Water release give trout relief

Fly-Fishing: Water release gives trout relief from heat
Thursday, June 12, 2008

Morgan Lyle


To their credit, the people who decide how much water gets released from reservoirs into the trout rivers of the Catskills agreed this week to give the trout a break from the heat.
After all, water temperatures on the Delaware River were approaching 80 — way too warm for trout to survive — while billions of gallons of cold water sat dammed up in New York City’s drinking water reservoirs on the Delaware’s East and West branches and the Neversink River.
At the request of New York state, which looks after the nationally famous Delaware trout fishery, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York City agreed to temporarily increase the flow from the dam on the West Branch to nearly 660 cubic feet per second, from 260.

Those other states and the Big Apple aren’t normally very symp­athetic to the protection of the wild browns and rainbows of the Del­aware. Pennsylvania, for example, is more concerned with keeping enough water in the reservoirs to be able to shove the salt water of the Atlantic out of the part of the river where Philadelphia gets its drinking water, in the event that meager rainfall reduces the Del­aware’s natural strength. And New York City is convinced, as it always has been, that the drought of the century will start tomorrow, and every possible drop must be conserved for human consumption.

So it’s significant that they responded to the early-season heat wave, and there probably will be good fishing this weekend, at least on the West Branch, because of the increased release.
But what’s going to happen during the next heat wave? It’s not even summer yet, and already, the Department of Environmental Conservation staff has had to beg other state capitals for water.
This is turning out to be a case of being careful what you wish for.
New rules for releasing water went into effect last fall, and they state that under normal con­ditions, the flow from Cannonsville Reservoir on the West Branch will be 260 cfs, period, in June, July and August.

The previous rules gave the DEC the authority to adjust releases to prevent the rivers from exceeding certain temperatures at certain points downstream.

It was angling interests who asked for the change. They noted that the old banks were chronically inadequate.

But the steady flows established last fall are pretty stingy. Trout Unlimited and the other advocates who lobbied for the new system now want the four states and New York City to boost the rates permanently.

The Delaware River Basin Commission, which sets the rules based on agreements among the four states and the city, next meets on July 16, but the staff of the DRBC won’t have a proposal ready for a vote by then, spokesman Clarke Rupert said.

The DRBC received 1,918 public comments on the new plan over the winter, and “the reason for the delay is the number of comments we received,” Rupert said. “It’s taking time to go through them all.”

I would hope the outcry will lead the DRBC to increase the release rates once a formal proposal is finally ready. But until then, the Catskills tailwaters will have to limp along on thin flows.