the-works, the management plans for the rest of the major river systems were either incomplete or non-existent.386 Although Glenn Delisle’s task force, appointed with the task of initiating the implementation of the CWSRA in 1972, projected the completion of the Trinity and Klamath management plans by the end of fiscal year 1974, the agencies involved had not yet begun CWSRA specific plans.387 The lack of management plans resulted in an important argument for critics of the designation and plaintiffs in the suits against it.

Many opponents erroneously argued that the text of the NWSRA required pre-approved state management plans before a river could be designated through Section 2(a)(ii). Although the text did not, in fact, explicitly require these management plans, opponents used the point to argue against the “adequacy of the EIR.”388

While many Trinity County residents still worried about the misunderstood impacts of the

NWSRA, Al Wilkins and Dan Frost, a lawyer, environmental advocate, and member of the State

Water Commission, provided a well-articulated argument for the county’s withdrawal from the suit. Frost, traveling from his home in Redding to attend the meetings, spoke “on his own behalf,”

386 U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System: Volume I Appendixes, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (December 1980): 22.

387 “Administration of California Wild and Scenic Rivers System Program Budget Statement for Fiscal Year 1973-74,” from Glenn Delisle to Ford B. Ford, January 12, 1973, Box R23, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(7), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California

388 County of Del Norte v. Brown, No. 292019 (California Superior Court, Sacramento, 1980); County of Del Norte v. United States of America, Association of California Water Agencies v. United States of America, Environmental Defense Fund, Intervenors-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, 732 F.2d 1462 (9th Cir. 1984).

148 implying that he did not represent the state.389 They constructed an argument that depicted three main messages: that federal inclusion would have minimal effects on private activity surrounding the designated sections; that southern water interests, with overwhelming legislative power, were the real perpetrators of the effort to block the designations; and that these water interests intended to block the federal designation, eliminate the CWSRA, and construct dams on the north coast rivers. Proponents of the federal designation argued that the greater evil of additional dams dwarfed any side-effects of the Trinity’s inclusion. “It’s hard to cut trees under 200-300 feet of water,” Al Wilkins remarked at a meeting in Weaverville.390

Frost and Wilkins’ arguments ultimately had their desired effect. On March 16, 1981, the

Trinity County Board of Supervisors voted four-to-one to withdraw from the suit. The supervisors’ comments on the decision were remarkably somber. Ralph Modine said of the other plaintiffs in the Del Norte case, “we are in bed with the enemy and they are coming for us.”391 Similarly,

Supervisor Dick Austin declared, “the Feds scare me, but the Southern California water interests scare me more,” and later that “it is inevitable that we’re going to have dams on these rivers—but

I want it to be later.”392 Many in Trinity County felt besieged by outside powers on both sides.

These fears were not only hyperbole. Trinity and Siskiyou counties’ withdrawal from the suit did not halt its procession. Del Norte and Humboldt counties, along with timber, mining, and water interests continued their litigation. Furthermore, the Oregon counties and timber companies had

389 “Wild Rivers Issue Set Again Monday,” Trinity Journal, March 12, 1981.

390 Ibid.

391 “County Withdraws from Rivers Suit: Supervisors Vote 4-1 on Issue,” Trinity Journal, March 19, 1981.

392 “Wild Rivers Issue Set Again Monday,” Trinity Journal, March 12, 1981; “County Withdraws from Rivers Suit: Supervisors Vote 4-1 on Issue,” Trinity Journal, March 19, 1981.

149 refiled their suit reinforcing the offense against Andrus’ designation. Through spring 1981, the litigants waited as James Watt decided whether to fight the actions in court.

Through 1981 and 1982, state legislation again threatened the CWSRA. Members of the

State Assembly introduced three bills to weaken the state system. First, Assemblyman Richard

Lehman, a Democrat from Fresno, introduced A.B. 392 to remove all segments of the Eel River from the state CWSRA.393 Furthermore, Doug Bosco, a Democrat from Eureka, introduced A.B.

1349 and A.B. 2214, intended to narrow the scope and function of the CWSRA and remove sections of the Smith River from the state system respectively.394 Both Assemblymen were regarded as relatively strong advocates of environmental protection and natural resource conservation. Bosco authored the Renewable Resources Reinvestment Act in 1979 and, among other legislation, would later champion the California Wilderness Act in 1984 as well as the Smith

River Recreation Area Act in 1990.395 Lehman would later advocate for federal designations of the Tuolumne and Kings rivers in the central and southern Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The districts that the assemblymen represented, however, help to explain their seemingly anti-environmental legislation in 1981 and 1982. Lehman, representing Assembly District 31, was

393 A.B. No. 392, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 331.

394 A.B. No. 1349, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 934; A.B. No. 2214, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 1412.

395 California Wilderness Act of 1984, Public Law 98-425, 98th Cong., U.S. Statutes at Large 1619 (September 28, 1984); Smith River National Recreation Area Act, Public Law 101- 612, 101st Cong., 2nd Session, (November 16, 1990).

150 considered environmentally friendly considering the constituents that he represented. District 31 almost entirely encompassed agricultural lands serviced by the powerful Westlands Water District.

Westlands, a major consumer of Central Valley Project water, had long coveted additional northern water and opposed wild rivers legislation.396 A.B. 392 clearly represented an effort to remove the

Eel River from the CWSRA with the purpose of initiating the planning and construction of additional water impoundment facilities.

Most Californians, however, viewed Bosco’s A.B. 1349 as a compromise bill between residents of the north coast and the Brown Administration.397 The bill contained several provisions to weaken the CWSRA and allow timber and mining interests to operate with more regulatory leeway. If successful, Bosco’s bill would relegate the state act to a single purpose program—to prevent the construction of additional water impoundment facilities, provided that, they were designed for inter-basin transfers out of the north coast region. First, it eliminated the CWSRA’s mandate for the formulation of management plans.398 This provision assisted the plaintiffs in the suits against Andrus’ federal designation. The plaintiffs had questioned the eligibility of the rivers for inclusion in the federal system through Section 2(a)(ii) due to the state’s lack of management

396 Jack Keating, Memorandum to CWRA Board of Directors, Advisory Board and Members, November 30, 1972, Box R22, Folder Wild Rivers S.B. 107 1972 Behr(5), Gubernatorial Papers 1966-1975: Resources Agency Legislation Files, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

397 “Compromise Timber Harvest Bill Goes to Assembly Floor,” Ukiah Daily Journal, June 26, 1981; “Compromise Environmental Bills Win,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 7, 1981.

398 Section 5093.59 of Assembly Bill No. 1349 as amended May 22, 1981; Section 5093.59 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

151 plans.399 Undercutting the state management plans concurrently in-process or scheduled, would bolster this assertion.

Second, A.B. 1349 would limit the Resource Agency’s power to classify certain sections as “wild,” “scenic,” or “recreational.” Rather, the Secretary of Resources could recommend classifications to the legislature, but the legislature would possess the authority to classify or reclassify segments of river through statute. Furthermore, the bill required the reclassification of all segments concurrently designated under the state act with land-use restrictions specific to each classification.400 This provision is most important when considered within the context of an additional federal secretarial designation. While the CWSRA did not clearly distinguish between different administration and management requirements for the three classifications, the federal act did. Under a federal secretarial designation, the federal system adopted whichever classification the state applied to a segment of river. The federal act specified more stringent mining restrictions on segments classified as “wild.” Therefore, if the legislature could reclassify the “wild” sections under the state act, the federal designations would theoretically follow suit, thereby ensuring mining companies less-restricted access to minerals directly adjacent to the rivers.

Third, like Barry Keene’s A.B. 1653 in 1977, the bill eliminated the provision that the

CWSRA protect the rivers’ “immediate environments” and struck the term “in a natural condition” from the purpose of the law.401 This provision confined the scope of the state system to protecting

399 County of Del Norte v. Brown, No. 292019 (California Superior Court, Sacramento, 1980); County of Del Norte v. United States of America, Association of California Water Agencies v. United States of America, Environmental Defense Fund, Intervenors-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, 732 F.2d 1462 (9th Cir. 1984); County of Josephine v. Watt, 539 F. Supp. 696 (N.D. Cal. 1982).

400 Section 5093.546 of Assembly Bill No. 1349 as amended May 22, 1981.

401 Sections 5093.50 and 5093.52(d) of Assembly Bill No. 1349 as amended May 22, 1981.

152 the bounds of the river defined as the “shoreline up to the first line of permanent vegetation.” Prior to Bosco’s bill, the CWSRA’s scope included a quarter-mile from the “ordinary high-water mark” of the river and could plausibly justify regulation to the ridgelines within the line-of-sight of the river.402 Consequently, any activity could occur up to the first line of permanent vegetation, provided that it did not affect only the “free-flowing nature” of the river.

Fourth, except for a sustained prohibition on water impoundment facilities, A.B. 1349 eliminated the watershed-wide designation of the Smith River that previously protected every tributary and replaced it with a list of named tributaries. Furthermore, along with Bosco’s A.B.

