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EPA may ease rules for water transfer
Fishermen scored a victory this year when they successfully argued sediment and heated water flowing out of the Schoharie Reservoir was ruining trout habitat in a world renowned fly fishing stream, the Esopus Creek. The New York City De-partment of Environmental Protection was ordered to pay as much as $5.75 million in civil penalties, and it had to get a Clean Water Act permit for its Shandaken Tunnel piping system, which transfers water from one part of the Catskill mountains to another. The permit requires the city to develop strategies for protecting trout habitat in that portion of its vast upstate drinking water collection system. The Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of undercutting the basis for the argument used successfully in the case by Trout Unlimited, Riverkeeper and the New York Attorney General.
Trout fishing in Missouri without a Ph.D
Though I am not an avid, or should I say a rabid trout nut, I do enjoy fishing for them and caught the bug when I was in high school. Myself and a couple of friends used to head out on a Friday or Saturday night for Roaring River down by Cassville on Highway 112. After running around in Cassville in the evening, we would finally get to Roaring River and all three of us would sleep in the cab of a 70-something Chevy pickup that one of my buddies owned. Somehow we were always ready by the time the horn blew at too-early-thirty in the morning. Sometimes we would have good luck and sometimes we didnt. We always had a great time though. Missouri has many trout parks spread throughout the state. All are beautiful and a great place to take the family for a daylong picnic or even a vacation.
Heat wave has driven local stream temps to dangerous levels
The big brown trout lay belly up at the tail of the bridge pool. Even though he had been dead only a few hours, his distinctive markings had already started to fade, and several crayfish were working on the 22-inch carcass. The record and near-record air temperatures, sunny weather and warm nights of the past two weeks have combined to stress trout populations and even eliminate them in the worst cases. Trout are cold-water fish. They prefer stream temperatures below 66 degrees and water with a relatively high concentration of dissolved oxygen. Shade and an influx of ground water are important factors in keeping stream temperatures low. Since cool water holds more dissolved oxygen than warm water, cool water temperatures and turbulence (riffles and waterfalls) keep dissolved oxygen at a healthy level.
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