>
> http://www.chicoer.com/news/,Enterprise Record, 12-20-99, Chico, California
> News
> A born fighter: Regulators, power company know this angler well
> By Larry Mitchell - Staff Writer
> GRAEAGLE - Troublemaker! Agitator! Damned fool!
> For decades, harsh words have been hurled at Bob Baiocchi.
> It started when he went fishing on the upper Paradise ridge 30 years ago.
> What Baiocchi saw that day sparked a rage in him that's burned hot ever
> since. It was a small dam blocking the flow of the West Branch of the Feather
> River. Except for a little seepage, no water got past the dam, he said. Below
> was an almost dry stream bed - rocks and small stagnant pools where there
> should have been flowing water.
> "I thought, what the hell is going on here?" Baiocchi said.
> The question turned him into an activist. His work ever since - demanding
> water for fish - has angered a lot of people.
> But if water attorneys, irrigation district managers and some government
> officials don't love him, Baiocchi wins kudos elsewhere.
> Earlier this year, the Northern California Council Federation of Fly Fishers
> inducted him into its hall of fame. Honored at a banquet in San Francisco,
> the 68-year-old Baiocchi was tickled salmon pink.
> Starting young
> Had someone asked Baiocchi what he wanted to be when he was growing up in San
> Francisco, the odds might have been a million to one against his saying an
> environmental activist.
> His dad was in the produce business, working as a truck driver and salesman.
> After high school, Baiocchi went to work as a bookkeeper for the same
> company.
> Frank Baiocchi, his father, was a fisherman. "He started me fishing when I
> was 6 years old, at the piers with bait and a wine-bottle cork for a float,"
> Baiocchi said. As he got older, he and his father fished all over. "He was
> intensely involved with fishing for striped bass," Baiocchi said.
> Like many others who have moved to Butte County, Baiocchi wanted to escape
> big-city crowds and traffic.
> A new career
> In the late '60s, he and his wife and four children moved to Paradise. That's
> how he happened to be driving up near Stirling City with a fishing pole in
> his car on the day that launched his new career.
> He had turned down a dirt road leading to the West Branch, and when he got
> near the river, he took a turn that led him to the Hendricks Head Dam.
> Long ago, the West Branch flowed freely down the canyon past the east side of
> what is now Magalia and Paradise to join other branches of the Feather River
> near Oroville.
> But in the 1870s, the Hendricks Head Dam was built across the West Branch. It
> diverted river water down the Hendricks Canal for use in gold mining. Later,
> the diversion system became part of PG&E's DeSabla-Centerville power project.
> Baiocchi didn't know about all that when he first stumbled on the Hendricks
> dam. He just saw the river's flow being blocked, and it made him mad.
> Before long, he'd found a section of the state Fish and Game code he thought
> proved the diversion was illegal. Section 5937 requires owners of dams to
> release enough water downstream to keep fish below the dam in good condition.
> But getting PG&E, or anyone, to do something about the situation at the
> Hendricks dam took some doing, Baiocchi said.
> Getting motivated
> He was motivated, himself. He recalled that he and one of his sons went to
> Sacramento to meet with officials from the state Department of Fish and Game.
> He described the Hendricks diversion and told the officials they needed to
> order a certain flow released from the dam for fish downstream.
> "They just laughed and said, Å'not with PG&E,' " Baiocchi said. What they
> meant, he explained, was that the power company was free to do what it wanted
> on the rivers, regardless of the concerns of Fish and Game employees or
> anyone else.
> "It just got me really annoyed. As citizens, we're required to obey the law,"
> Baiocchi said. Why, he wondered, did PG&E seem to be exempt, and why were
> government agencies doing nothing about it?
> For PG&E, "it was all about making power and money," he said. "That was it."
> A widespread problem
> The problem on the upper ridge proved symptomatic of a widespread disease,
> Baiocchi said. He learned there were similar conditions all over the state.
> Many dams had no required water release for fish downstream or only a very
> small release, he said. "FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)
> essentially gave our rivers away. There was no environmental protection. It
> was sick. Terrible!"
> "I started going crazy," he said. "I hit every dam I could think of. I filed
> complaints."
> He hasn't always won, by any means, but he's had many successes - increasing
> flows for fish, requiring fish ladders and screens on canals to keep fish
> out, and winning access to waterways for anglers.
> "Yeah, we've taken 'em all on head first. That's the way you've got to do it.
> You can't be afraid," he said.
> His chief weapon has been "the prolific typewriter," he said. "I remember
> Huey Johnson, the secretary for the California Resource agency. I used to
> pound him with a lot of letters. I have filed several hundred or more
> protests."
> Often his arguments center on the concept of the "public trust," the idea
> that water, fish and wildlife belong to everyone - to the public - and the
> state has an obligation to protect them.
> Learning the ropes
> Baiocchi said he studied the laws about water and learned how to present
> arguments and question witnesses at administrative hearings.
> He recalled one fight he had in Santa Barbara County over water for
> steelhead.
> "I was the bad guy, supposedly, for taking water away from the community," he
> said. "I battled with several law firms representing the water interests. We
> had a meeting with these big-time law firms, and they really p----d me off. I
> said, Å'Guess what! You have built a flame under my a-- this high. I'm going
> to do my damnedest to get the southern steelhead listed. I worked on it, and
> now they are listed as endangered."
> It wasn't until the mid-1980s that Baiocchi and state and federal agencies he
> had prodded finally won some concessions on the West Branch in Butte County.
> FERC ordered PG&E to release 15 cubic feet of water per second in normal
> years and 7 cubic feet per second during dry years from the Hendricks dam for
> the benefit of fish.
> By then, Baiocchi had became a consultant to an organization called the
> California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which represents anglers' groups
> around the state. In that role he has helped lead the charge for fish and
> fishing on many streams and rivers around the state, including the Santa Ynez
> River near Santa Barbara, Arroyo Grande Creek in San Luis Obispo County, the
> Salinas River, the Lower Yuba River, Stony Creek in Glenn County and Lake
> Oroville, just to name a few.
> Just getting started
> Some of these campaigns are just revving up. Stony Creek, for example.
> "I came in and wanted water for fish," he said. "Oh, God. They could have
> killed me over there. I was the devil."
> Now, he's also planning to wrangle for benefits for fish and recreation as
> PG&E's power project in the Feather River Canyon comes up for federal
> re-licensing.
> The continuing fight statewide has been worth it, he said.
> For one thing, victories have been won, and public opinion has changed. "Now
> more people want the salmon and steelhead protected. Public opinion has
> turned. And the agencies look at it differently," he said.
> And also, Baiocchi, who seems to have been born a fighter, has had fun
> advancing his cause.
> "I do a lot of writing, arguing with dozens of attorneys," he said. "I love
> it!"
>