trelease. thomas j. d2 9.12.94 … · you to tell me about your mother and father, what they did,...

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW

THOMAS TRELEASE

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STATUS OF INTERVIEW:OPEN FOR RESEARCH

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Interview Conducted and Edited by:Donald B. Seney in 1994

California State University-SacramentoFor the Bureau of Reclamation’sNewlands Project Oral History Series

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Interview desktop published–2019By Brit Allan Storey, Senior Historian

Oral History ProgramBureau of ReclamationDenver, Colorado

SUGGESTED CITATION:

Trelease, Thomas. ORAL HISTORYINTERVIEW. Transcript of tape-recorded Bureauof Reclamation Oral History Interview conducted byDonald B. Seney. Edited by Donald B. Seney anddesktop published by Brit Allan Storey, seniorhistorian, Bureau of Reclamation. Repository forthe record copy of the interview transcript is theNational Archives and Records Administration inCollege Park, Maryland.

Record copies of this transcript are printed on 20lb., 100% cotton, archival quality paper. All other copiesare printed on normal duplicating paper.

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Statement of Donation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Editorial Convention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Oral History Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Family and Early Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Living on Trelease Lane.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Going to Work for the Nevada Department of Fish

and Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Pyramid Lake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Pyramid Lake Cutthroat Trout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Trout Restoration Efforts at Pyramid Lake. . . . . . 14Relations with the Pyramid Lake Indians. . . . . . . 16Fishery Research in Pyramid Lake.. . . . . . . . . . . . 23Pyramid Lake Indians Control the Lake.. . . . . . . . 25Fisheries Recovery Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Efforts to Restore Pyramid Lake Fishery. . . . . . . . 31Defining a Beneficial Use for Water. . . . . . . . . . . 32Sierra Pacific Power.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Washoe Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Relations with the Bureau of Reclamation. . . . . . 38Relations with Sierra Pacific Power. . . . . . . . . . . 40

Newlands Project Series– Oral History of Thomas Trelease

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Opposition to the Fish Recovery Plans. . . . . . . . . 42Support for Fishery Recovery Emerges. . . . . . . . . 43Pyramid Lake Tribe Uses Court to Press Their

Rights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46More on the Pyramid Lake Recovery Program. . . 49U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Takes Over

Recovery Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Reintroducing Cutthroat Trout into Pyramid Lake

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Stillwater Wildlife Area.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Effects of the Newlands Project.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Bureau of Reclamation History Program

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Statement of Donation


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Editorial Convention

A note on editorial conventions. In the text of theseinterviews, information in parentheses, ( ), is actually on thetape. Information in brackets, [ ], has been added to thetape either by the editor to clarify meaning or at the requestof the interviewee in order to correct, enlarge, or clarify theinterview as it was originally spoken. Words havesometimes been struck out by editor or interviewee in orderto clarify meaning or eliminate repetition. In the case ofstrikeouts, that material has been printed at 50% density toaid in reading the interviews but assuring that the struckoutmaterial is readable.

The transcriber and editor also have removed someextraneous words such as false starts and repetitionswithout indicating their removal. The meaning of theinterview has not been changed by this editing.

While we attempt to conform to most standardacademic rules of usage (see The Chicago Manual of Style),we do not conform to those standards in this interview forindividual’s titles which then would only be capitalized inthe text when they are specifically used as a title connectedto a name, e.g., “Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton” asopposed to “Gale Norton, the secretary of the interior;” or“Commissioner John Keys” as opposed to “thecommissioner, who was John Keys at the time.” Theconvention in the Federal government is to capitalize titlesalways. Likewise formal titles of acts and offices arecapitalized but abbreviated usages are not, e.g., Division of


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Planning as opposed to “planning;” the ReclamationProjects Authorization and Adjustment Act of 1992, asopposed to “the 1992 act.”