2214 which eliminated Hardscrabble Creek, where mining company surveys had found extensive cobalt, chromium, and nickel deposits, the bill removed twelve named tributaries from the system.403

In short, other than preventing new water-export dams, Bosco’s legislation would gut most of the CWSRA’s effects. Taken together, these provisions granted many northern residents’ desires. Like Trinity County, most communities in the north coastal region relied heavily on timber and mining interests. Many viewed the state and federal Wild and Scenic Rivers acts as valuable because of their ability to prevent additional dams and reservoirs designed for large inter-basin

402 Section 5093.50 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

403 Sections 5093.54(c), 5093.541 of Chapter 14 of the California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 14, Statutes of California 1981-82 Regular Session, 1982 Chapters, Vol. 1, 22-23; Letter from Richard A. Haft Jr. to Curt Marckwald, July 24, 1980, “Re: California Nickel Corporation,” Resources Agency of California, Records of Division of Mines and Geology, Dept of Conservation, Series: Legislation Federal, 1980-81, R188.100, Box 49, ff 5-9, California State Archives, Sacramento, California; California Nickel Corporation, “Summary Project Description: Gasquet Mountain Project,” June 1, 1980, Resources Agency of California, Records of Division of Mines and Geology, Dept of Conservation, Series: Legislation Federal, 1980-81, R188.100, Box 49, ff 5-9, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

153 water transfers. They did not, however, want the additional state and federal regulations that accompanied the acts. It is also important to note that the federal designation of the rivers rendered some of the provisions, such as the alteration of the bounds of the river, in Bosco’s bill null or less effective. Bosco designed some, however, such as the removal of the Smith from the system and reclassification of all designated sections, to be potent even with the designation under the federal act.

In return for these concessions, Bosco’s bill granted the state greater power to regulate and more stringently punish illegal logging activities within the wild and scenic lands. 404 Considering the paltry concessions that the Brown administration received, Bosco’s legislation hardly seemed a “compromise bill.” Environmental groups certainly did not view Bosco’s bill as a compromise, given the weakened state in which it left the CWSRA, nor did southern water interests.

Additionally, twenty-first-century environmentalists still regard the bill as a travesty. The

California Wilderness Coalition (CWC) declares that A.B. 1349 “can only be characterized as an angry response to Andrus decision.”405 The CWC, however, mischaracterized the intent of the bill by disregarding the concurrent local sentiment and broader context of the legislation. The Brown administration likely intended to garner northern support for the Peripheral Canal with its support for A.B. 1349. Brown again hoped to disassociate the canal project from the north coast rivers. He, therefore, allowed the north coast residents to do as they pleased without the threat of southern- sponsored dam projects.

404 5093.66 of the California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 14, Statutes of California 1981-82 Regular Session, 1982 Chapters, Vol. 4, 5708.

405 California Wilderness Coalition, “Chronology of Wild and Scenic Rivers in California,” California Wilderness Coalition, accessed September 2, 2018, https://www.calwild.org/wsr- chronology/.

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For the rest of 1981, the state legislature deliberated on the three proposed bills. All were postponed until the 1982 session. The court cases against Andrus’ order also remained quiet for most of the year. In June, Watt had unexpectedly backed his predecessor’s action. He stated that he would not have approved Brown’s request but conceded that Andrus had acted within the bounds of his authority.406 Prosecutors for the court cases, which were joined in the federal court, first presented their cases to U.S. District Court Judge William Ingram in June 1981. Ingram would not issue a decision on the case until February 1983.

The disputes over the Peripheral Canal and the state and federal Wild and Scenic Rivers acts all coalesced in 1982 into what historian Norris Hundley termed “Round Two” of the

Peripheral Canal fight. After the Peripheral Canal Authorization Act (S.B. 200) passed in June

1980, opponents of the canal project vowed to overturn it with a public referendum in a 1982 special election. The referendum on S.B. 200, and correspondingly Proposition 8, was listed as

Proposition 9 on the June 1982 ballot.

The debate that ensued had strong environmental overtones because environmental groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Mono Lake Committee, and Friends of the

Earth fielded the largest number of individuals in the campaign. Consequently, 81 percent of donors to the anti-canal effort gave $100-$500 contributions.407 Larger contributions, however, painted a different picture. Following the passage of Proposition 8 in November 1980, many San

Joaquin agricultural interests including the Farm Bureau Association, J.G. Boswell Company, and

406 “Reagan Administration Backs Decision of Ex-Interior Chief to Protect Wild Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1981.

407 Douglas Gwynn, Orville E. Thompson, and Kathleen L’Ecluse, “The California Peripheral Canal: Who Backed it, Who Fought it?,” California Agriculture 37 no. 1 (January- February 1983): 23-24.

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Salyer Land Company, turned against S.B. 200. “We do not feel we should bankrupt our future,” proclaimed the president of the Farm Bureau, “by locking up the north coast rivers as the price for securing the Peripheral Canal.”408 Ironically, farming interests contributed 94 percent of the anti- canal funds.409 Furthermore, some northern California agricultural interests condemned the canal because of the passage of Proposition 8.410

While the Sierra Club and water interests made for strange bedfellows, the environmentalists enjoyed the inflow of funds to the anti-canal campaign, with the J.B Boswell

Company alone contributing $1.5 million to the effort.411 During the months preceding the election, anti-canal groups would spend $3.3 million, while pro-canal groups spent $2.5 million.412

The pro-canal campaign was funded largely by petroleum (35.6%), land development and real estate (19.7%), farming (17.4%), and manufacturing and industrial (14.9%) interests.413 Opposing regional water interests then, funded the opposing campaigns for the election. Polls conducted by the Field Institute indicated that 58 percent of voters considered the cost of the project as their single biggest consideration while 40 percent believed that the project would harm the environment. 414

408 Hundley, 328.

409 Gwynn, et al., Table 1 on page 23.

410 Ibid., 22.

411 “Compromise Timber Harvest Bill Goes to Assembly Floor,” Ukiah Daily Journal, June 26, 1981; Gwynn, et al., 22.

412 Ibid.,

413 Ibid., Table 1 on page 23.

414 Hundley, 332.

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With the exception of the San Joaquin Valley, voting trends mirrored the regional patterns displayed in the fight over the Peripheral Canal’s approval. The north voted against it and the south voted for it. Southern voters, however, appeared considerably less galvanized than those in northern California. On June 8, voters approved Proposition 9 by a 63-to-37-percent margin, vetoing S.B. 200—and with it, Proposition 8 of 1980.415 Brown’s attempts to reconcile the differences between water users, environmentalists, and northern and southern Californians had failed. His overtures to northern Californians did not produce their intended effects and his request to include the north coast rivers in the NWSRA minimized the additional advantages granted by

Proposition 8. Additionally, Proposition 8 fractured the pro-canal coalition and convinced many

San Joaquin water-users that they could subsequently negotiate a better canal deal without the north coast protections.

While environmentalists and northern Californians considered Proposition 9 a victory, it was also a gamble. By the end of 1982, a series of events placed the protections on the north coast rivers in a tenuous position. Earlier that spring, Brown signed Bosco’s A.B. 2214 after it passed overwhelmingly through the legislature, removing Hardscrabble Creek from the state system.416

Although Lehman had removed his A.B. 392 from consideration, the passage of A.B. 2214 represented a defeat for environmental groups.417 Additionally, in late August, Brown and the

415 Ibid.

416 A.B. 2214 passed through Assembly 71-1 and passed through Senate 28-0. See A.B. No. 2214, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 1412.

417 A.B. No. 392, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 331.

157 legislature passed Bosco’s A.B. 1349, stripping the CWSRA of many of its protective clauses.418

Furthermore, in the November 1982 election, the electorate denied a sweeping environmental protection proposal, titled Proposition 13, in a sweeping 65% to 35% vote.419 The proposal would have required water suppliers to develop binding water conservation requirements, compelled the

State Water Resources Control Board to consider in-stream water uses in appropriative applications, restricted the amount of water stored behind New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus

River, and finally, imposed groundwater management controls on eleven problematic groundwater basins. The margins of victory particularly perturbed environmentalists. A.B. 2214 passed through the Assembly seventy-one to one, and unanimously through the Senate.420 Both houses of the state legislature unanimously approved A.B. 1349.421 Consequently, environmental groups were concerned over how much leverage they would possess in the legislature in the coming years.422

Furthermore, without the additional safeguards that Proposition 8 granted, the state wild rivers

418 A.B. No. 1349, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 934; “Report of Committee on Conference,” August 30, 1982, in Journal of the Assembly, 1981-82 Regular Session December 1, 1980 to November 30, 1982, Vol. 10, 18494-96.

419 “Legislator Bemoans Prop. 13’s Trouncing,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1982.

420 A.B. 2214 passed through Assembly 71-1 and passed through Senate 28-0. See A.B. No. 2214, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 1412.

