GROUPS SHARE HITCH RESEARCH
The minnow is listed as endangered in California
Members of the California State Water Board, Department of Water Resources, Fish and Wildlife and the Big Valley Rancheria met Wednesday at Adobe Creek in Kelseyville to exchange resources and train staff in order to gain more data in hopes of saving the endangered Clear Lake Hitch.
Since 2014, when the state of California listed the Hitch as endangered, continuous efforts have been made to list the Hitch as endangered at the federal level. Big Valley Rancheria Environmental Director Sara Ryan explained some of the complications faced over the past several years.
“It has been a long process with the feds, but their own studies say to put in on the endangered list,” she said. Ryan reviewed the timeline of the requests made, which were originally submitted by the Center for Bio-Diversity in 2015 but were not officially denied until 2020. The CBD accused the federal government of not following the Endangered Species Act and filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2022 the suit was settled and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requested two more years of data.
According to Ryan, “Looking at the decrease in the USGS, and hearing from consulting biologists, we could lose the species in five years.” So the members of the Big Valley Rancheria have taken measures into their own hands by working collaboratively with multiple agencies and building the capacity for tribes to work inter-connectively. In December the Clear Lake Hitch Task Force was created. It includes the four groups present in Kelseyville on Wednesday. Recently the Big Valley Rancheria, along with the task force, held a Summit discussing the matter. Ryan said, “We
held a summit because we wanted to talk to the state, the government, to have a discussion of what the state needed to do.”
On Wednesday the Big Valley Rancheria borrowed the necessary equipment and received the proper training to use said equipment as a sort of “try before you buy” scenario so that the group can become familiar with these tools and later purchase their own or others that may better suit their needs. Teresa Conner and Lester Grade from the California Department of Water provided two tools for wading measurement, a Sontek Flow Tracker, two Handheld as well as a Sontek M-9 Acoustic Doppler Velocity Profile and instructed Big Valley Rancheria staff on their use. These tools will help monitor flow rates of the creeks and tributaries flowing into Clear Lake.
Without any extra equipment, it's clear to see that the drought has severely affected the Hitch habitat. Water levels have dropped drastically, fully exposing the culverts built for the Hitch to travel from the deeper waters of Clear Lake to the more shallow waters of Adobe Creek in order to spawn. Unfortunately, the Hitch are not good jumpers and can no longer access these culverts. According to John Murphy, senior engineer geologist for the California state water resources control board, “The Adobe creek is its historic run.” Murphy explained how the Hitch travel upstream, especially after rainstorms like the ones last week, to lay their eggs in pools but will then not have enough water to hatch. Since the culvert is directly related to drought, Murphy hopes this could help them secure more funding for the retrofitting of such infrastructures. Murphy also noted other various observable factors that may be contributing to the Hitch decline including past gravel mining, invasive fish, vegetative overgrowth, off road usage and a lack of stream maintenance.
Considering they are a regulatory board, Murphy also discussed the steps being made moving forward to help preserve the Hitch. The board's process requires a lot of data, all heavily verified, before any regulations can be made. Collecting the proper data will take more than a year and will require community collaboration as they will be needing local farms and property owners to provide data on their well usage. Murphy shared “We hope that property owners will do so voluntarily but we can also issue an information order” Ultimately the board will share data including gauge measurements and make recommendations for compliance.
The state water resources control board has prioritized the Clear Lake Hitch in their 2023 Strategic Plan which can be found on their website waterboards.ca.gov and will be discussing the matter again at a meeting on February 1 at 6 p.m.