The convention with acronyms is that if they arepronounced as a word then they are treated as if they are aword. If they are spelled out by the speaker then they havea hyphen between each letter. An example is the Agencyfor International Development’s acronym: said as a word, itappears as AID but spelled out it appears as A-I-D; anotherexample is the acronym for State Historic PreservationOfficer: SHPO when said as a word, but S-H-P-O whenspelled out.


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Introduction

In 1988, the Bureau of Reclamation created ahistory program. While headquartered in Denver, theHistory Program was developed as a bureau-wide program.

One component of Reclamation's history program isits oral history activity. The primary objectives ofReclamation's oral history activities are: preservation ofhistorical data not normally available through Reclamationrecords (supplementing already available data on the wholerange of Reclamation’s history); making the preserved dataavailable to researchers inside and outside Reclamation.

In the case of the Newlands Project, the seniorhistorian consulted the regional director to design a specialresearch project to take an all around look at oneReclamation project. The regional director suggested theNewlands Project, and the research program occurredbetween 1994 and signing of the Truckee River OperatingAgreement in 2008. Professor Donald B. Seney of theGovernment Department at California StateUniversity–Sacramento (now emeritus and living in SouthLake Tahoe, California) undertook this work. TheNewlands Project, while a small- to medium-sizedReclamation project, represents a microcosm of issuesfound throughout Reclamation: water transportation overgreat distances; three Native American groups withsometimes conflicting interests; private entities with


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competitive and sometimes misunderstood water rights;many local governments with growing water needs; Fishand Wildlife Service programs competing for water forendangered species in Pyramid Lake and for viability of theStillwater National Wildlife Refuge to the east of Fallon,Nevada; and Reclamation’s original water user, theTruckee-Carson Irrigation District, having to deal withmodern competition for some of the water supply thatoriginally flowed to farms and ranches in its community.

Questions, comments, and suggestions may beaddressed to:

Andrew H. GahanHistorian

Environmental Compliance Division (84-53000)Policy and AdministrationBureau of ReclamationP. O. Box 25007Denver, Colorado 80225-0007

FAX: (720) 544-0639

For additional information about Reclamation’shistory program see:

www.usbr.gov/history


http://www.usbr.gov/history

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Oral History InterviewThomas Trelease

Family and Early Life

Seney: This is September 12, 1994. My name isDonald Seney, and I'm with Mr. ThomasTrelease in his home near Verdi, Nevada. Good morning, Mr. Trelease.

Trelease: Good morning.

Seney: First I want to begin the interview by askingyou to tell me about your mother and father,what they did, where you were born, andhow you came to Nevada.

Trelease: Well my mother was born in Salt Lake Cityand she met my dad in Berlin, Nevada. Shecame from Salt Lake with her parents overto Berlin and Ione, Nevada, by coveredwagon. And then they got married in SaltLake City. My dad was born over inColorado in Idaho Springs. He was a minerand he came to Nevada–I'm not certain whenhe came to Nevada, but he met my mother inBerlin or Ione, Nevada and then they weremarried. I was born in Park City, Utah.


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Seney: Tell me the year and date.

Trelease: In 1919, February 27. Not long after I wasborn, we came to Sparks, Nevada, and then Ilived there until I was about five, and thenwe went to Edgewater, Colorado.

Seney: Was your dad still in mining? Is that whyyou moved around a little bit?

Trelease: Yeah, he was still in mining, but he got a jobwith the Gates Rubber Company, [inDenver, Colorado] and we moved toColorado, and we lived there until theDepression, and then during the Depression,in 1931 we moved back to Sparks, and welived in Sparks until 1949, and then movedto this little home here in Verdi, Nevada.

Seney: What do you remember about theDepression?

Trelease: Well, I remember we had problems payingour bills, because Mother would pay thelandlord five dollars a month, and that wasless than the rent was, so we kept gettingdeeper in the hole, but finally we ended upgetting it paid back after a long time,because I remember my mother and dad kindof celebrating the fact that we got it paid off.


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And I know that we ate an awful lot ofbeans. It was kind of rough going then. Idon't remember it as much as an adult wouldhave then, because I was just a kid. But Iknow clothes were hard to come by, and thefood was just very plain. We had enough ofit, but it was nothing fancy.