421 A.B. No. 1349, Assembly Final History: Synopsis of Assembly Bills, Constitutional Amendments, Concurrent and Joint Resolutions, and House Resolutions, 1981-82 Regular Session and 1981-82 First Extraordinary Session, Vol. 1, California Legislature, 934; “Report of Committee on Conference,” August 30, 1982, in Journal of the Assembly, 1981-82 Regular Session December 1, 1980 to November 30, 1982, Vol. 10, 18494-96.

422 “Legislator Bemoans Prop. 13’s Trouncing,” Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1982

158 status of the north coast rivers was subject to a simple majority in the legislature. Combined with the tenuous position of the rivers’ federal wild rivers status resulting from the litigation challenging the designations, the protections of the northern rivers seemed delicate.

In November, Judge William Ingram announced his intention to rule against the

Department of the Interior. In February 1983, he struck down Andrus’ secretarial designations of the American and north coast rivers. He ruled that Andrus’ actions were invalid for two reasons.

First, he asserted that the state and Department of Interior filed the EIS for the designations two days too early, leaving inadequate time for public comment. Copies of the EIS were circulated to agencies and published on the same day that notice was placed in the Federal Register stating that the statement was filed with the EPA. Ingram said that regulations mandated that the notice be published during the week following the filing, rather than the same week.423 Second, he contended that, because the state had no permanent management plans for the rivers, they were not, in fact, eligible for a designation under Section 2(a)(ii) of the NWSRA.424 While environmental groups, led by the Environmental Defense Fund, promised to appeal the ruling, water-users in the south applauded Ingram’s decision. Carl Boronkay, general counsel of the Metropolitan Water District, one of the major plaintiffs in the suit, outlined the ostensible reasons for the suit against Andrus in a letter to the editors of the LA Times:

423 “Environmentalists Win Court Victory in Bid to Preserve 5 State Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1984.

424 County of Del Norte v. Brown, No. 292019 (California Superior Court, Sacramento, 1980); County of Del Norte v. United States of America, Association of California Water Agencies v. United States of America, Environmental Defense Fund, Intervenors-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, 732 F.2d 1462 (9th Cir. 1984); “Wilderness Status for Five Rivers Voided: Judge’s Action Regarded as a Major Victory for Timber, Water Interests,” Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1983.

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The vigor with which the state or the United States presses an appeal will reflect a commitment to federal preemption over ultimate responsibility for vital California resources that include a major portion of California’s remaining natural water supply. While California’s Legislature and voters may never modify California’s existing prohibition against development of these water supplies, they, rather than federal officials a continent away, should retain that responsibility. A decision by the Deukmejian Administration would therefore manifest its recognition that Californians should make the final decisions on protecting California’s natural resources, and its faith that Californians can be counted on to make the right decisions.425

While Boronkay presented a “state-versus-federal power” justification, many Californians recognized the more practical motivations behind the suit. Environmentalists feared that southern legislators would subsequently seek to remove the rivers from the state system.426 “It is now anticipated,” the LA Times reported candidly, “that timber and power interests will ask the legislature to abolish the state’s sanctions against development.”427

In March 1983, then Governor George Deukmejian withdrew the state of California from the legal effort to appeal Ingram’s decision. The case did not list the state as a litigant, but the

Brown administration had previously filed an amicus brief in support of the Department of the

Interior.428 Deukmejian’s withdrawal dealt a major blow to the environmental groups. In April, however, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Ingram’s previous decision, a victory for the Environmental Defense Fund and wild rivers advocates.429 That June, however, Watt’s

425 “Letters to the Times: California Wild Rivers Litigation,” Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1983.

426 “Wilderness Status for Five Rivers Voided: Judge’s Action Regarded as a Major Victory for Timber, Water Interests,” Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1983.

427 “A Threat to the Wild Ones,” Los Angeles Times, February 25, 1983.

428 “The Governor and the Wild Ones,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1983.

429 “The State,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1983.

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Department of the Interior reversed its prior position on the case and asked the federal court to dismiss the appeal on the grounds that the Environmental Defense Federation lacked standing before the court. Watt argued that, because the DOI and Deukmejian Administration no longer supported the appeal, the decision “imposes no burden or significant injury upon them [the

EDF].”430 While the dismissal of the case would not result in the immediate removal of the rivers from the federal system, it would return the issue to the DOI and the state. Because Deukmejian’s administration had already gone on record opposing the federal designations, the administrations were unlikely to act favorably once the issue left the court.

Despite the loss of support from the state and federal government, the EDF resolved to sustain the litigation. In May 1984, Judge Mary Schroeder upheld the designations of the five rivers, reversing Ingram’s February 1983 ruling. Schroeder declared that any regulatory violations that Andrus’ DOI committed were “insignificant” and “trivial,” and she found no evidence of malevolent deception or obfuscation.431 While the Metropolitan Water District concurrently supported legislation in the U.S. Congress to authorize state legislatures to remove wild rivers from the federal system, the momentum behind the campaign to strip protection from the north coast rivers largely dissipated.432 Plaintiffs again appealed the decision, extending the litigation into 1985. On January 20, 1985, the day of President Reagan’s second inauguration, the Supreme

430 “U.S. Requests Court to Dismiss Appeal to Preserve Wild Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, June 26, 1983.

431 County of Del Norte v. United States of America, Association of California Water Agencies v. United States of America, Environmental Defense Fund, Intervenors-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, 732 F.2d 1462 (9th Cir. 1984)

“Five Coast Rivers Are Ruled ‘Wild,’” New York Times, May 12, 1984; “Environmentalists Win Court Victory in Bid to Preserve 5 State Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1984.

432 “Wild Rivers, Wild Bureaucrats,” Los Angeles Times, May 17, 1984.

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Court let the Ninth Circuit Court’s ruling stand, upholding the north coast rivers’ status under

Section 2(a)(ii) of the NWSRA.433

433 County of Del Norte v. U.S., 469 U.S. 1189 (1985); “Court Leaves Five North State Rivers Protected,” Sacramento Bee, January 22, 1985.; “Protection for Wild Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1985.

CHAPTER 5 ———————— IMPACTS OF THE WILD AND SCENIC RIVER DUAL DESIGNATION

ON THE TRINITY RIVER: 1981-2018

When Secretary Andrus designated the north coast rivers under Section 2(a)(ii) of the

NWSRA in January 1981, they did not lose their status as state wild and scenic rivers. Rather, management agencies were required to accommodate a combination of both systems. The

NWSRA outlined a unique plan for “federally designated, state administered” rivers. This chapter will discuss the impacts of the dual designation on the Trinity River. Like the CWSRA, the

NWSRA’s primary purpose was to protect designated rivers from additional water impoundment facilities. Additionally, this dual designation provided a unique safeguard—neither state nor federal legislatures could remove their status single-handedly. Consequently, removing dam prohibitions from these rivers would require a broad and coordinated effort.

The NWSRA’s power to protect rivers from additional water impoundment facilities was undoubtably its most important potential effect. Section 7 of the NWSRA stated the Act’s prohibition on water projects:

The Federal Power Commission shall not license the construction of any dam, water conduit, reservoir, powerhouse, transmission line, or other project works under the Federal Power Act (41 Stat. 1063), as amended (16 U.S.C. 791a et seq.), on or directly affecting any river which is designated in section 3 of this Act as a component of the national wild and scenic rivers system or which is hereafter designated for inclusion in that system, and no department or agency of the United States shall assist by loan, grant, license, or otherwise in the construction of any water resources project that would have a direct and adverse effect on the values

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for which such river was established, as determined by the Secretary charged with its administration.434

The Act did not, however, unconditionally prohibit federal support for water impoundment structures above or below designated sections. It permitted such projects that would “not invade the area or unreasonably diminish the scenic, recreational, and fish and wildlife values present in the area on the date of approval of this Act.”435 It further stated that, before any federal department or agency recommended a project on sections adjacent to or affecting designated segments, it would need to notify the legislature and justify its actions. Lastly, the Act extended temporary protections to sections that were undergoing eligibility or suitability studies for potential inclusion in the system.436

Technically, prior to the north coast rivers’ inclusion in the federal system, no law specifically barred federal departments or agencies from constructing dam projects on the northern rivers. The state did not have the specific authority, through the CWSRA or any other law, to prevent federal dams from being authorized or constructed. The CWSRA did not confer the authority to regulate how the federal government managed its lands, even within designated segments—a shortcoming especially critical for the Trinity because of its predominantly federally- owned lands. The probability of the Bureau of Reclamation authorizing and constructing any of the previously proposed dams without state approval, licensing, or funding, however, was incredibly low.

434 Section 7(a) of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Public Law 90-542, U.S. Code, Title 16, Ch 1271 (1968).

