Killing the Sacramento River

by Lt. Bobby Ross, Staff Writer

The White Man has an insatiable talent to justify the justice, the ludicrous, accept the benign, and glorify the horrendous.  In doing such, the God Almighty dollar can become more of a deity than those that worship it. 

This is just the case with a river I was born on.  It is one of the most sought after natural resources in California.  In many ways, the gold of the early 21st century.  And, the gold is water.

        I’m a fisherman.  And a hunter.  I was born in Sacramento in 1947, and my kin folk are buried all up and down the Sacramento River.  The largest in California, and I have to humbly say the most majestic.  Forming at its headwaters around the spiritual Mount Shasta on the Northern grid, a place known amongst almost all the early Native Americans as the home of the Great Spirit.
        
        When I retired from the Nashville Music Industry at the end of 2004, I came home to the Sacramento water shed, moved onto this magnificent 1000 acre farm just East of Isleton, a lazy little town nestled up against the Eastern bank of the Sacramento River, and home of the rich American garden known to only a few as the Northern California Delta. 

The largest inland waterway in America.  When the Spaniards first saw it from atop of Mount Diablo in the Winter of some far away year, they mapped it as a large inland sea.  This is because at that time of the year, several rivers converge upon the flat bog lands of the Delta, and flooded it.  As such, it is one of the richest farm lands in the world to this day, and it produces much of what is in the veggie isles of every American grocery store, not to mention feeding a large number of the other peoples living in about every other country in the world.

        
        Last week I went to the Northern Sacramento River to fish with my fishing guide, the River Pirate.  And, he is DaFishin’ Guide!.  And he knows every hole in this river from the spawning grounds of the majestic King Salmon, to the halibut and shark spots in the San Francisco Bay.  He and I have been friends for years, both having been born and raised in Northern California.  I left my farm on last Monday afternoon and stayed at Red Bluff in a nice hotel, and me and the River Pirate fished for the next four days.  And, I mean ‘fished’.  
        
        The first day he had me in his float boat, and we had no motor, he rowed, and I fly fished from sunrise until sunset.  The next day we back trolled in his sturdy and powerful jet boat in some of the same spots, and in the afternoon we traversed up river and made another day of it.  We did ‘catch and release’ and I lost count of how many trout and steelheads I kissed and put back into the river.  The 3rd day we deep lined on Shasta Lake.  And, then, the last day, we went back to the same place I started and made the last day a glorious one. 

Later that afternoon, I visited the Coleman National Fish Hatchery where I saw the mighty King Salmon in all of its glory and several thousands of fingerlings that will be released by our government, back into the river, to bring forth another generation of the food base for the whole ecosystem of the river itself.
        
        Great story, eh?  Well, it ain’t so.  For the past two years, the River Pirate has been teaching me the ‘truth’ about a group of business folks who are deliberately and diabolically killing the Sacramento River.   Why?  For its water.  In the California legislature right now, our Governorator, Arnold, is pushing for the vote on ‘The Big Ditch’ to take the waters of this beautiful water to his Hollywood friends in Southern California.
        
        This LRRP Sit-Rep is short and sweet.  In August I visited Wyoming and Idaho, and fly fished up there just to see how those folks are managing all of their trout rivers.  They are doing so honorably, with grace, and dignity.  Last week I witnessed the destruction of a species of the Animal Kingdom, the King Salmon.  The fishing season for this fish has been closed for the past 2 years.  Suddenly, of all the great salmon rivers of America The Sacramento has hardly any salmon in it.  Some of those responsible for this crime say it is the River Pirate, me, and other fishermen who have over fished it.  This is like laying blame on the 12 year old virgin who is gang raped by an outlaw motorcycle club for picking flowers in her front yard.
        
        Once again, short and sweet.  I need not go into too many of the gruesome details brought upon these precious fish and natural resource in this story.  But for the past several years, business interests, blessed with the support of the Federal Wildlife Agency, have systematically set out to destroy the Sacramento River Salmon, thus killing the river.  Without this animal, the river, for all practical purposes, is dead.  

        
        We all remember the story of the Spotted Owl.  The tree hugging Liberals jumped upon this tiny bird’s beak and virtually put an end to the forestry business in many corners of the Northwest.  Was that good?  Well, it certainly was for that little bird.  Los Angeles, and the Southern California cotton farmers need our water desperately from the Sacramento River.  And, they are dead set to get it.  Why does this bother me?  Because it is a crime.  Much the same as the one that sends our best young people to be slaughtered in the Rich Man’s War in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Vietnam, or Korea.  Our professional politicians are paid to squander these soldiers, the same way they are doing to the Sacramento River Salmon.  
        
        It is not a nice story, either the deaths of our fighting men and women in the Middle East, or the killing of the salmon in the Sacramento River, but I am here to testify to the evil aspects of both.  They are one and the same to men.  One can not be separated from the other before you can not see the difference in both.  In this article, I am placing my voice into the wind and yowling that they are killing the Sacramento River.  And, they are killing our best kids in Afghanistan.  And, they are doing so deliberately and solely to make money for the Rich Man.
        
        If in fact, the "Big Ditch’ is allowed to be constructed, and the Sacramento River becomes only a water source for a very small group of people at the cost of killing an entire ecosystem of wildlife, then this is a crime of such grand proportions that those responsible should be hung.  I feel the same about those responsible for sending our best human resources to Afghanistan to be slaughtered, too.  One without the other is not to be separated.  To do so pays total disrespect to both.