Green River rainbow

Yesterday, American Rivers named the Green River the second most endangered river in the country, citing a proposal to pump 81 billion gallons (yes, you read that right) of water from the Green 560 miles to the front range of Colorado.

Trout Unlimited is pleased to see American Rivers joining with sportsmen to protect critical fish and wildlife habitat that sportsmen have counted on for generations.

The online discussion will feature both Ben Knight and Travis Rummel, the two filmmakers who created “Red Gold,” as well as Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited’s Alaska Program. Fisheries scientist Carol Ann Woody will participate in the call, as will Peter Andrew, a commercial fisherman. David Holbrooke, director of Mountainfilm, will moderate the discussion.

The effort to protect Bristol Bay’s watershed from the impacts of the proposed Pebble Mine, which would become one of the largest open-pit mines on the planet, is one of TU’s highest priorities. The Bristol Bay watershed is home to the most productive and economically important sockeye salmon run in the world–a huge open-pit mine in the headwaters of the drainage could spell disaster for the fishery, and the commercial and recreational fishing industry that has blossomed around it.

For more on this issue, read Outside Magazine’s “Goldfish,” or check out Save Bristol Bay’s website for ways you can get involved and help protect one of the most important fisheries on earth.

If someone knocked me out, blindfolded me, transported me to a river in Yellowstone National Park, then woke me up, spun me around a few times, and took off the blindfold, I’d still know exactly where I was within seconds.  I’m not suggesting anyone actually do that, mind you.  But my point is that there’s an unmistakable feeling of place when I fish Yellowstone.

It’s more than visual.  I also smell it (and I’m not talking about the geysers, rather the earthy, almost spicy, crispness in the air).  I feel it.  There’s a primal sense that’s heightened when I share a landscape with creatures larger than myself, like bison and grizzly bears.  I hear it, especially when I hike off the tourist trails into areas where the ambient noise is wind, water, rustling grasses and trees, and birds.

I first felt it when I was nine years old.  My grandparents took me from Ohio to Bozeman, Mont., to visit my aunt and cousins, and we all took an overnight trip into Yellowstone.  I felt that sensation then, and every time I have returned throughout the subsequent decades, that exact same feeling has always come back. 

It’s also there when I fish the Yellowstone River–one of the last truly great wild rivers in the Lower 48.  I’ve had days when I couldn’t keep the trout off my line.  And the next day, in exactly the same conditions, I caught nothing.  I’ve learned that you can only respect a river that cannot be patterned, and never offers excuses. 

And so I’m looking forward to another trip this summer to Yellowstone as part of the TU Blogger Tour 2012.  Working with Simms, the Outdoor Blogger Network, and the Yellowstone Park Foundation, we’ll be traversing the Park July 24-28.  We’ll check out Yellowstone Lake, and the Park Service’s netting efforts to catch and remove non-native lake trout, and we’ll make stops to fish various rivers along the way.

We’re holding a contest, inviting bloggers to submit posts on Yellowstone, and two winners will get to join the tour for free.  There are other prizes as well.  You can check out the entry details by clicking this link here.

As someone who counts the Yellowstone experiences among his most cherished angling adventures, I’m looking forward to connecting with–and sharing–the Yellowstone feeling with other writers.  And I’m hopeful that this feeling will find its way into words that will be read and enjoyed by many.

The focus of this year’s blogger tour is Yellowstone National Park and the effort to remove invasive lake trout from Yellowstone Lake, as well as the National Park Service’s plan to restore native trout and grayling to the park’s storied waters. Starting July 24, two winning bloggers will join a tour that includes TROUT Magazine editor Kirk Deeter, where they’ll get to see Yellowstone Lake, and the Park Service’s netting efforts to catch and remove non-native lake trout. Additionally, touring bloggers will get to see the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone Falls and the storied Lamar River Valley, home to some great fly fishing for native Yellowstone cutthroat trout and the best place in the park to see wolves and grizzly bears. We might even throw in a bit of time at Old Faithful, just so you can say you’ve seen it all. The tour will conclude July 28.

The essay contest is open to all outdoor bloggers with established blogs. You can learn more about the tour, the entry requirements and… the PRIZES, which include items for a number of winners, not just the two bloggers who get to come to Yellowstone and experience the park, at the Outdoor Blogger Network.

Stay tuned… much more on this to come in the days and weeks ahead!