435 Ibid.

436 Section 7(b) of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

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Thus, despite the fierce controversy surrounding the federal designation of the Trinity under the NWSRA, the Trinity was not in any immediate danger of being dammed. The campaign regarding the designations was replete with hyperbole. Environmentalists’ claims that, without the federal system, the north coast rivers were just one legislative action away from impoundment were highly sensationalized. Deeming the debate “almost academic,” the LA Times editorial staff recognized the remote nature of the threats to the rivers.437 “There is no foreseeable danger to the rivers,” it wrote, “the construction of federal dams is at a standstill for want of money, and, even if consideration were given to future projects on the rivers, they would have an extremely low federal priority.”438

As discussed in Chapter 4, the DWR had concluded in 1978 that, with or without the

CWSRA designations, water impoundment facilities could not be justified in the foreseeable future. In its report on the Peripheral Canal, the DWR stated that “studies show that projected water requirements of the Delta and water demands of the SWP and CVP can be met to or beyond the year 2000 with implementation of all the facilities in this program.”439 It must be acknowledged that the 1978 Delta Report assumed the completion of Auburn Dam and Reservoir, with the capacity of 2.3 million acre-feet, which would subsequently be abandoned in the early 1980s. By

1983, however, even after the Bureau of Reclamation dropped the Auburn dam, the DWR stated that “streams on the North Coast could provide sources of water to satisfy statewide needs for urban and agriculture purposes beyond 2010. However, wild and scenic instream laws, costly

437 “Time and the Rivers,” Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1980.

438 Ibid.

439 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin 76-78, Delta Water Facilities Program for: Delta Protection and Water Transfer, Water Conservation, Water Recycling, and Surface and Ground Water Storage, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, September 1978): 96-7.

165 dams, and long and costly conveyance systems keep the North Coast streams from being potential sources of water supply in the foreseeable future.”440

It is also important to note that projects on the Eel would still precede any development on the Trinity. First, because Eel water would be cheaper than additional Trinity water, and second, the CWSRA mandated that the DWR and California Legislature reconsider excluding the Eel from the state system in 1984.441 The DWR’s report to the legislature regarding the Eel reaffirmed that further development on the north coast rivers was neither necessary or economically preferable.

While the DWR planned, in 1966, for a projected statewide population of 35 million by 1990 and

54 million by 2020; it had revised its plans and lowered its projections to 28 million by 1990 and

34 million by 2010. Correspondingly, the DWR reduced its anticipated increase in net annual water requirements from 6.5 million acre-feet in 2020 to an increase of 3.5 million acre-feet by 2010.

Consequently, it predicted that the SWP contractors would need the full 4.2-million-acre-foot capacity of the SWP by 2020 rather than 1990.442

Furthermore, DWR’s statement reported that in the years prior, engineering studies had disclosed alternative developments that would be more cost-effective than the Eel River development. The report stated that groundwater management, projects in the Central Valley, off- stream storage to the south of the Delta, and the potential enlargement of Shasta Dam appeared

440 The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-83: The California Water Plan: Projected Use and Available Water Supplies to 2010, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1983): 250.

441 Section 50933.54(d) of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 1972, Ch. 1259).

442 For figures from 1966, see The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-66, 42. For figures from 1983, see The Resources Agency of California, Bulletin No. 160-83: The California Water Plan: Projected Use and Available Water Supplies to 2010, Department of Water Resources (Sacramento, December 1983): 21.

166 economically preferable to diversions from the Eel.443 The DWR concluded that “it is our view that we would not look to the Eel River as a practical source of additional water supply within the near future, irrespective of its wild and scenic rivers status.”444 In the decades following Andrus’ designations, dam fights have largely shifted to projects on smaller and less-used rivers and streams. Even these projects have proven highly contentious. Regarding large water impoundment structures, Auburn Dam assumed the symbolic mantle, once typified by Dos Rios and English

Ridge dams and reservoirs on the Eel River, for politically interested Californians to rant for and against.

Like its state counterpart, the glaring deficiency of the NWSRA’s impact on the Trinity was its inability to affect the operations of the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project.

The impotence of the federal act to affect the TRD’s operations produced an inconsistency between the Act’s purpose and abilities. The State Water Resources Control Board solidified the reasonable and beneficial use provision within the state and federal acts when it issued its Water Right Order

97-01. WR 97-01 declared all components within both systems to be considered “fully- appropriated streams.”445 The acts, however, had no effect on the TRD’s operation. The state act could not dictate federal action and the federal act could not affect the operation of existing water projects. Furthermore, a federal designation did not automatically reserve the entire unappropriated

443 David N. Kennedy, Memorandum to Ruben Ayala, Robert Presley, Jim Costa, and Byron Sher, August 30, 1985, Department of Water Resources, Inventory of the California State Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee Records, Series 4 Subject Files 1976-2000, Wild and Scenic Rivers 1985-1987, LP300:37, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

444 Ibid.

445 California Environmental Protection Agency, Water Rights Order no. 91-07 Order Revising Declaration of Fully Appropriated Streams, State Water Resources Control Board (Sacramento, August 22, 1991).

167 flow of the river. Rather, the act authorized managing agencies to reserve only what was necessary to preserve the river’s ORVs. While the vague language had the potential to preserve instream flows, the provision is untested in the courts.446

Andrus’ 1981 flow modification, however, would drastically alter the Bureau of

Reclamation’s operation of the TRD. By the 1980s, concern for the Trinity’s anadromous fisheries prompted action at all levels of government.447 The interagency Trinity River Basin Fish and

Wildlife Task Force completed flow studies in 1999.448 In 2000 the Department of the Interior, under Secretary Bruce Babbitt, issued the Trinity River Record of Decision (ROD) establishing a well-funded comprehensive plan to mitigate the TRD’s adverse effects on the fishery. Among other measures, the ROD further increased guaranteed flows for environmental uses on the Trinity and established the Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP).449 It is not evident that Wild and

Scenic Rivers acts have impacted the work of the Trinity River Basin Fish and Wildlife Task Force or the TRRP in any direct way. Mention of the acts in the major reports or foundational documents of the efforts to restore the Trinity’s fishery are notably scarce.

Similar to the CWSRA, it is not evident that the NWSRA had many significant impacts on the regular management or operations of timber, mineral, or recreation interests within the Trinity

446 Michael C. Blumm, “Unconventional Waters: The Quiet Revolution in Federal and Tribal Minimum Streamflows,” Ecology Law Quarterly 19, no. 3 (1992): 458.

447 U.S. Department of the Interior, Record of Decision Trinity River Mainstem Fishery Restoration Final Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Washington D.C. December 2000): 5-9.

448 United States Department of the Interior, Trinity River Flow Evaluation Final Report (Washington D.C. June 1999).

449 United States Department of the Interior, Record of Decision Trinity River Mainstem Fishery Restoration Final Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (Washington D.C., December 2000).

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River watershed. These findings are largely consistent with the HCRS’ projections in its EIS. The

EIS estimated that the entire north coast region would experience a net loss of thirteen jobs.450 The report, however, admitted that its employment figures would vary depending on the way various management agencies chose to implement the NWSRA.

While the CWSRA originally mandated the development of management plans for each river within the state system, the Resources Agency failed to develop management plans for any segments of the Trinity through 1982, when Doug Bosco’s A.B. 1349 removed those requirements.

Furthermore, the NWSRA did not require management plans for rivers designated through Section

2(a)(ii) until 1986, when an amendment to the act required them. The amendment, however, did not require plans be developed for rivers designated before 1986. Consequently, since the passage of the CWSRA in 1972, managing agencies have only completed a management plan for the designated section of the South Fork of the Trinity River in 1992. In accordance with CEQA and

NEPA, the Forest Service also generated an EIS evaluating the management plan which will be discussed subsequently.451 Furthermore, in accordance with CEQA and NEPA, the Forest Service also generated an EIS evaluating the management plan—both of which will be discussed subsequently.452 Despite the dearth of specific management plans, it is evident that the managing

450 Table 4 in U.S. Department of the Interior, “Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System: Volume I,” Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (December 1980).

451 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Final Environmental Impact Statement: South Fork of the Trinity Wild and Scenic River Environmental Impact Statement and Management Plan, U.S. Forest Service (Washington D.C., January 1993); U.S. Department of Agriculture, Shasta-Trinity National Forests Land and Resource Management Plan, U.S. Forest Service (Washington D.C., April 1995): 3-23.

452 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Final Environmental Impact Statement: South Fork of the Trinity Wild and Scenic River Environmental Impact Statement and Management Plan, U.S. Forest Service (Washington D.C., January 1993); U.S. Department of Agriculture, Shasta-Trinity

169 agencies were already largely adhering to the management provisions of both the state and federal acts.

The NWSRA did not specify management guidelines for forestry regulation surrounding designated sections. Rather, it largely deferred specific guidelines to management agencies. The federal act only specifically referenced timber operations in its section regarding interagency cooperation. “Particular attention shall be given,” it stated, “to scheduled timber harvesting, road construction, and similar activities which might be contrary to the purposes of this Act.”453 It subsequently clarified that existing private contracts or agreements would not be annulled “without the consent of the said party.”454 As discussed in Chapter 4, the Forest Service and California

Department of Fish and Game had entered into a memorandum of understanding on cooperative relationships regarding California’s state and federally designated wild and scenic rivers in

1976.455

There is little evidence to suggest that the NWSRA had a significant impact on timber operations within the Trinity River watershed. In its Final EIS for the federal designation, the

Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service projected a loss of 8.1 million board-feet within the

Smith River Basin and 0.4 million board-feet in the North Fork Eel River corridor.456 Presumably,

National Forests Land and Resource Management Plan, U.S. Forest Service (Washington D.C., April 1995): 3-23.

