© 2003 by Leo Poppoff

May 8, 2003

Basin Watch

by

Leo Poppoff

THEY THOUGHT THE SUPPLY WAS ENDLESS

Once upon a time, there was more than enough fish in the Truckee River
drainage to sustain a thriving population of Native Americans. Lahontan
cutthroat trout were large and numerous. Even as Anglo immigrants
appropriated the river, and harvested thousands of tons per year of the
succulent fish, cutthroats survived in large numbers. It seemed that the
supply was endless.

Washoe and Paiutes traded fish for goods with Anglo travelers. Then,
trading posts sprung up, and the demand for fish grew. Early ranchers
along the Truckee built crude rock and log dams to divert water for
irrigation. Still, cutthroats were able to swim through and over leaky
diversion structures and find their spawning grounds, and fishing
pressure didn't seem to affect their numbers.

What started the decline of cutthroats in the river, according to Nevada
historian John Townley, was the event that destroyed most of the Tahoe
Basin's forest -- the silver mining frenzy in Virginia City's Comstock
Lode. According to Townley's 1980 report (\"The Truckee Basin Fishery,
1844-1944\"), lumber mills, built along the Truckee as early as 1861 to
furnish timbers for the Comstock, polluted the river with sawdust.

When upstream logging and other industries got into full swing, more
substantial dams were built. According to Townley, fish ladders were
required by statute, but never built. Dam gates were closed in winter,
especially during dry years, for maximum storage.

Yet winter was also the peak of the cutthroats' spawning run. Pools
below dams became crowded fish traps. Spawning cutthroats were easy
pickings for fishermen. Without much effort, trout were gaffed or pulled
out by hand. A single stick of dynamite yielded hundreds of pounds of
trout with no effort, according to Townley.

Commercial fishing to feed miners in Virginia City became a bustling
industry. And the clincher, according to Townley, was the arrival of the
Central Pacific Railroad at Wadsworth in 1868. With relatively rapid
delivery service, the market for Truckee River cutthroat trout boomed.
\"It required only a short time for the fifty-pound express boxes laden
with dressed trout to become familiar delicacies from San Francisco to
Ogden.\"

E.B. Scott ("Saga of Lake Tahoe") wrote that the Truckee River yielded
98,000 pounds of fish in 1900. Townley estimated that 60,000 to 250,000
pounds were shipped annually from Wadsworth and Verdi -- and he guessed
that this was only half the total harvest. It might've been as high as
500,000 to 1,000,000 pounds, according to William F. and John H. Sigler
("Fishes of the Great Basin"). And, this kind of fishing pressure was
taking its toll. Commercial fish brokers were finding it harder and
harder to meet market demand.

As cutthroat populations waned in the river, commercial fishing shifted
to Pyramid Lake and Paiutes began to dominate the market. But Anglos
challenged Indian sovereignty, invaded their reservations and harvested
trout in defiance of federal law.

Federal troops were dispatched to evict trespassers, according to
Townley. But the tug-of-war over the Pyramid fishery continued. Attempts
were made to redraw the boundaries of the Paiute reservation to exclude
Pyramid Lake.

Indians built dams at the river inlet to trap and harvest fish trying to
migrate upstream. Like everyone else, they believed that cutthroats
spawned in the lake, and didn\'t need to migrate upriver. Of course,
Indians were blamed for the demise of the fishery. Still, Townley
observed, it would seem there was enough blame to spread around.

The coup d\'grace to Pyramid Lake and Truckee River fishing, according
to Townley, was the Derby dam, built between Reno and Pyramid Lake. It
continuously diverted water from the Truckee to the new Lahontan Dam for
the Newlands agricultural project, sometimes sucking the river dry.
Townley wrote that when the Derby dam was dedicated and put into
operation on June 15, 1905, the following scene was described by a
witness. \"Within a few moments the flow of the Truckee was cut off and
stranded fishes were flopping helplessly in the exposed bed of the
stream . . . \"

The effect on Pyramid Lake was devastating. Its water level dropped.
Lake Winnemucca, an important fish nursery that existed on the overflow
from Pyramid Lake, vanished. Nevadans, according to Townley, held the
conventional wisdom that \"any water flowing into the Great Basin\'s
declining lakes was waste and should be utilized for agriculture or
industry. Forage, not fish, was to be the harvest of the Truckee.\"

According to Townley, continuing droughts in the twenties also took
their toll. And, as a prosperous Reno grew, it poured more and more
sewage and toxic waste into a river that had less and less water for
dilution. Finally, it was too much. The last productive spawning run was
in 1930, according to Sigler and Sigler. By 1944, Truckee\'s native
cutthroats had ceased to exist.

Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to restore Lahontan
cutthroats in the Truckee River. What are they doing and how is it
working? Next time.

Comments or questions? Send them to basinwatch@earthlink.net