Mr. Robert Hight, Director April 13, 1999
California Department of Fish and Game
1416 Ninth Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Lower Yuba River; California Department of Fish and Game's Lower
Yuba River Fisheries Management Plan; Recent Draft Decision Concerning
State Water Resources Control Board's Lower Yuba River Hearing of 1992

Dear Mr. Hight:

I am writing to you representing the California Sportfishing Protection
Alliance (CSPA). The CSPA represents a significant number of fly fishing
organizations located throughout the State of California. The CSPA goal
is the protection and restoration of California rivers and streams and
the public trust resources they represent. The CSPA is very active in a
number of areas particularity in adequate and meaningful daily
streamflows for anadromous and resident fishery resources, water quality
matters, water right matters, and federal hydropower licensing and
relicensing matters.

During the past ten years or so the CSPA has filed dozens and dozens of
formal protests on water right applications and petitions, and dozens of
complaints with the State Water Resources Control Board, and dozens of
petitions of interventions and complaints with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. We have also filed a number of lawsuits to
protect the public trust assets. We have also participated in numerous
hearings before the State Water Resources Control Board. Some of the
rivers and streams the CSPA is presently involved with are: Lower Yuba
River, Lower Mokelumne River, Santa Ynez River, Carmel River, North Fork
Feather River, Lake Oroville, Lower Kings River, Russian River, Salinas
River, West Branch Feather River, Arroyo Grande Creek and other coastal
tributaries, and many others.

We congratulate you on your appointment as Director of one of the most
important public trust agencies in California and offer our assistance
and support in protecting and restoring California's valuable fish and
wildlife resources.

In that light we must bring to your attention what we view as a very
serious internal management problem within the Department of Fish and
Game. Under the Streamflow Protection Act, the Department completed a
number of management plans. We compliment the Department on the quality
of work and the recommendations for restoration contained in the Lower
Yuba River Fisheries Management Plan and the Lower Mokelumne Fisheries
Management Plan. If fully implemented these management plans would have
set a framework for restoration of California's degraded rivers and
streams.

In 1992 the Lower Yuba River hearing was held by the State Water
Resources Control Board because of a public trust complaint filed by the
CSPA and other parties also known as United Group (non-governmental
organizations such as South Yuba River Citizens League). At the subject
hearing, the Department of Fish and Game presented to the State Water
Resources Control Board its Lower Yuba River Fisheries Management Plan.
The Department's management plan was supported by biological studies,
and written and oral testimony by the Department's staff, which included
cross-examination testimony by the Department's staff. The Department's
staff did an outstanding job of preparing the management plan and also
in providing testimony to the State Water Board. The Department invested
hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in the 15 day hearing
process. The CSPA also invested hundreds of hours and thousands of
dollars in providing expert witness testimony at that 15 day hearing. It
was clear that the fish, DFG, CSPA, and United Group won the hearing.

In 1994 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission used the Department's
Lower Yuba River Fisheries Management Plan as the basis for flow
recommendations with its relicensing of the Pacific Gas and Electric
Company's Narrows Project on the Lower Yuba River. In fact the
Commission adopted the Department's flow recommendations without change.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also used the Department's
Lower Mokelumne River Fisheries Management Plan as the basis for its
analysis on a revised license for East Bay MUD's Mokelumne River
Project. A decision on the Lower Mokelumne River Hearing, the
Department's Lower Mokelumne River Fisheries Management Plan, and the
CSPA and Committee to Save the Mokelumne's public trust complaint is
still pending before the State Water Resources Control Board, and had
been pending for several years under Governor Wilson's administration.

The whole process started to fall apart or was being taken apart by new
management in the Department appointed by Governor Wilson in his last
years as governor. The non-governmental organizations such as the CSPA
are not privy to all of the inner workings within the Department's
Sacramento headquarters' leadership; however, what we are well aware of
is that when the Department's biological staff would not give East Bay
MUD, the owner of the Mokelumne River Project (Camanche and Pardee dams)
what they wanted, they were replaced by political operatives who would.
The final Department of Fish and Game - East Bay MUD Agreement
negotiated by a Deputy Director and a Department attorney was so bad
that the Regional Manager would not sign the agreement even when
directed to do so by the Director. The agreement was ultimately signed
by the same Deputy Director who negotiated it. That final agreement
which was signed by the Deputy Director provided less protection,
according to the Department's biologists, than previous offers made by
East Bay MUD and is truly derelict in its protection of the people's
public trust resources of the Lower Mokelumne River.

In early 1999 the State Water Resources Control Board released its
staff analysis and draft decision for the Lower Yuba River hearing.
Prior to the draft decision, the CSPA wrote a letter to the State Water
Board requesting a decision because of the long delay of seven years,
including other letters requesting the Board to issue a ruling on the
hearing. The State Water Board draft decision was essentially a complete
win for the anadromous fisheries of the lower Yuba River. If adopted, it
will go a long way towards protecting and restoring the people's chinook
salmon, steehead, and American shad fisheries of the river. At this time
the Department should be proud of its effort and accomplishment.
However, the same ugly political process is being repeated by the same
Deputy Director who was not even a party who testified and took part at
the Lower Yuba River Hearing. The Department's biologists who completed
the studies, prepared the management plan and provided expert testimony
at the Lower Yuba River Hearing were recently replaced by others of your
staff who have very little knowledge or understanding of the issues, and
also who participated in the Lower Mokelumne River public trust
giveaway. Apparently this action by the Department was at the request of
the water interests of the Lower Yuba River. The CSPA most strenuously
object to this highly political and unfair process. It is also a most
flagrant attempt to circumvent the State Water Board who plan to hold a
supplemental hearing this summer.

We ask that you not allow the water interests such as Yuba County Water
Agency to "shop" for personnel within the Department who will give them
what they want rather than Department personnel familiar with the issues
and the science. On behalf of the public trust resources, the CSPA asks
that you support the science contained in your Department's Lower Yuba
River Fisheries Management Plan and not give in to political pressure to
negotiate a closed door deal and undercut the public trust.

The CSPA would be pleased to meet with you to discuss this matter and
other issues of concern.

In a directly related matter, it is our understanding that the Yuba
County Water Agency has scheduled a meeting with the Department on April
24, 1999 to discuss and "negotiate" the State Water Board's Lower Yuba
River Draft Decision and the Department's Lower Yuba River Fisheries
Management Plan.

The CSPA believe it would be reasonable and fair to invite the CSPA and
other non-governmental parties such as the South Yuba River Citizens
League that participated at the Lower Yuba River hearing to that
scheduled meeting. In the event the CSPA and other parties are not
invited, we request that minutes of the meeting are taken and provided
to the CSPA and other parties that may want to have a copy of them.