453 Section 12(a) of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

454 Section 12(b) of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

455 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Shasta-Trinity National Forests Land and Resource Management Plan, U.S. Forest Service (Washington D.C., April 1995): III-22.

456 Table 4 in U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System Volume I, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (December 1980).

170 the EIS neglected to mention specific timber losses within the Trinity watershed because of their relative insignificance. The report estimated a loss of sixty-two timber jobs, mostly in Del Norte and Humboldt counties.457 James Mills, the Assistant Regional Director of the HCRS southwest region, restated the minimal predicted effect on the timber industry in Trinity County. At a 1980 meeting in Weaverville, Mills stated that while federal rules would certainly be applied to the river corridor, the existing USFS and BLM plans were already compatible with the Act. They’re not authorizing cuts on the river banks now,” Mills added.458

Additionally, Bosco’s A.B 1349 amended the CWSRA’s timber regulations. Bosco’s bill further specified the Act’s regulations but substantially reduced their potential reach beyond the riverbanks. After the amendments, the CWSRA established separate standards for regulating forest practices within a 200-foot “special treatment area” adjacent to designated segments of river. The state act declared that timber operators and registered professional foresters who prepare timber harvesting plans were legally responsible for the actual harvest operations for purposes of complying with all rules and regulations. Furthermore, the amendments intensified the punishments for illegal logging within these “special treatment areas.” It raised the maximum penalties for violation of forest practice rules to $5,000 for a misdemeanor and civil damages of up to $10, 000 per violation.459 In comparison, maximum fines outside of the “special treatment areas” were $1,000 per violation with no authorized civil damages.460

457 Ibid.

458 “HCRS Official Talks About Wild Rivers Plan,” Trinity Journal, October 16, 1980.

459 Section 5093.52(d) of Assembly Bill No. 1349 as amended May 22, 1981.

460 Briefing Paper for California Assembly Committee on Natural Resources Interim Hearing, October 29, 1985, Department of Water Resources, Inventory of the California State

171

It is difficult to attribute any specific impacts of the NWSRA designation on the regular conduct of timber harvest within the Trinity River watershed because, at the time of designation, the USFS’s operation was in a transitional stage. The Service was in the progress of developing management plans for each of the national forests in the north coast area, including the Six Rivers,

Shasta-Trinity, Klamath, and Mendocino national forests. Furthermore, the Forest Service had recently submitted its findings from the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation to the state legislature.461 When the Andrus and Brown added the north coast rivers into the NWSRA, the

USFS was already reevaluating its timber management regulations.

While there is scant evidence that the NWSRA designation directly affected the timber industry’s regular operations, in 1988, environmentalists utilized the NWSRA to prevent a timber salvage plan in the South Fork Trinity watershed. From August to October 1987, a series of lightning caused wildfires burned across major portions of the former South Fork Roadless Area, adjacent to the Wild and Scenic South Fork of the Trinity.462 The fires, consisting of two aggregated fire areas called the Flume-Wallow and Cold complexes, burned through approximately thirty-thousand acres of forest land.463 The fires killed, or damaged beyond the ability to survive, thirty-seven-million board-feet of sawtimber worth of trees on National Forest

Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee Records, Series 4 Subject Files 1976-2000, Wild and Scenic Rivers 1985-1987, LP300:37, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

461 U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (1980). I-4.

462 The California Wilderness Act of 1984 released the South Fork Roadless Area for multiple-use purposes. See U.S. Department of Agriculture, Draft Environmental Impact Statement: South Fork Fire Recovery/Salvage Project, U.S. Forest Service (Hayfork California, June 1988): S-1.

463 California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Wildfire Activity Statistics (Sacramento, 1987): 16.

172 land.464 The Forest Service estimated that 18.2 million board-feet of timber could be salvaged from the burn area. It projected that the sale would generate $2.7 million of gross receipts, $610,200 of which would go to Trinity County. Furthermore, it claimed that the salvage operation would generate 110 person-years of direct employment and 145 person-years of indirect employment.465

By the summer of 1988, the U.S. Forest Service produced an Environmental Impact Statement for the South Fork Fire Recovery/Salvage Project.466

The premise of salvage logging is simple and seems prudent. When a section of forest is damaged by disease, drought, fire, or other disruption, trees that would otherwise be lost are removed. Methods of salvage logging, largely determined by the intensity of damage, range from select removal, thinning, or clear-cuts. While economic incentives represent the primary motivation of salvage logging, proponents claim that the process can, among other effects, improve a forest’s fire-resiliency and halt the spread of disease. Additionally, the production of timber, wealth, and jobs from trees, that would otherwise die and rot, constituted the most intuitive and obvious benefit of salvage logging. Before the environmental and ecology movements in the 1960s and 1970s, the process was uncontroversial.467

While, by the 1980s, most mainstream environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and

Wilderness Society, supported responsible salvage operations, they were wary of the process in

464 U.S. Department of the Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (1980), S-1.

465 Ibid., S-8.

466 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Draft Environmental Impact Statement: South Fork Fire Recovery/Salvage Project, U.S. Forest Service (Hayfork California, June 1988).

467 Mark A. Stein, “Logging Conflict Flares After Fires,” Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1988.

173 practice. Environmental advocates feared that loggers indiscriminately harvested both healthy and damaged trees in less-intense burn areas, carved erosion-prone roads into wilderness areas, and in some cases, provided an economic incentive for arsonist activities. Furthermore, environmentalists viewed salvage operations as detrimental because they allowed loggers access to areas that would otherwise be off-limits to harvest because of various wilderness designations. “A lot of shortcuts are being taken under the guise of a salvage sale,” Patricia Schifferle of the Wilderness Society said after hiking in the proposed salvaged sites, “and a lot of environmental damage could be done.”468 The environmental groups had seen both success and failure fighting other salvage operations in the past. In the case of the South Fork Fire Recovery/Salvage Project, the Wilderness

Society, Sierra Club, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, and California Trout filed a suit against the Forest Service, arguing that the action violated the NWSRA.

Wilderness Society v. Tyrell represented the first instance where a management issue regarding a Section 2(a)(ii) designation reached a court.469 “The parties cite no case law interpreting Section 2(a)(ii), the pivotal provision,” the U.S. Ninth Court of Appeals later stated,

“because there is none. The case is one of first impression.”470 The charges that the Wilderness

Society levelled against the Forest Service were reminiscent of the procedural inadequacies claimed by plaintiffs in the litigation to block Andrus’ designation of the north coast rivers. They claimed that the Forest Service failed to cooperate with other pertinent agencies and neglected to develop management plans, required by the NWSRA, that would ensure the goals of the Act. In addition to procedural violations, the plaintiffs contended that the USFS’ proposed salvage sale

468 Ibid.

469 Wilderness Society v. Tyrell, 701 F Supp. 1473, 1484-86 (E.D. Cal. 1988).

470 Wilderness Society v. Tyrell, 918 F.2d 813, 819 (9th Cir. 1990).

174 violated the agency’s mandate to protect the values that justified the river’s initial designation under the Act.471

In November 1988, the U.S. Eastern District Court issued a preliminary injunction based on a significant likelihood of degradation of the river’s fisheries ORV, halting the salvage plan.

While the court held that the Act did not require the USFS to develop a specific management plan for the river, it expressed concern that the salvage plan entailed an “unacceptable risk to water quality.”472 The Forest Service subsequently appealed to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals then, in 1990, moved to dismiss it as a moot case on the grounds that, because of the time elapsed, the decomposing forest presented minimal value for salvage.473 The court denied the USFS’ motion to dismiss the case but asserted that the Service was substantially justified in arguing that the proposed sale was legal, thereby denying the plaintiffs’ motion for attorney fees under the

474 Equal Access Justice Act.

While the court left unresolved the legal question over how much of an impact on designated rivers was acceptable, the litigation made a powerful statement about activity beyond the formal boundaries of a secretarial designated river. The USFS argued that the NWSRA “did not regulate activities occurring beyond the legal border of the river, and because none of the

471 Wilderness Society v. Tyrell, 701 F Supp. 1473, 1484-86 (E.D. Cal. 1988).

472 A 1986 amendment to the NWSRA required agencies to prepare a management plan for rivers designated on or after the date of the amendment. Cecil Andrus designated the South Fork Trinity in January 1980. See An Act to amend the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and for other purposes, Public Law 99-590, 99th Congress (October 30, 1986), 100 Stats. 3330; Wilderness Society v. Tyrell, 918 F.2d 813, 819 (9th Cir. 1990).

