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Show Ashley Creek Dear Editor: The Bonneville Chapter of the American Fisheries Society is an organization of more than 100 professional fishery biologists and other concerned individuals which actively encourage the conservation and protection of Utah's fishery resources. The American Fisheries Society is the largest and oldest active international professional society in the western hemisphere. We are concerned about the proposal by the Ashley Valley Water and Sewer Improvement District to construct a water treatment plant that would use Ashley Spring water. Ashley Creek from Ashley Springs downstream to the Steinaker Diversion, Diver-sion, a distance of almost 8 miles, contains a naturally reproducing population of brown trout at virtually no cost to us as tax payers. No browns have been stocked in Ashley Creek since 1966 and yet it continues to produce wild trout for fishermen's creels. In 1980 this stretch of stream was designated as a "fly-fishing only" stream by the Utah Wildlife Board because of its importance. Streams selected for this category are of high quality and support self-perpetrating trout population; only two Utah streams have such a designation. This valuable fishery resource is located just 7 miles from Vernal and offers a high quality fishery near a population center which is very important, considering con-sidering that the value of many of the other trout streams on the south slope of the Uinta Mountains, will be diminished by Central Utah Project water development. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources creel census results from Ashley Creek show an average catch rate of over 2 fish per hour, nearly double that of the only other "fly-fishing only" water, the Strawberry River. Also, during a 65-day 65-day period in 1979, it was estimated that 1,115 hours were spent catching 2,565 fish. Professional fishery biologists from various resource agencies cooperatively gathered physical stream channel and hydraulic information in-formation from Ashley Creek. Using the latest, nationally recognized method for determing needed flows for fish, they found that on the average, full development of Ashley Spring as a municipal water supply, would seriously reduce the winter living space of adult brown trout by 69 percent. Between the months of November and March each year, Ashley Spring makes up most of the flow in Ashley Creek. This period is critical for trout survival and if flow is reduced, fish will be lost. No amount of water in the spring and summer will bring them back. Construction of a water treatment plant that takes water from Ashley Spring could seriously damage the self-perpetuating self-perpetuating population of brown trout in Ashley Creek. Treating all the culinary water at Doc's Beach (the preferred site on the basis of cost and maximum utility identified by CH2M Hill for Vernal City) would enable the spring water to flow down the creek to the Steinaker Diversion and thereby , maintain the valuable brown trout fishery. The Bonneville Chapter strongly urges the people of Ashley Valley to seriously consider what the loss of this valuable recreational resource would mean to the area. The treatment facility planned by Vernal City could meet the water needs of the Valley and at the same time protect the valuable fishery resource of Ashley Creek. BRADY GREEN Bonneville Chapter American Fisheries Society The General Federation of Women's Clubs If volunteers were to stop doing what they are doing, the impact on our country and indeed, the world , would be profound-. That's one of the credos of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the largest larg-est nondenominational, nonpartisan, non-partisan, international service serv-ice organization of volunteer women in the world. There are GFWC clubs to suit the needs of just about every woman, of all age groups. Currently, there are 12, 100 clubs and 600,000 women in the U. S. and Puerto Rico, as well as ten million other members worldwide. The group was first organized or-ganized in March, 1889 and received its Charter by Congress Con-gress in 1901. Today, its members seek to implement programs and projects that are tailored to meet the individual needs of their communities, states and countries. |