A battle over poisoning Lake Davis to rid it of
non-native northern pike appears headed for a shoreline
showdown.
The courts have endorsed a California
Department of Fish and Game plan to poison the lake 70 miles north
of Lake Tahoe. A Plumas County ordinance is now one of the last
obstacles, short of civil disobedience, to the
project.
The county’s regulation, adopted Sept.
16, makes it a misdemeanor to pollute a river, stream or reservoir
by deliberately killing fish. “Just planning to do it is conspiracy
to commit a crime,” said Plumas County Supervisor Fran
Roudebush.
Set for Oct. 15, the poisoning is
designed to keep the voracious pike from traveling downstream and
threatening native species (HCN, 6/23/97). State officials hope to
kill all of the fish in the lake with 33,000 gallons of chemicals
which include Nusyn-Noxfish, a compound containing the carcinogen
trichloroethylene (TCE). State officials will plant Lake Davis with
trout once the chemicals have dissipated, said Banky E. Curtis, a
regional Fish and Game Department
manager.
Project opponents fear the poisons will
contaminate the lake they use as a major source of drinking water.
They have rallied behind the county ordinance after failing to halt
the project with litigation and state
regulations.
The 140,000 pounds of dead fish
expected to result from the poisoning will pollute local waters in
violation of the county’s ordinance, said Roudebush. That means
state officials could be subject to arrest “the moment someone tips
a barrel of poison into the lake,” said Plumas County District
Attorney James Reichle.
The local law is the
biggest obstacle to the poisoning project, said Patrick Foy, a
spokesman for the Fish and Game Department. Meanwhile, some local
residents are plotting human chains to halt the poisoning.
Roudebush said she opposes any unlawful action but she did not rule
out barricading county roads as a legal
method.
“We’re determined we’re going to stop
this,” she said.
*Jane Braxton
Little
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Big stink over northern pike.
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