Seney: Are you from a Mormon family?

Trelease: My grandmother was a very staunchMormon. My own parents and I have neverbeen very religious. I was baptized, though,as a Baptist, but I've never really been veryreligious.

Seney: I only ask because your family comes fromUtah, and that often means, I guess as in thecase of your grandmother, that you are froma Mormon family.

Trelease: Well, my grandmother was the daughter ofOrrin Porter Rockwell, who was a veryimportant figure in the early days withBrigham Young and Joseph Smith. He wasa very close associate of theirs. And heearned the name "Avenging Angel" becausehe was quite a notorious gunman. He was aguardian of Brigham Young and Joseph


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Smith. In reading about his history andsome of the information I have on him, it'slike reading a western novel–veryinteresting.1

Seney: Let's go back [to your own personal history]. You moved to this house which is onTrelease Lane.

Living on Trelease Lane

Trelease: Well, the lane was named after my parents.

Seney: How did that happen?

Trelease: Well, I got a letter one day, and it was fromReno, and this committee was naming thestreets in the Verdi area, and they wanted toknow if the street already had a local name,and if it didn't, then they wanted to know if Icould recommend any names. Irecommended Hill Lane, after the gentlemanthat we bought this house from. But theysaid they already had another road, which is

1. Orrin Porter Rockwell was known as the "Destroying Angel." For more information, see Danielle B. Wagner, "The GunslingingGeneral Authority Who Went to Prison on the Prophet's Order: 7Unbelievable Facts about Porter Rockwell,: LDSLiving,http://www.ldsliving.com/Porter-Rockwell-7-Unbelievable-Facts-and-Stories-You-Didn-t-Know/s/77142. (Access 2/2019).


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down the hill from me here, alreadyscheduled for that name. But they said thatthat name was already then in use. So then Isuggested a Felix O'Neil who was the priorowner before Mr. Hill, but they said theyalready had a street named for him too. Sothe next thing I got another letter and theywere naming it after my parents, so that'show it came to be.

Seney: That's kind of nice. (Trelease: Yeah.) Sowhat year was it you moved to this house?

Trelease: In 1949.

Seney: And at that point you could have been aboutthirty years old, am I right? No? Older?

Trelease: About thirty, yeah.

Seney: What were you doing? Tell me a little bitabout your education.

Education

Trelease: Well, I was educated at the University ofNevada [at Reno] as far as the highereducation is concerned.


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Seney: You went to public schools in Sparks?

Trelease: Sparks, yes. And I majored in zoology andminored in botany. I was the first graduatefrom the University of Nevada to get adegree in fish and wildlife management. And it was there that I met Sessions Wheelerwho was the Director of the [Nevada]Department of Fish and Game at that time,and we got to be very good friends. So assoon as I graduated, why, I had a job waitingfor me.

Seney: What year did you graduate?

Trelease: Let's see, 1946. And I went to work right atthat time as a fisheries biologist. I had beenworking during the summers and during myschool days part-time at the Verdi FishHatchery as a fish culturist. And when Igraduated, then I got the job as a fisheriesbiologist. And in a few years, why, thedirector appointed me as the Chief ofFisheries.

Seney: What did you do as a fisheries biologistwhen you began with the department?

Going to Work for the Nevada Department of Fish andGame


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Trelease: Well, at first I was the only one, and I wasdoing some research, of which PyramidLake was one of my major projects. Andthen I worked on Lake Mead and most of theother major waters around the state. And atthat time we had a county system whereeach county had its own little fish and gamegroup, and I worked closely with each ofthem to help guide them in their fisheriesprojects. Not too long after I went to work,though they changed, and then all of thecounty units came under the state as part ofthe state system. And then they were putdirectly under me for the administration.

Seney: It must have been a relatively smalldepartment when you first came.

