Long Live Kilarc Reservoir! Long Live Anadromous Fish!

By Frank Galusha, EasyWriter

Whitmore -- An alphabet soup of government agencies and private groups are muddying up the waters surrounding the decommissioning of Kilarc Reservoir near here. This simply proves again that whether right or wrong, trying to get anything done in California creates a full employment act for state agencies, public utilities (in this case Pacific Gas & Electric), prospective operators (Davis Hydro) and an untold numbers of lawyers and consultants.

It’s also a hassle of endless meetings and petition drives led by the private citizens who live around this small town. Keeping up with the lengthy correspondence generated by opponents, proponents, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and various special interest groups is also a full time job for MyOutdoorBuddy.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the quagmire could keep Kilarc reservoir full for years as everyone gets bogged down in red tape. For many that’s good! Great fishing holes, especially those that can be accessed by Joe Six-Pack, families and the handicapped, are hard to find. For others, water rights for people come before fish. For others, including the CA Department of Fish & Game, just reverse is true. If Kilarc is torn down they claim there will be more water for anadromous fish, which stands for salmon and steelhead, both of which are in short supply and deserve protection. Hopefully a plan will emerge from the quicksand that protects all these stakeholders but it’s going to take a long, long while.

Why all the fuss? Kilarc is a tiny 4.5 acre reservoir, so small it’s not even on most maps. It’s hard to find even on page 47 of the DeLorme Northern California Atlas and Gazetteer (Look near C-7). It’s so far off the beaten track it makes the outback look like a suburb. It sits high atop a mountain ridge northeast of Whitmore, which is an outpost itself. Except for the locals, most have never heard of it, let alone been there.

Although microscopic, Kilarc is a jewel, a treasure, a tradition and above all, a symbol of the West’s ongoing water wars. Come take a look. If you like driving to nowhere and then six miles up a bone-jarring, pothole-ridden washboard road, you’ll love Kilarc, especially if you like fish, beautiful places and billion dollar views. But like all water, the H2O that flows into and through this hydropower facility has many other uses. It also means a lot to a small but hardy band of people who depend on it for their crops, stock and wells. PG&E has elected not to renew its hydropower license. That’s where the story begins, and it’s been the subject of several articles in past issues of MyOutdoorBuddy.com. (Google “Kilarc Reservoir.” to catch up.) We pick up the story from there but the current chapters are so complicated we’ve broken the yarn up into several parts…

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Upper Sacramento River full of options

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The Upper Sacramento River offers a little bit of everything for anglers this time of year according to Bob Grace at the Ted Fay Fly Shop in Dunsmuir. Fly anglers can look for native fish above the Scarlett Way Bridge in Dunsmuir, try to entice a trout traveling upstream from the depths of Shasta Lake in the lower reaches or enjoy a day fishing for planters including some large brood stock trout from between the Scarlett Way Bridge and the Sweetbriar Bridge downstream. In the latter stretch of river fly anglers will be joined by families fishing under general regulations with a 5 fish limit and bait and lures allowed. This stretch has been stocked for the last 3-4 weeks so good numbers should be available...