Officials monitor poisoned lake
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, October 2, 2007
With the last of 16,000 gallons of poison dumped into Lake Davis and its tributaries, the state Department of Fish and Game began focusing on collecting dead fish while monitoring the chemicals as they break down in the Plumas County reservoir.
By Monday, workers had collected 41,000 pounds of fish, said Ed Pert, the pike eradication project manager.
Northern pike, voracious invaders and the objects of the chemical treatment, represent 8 percent of the total, he said. Most of the rest are brown bullheads, with rainbow trout less than 1 percent of the total.
All of the fish collected have been bagged, put into a refrigerated truck and transported to a landfill near Reno.
The dead fish pose no danger to wildlife, including herons and coyotes scavenging in the area, Pert said. He added that the water is also safe for wildlife to drink.
The state's $16.7 million project, which began Sept. 10, was designed to eradicate northern pike from Lake Davis to prevent them from migrating downstream to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where biologists fear they would decimate native species.
The Lake Davis area remains closed to the public, including surrounding Plumas National Forest lands.
Once the water is free of all chemicals, Fish and Game workers will stock the reservoir with 117,000 rainbow trout. They plan to plant another 900,000 rainbows in the spring, ranging from fingerlings to catchable and bonus-size trout, Pert said.
-- Jane Braxton Little