Trelease: It was. Yeah, there was one game man andone fisheries man that was in the state, andlike I said, all we did is kind of aid thecounties. Then after the counties turnedover their operations to the state, then all ofa sudden we had a lot of people, really morethan we could handle out of the state office. So then we started getting more people intothe state office to help get the various jobsdone.


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Seney: Tell me about your contact with PyramidLake and with the Newlands Project, and2

the effects of the Newlands Project and withthe Bureau of Reclamation. Start with yourfirst experiences, and don't worry aboutdetails, give me all the details you can aboutPyramid Lake and the condition of it and theattitude of the Bureau of Reclamationtowards that problem, and the attitude of theNewlands Project and T-C-I-D [Truckee-Carson Irrigation District] people toward theproblem of Pyramid Lake.

Pyramid Lake

Trelease: Well, I started working on Pyramid Lakewhen I was a kid, back in 1939. And I wroteseveral letters to the Isaac Walton League,which was very instrumental in those earlydays in doing conservation work inconnection with fisheries. And I also wroteto what was then called the U.S. BiologicalSurvey, which was the forerunner of the

2. The Newlands Project was one of the first Reclamationprojects. It provides irrigation water from the Truckee and Carsonrivers for about 57,000 acres of crop lands in the Lahontan Valley nearFallon and bench lands near Fernley in western Nevada. In addition,water from about 6,000 acres of project land has been transferred to theLahontan Valley Wetlands near Fallon. For more information, see Wm.Joe Simonds, "The Newlands Project," Denver: Bureau of ReclamationHistory Program, 1996, www.usbr.gov/projects/pdf.php?id=142.


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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Well, I gotseveral replies back from the Isaac WaltonLeague and we corresponded back and forth,and they took quite a lot of interest in it,which stimulated more interest on my part.

Seney: I take it you were raising concerns with themabout the condition of the lake?

Trelease: Yes, I could see these huge cutthroat troutthat were native to Pyramid Lake just beinggradually eliminated. The Indian people hadcome in [into Sparks and Reno] with severalof these large trout in their wagons and sellthem. I saw those, and then I saw wherethey would take the eggs out of the trout andthen sell them to the various stores in Sparksto be resold to fishermen as bait, becausethat was a very good bait, that fresh spawn. And that kind of disturbed me. But thenwhen I started to go out to Pyramid Lake, Icould see the trout trying to come up out ofthe lake, but the river was very shallow therebecause the lake had receded, and this deltawas being exposed and the trout couldn't getover that delta. And while they'd be up inthe very shallow water, why, the Indianpeople would go out and gaff them and putthem on these piles [of dead fish]. They'd


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either take the eggs out of them, and thenthrow the carcass on these piles of fish, orsometimes they'd take the whole fish withthem.

Seney: You mean they might just waste the fishthere, looking for the spawn?

Trelease: Yeah, an awful lot of waste, because theywere just taking spawn. But there were somany fish coming out at times, when theruns were heavy, and I saw some of thoseearly runs and it impressed me an awful lot. Well, in any event, that's what started myconcern.

Seney: Let me just stop you and ask you. I've beentold these were large fish. How large do youremember seeing them?

Pyramid Lake Cutthroat Trout

Trelease: How large? (Seney: Yes.) Well, up easilyinto the twenty-pound bracket. They werejust like salmon.

Seney: When you hold your arms out, you meanthree feet long?

Trelease: Yeah. I'd say three feet long was not


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uncommon at all. And anyway, I could seethem going downhill in numbers, and eachyear there'd be less and less of them.

Seney: At this point you're probably nineteen,twenty years old. Are you a student alreadyat the university?

Trelease: I was a student in high school then.

Seney: What was it that made you understand whatwas going on here? How did you know thatthey were ending up destroying the fish?

Trelease: Well I didn't really understand, except that Icould see that the fish couldn't get out of thelake, and that the Indians were taking a largenumber of them. When the fish would getup so far in the shallow water, and if therewere no Indians around to get them, the fishwould flop over on their sides and seagullsand pelicans would just descend on themjust in large numbers and peck out their eyesand their gills, and it'd kill a lot of them. And all this destruction, I just felt couldn'tcontinue. And then when I saw less and lessof them each year, I was pretty sure it wastaking it's toll, but I didn't know, really, thebasic cause at that time. But I was just


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concerned, and that's why I wrote those earlyletters.