473 Wilderness Society v. Tyrell, 918 F.2d 813, 819 (9th Cir. 1990); Stasia Scarborough, “Supervisors Complain over Loss of Salvage Logs from 1987 Fire,” Redding Record-Searchlight, February 10, 1993.

474 Wilderness Society v. Tyrell, 53 F.3d 341, (9th Cir. 1995).

175 logging would occur within that boundary, the Act was inapplicable to the proposed sale.”475 Judge

Lawrence K. Karlton of the Eastern District Court called this assertion “perfectly plausibly wrong,” an opinion that the appellant judges would later affirm.476

The litigation concerning the South Fork Fire Recovery/Salvage Project confirmed the power of the NWSRA’s vague language regarding the scope of the Act. The cases set a significant precedent suggesting that the designations’ regulations could potentially be watershed-wide.

Furthermore, the litigation prevented, for better or worse, the salvage of $2.7 million worth of timber from the South Fork Trinity watershed. The dispute over the salvage operation, however, also served to galvanize opposition against proceedings to designate sections of the McCloud,

Walker, and Carson rivers in 1988. Timber operators along the McCloud River especially professed concern over the potential for subsequent secretarial designations of the rivers.477

The litigation also forced the Forest Service to clarify its approach to maintaining wild and scenic rivers within its jurisdiction. After Judge Karlton decided against the Forest Service in the

Eastern District Court, the Forest Service volunteered to generate a wild and scenic specific management plan for the South Fork of the Trinity. Subsequently, the Forest Service issued its

Supplement 166 to the Region 5 Forest Service Manual 2354 which mandated that river plans be completed for section 2(a)(ii) rivers designated before 1986.478 Supplement 166 also declared that

475 Ibid.

476 Ibid.

477 Mark A. Stein, “Interests Clash on River Program,” Los Angeles Times, December 27, 1988.

478 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Final Environmental Impact Statement: South Fork of the Trinity Wild and Scenic River Environmental Impact Statement and Management Plan, U.S. Forest Service (Washington D.C., January 1993): I-3.

176 until formal boundaries were developed in management plans, the Service would protect a minimum of one-quarter mile from the river’s ordinary high-water mark—a substantial increase from the two-hundred-foot “special treatment area” required by the modified CWSRA.

While it has failed to produce any more wild-and-scenic-specific management plans within the Trinity River watershed, the Forest Service’s EIS of the South Fork of the Trinity Management

Plan provided an example of how managing agencies incorporated the NWSRA into existing management plans.479 The Forest Service outlined highly specific practices regarding timber management within river corridors. It further classified sections of river and stream into three classes based on their “equivalent roaded area” (ERA) and specified management plans for each.

In class 3 watersheds, for example, the Service mandated the following regulations:

No harvest scheduled or salvage, within 100 to 250 feet or more if necessary, of any perennial watercourse, spring, or other wet area (if topographic conditions are such that 250 extends beyond the drainage of concern and into a smaller watercourse then the boundary will extend to the drainage divide). Inner gorge areas are not suitable for timber harvest… From 250 feet to 500 feet of watercourses or drainage divide, timber can only be harvested using non-ground skidding systems. This can be adjusted based on the judgment of the earth science professional at the project level.480

In addition to other requirements, the plan also stipulated that all harvest within class 3 watersheds would occur during the non-rainy season.481 Other significant management plans, however, largely downplayed the South Fork Trinity’s wild and scenic statuses. The Pacific Watershed Associates produced the Action Plan for Restoration of the South Fork Trinity River Watershed and Its

Fisheries, for the Bureau of Reclamation and Trinity River Task Force. The report outlined a

479 Ibid., IV-28.

480 Ibid., II-13.

481 Ibid.

177

Coordinated Resource Management Plan (CRMP) to encourage integrated interagency cooperation. The report aimed to identify the principal factors limiting the recovery of anadromous fisheries and develop a plan to accelerate their recovery. The report only casually referred to the

South Fork Trinity’s state and federal wild and scenic rivers statuses as a consideration in designing the management plan.482

In the case of mineral development, the Forest Service adopted the guidelines required on rivers designated by Section 3(a) of the NWSRA.483 The NWSRA stated more specific regulations concerning mining operations. The Act prohibited mining claims that had not been perfected on federal land within a quarter mile of designated river segments classified as “wild.” New claims, however, would not be precluded on sections classified as “scenic” or “recreational.” Additionally, all valid existing rights would be maintained. However, after designation, all mining operations under a mineral lease, license, or permit would be subject to federal regulations proscribed by the managing agency that would protect the river’s value.484 The HCRS EIS predicted that “there would be no impact on mining” within the north coast region except that activity may increase in the Smith River watershed.485 Following the 1981 designations, mining activity within the Trinity watershed continued to decline. Furthermore, a significant portion of the river corridor has been withdrawn from mining activity, under various authorities, including Federal Land Management

482 Pacific Watershed Associates, Action Plan for Restoration of the South Fork Trinity River Watershed and Its Fisheries, prepared for U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Trinity River Task Force (Arcata, California, January 1994).

483 Ibid., S-8.

484 Section 9 of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

485 U.S. Department of Interior, Final Environmental Impact Statement: Proposed Designation of Five California Rivers in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (1980): II-4.

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Act of 1976. There is no indication, however, that the wild and scenic designations authorized such decisions.486

There is some evidence to suggest that the designations had an impact on government acquisition of private land holdings along the river corridor—though not in the way that had mortified residents of Trinity County. River segments designated under Section 2(a)(ii) did not confer any additional power to condemn private land that it did not already possess.487 In 1992, the BLM encountered a “unique problem.” Several inaccurate private surveys within the Trinity

River watershed caused several sales and improvements of private land to “inadvertently trespass” onto federally owned land. These encroachments included yards, utilities, roads, houses, trailers, trailer parks, campgrounds, ponds and reservoirs, irrigation systems, and cemeteries. The BLM described the bizarre complication that ensued in its 1992 Redding Resource Management Plan:

Where possible, BLM has worked to resolve these inadvertent trespass cases. However, the Trinity River has been designated as a Recreational component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System from Lewiston Dam to its confluence with the Klamath River. This designation eliminates the option of sale within the recreational corridor and has blocked the resolution of a number of these inadvertent trespass cases.488

This inconvenience resulted from limitations on land condemnation imposed in Section 6(b) of the

NWSRA. Referred to as the “50-percent-rule,” Section 6(b) prohibited condemnation for fee title

486 U.S. Department of Interior, Analysis of the Management Situation: Northwest California Integrated Resource Management Plan, Bureau of Land Management Northern California District (Redding, California, November 2016): II-233.

487 Jackie Diedrich, John Haubert, and Cassie Thomas, Wild and Scenic Rivers and the Use of Eminent Domain, Interagency Wild and Scenic Rivers Coordinating Council (November 1998): 4.

488 U.S. Department of the Interior, Proposed Redding Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement, Bureau of Land Management (Redding, July 1992): II-7.

179 if 50 percent of the land within a WSR boundary was in public ownership. Consequently, the

NWSRA functioned to impede the effective management of the river corridor, albeit in a relatively innocuous manner. Aside from this bizarre case, however, it is not evident that the CWSRA or

NWSRA have affected private property rights to any noticeable extent.

In sum, the NWSRA provided the Trinity and other north coast rivers with an additional layer of governmental protection against additional water impoundment facilities. The removal of formal dam prohibitions on the rivers would require deliberate action from both the U.S. Congress and the California state legislature. The inclusion of the rivers in the NWSRA signaled to water users that the substantial flows of the north coast rivers were off-limits to development further strengthening the case for water-conserving measures. Additionally, the litigation surrounding

Andrus and Brown’s designations resulted in the codification of the Forest Service’s policies regarding WSR corridors. This clarity of policy was especially significant because the Forest

Service managed 76 percent of the Trinity’s wild and scenic area. Furthermore, timber harvesting represented one of the primary threats to the Trinity’s anadromous fishery. The state and federal

WSR acts encouraged responsible management of the Trinity River watershed. After January

1981, all state and federal agencies were required to manage the designated rivers sections and their adjacent areas in a manner that satisfied the provisions of the NWSRA.

It is evident, however, that a multitude of other laws as well as public concern over the river’s anadromous fishery made the protections provided by the WSR acts largely redundant.

State and federal agencies were already required and encouraged to conduct their operations in a manner that would not hinder the serious efforts to restore the Trinity’s natural salmon and steelhead populations. Most importantly, the acts did not provide the authorization to alter the TRD

180 diversions. Their inability to affect the TRD diversion explains the acts’ absence from the narrative of the struggle to restore the Trinity’s renowned anadromous fishery.

CONCLUSION ————————

By 2018, the state and federal Wild and Scenic Rivers acts protected 2,145 miles of rivers and streams in California, 747 of which possessed only federal status.489 In August 2018, Governor

Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 2975 reaffirming the state’s commitment to wild rivers.490

Proposed by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, A.B. 2975 created a disincentive for the federal government to delist any portion of the 747 miles of river protected exclusively by the NWSRA.