As of today, Dave tells me, Wyoming TU is sitting on $92,000. Simply put, that’s amazing. And it’s proof that TU members from all over the United States recognize the very serious threat lake trout pose to native Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake. With the equipment purchased with this money, the National Park Service will be able to monitor lake trout migration throughout the lake and provide data needed to expedite the removal of the invasive char.

Yellowstone cutthroat trout

But, even though the initial fundraising goal has been achieved, Dave tells me there continues to be a need for more funding for this effort. The Park Service has adopted a very ambitious lake trout removal plan, and it’s working under a new and very aggressive native trout recover plan for all of Yellowstone. These plans require money, and in these tough economic times, cash doesn’t flow from Washington without a fight. The more TU and its members from coast to coast can do for this effort, the better the outlook is for native trout within the boundaries of the crown jewel of America’s national parks system.

And, of course, that means the better the fishing will be in Yellowstone in the very near future and for years to come.

So, pat yourselves on the back TU volunteers. You’ve helped make progress toward overcoming one of the most pervasive challenges to native trout recovery in the country. And, in the process, you’ve helped ensure a future for angling in Yellowstone, a storied and iconic landscape that, with your help, will be healthier and more intact in the years to come.

The effort’s not over, though. More funding is needed as the Park Service continues its efforts to go after invasive lake trout in Yellowstone Lake. To give to this effort, and to help guarantee the future of quality fishing in Yellowstone National Park, visit East Yellowstone Trout Unlimited and make a tax deductible donation to the effort to save the West’s most iconic native trout.

By Shoren Brown

As the EPA nears a planned release date for its draft Watershed Assessment of Bristol Bay, the Anchorage Daily News says the assessment is needed. In an editorial, “Our View: EPA is doing its job,” the state’s largest newspaper says the agency is doing exactly what it should be doing, despite legal threats from state officials.

An excerpt of the newspaper’s opinion reads: “The EPA has been doing essential work – sooner (rather) than later. Despite the scale and the stakes, the Parnell administration certainly hasn’t taken the initiative, waiting passively for Pebble proposals and opposing any resistance to the project.”

In Wisconsin, a former official in Commercial Fisheries with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game writes a letter to the editor supporting EPA action under the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay from mega mining. “Pollution from this mine would devastate the largest existing wild salmon fishery remaining in the world and some of the best trout fishing on the planet,” Jeff Skrade wrote.

Lone Star Outdoor News chronicles the “sinister threat to all sportsmen and conservationists” posed by Pebble. Dr. Richard Allen, retired leader of the Dallas Safari Club, writes: “This is an important issue in the Lone Star State as well, as thousands of Texans each year journey to this area of Alaska to enjoy the fabulous fishing, yours truly among them. Over the past seven years I have floated, fished, and camped on eight different rivers in the Bristol Bay watershed and have marveled each time at the phenomenal salmon migration.”

The Seward Phoenix Log notices an interesting connection between new Pebble TV ad spokespeople and the Make Alaska Competition Coalition, an oil and gas lobby group. And a new video with Alaska Natives in Nondalton – the closest settlement to the Pebble deposit – interviews villagers who reject the mine. One elder says, “It’s going to be too big an impact on the land, the water and the people.”

Shoren Brown is the Save Bristol Bay campaign director for Trout Unlimited.

In the Spring Issue of Trout you will find an insert advertising TU’s Stream Explorers program. All you have to do is send that card in with the small membership fee and you can give the gift of fish, fishing and conservation to the child in your life you have been meaning to take fishing with you or you have been taking for years.

Do you have a funny store about an morning on the river with your favorite young fisherman or woman? Tell us in the comments!

The DOI recently updated some regulations for hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas development on public lands. A long time coming, these regulations are going to benefit our precious water resources.

Thirty years ago many of us were still fishing with fiberglass rods, catch and release was just barely catching on, and many waders were still rubber. That’s a little perspective. A lot has changed in 30 years. That’s also how long its been since the federal government has revised its oil and gas drilling regulations, so it’s particularly gratifying that the Department of the Interior is now modernizing their regulations on hydraulic fracturing. TU members concerned about water, water quality and trout habitat have been asking for improved safeguards from drilling on federal land. We’re excited that DOI has proposed several new changes—modernizations—to fracturing regulations. It’s high time.
For those of us who would rather think about fishing and cold clean water, it should be pointed out that the practice of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling capability has also come a long way in those thirty years and so too has its use in oil and gas fields around the country. Energy companies use hydraulic fracturing deep underground to break up formations that hold our country’s vital energy resources. Fracturing works to release oil and gas from the formations, but absent a modern set of regulations federal land managers have played a limited role in ensuring that it’s done responsibly. This has raised considerable concerns about water pollution in many places around the country. Chemicals are injected into the ground, sometimes without land managers or the public knowing what they are. Now, with these proposed rules, DOI is going a long way to ensure the future of safe drinking water, the future of trout and trout fishing, and human health. The new proposed regulations which were published this week will do three things for drilling on federal lands.

