The announced go-ahead for the total treatment of Strawberry Reservoir has brought on a flurry of questions, the most asked being: Why?
Why spend what is now up to $3.5 million just to kill fish that no one wants in the first place? And along with it, why kill good fish (trout) to get the bad (chubs)?Come August, a team of 250 men and women, 10 big barges, a half-dozen cement trucks, and about one million pounds of the chemical rotenone will attack the fish problem at Strawberry, and before the last puff of dust from the final bag of chemical has cleared, every trout, chub, sucker and perch in the reservoir will be dead - hopefully.
If it works, and there is an if, then it would be the first step in returning Strawberry to its lofty perch on fishermen's popularity polls. Without treatment, Strawberry would continue to fall from favor. The once-great family fishing spot has been reduced to a haven for fishdom's least wanted. Counts over the summer showed that for every 95 chub there were only five trout.
According to Tim Provan, director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, newest figures show the project will cost $3.5 million. Fishermen will pay the tab, some of it through license sales and the rest from excise tax on fishing equipment.
The returns, though, will more than pay treatment costs. A 1987 study showed fishermen put back into the economy $17.50 for every four-hour "fishing day."
After treatment, Strawberry could support 300,000 "fishing days" for a return of $5.28 million. Without treatment, fewer than 125,000 "days" will be logged. The difference is over $3 million a year.
The main reason to fishermen, though, is the catch. Fisheries biologists feel that within a year anglers will be taking fish out of Strawberry, and that within five years Strawberry will become recognized once again as one of the finest family fishing spots in the country.
Another question is how?
Ten 30-foot barges, each carrying over a ton of rotenone a trip, will work side-by-side over 12 to 13 zones marked by buoys. Water volume will be measured in each zone, and the required rotenone mix will then be spread.
The chemical will be mixed in cement trucks, then loaded on the barges. Each barge will make 10 trips each day for 5 days.
This is the biggest such undertaking ever attempted - anywhere.
At the time of treatment, Strawberry will be as large as all other cold-water reservoirs in northern Utah combined, Bear Lake included.
Utah biologists expect world attention will be focused on this project.
And then what?
Rebuilding. This time, however, planting will be done in favor of the game fish, not nongame fish.
Strawberry's problem developed back in 1962, or about then, when fishermen using illegal live bait - chubs and suckers - purposely released the fish.
Chubs, biologists say, are smarter, stronger and better able to survive than Strawberry cutthroats, so chubs increased and the Strawberry cuts decreased. Then, too, fishmen went after and kept trout, but stayed away from and didn't want chubs.
The new plants will be Bear Lake cutthroats, kokanee salmon and sterile cutthroat. Bear Lake cuts are more aggressive and will feed on chubs; kokanee don't eat other fish, but do compete well with chubs for the same foods; and cutthroats will be put into the reservoir to grow fast and be caught soon, but not to mix with the cutthroats.
The combination, said biologists, will better keep chubs in check should they be reintroduced by some thoughtless fisherman.
Another part of the project is to restore Strawberry tributaries to their natural condition, so that cutthroat and kokanee will be able to spawn without competition.
According to Provan, an estimated 10 million cutthroat will be hatched and migrate into the reservoir each year. Similar numbers of kokanee will be produced naturally in the tributaries.
The present cost of stocking Strawberry is $240,000 a year. The cost of stocking the Bear Lake cutthroats, sterilized rainbow and kokanee into the reservoir after treatment will be $116,000 annually. Once the tributaries catch on and cutthroat and salmon begin spawning, then stocking costs would drop to only $20,000 a year.
Under the DWR timetable, work in the project will begin in July with the treatment of the tributaries. Treatment of the reservoir would take place in August.
By January 1991, fishermen will be catching fish. Within five years of treatment, wildlife biologists believe Strawberry will once again be Utah's most popular family fishing spot.