In the event that the federal government attempted to delist a river segment, the bill required the secretary of the state’s Natural Resources Agency, after holding a public hearing on the issue, to determine whether the removal of protections represented the best interests of the state and to include the disputed segment within the CWSRA until the end of 2025.

489 As of October 2018, the 747 miles of river segments designated under the federal Act only were as follows: Middle Fork Feather River, Tuolumne River, Merced River, South Fork Merced River, Middle Fork Kings River, South Fork Kings River, North Fork Kern River, South Fork Kern River, some tributaries of the Smith River, Black Butter River, Big Sur River, Sisquoc River, Sespe Creek, Piru Creek, North Fork San Jacinto River, Fuller Mill Creek, Bautista Creek, Palm Canyon Creek, Amargosa River, Cottonwood Creek, and the headwaters of the Owens River (Glass Creek, Deadman Creek, Big Springs, and the Owens River). Additionally, the legislature has expanded the state system to include the East Carson and West Walker Rivers in 1989, the South Yuba River in 1999, the Albion River and Gualala Rivers in 2003, and Cache Creek in 2005. In addition, segments of the McCloud River, Deer Creek, and Mill Creek were protected under the Act in 1989 and 1995, although these segments were not formally designated as components of the State System. See: Michael Jarred, Bill Analysis for AB 2975 (Friedman) prepared for the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, California Natural Resources Agency, April 2, 2018, 3.

490 Section 5093.71 of the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Public Resources Code, Division 5, Ch. 1.4 (added by Stats. 2018, Ch. 221).

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On a national-scale, the legislation embodied California’s defiance of the Trump administration’s proclivity to remove the wilderness status of resource-rich areas.491 Going as far as audaciously claiming that flows reserved for environmental purposes resulted in more frequent and intense wildfires, President Trump has repeatedly reiterated the notion that all water that reaches the ocean is “wasted.”492 The act was one of a series of California bills intended to extend protections to wilderness areas should they be removed by the Trump administration.493 On a local- scale, Friedman intended the bill to deter efforts to raise the New Exchequer Dam on the Merced

River. The resulting rise of McClure Reservoir would inundate less than one mile of river that environmental groups claim is critical habitat for the threatened limestone salamander endemic to the Merced River. A 1992 act also incorporated the same stretch into the federal WSR system.

Because of the segment’s WSR status, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could not consider raising the dam in its re-licensing process. Beginning in 2011, however, California congressmen Jeff Denham and Tom McClintock waged an unsuccessful campaign to remove the segment from the NWSRA.494

491 Donald J. Trump, “Presidential Proclamation Modifying the Bears Ears National Monument,” December 4, 2017, accessed October 11, 2018. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-modifying-bears- ears-national-monument/.

492 Lisa Friedman, “Trump Inaccurately Claims California Is Wasting Water as Fires Burn,” New York Times, August 6, 2018.

493 Other 2017 and 2018 legislation included: S.B. 49 (de León, 2017), S.B. 50 (Allen, Chapter 535, Statutes of 2017), A.B. 975 (Friedman, 2017), and A.B. 2627 (Kalra, 2018).

Michael Jarred, Bill Analysis for AB 2975 (Friedman) prepared for the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, California Natural Resources Agency, April 2, 2018, 2-3; Katherine Moore, Bill Analysis for AB 2975 (Friedman) prepared for the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water, California Natural Resources Agency, June 26, 2018.

183

Friedman’s bill addressed a critical impact of the state and federal Wild and Scenic Rivers acts—the distribution of the decision-making power to plan and construct water impoundment facilities throughout branches and levels of government. While A.B. 2975 did not authorize the

California Secretary of Resources to designate segments of river in perpetuity, it did enable the state executive branch to extend wild and scenic protections to threatened sections immediately following a hypothetical removal from the federal system, eliminating any potential gap between removal and inclusion within the state system through state statute. Therefore, for the duration of a potential two-term Trump administration, any rivers in California with federally designated status would need to be removed by the U.S. Congress with the tacit approval of both the state legislature and governor’s office.

Friedman’s bill illustrates the potential of the Wild and Scenic Rivers acts, especially when designations overlapped, to prevent or deter the planning and construction of water impoundment facilities on threatened segments of rivers. Because the most potent impact of the wild rivers legislation is preventative in nature, it is it is difficult to identify specific examples of its effects unless the designations targeted specific plans to construct dams, reservoirs, or diversions. Both the state and federal acts have been used to definitively terminate specific planned hydro-projects.

River advocates and sympathetic policymakers successfully utilized the state act to formally revoke plans to construct dams on the East Fork of the Carson River in 1989 and the South Fork of the Yuba River in 1999. Furthermore, the protection (but not formal designation) of the

McCloud River under the CWSRA continue to impede efforts to raise the height of Shasta Dam.495

495 Segments of the McCloud River, Deer Creek, and Mill Creek were protected under the Act in 1989 and 1995, although these segments were not formally designated as components of the State System See: Michael Jarred, Bill Analysis for AB 2975 (Friedman) prepared for the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, California Natural Resources Agency, April 2, 2018, 3.

184

As the California Research Bureau’s investigation into the impacts of the CWSRA notes; however, because of the multitude of other factors potentially inhibiting dam construction, attributing a definite amount of credit to wild rivers designations can be problematic.496 Even in these cases where dam proposals immediately threatened stretches of river, it is difficult to attribute the defeat of the dam to a wild and scenic designation alone.

Of the five California rivers designated by the state and federal acts in 1972 and 1981 respectively, specific dam proposals threatened the Eel River to the greatest extent. The Eel had always been seen as the first stage of water development in state and federal plans to impound the north coast rivers. After Richard Wilson’s campaign saved Round Valley from inundation by the

Dos Rios Dam, the Reagan Administration immediately began to consider other alternatives within the Eel River watershed rather than shifting its focus to another river system. Similarly, arguments for and against the creation of a state wild rivers system in 1971 and 1972 predominantly focused on the Eel. Even without the CWSRA designation, however, dams on the Eel were unlikely to materialize. As discussed in Chapter 3, the years between 1972, when the CWSRA was passed, and 1978, when the DWR declared that projects on the north coast would not likely be justifiable until 2000, constituted the critical timeframe in which the north coast rivers’ designations under the state act had the most potential to play a decisive role in preventing new water impoundment facilities.

Jerry Brown’s inauguration in 1975 further narrowed this critical timeframe. Brown, along with his Secretary of Resources, Claire Dedrick, and Director of the DWR, Ronald Robie, shifted the state’s focus from building new conventional storage to management solutions including a

496 Daniel Pollack to Lois Wolk: Re: California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, April 11, 2005, Sacramento, California, p. 3, accessed April 19, 2017. https://www.rivers.gov/documents/impacts-california-wild-scenic-rivers-act.pdf.

185 redefined concept of “water conservation.” It is highly implausible that Brown’s water resources officials would have approved of water impoundment facilities on the north coast rivers. Although the Reagan administration had fostered a political atmosphere more conducive to the impoundment of north coast water, it is unlikely that the narrow timeframe would allow for the approval and funding of large projects on the northern rivers before Brown’s term began.

While it would be reasonable to argue that proposed dams still threatened the Eel after

1972, no proposed projects posed an immediate threat to the Trinity. Helena and Schneider Bar

Reservoirs, along with corresponding conveyance facilities, and the Bureau of Reclamation’s

Direct Diversion Plan presented the most acute danger to the Trinity. At no point after the defeat of Dos Rios, however, did the DWR or water users suggest that additional dams or diversions on the Trinity precede developments on the Eel as a part of the State Water Project system. Although the Bureau of Reclamation continued its studies of the Lower Trinity River Division until late-

1972, it ultimately concluded that, for the time being, “the near-term environmental considerations” eclipsed the state’s “immediate development needs.”497 Consequentially, state and federal reports never planned for prospective dams and reservoirs to be constructed within a decade of the reports’ publication dates. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, the construction of additional water impoundment facilities on the Trinity remained a prospective endeavor for the future.

While, for many states west of the Mississippi River, the era of large water developments continued into the 1980s, the authorization of large projects in California dwindled in the early

497 U.S. Department of the Interior, Lower Trinity River Division North Coast Project California: Concluding Report, October 1972, iii.

186

1970s.498 The grandiose schemes to impound the water of the northern rivers resulted from astronomical California growth rates following the Second World War. Accordingly, water developers presupposed that the state would ultimately harness the flows of the “water bank” of

California. The U.S. Census Bureau’s revised growth estimates in 1969, inspired by falling birth and immigration rates, however, halted water planners’ momentum and fractured the assumption that the state’s water demand would continue to grow at an exponential pace. While the “breathing spell” did not persist as long as the DWR had thought in 1970, statewide growth would fall far short of rates forecasted in the mid-1960s. Consequently, water developers found it increasingly difficult to propone the justifiability and immediate need for additional dams on the northern rivers.

Additionally, the slowdown in growth allowed for the reevaluation of the multitude of projects scheduled for the north coast rivers.

