Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-04
Ell DORADO,S PLANT.
An Opportunity for Her Representatives
i In the Leglslature.

An Opportunity for Her Representatives
IN the Legislature.
The citizens of Ell Dorado county, espe-
cially in The neighborhood of Coloma and
Placerville, are deeply incensed because the
owners of the Natoma dam, across the
south fork of the American river, refuse,
or at least neglect, to put in fish ladder
so that salmon and other food fish can
ascend the stream. The public press of
the county publishes it as fact, and half
way admits the propriety of it, that the
ladders must be put in or an outraged CON-
munity will blow up the obstruction with
dynamite.
Mr.. Schusler, of the Natoma Company,
was in the city yesterday. and referring to
the matter, said that his company were
willing to put in the ladders if they would
be of any service. He says that fish can.
not ascend the stream above Salmon
Falls. which are some distance below the
dam. If the Legislature would appropriate
money sufficient to blow down those falls,
SO as to let the fish ascend to the dam, then
the company would assist them over the
latter obstruction with first-class ladders.
If this is true, then hereis an opportunity
for the Senator and Assemblymen from the
old empire county to distinguish them
selves by securing an appropriation to blow
out the falls, and give brain food to their
ten thousand constituents. 1t would be
good thing for that section, for a little brain
food would no doubt have a beneficial
effect upon many an old fossil in that
county, who moved there in 1850 and
is trying to make living on half an acre
of land by working one month in the year,
devoting the other eleven to cursing the
country.
Mr.. Schusler's story, while plausible
one upon its face, will not and does not
satisfy the people of Ell Dorado county.
This same excuse was made to the Board
of Fish Commissioners some three years
ago. A committee was appointed to in
vesiigate the matter, but if it did so its re-
port was never made public. The citizens
of Ell Dorado, especially those who resided
there in the early fifties, remember the fine
salmon, trout and perch with which the
river teemed. No stream in the State was
better stocked with fish than the American
They claim that what is known as Salmon
Falls is as old as Yosemite itself, and that
the name originated from the fact that
thousands of salmon were captured each
year while jumping over this one of ma
lures Instructions. A gentleman who re-
sides at Coloma, thirty miles above Salmon
Falls, says he has seen wagon-loads of sal
mon taken from the river at that point as
late as 1852. The mining which was con-
Quoted SO extensively for many years rem
dered the stream SO muddy that food fish
were all driven away. Of late years min
ing, except quartz, having almost entirely
ceased, the river has become a clear rip
pling stream once more, and the people of
that section demand the rights which be-
long TO them under the law.
Section 637 of the Political Code reads as
follows: Every owner of dam or other
obstruction in the waters of this State, who,
after being requested by the Fish Commits
sioners so to do, fails to construct and keep
in repair sufficient hshways or ladders on
such dam or obstruction, is guilty of mis-
demeanor"