Posted on 03/25/2014 4:45:30 PM PDT by Hildy
BULLHEAD CITY — Mohave County will explore every avenue to keep the 50-year-old Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery rainbow trout stocking program going, said District 2 Sup. and Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Hildy Angius, R-Bullhead City, as she updated the Colorado River Tea Party Patriots at their Saturday meeting.
The program is of great economic benefit to the Tri-state, which relies on sport fishing to help draw tourists to the area.
Before the stocking program was suspended, an estimated 4,000 trout were stocked monthly below Davis Dam. The Bullhead City Council passed a resolution in February requesting the Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the ending of the program.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said two intake pipes that feed the trout hatchery need repairs and there is no money available. Two massive trout die-offs occurred in August and November of last year, killing 40,000 and 20,800 trout respectively. Piping from the river was clogged with vegetation in August and in November; water flows in the river dropped below the elevation of the hatchery water intake pumps. Hatchery workers were able to save the remaining 11,000 trout by releasing them into the river.
Angius and District 3 Sup. Buster Johnson, R-Lake Havasu City, recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend a legislative conference of the National Association of Counties. The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs happened to be holding a hearing concerning hatcheries at the same time. County staff assembled material for Angius to take to Washington. She met with committee staff members and briefed them on the history of the Willow Beach hatchery.
During the hearing, Angius reported, David Hoskins, U.S. Fish and Wildlife assistant director, admitted his department did not perform an economic impact study, did not have a public input period, and did not contact Mohave County to inform the county of its decision to end the program.
Angius said she met with Hoskins and he told her there was no money to repair the pipe.
There was a follow-up meeting in Denver on March 13, during which Arizona Game and Fish Department representatives and Mohave County Administrator Mike Hendrix presented solutions to Hoskins to save the program, Angius said. Game and Fish has offered to donate excess trout from its hatchery system to Willow Beach until the facility is repaired.
“We have a lot of people helping us behind the scenes,” Angius said. “Chris Cantrell and Jim Devos from Arizona Game and Fish have come forward with offers of assistance and ideas. Sen. (John) McCain, Sen. (Jeff) Flake and Congressman (Paul) Gosar have been instrumental in letting the agency know that what they are doing is unacceptable.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has also spoken in favor of retaining the program. Others have weighed in on the future of the hatchery program throughout the West, including Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, Nevada Congressman Joe Heck, Arizona congress members Trent Franks and Ann Kirkpatrick, New Mexico Congressman Ben Lujan, Idaho Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch, Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, and Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso.
“This is not a partisan issue. This is a future of the West issue,” Angius said.
Angius said she is scheduled to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies on April 10. She said she “will request that the broken pipe be repaired immediately and the rainbow trout stocking program at Willow Beach be fully funded.”
The program is part of a mitigation for the environmental impact of the Hoover Dam. “They have a legal obligation to keep it as a mitigation hatchery,” Angius said. “They contend Willow Beach is not a mitigation hatchery. We contend that it is. We believe we have the proof.”
Already have
Where do you live?
I’m with you on that. Move here and help me do that.
Really? Not sure what you want me to look at there. But if Arizonans persist in claiming federal lands, statehood should be revoked.
http://www.azlibrary.gov/is/statehood/documents/36stat557-579.pdf
Start with Section 20 on page 569, with particular attention to the paragraph starting with the word ‘Second’ near the bottom of the page. See also paragraph ‘Seventh’ on page 570.
The corresponding provisions of the state act can be found on the second page here: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/const/enabling.pdf
It’s not federal land. it’s land held in trust that was supposed to be returned to us like all the states in he east were afforded. I don’t know what you are talking about.
So on one hand I am being told here that we should run our own trout program and “keep our grubby no hands off your money.” I am telling you that because it is being managed by the federal government we can’t. THEY WON’T LET US. so we are at their mercy. And now you tell me that if we try to get OUR land back, our Statehood should be revoked. Make up your minds.
I don’t know about other states, but here most of the costs of stocking are covered by license fees. Not everyone fishes, true, and those who do not may resent “paws” on their paycheck contributing to it. But then, the same can be said for public libraries; not everyone uses them. Should we “grubby paws off my paycheck” those too?
At the local level taxes for libraries are fine with me. Trouble is you local library gets federal money, too. So yes, grubby paws should be off my paycheck there, too.
Our license fees go to the State. This is a Federal program. So people still have to pay for a trout sticker although there’s no trout. Just to clarify: The stopping of this program is not saving anyone a dime. The money is still allocated..it’s just all going to be used for endangered species instead of something that serves people and generates an awful lot of money.
No, it wasn't. The rules were specifically different for New Mexico and Arizona than for earlier admitted states. And if you'd read the federal and territorial acts at the links in post 25, you would see that. "That in lieu of the grant of land for purposes of internal improvements made to new States by the eighth section of the Act of September fourth, eighteen hundred and forty-one, and in lieu of the swamp land grant made by the Act of September twenty-eight, eighteen hundred and fifty, and section twenty-four hundred and seventy-nine of the Revised Statutes, and in lieu of the grant of thirty thousand acres for each Senator and Representative in Congress, made by the Act of July second, eighteen hundred and three, which grants are hereby declared not to extend to the said State"
specific enumerated acreage grants were made.
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