A step in the right direction: DOI's recently released regulations on oil and gas development. Such regulations will have profound implications on public lands drilling such as this exploratory gas well in the mountains of Wyoming.

First, companies who use fluids in the fracturing process must release the chemical components of the fracturing fluids.
Second, the specific details about the integrity of the well, from the casing to the construction itself will need to be revealed.
Third, a plan will need to be in place to show what will be done with the water and chemicals that are discharged during the drilling process.
This is all common sense stuff. TU members and staff have been advocating for these types of changes for years—writing letters, traveling to Washington, DC, and attending the Interior Department’s public meetings around the country—to convince federal officials that public knowledge of what is being done on public land makes sense. We want our federal land managers to have all the knowledge available to ensure that they can do the best job for us on our public lands.

TU supports responsible energy development. Responsible development means developing in the right places, with the right methods. Two years ago, the Interior Department issued leasing reforms that took a huge step toward improving management of public land energy development. Where they have been implemented, these reforms have resulted in better public involvement that has led to avoidance of sensitive habitat. The proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing represent the next step toward modernizing the Bureau of Land Management’s approach to drilling on public lands in ways that should reduce risk of harm to water resources. While there is still room for improvement before the rules are finalized, the DOI leadership should be commended for these changes.
The Bureau of Land Management oversees oil and gas operations on some 700 million subsurface acres of Federal mineral estate and 56 million acres of Indian mineral estate across the country. So while these rules will not apply everywhere, they will go a long way toward improving management of energy development.
Energy needs to be developed in this country, and can be developed in a way that doesn’t come at the expense of our natural resources and our human health. But there’s still much more to be done to protect water resources from drilling impacts. There are still exceptions to parts of the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act that should be discontinued, and needed improvements to the design and implementation of state regulations. TU will remain engaged in policy and land management decisions, and in continued monitoring such as that being done by volunteers on trout streams in Pennsylvania and elsewhere will go on. Sacrificing our future and that of our children is not an option.

–Tom Reed

Tough fishing . . .

Uh-oh.  What happened to runoff? In Colorado, Wyoming and other places in the Rockies, it’s looking like spring flushing flows will be meager at best this year–with snowpack levels far below average. And that could add up to a perfect storm of low flows and punishing heat for many Western rivers and streams this summer. Our rivers, wildlife and fish populations are going to take a big hit when the flows become trickles. Fishing will take a hit, too.

This summer will likely bring home the importance of healthy flows–and the difficult challenge of making finite water supplies meet diverse needs, from ranching and municipalities to recreation and healthy rivers.

In Wyoming, ranchers are already talking about drought and how to deal with it–sell cows or buy hay? One rancher said that drought “makes us think, be innovative, be conservative.” One extension agent’s advice: “Dust off your drought plan.”

This is also where Farm Bill conservation programs come into play. TU’s Western Water Project is all about keeping healthy flows in our streams and rivers–and the Farm Bill is one of the most powerful tools we have to achieve that conservation goal.

Farm Bill conservation programs help ranchers and farmers make irrigation system upgrades and habitat improvements that make water go further, improving not only ag operations but also boosting flows for fish and wildlife. In a region where water is for fighting, the programs also encourage collaboration among ranchers, sportsmen, agencies and other stakeholders to get things done. Check out this video “Water Partners” for some examples of how TU and ranchers are working together to restore rivers and flows.

Without Farm Bill conservation programs, a lot of these amazing shovel-ready projects would never happen. Congress is considering Farm Bill reauthorization this year–and as my colleague Chris Hunt ably pointed out, if you’re an angler, you have a stake in it. Tell your lawmaker to keep the conservation title programs funded so that ranchers and farmers can continue to find innovative ways to grow food while being good stewards of our rivers and streams.

Why do we care? Smart water and land management means healthy flows and habitat–and fishing opportunity downstream for you and me.