U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said she could not issue an order recommending operational changes to the Coyote Valley Dam without concrete data.
By Michael Gennaro, Courthouse News Service
An attorney for a Northern California fisheries biologist asked a federal judge on Tuesday to order changes to flood control procedures at Coyote Valley Dam, saying current operations endanger species in the salmon family.
Sean White says the dam, which guards his city of Ukiah from flooding in the nearby Lake Mendocino, is a danger to Central California coast steelhead, coho and Chinook salmon. Populations of the fish in the lake and the East Fork Russian River are under threat, too, White said in his 2022 complaint.
White claims the dam’s flood control operations violated the Endangered Species Act by jeopardizing salmon populations. Sediment stirred up by water rushing in from the dam can result in “abrading and clogging gills, and indirectly cause reduced feeding, avoidance reactions, destruction of food supplies, reduced egg and alevin survival, and changed rearing habitat.”
Philip Williams, White’s attorney, asked a federal judge on Tuesday to forbid the dam from releasing any water unless it was essential.
“We think the way that they have been conducting flood control releases is not necessary,” Williams said during a preliminary injunction hearing.
U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley told Williams there was no evidence that the dam had released water unnecessarily in the past.
“Do you have any data that they make flood control releases when it’s unnecessary?” Corley asked. “Do you want me to tell them how to do their flood control?”
Williams posited one idea: that dam operators schedule flood control releases closer to weather events that already increase the turbidity of the water, citing data from his client, White.
“He’s a flood control expert?” Corley asked.
Corley said without concrete data, she could not issue an order recommending any of the changes Williams requested.
Briena Strippoli, an attorney for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the dam releases water only when it’s necessary to prevent flooding and protect the property and lives of those living in Ukiah, and that syncing the release of water with weather events wasn’t feasible while maintaining safe flood operations.
Strippoli also called the plaintiff’s data showing salmonids are endangered by flood control measures “unreliable” and “not scientifically robust.”
The plaintiffs only took samples from one small area over 14 days stretched out over several months, Strippoli said, and “no logical conclusions can be drawn” from such limited data.
“You have to show that the take of individuals amounts to an impact on the species as a whole,” she said. An impact to only one member of a species does not suffice to show the cascading series of events that would impact the species as a whole and warrant relief.
According to Strippoli, data shows Chinook salmon populations do not decline in the years after flood control measures are enacted.
She refuted Williams, who said the dam’s operations resulted in 100% mortality rates for the Chinook salmon, and the fact that the species has remained threatened is proof of an irreparable injury.
“The experts have looked at this and said it does not rise to the level of irreparable injury. It’s his burden,” Strippoli said. “One data point or one data year is not sufficient.”
Further, Strippoli said, the dam is already operating under constraints in an effort to protect salmonids.
“This is a private citizen coming to court and asking the court to interfere” in a complicated operational issue, she said.
Corley’s ruling on the preliminary injunction motion is forthcoming. The case survived a motion to dismiss in March.
This article was first published at the Courthouse News Service.