And anyway, the Isaac WaltonLeague started to try and take some actionthere, but before they really got going good,the fish just finally faded out of existence inthe early 1940s. And then you could find nomore of them, you'd see no more of them outthere. And at the same time, as a result ofsome of these early efforts of the IsaacWalton League and probably the BiologicalSurvey, and maybe even the Bureau ofReclamation–I don't know if they wereinvolved then or not, I don't remember thatthey were. But in any event, they started toput a channel in to the north and east of thenatural channel where the delta was. Andthe idea of this channel was to make abypass to go down to the lake so the fishcould come out, and then so that they couldgo back down through it, on their waydownstream after their spawning wascompleted, and so that the young fish whenthey were going back into the lake wouldfind easy passage to the lake.

Seney: Do you remember what year that was whenthey first began to do that?


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Trelease: I think that was probably around in 1940-41era, along in there, because before they gotthe channel finished, I had to go into theservice. I believe I went in 1941 or '42. Itwas probably '41 or '42, and they hadn'tfinished the channel, but when I came backafter the war, why, the channel was in therethen, but the fish were gone.

Seney: Did the channel help the cui-ui at all?

Trelease: I used to see the cui-ui getting up as far aswhat they called the Marble Bluff Dam,3

which was the diversion dam that divertedthe water out of the normal Truckee RiverChannel and into the manmade channel thatthey put in. But then they couldn't get abovethat dam because they couldn't jump veryhigh. They were a more sluggish fish thantrout, and that's as far up as they could get.

3. Mr. Trelease may be confused here and is probably referringto the Derby Diversion Dam. Constructed between 1973 and 1975 aspart of the Washoe Project, Marble Bluff Dam is located on theTruckee River approximately 50 miles downstream of Reno, Nevadaand approximately 3 miles upstream of Pyramid Lake. It is a zonedearthfill structure with a height of 22 feet and crest length of 1,622 feet,and it has a capacity of 19,700 cubic feet per second through thespillway. It functions to halt erosion within the Pyramid Lake PaiuteTribe’s Reservation and controls water used by the Pyramid LakeFishway.


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But I did see them up there on a fewoccasions.

Trout Restoration Efforts at Pyramid Lake

Then when I started working with theDepartment of Fish and Game, one of theprojects that I started working on, as I saidbefore, was Pyramid Lake. And I and agood friend of mine, Dr. Ira LaRivers, whowas teaching at the University of Nevada,we started putting pens out in Pyramid Lakeand we'd put fish in them, live trout, bothrainbow and cutthroat, and we'd put theminto the lake and then see how long they'dsurvive there. The rainbow didn't do toowell, but the cutthroat did very well.

Seney: These were cutthroat that you'd gotten out ofIndependence Lake?

Trelease: No, we got them from our Verdi Hatchery[which in turn got them from Heenan Lake,California]. See, by that time I was thenworking with the Fish and GameDepartment as Chief of Fisheries, and I wasable to take fish then from our VerdiHatchery and use them in our experiments. Well, when that happened, then we came tothe conclusion that trout could live in the


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lake, and we started doing quite a bit ofresearch between the two of us [with Dr. IraLaRivers at the University of Nevada,Reno]. Dr. LaRivers was primarily anentomologist, interested in insects, and I wasinterested in the fisheries. But we workedtogether on the lake and collected quite a bitof data. And the more we collected, themore we were convinced that Pyramid Lakecould support fish, and as we did ourresearch we could see more clearly all thetime that the real problem was the waterdiversion, mostly at Derby Dam, which4

took the water away from the lake and thelake then receded. And when it receded, itexposed the delta at the mouth of the river,and that's what was creating all of theproblems.