The “breathing spell” also coincided with the maturation of the environmental movement in California which, following Wilson’s highly-publicized Dos Rios campaign, included river conservation. The state’s reevaluation of its north coast plan thus needed to account for environmental effects, including the projects’ impacts on high-value anadromous fisheries.

Largely due to the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project’s detrimental effects on the

Trinity River’s anadromous fishery, Californians became increasingly aware of the repercussions of large instream reservoirs as well as the shortcomings of fish hatcheries. Public and institutional concern for the Trinity’s fishery culminated in the creation of the Trinity River Fish and Wildlife

Task Force that would spearhead restoration efforts within the basin. Because both state and federal agencies invested heavily in restoration efforts on the Trinity, it is very unlikely that any

498 David M. Gillian and Thomas C. Brown, Instream Flow Protection: Seeking a Balance in Western Water Use (Covelo, California: Island Press, 1997), 42.

187 of the previously proposed water impoundment schemes would have materialized in the absence of the river’s state wild and scenic rivers status.

By the early 1980s, it was even less likely that diversion projects would be constructed within the Trinity River basin. Local environmentalists’ arguments in favor of federal designation were hyperbolic and severely overstated the immediacy and severity of the threats of dams on the

Trinity. While many southern water users still lamented the concept of locking up north coast river flows for environmental use, no specific dam projects threatened the Trinity. This was, in part, due to the CWSRA’s prohibition on dam studies on the northern rivers. Even on the Eel, however, which was necessarily considered for removal from the state system in 1984, state and federal agencies discounted additional reservoirs as environmentally and economically unjustifiable. In its closing remarks on the Eel projects, the DWR signaled that these factors constrained new dams and reservoirs on the north coast, not the CWSRA. The closing statements illustrated the DWR’s circumspect position on future developments on the Eel.

Given California’s water situation, it seems neither appropriate nor possible for one generation to fully determine or bind the actions of a future generation. It is certainly possible society may eventually wish to develop the Eel River. However, for today, maintenance of the status quo seems appropriate; that is, leave the Eel in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System, subject to further review.499

The DWR implied that rather than functioning as a permanent ban on dams, including the north coast rivers within the CWSRA represented the state deferring the decision to future California legislators. This statement echoed many legislators’ justifications for supporting the CWSRA designations. If the state needed north coast water in the future, removal of the north coast rivers

499 David N. Kennedy, Memorandum to Ruben Ayala, Robert Presley, Jim Costa, and Byron Sher, August 30, 1985, Department of Water Resources, Inventory of the California State Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee Records, Series 4 Subject Files 1976-2000, Wild and Scenic Rivers 1985-1987, LP300:37, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.

188 required only a simple majority in the California legislature. While the NWSRA designations, upheld in 1985, added another layer of legislative protection to the north coast rivers, other factors clearly eclipsed the river’s state and federal wild and scenic rivers status as determinants in the dissolution of dam projects in the north coast. It is therefore highly improbable that new water impoundment facilities would have seriously threatened the Trinity River in the absence of the state and federal wild and scenic designations.

Additionally, the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act came a decade too late to prevent the degradation of the Trinity’s anadromous fishery. Both the state and federal acts were meant to preserve segments of rivers in their state at the moment of designation. The CWSRA, however, took a snapshot in time of an unhealthy river. The state act was powerless to affect the most significant factor determining the condition of the Trinity and its fishery—flow regimes from

Trinity and Lewiston dams and reservoirs. The CWSRA could not affect existing projects or federal operations, both characteristics of the TRD. Similarly, the federal act could not regulate existing agreements. Cecil Andrus’ decision to permanently increase instream flows for the river’s fishery proved far more impactful than his last-ditch effort to include the north coast rivers in the federal system.

Dam prevention represented the principal role of both the state and federal WSR acts.

While it is not evident that the acts played the decisive role in deterring dams on the Trinity, the designations did formally prohibit dams on included segments of river. As the fights over proposed dams on the McCloud, Merced, and South Fork of the Yuba rivers have demonstrated, the acts contain powerful language prohibiting or limiting additional water impoundment facilities.

Additionally, this dam prevention provision required no administrative system to enforce it.

189

Immediately upon designation, the acts prohibited state or federal agencies, respectively, from approving or assisting in dam and diversion projects on the proscribed stretches of river.

The acts largely fell short of functioning as comprehensive watershed conservation measures, however, when provisions required more active administrative oversight. Both the state and federal acts delegated the administration of the systems to agencies concurrently managing river segments. Additionally, there was little centralized oversight over the administration of the systems on a broader scale. With the exception of the creation of river management plans, no provisions required permanent and devoted staff to oversee the systems. The California Resources

Agency and the Department of the Interior, therefore, similarly relegated the administration of the systems to individuals already committed to other functions. In California, the interface between the CWSRA and Protected Waterways Program confused the establishment of the state system resulting in the Resource Agency’s failure to develop river management plans—a requirement that

Doug Bosco’s 1982 legislation formally eliminated. The state act, consequently, functioned only as a set of guidelines for managing agencies rather than a supervisory system. The federal act suffered from similar disorganization. In 1984, Congressional Quarterly described the federal

Wild and Scenic Rivers system as the “orphan child” among federal conservation programs.500

During the decades after the passage of the NWSRA, the Department of the Interior shuffled administrative responsibility of the federal system between subdivisions of the agency. Federal agencies did not methodically remedy the administrative decentralization of the federal system until the formation of the Interagency Coordinating Council in 1993.

500 “Congress Expanding Scenic Rivers System,” Congressional Quarterly, November 24, 1984, 2985.

190

Within the Trinity River basin, neither the state or federal WSRAs drastically altered the routine operations of management agencies, with the notable exception of litigation regarding the

South Fork Salvage Project. The dispute over the 1988 salvage sale resulted in the U.S. Forest

Service clearly defining its operations within river corridors. Because the federal agency managed

76 percent of the Trinity’s wild and scenic segments, this outcome reduced the uncertainty surrounding the Forest Service’s conduct around designated rivers. There is little evidence, however, to suggest that the refined policies significantly impacted the health of the Trinity River watershed or its anadromous fishery. Furthermore, neither the foundational documents or reports of the Trinity River Restoration Program and Fish and Wildlife Task Force indicate that the acts or revised Forest Service Policies affected fishery restoration efforts.

Concern for the river’s anadromous fishery, along with its importance to the Klamath River watershed, defined the dialogue concerning the management of the Trinity River. The state and federal Wild and Scenic Rivers acts had little impact on the Trinity because of existing public and institutional concern for the river’s fishery. As a result of this concern, a broader interest in conserving wilderness areas, and subsequent state and federal legislation, numerous factors prevented the further degradation of the Trinity River. The state and federal acts have massive potential, however, to protect rivers with less-obvious environmental and recreational value. As a result of the previously discussed factors, all large dam projects proposed since the early-1970s have targeted off-stream sites or segments where existing downstream dams have previously eliminated anadromous fisheries. State or federal WSR designations could greatly impact these less-visible river segments. It should be noted, however, that without the fluidity of the needs of an anadromous fishery, provisions deterring dams or diversions upstream or downstream of designated sections may lose some of their potency. Additionally, as the South Fork salvage

191 litigation demonstrated, the acts provide environmental organizations a valuable tool to affect the conduct of federal agencies in the courts. Much of the language included in the acts is powerfully vague. Consequently, while they do not clearly define policies to dictate the management of river segments, the acts allow much leeway for interpretation.

In the lead-up to the NWSRA’s fiftieth anniversary in October 2018, a coalition of river conservation organizations and private partners headed by American Rivers initiated a “5000

Miles of Wild” campaign aiming to designate five-thousand new miles in the federal system by

2020. As of 2018, the federal act protected 12,709 miles on 209 rivers within the United States— less than one-quarter of one-percent of its total river miles. By comparison, dams blocked or inundated 600,000 (or 17 percent) of the nation’s river miles.501 While numerically the campaign would protect a small portion of total river miles, the coalition has targeted especially high-value or threatened sections. Furthermore, the act’s ambiguities magnify the number of river miles potentially protected by the system. This study of the state and federal acts’ impacts on the Trinity

River reinforces the urgency of the American Rivers Campaign.

This study reminds river advocates that the state and federal WSRAs were both primarily intended to prevent the further development of a river. Neither the state or federal acts, however, functioned to restore the pristine condition of the Trinity River. A WSR designation is a snapshot in time of a segment of river. Once a river is degraded, the acts do not provide a decisive avenue to return them to their former condition. The acts can reliably prevent the planning and construction of additional water impoundment facilities on segments of river. Other functions of the acts, however, are untested or depend on potentially variable implementation by managing agencies.

501 American Rivers, “Protecting Wild Rivers,” American Rivers, accessed November 1, 2018, https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/protecting-rivers/.

192

River advocates should pursue other avenues, in addition to wild and scenic designations, to dependably ensure responsible management practices at a watershed-encompassing scale.

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