I have read a little more on this topic. I still have not received the game & fish report/press release, but there is a ton of info out there. Too much.
First off, there has not been adequate public information and discussion, and second you are wasting your time reading meeting agendas and summaries. Often decisions are made refferring to other things, and you have to work backwards through other meetings and reports to figure out what it was they were deciding on.
However, if you just read some of the reports like the one I linked to the other day you can learn quite a bit.
Its a fifty year plan that is not new. Yes its atleast in part an outreach of the Endangered Species Act. Many of the most powerful influences involved have only one goal. Maintaining their water rights. Its not a bad goal and ultimately in the scheme of things keeping water flowing to cities and farms is probably more important than recreational fishing. When it comes to the budget of Arizona Game & Fish outdoorsmen contribute quite a bit, but when compared to the money and power of farmers and cities and irrigation districts we aren't even a drop in the bucket. If they have to comply with the ESA to keep their water flowing, and that means we lose some or even all of our waters for fishing that is what is going to happen.
My problem is that I never even heard of the river area closures until this year. Something that is part of a well established 50 year plan that is already in the beginnings of the implementation stages. I go to outdoor club meetings. I read the newspaper. I watch the local news on TV. One person defended the plan and actions saying that there have been websites out there and the information has been available about this for a long time. OK. How do I as an outdoorsman even know to look or where to look?
It is big government and big money negotiating to make this happen. Can we stop it. No. Not a chance is Hades. What we can do is be there anytime there is an opportunity to offer public comment and set people straight about, "closing off a few waters that nobody fishes anyway." The fact is that any body of water open to the river gets fished, and regularly. I personally look for those openings. I've tucked one of my boats into every opening I could find off the river from the dam all the way to Adobe Lake and beyond. I have also studied the available aerial phtography. There are more bodies of water out there that really are closed off to the river that I have not been able to get into. Some are accessible by road, and I have heard the float tubers look for some of those to fish, but the reality is that there is no need to close off access to places like what we call Clear Lake (Hidden I believe) when right next to it there is another bigger lake that is totaly closed off to boat traffic.
http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T ... Y=4571&W=1 If you look at this view you will see two lakes seperated by a channel where Yuma Wash flows into the river. The one on the right is called Clear Lake, although I think its historical name is Hidden Lake. The one on the left is called Yuma Wash Lake, although if you click over to the map it appears to be labeled as Clear Lake.
This is the kind of thing that we need to point out. It might tougher for them to do what they need to save their endangered minnows in that lake, but making choices like that will have a smaller negative economic impact on the outdoor community and the businesses that benefit from it. In the long term it will be a net gain for everybody. That is just one example. I have been told in no uncertain terms that fighting the process will just get steam rollered over. Even those who tend to try and dance around terms like that to mitigate confrontation have not managed to say anything to allay that opinion. However, we can try and become part of the process and speak up. Pointing out better alternatives for us.
Nobody has addressed my concerns about wide spread use of toxins to poison these backwaters as the seal them off, or how they can guarantee that it will not get into the river system. Municipalities may be able to hold off water usage for a couple days for it to break down. Their filtration purification and warning systems may even be adequate to deal with it in its still active form. Farmers may or may not be concerned about it getting into their fields, but I don't want it getting into our fish or the animals that will eat them when they die, and I sure don't want somebody eating the half dead crappie that nailed their jig while it still has Rotenone in its system. Like I said in the intro article on the home page of this site. Rotenone is "popularly" accepted to break down to harmless chemicals in 24 hours, but atleast one person has claim in high alkyloid waters like the river it can remain toxic for upto three days. Last I heard it takes less than 30 hours for a realease at Parker Dam to be at Imperial Dam.
I think we need more real and contemporary knowledge about current day to day plans regarding this. Updates on present decisions, more information, about how backwaters will be sterilized, and how they plan to guarantee that it will present zero risk to the public and the rest of the river, and how they plan to do things that will keep open the river and its backwaters to the general public. We need public outreach, not thousands and thousands of pages of meeting minutes, and reports to wade though on a goverment or organization website that we don't even know to look at until the implementation of such a wide reaching plan is imminent.
We need information and we need to speak up. We need to be there in numbers when there is a meeting, and we need to be prepared with solid arguements and palletable alternatives.