I mean, there was basically thediversion of water, and then the secondaryeffect of having the delta exposed, whichblocked the fish from getting up into theirspawning areas, and they could no longer

4. Built in 1905, Derby Dam is a diversion dam on the TruckeeRiver, located between Reno and Fernley in Storey and Washoecounties in Nevada. As a primary feature of the Newlands Project, itdiverts water that would otherwise feed Pyramid Lake into the CarsonRiver watershed for irrigation use.


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reproduce. So then the fish that were in thelake, they just kept growing larger and largeruntil they were either caught or they died outjust from old age. In those days, there waspractically no fishing. You know, after thefish went downhill and they got to the pointwhere they weren't abundant enough to catchthem readily, people lost interest in fishing,and they attributed the loss of the fish to thealkalinity and salinity of the lake, but itwasn't that at all.

Seney: What was your relationship with thePyramid Lake Indians during your attemptsto see what kind of trout might be able tolive in the lake?

Relations with the Pyramid Lake Indians

Trelease: Well, at first it was rather delicate, becausethey had a strong dislike towards the whiteman, because they felt that he was the onethat caused the disappearance of the fish,and they were right. But they didn'tdifferentiate between the different whitepeople, and they just lumped me right inwith all the rest of them, and they didn'twant any part of what I was trying to do outthere.


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Seney: Tell me about how you overcame theirfeelings. Were you able to overcome thosefeelings?

Trelease: Oh yes.

Seney: Tell me how you did that.

Trelease: Well, it kind of started out with just a coupleof Indians that we got to help us when wereputting out our traps and doing some of ourearly research.

Seney: You didn't need the Indians' permission toconduct experiments?

Trelease: Yeah, we got the permission, and they gavethat to us, but rather reluctantly. Mostly, itwas on the basis that we'd hire a couple oftheir Indian people to work with us. One ofthem was Avery Winnemucca who was aliveat that time. And the other one, a very goodfriend of mine–Warren Toby. And Warrenhelped us very much. But as those twostarted working with us, they could begin tosee what we were trying to do, and theycould see then more clearly what hadhappened to the lake, and they began to talkto their other Indian people, you know. And


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it wasn't too long before they began to workmore closely with us. And then finally aswe really began to get into the researchthere, then they really started workingclosely with us.

Seney: What did you learn from them?

Trelease: Well, we learned a lot of some of the basicthings about the lake, where the trout hadformerly ran up in the early days. Welearned quite a bit about what the fishingwas like and what the fish runs were like inthe early days before Derby Dam was put inand had its effect. We learned a lot abouthow the Indian people thought.

Seney: How did they describe the fish runs to youbefore Derby Dam was put in?

Trelease: Well, the way they described it, there was anample number of fish that all they had to dowas just go down almost at any time of theyear and get any number of fish that theywanted. And then they'd split them and putthem over racks and dry them for winter use. And then during the spring and summer, ofcourse, they'd get them for their use duringthe spring and summer. But they also driedthem for winter use too–both cui-ui and


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trout. They like cui-ui very much too.

Seney: Did it take some time? I guess it was upalmost 'til the time the cutthroat trout wereextinct they were still pretty numerous.

Trelease: The cui-ui?

Seney: The cutthroat. How long did they tell youbefore they began to notice the effect of thedam on the fish?

Trelease: Well, I personally noticed it over a period ofmaybe three or four years, where I noticedthe decline.

Seney: Was it a rapid decline?

Trelease: Fairly rapid, yeah. And when it went out, itjust went out, bang, and they were gone.

Seney: You started to tell me, before I interruptedyou: What did you learn from the Indianpeople in general?

Trelease: Well, like I say, we learned what theirthinking was like, and what their attitudeswere towards white people.


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Seney: Pretty negative attitudes, I would think.

