Nov 22, 2007 7:39 pm US/Pacific
State Officials Plan To Discuss Saving Delta Fish
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
The huge number of dead fish found in the Delta has left both environmentalists and fishermen shaking their heads. The fish died after officials began pumping water out of an area known as Prospect Island, near Sacramento's deep water channel.
They pumped the water out for safety reasons, to fix a levee, which is good news for us and is bad news for the fish. As you're about to see, this fish story needs no exaggeration.
And what happened is pretty darn ugly, as you can see by our view from above the water, thousands of floating fish, dead in the delta.
Some of these salmon, steelhead, bass and carp look huge. This is a big deal, to fishermen, and to the agency that caused this giant fish kill.
This area needed to be closed, water reclamation officials tell us, for health and safety reasons.
Ever since a levee broke about a year and a half ago around Prospect Island, the water has been turbulent. Five boats have capsized, and several people had to be rescued. So, the levee was repaired and that meant water needed to be pumped out.
Government officials say they did their planning.
"We instructed the contractor that before he close this totally, to do it at low tide to allow as much water to get out and as many fish as possible," says one official.
But sure as man likes to go fishing with his dog, people are second guessing the move.
"A lot of us do catch and release so we would want as many fish as possible to stay in the water for our sons and daughters," says one fisherman.
Sons and daughters who won't be catching these fish, fish who've reached the end of the line, after living their lives, trying to avoid just that.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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