re: Planned freshwater diversions will doom LA salt fishing

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Didn't exactly answer my questions, but ok. I'm not sure how you can say that diversions destroy the balance needed for eggs/young to survive. The Caernarvon Diversion was opened in 1991, 22 years ago. There have been many life cycles of speckled trout during those 22 years. Year in/year out dozens of charter fisherman/shrimpers/oystermen make their living from the Reggio/Delacroix/Hopedale areas. Doesn't sound like the Caernarvon DIVERSION has destroyed any balance in the past 1/4 century.

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This from a Ricks post on RnR:

Caernarvon was designed to adjust SALINITY levels to help the estuary and oyster production, and to help the environment, it wasn't designed to build land. It started operating in 1991 and until 1994 showed and improvement in oyster production and an increase in the trout and brown shrimp populations.

In 2009, the Corps of Engineers decided to modify the flow to make it a land building project, increasing the flow rates from and yearly average 0f 4000 cubic feet a second to 8000 cfs. That's when the problems really started. They changed the heartiness of the brackish water marsh soil to a completely weak freshwater soil. Not to mention, displacing brown shrimp and speckled trout at the prime time when they need the estuary to support the juvenile populations.

The first few years, they would pulse the freshwater in to mimmick what Mother Nature used to due in the spring when the river rose and overtopped the much lower levee system at the time. It was working to help the estuary. Now, they are destroying it!!!

According to information I have from the Dept. Of Interior, The Caernarvon-Delacroix area is considered a Resourse Category 2 Essential Fish Habitat. There may be some litigation the Corp. could face over the mis-management practices of the Caernarvon Diversion. Believe, me, Mike Lane and I are looking into it. There is the National Environmental Policy Act that states that if they harm the resources, they must "rectify the impact by repairing, rehabilitating, and restore the affected environment".