Trelease: At that time, it was very negative. I waseven told to leave a council meeting that Ihad attended one night. There was an Indianman–I won't give his name–but he wasunder the influence of liquor there and hegot up, and I can remember this very clearly,and put his head up in the air, his chin upkind of high in the air, and started talking inPaiute, and the more he'd talk, the madderhe'd get. And finally they stopped him and Iguess it was his wife was with him. She gotup and then she started doing the same thing. And then before long it seemed like two orthree of them were talking very loudly andemphatically in Paiute, so the chairmanstopped the meeting and he told me that hethought I'd probably better leave, that theywere getting pretty irate, just talking aboutwhat happened to their fishery. And so hehad a couple of other Indians there escort meout to my car, and I took off and left. Quitesome time later I got to know this Indianfellow that started the problem there, and gotto be fairly good friends with him.

END SIDE 1, TAPE 1. SEPTEMBER 12, 1994.BEGIN SIDE 2, TAPE 1. SEPTEMBER 12, 1994.


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Trelease: And then about that same time I got to knowhis brother, and got to be good friends withhim, and he was one of our strong supportersup until he died. It was quite a rewardingexperience working with those people andseeing them come around to our way ofthinking. Well, anyway, as time went on,we went into more and more research, andthen we applied . . .

Seney: Excuse me for interrupting: You started tosay something about the way theIndians think. And I keep interrupting andgetting you off this subject, but the Indianview of life, as you began to appreciate it. Can you give me some sense of that?

Trelease: Well, you just mentioned there was more ofa sense [of their feelings] than what theysaid. At first they were very hostile towardsus, and then they just got to be mediocre,and being friendly, just kind of tolerated us. And then they finally got to be very friendly,and even came to us for advice and help. And they've come into our commissionmeetings and sit in on some of the meetings. They would invite me out to some of theirmeetings. I can remember one situationwhere the Navy that had a base over in


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Fallon wanted to use Pyramid Lake as arange for using torpedoes from their torpedobombers. And the Indians didn't want that,they thought that was an abuse of the lake. And they came to us for our help to helpthem in getting that stopped, which we gavethem. I don't know if we were the ones thatwere responsible for keeping the bombing orthe torpedo testing, or whatever it was, outof the lake, but they never did do it. But wedid our part in helping to prevent it. Andjust that attitude of them changing and goingfrom hostile to coming to us for help wasvery worthwhile.

Then when the Washoe Project was5

proposed, and that was a Bureau ofReclamation project, again they came to usfor help, because that would have takenmore water out of the lake and they didn'twant that. So in general, why that's theattitude they had.

5. Constructed between 1960 and 1987, the Washoe Project wasdesigned to improve the regulation of runoff from the Truckee andlower Carson River systems. It also provides fishery uses, floodprotection, fish and wildlife benefits, and recreation development. Major features of the project include: Prosser Creek, Stampede, andMarble Bluff dams, along with the Pyramid Lake Fishway. For moreinformation, see Carolyn Hartl, "Washoe Project," Denver: Bureau ofReclamation History Program, 2001,www.usbr.gov/projects/pdf.php?id=208.


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Seney: Why don't you go back to the researchproject and tell me some more about yourresearch.

Fishery Research in Pyramid Lake

Trelease: Okay, we applied to the FleischmannFoundation for our project to work onPyramid Lake. And we also added LakeTahoe and Walker Lake to it so we'd havetwo lakes that were similar in nature: thatwould be Pyramid and Walker, which wereboth terminal lakes at the ends of the riversystems that they were on. And then we hadone fresh-water lake that was free of salineconditions like Pyramid and Walker–orsaline and alkaline conditions. And theFleischmann Foundation gave us a grant of$100,000, which we then used as matchingmoney to get federal aid projects under theDingell-Johnson Act, for which we had to6

provide one-quarter of the total cost of theproject. And we started projects on thosethree lakes. And that's when we really wentinto the intensive research, and we gatheredall the information we could, and started a

6. Dingell-Johnson Act, enacted August 9, 1950, is officialreferred to as the Federal Aid in Sportfishing Restoration Act, 64 Stat.430.


24

restocking project.

Seney: This would have been for the cutthroattrout?

Trelease: This [research] was for the cutthroat and thecui-ui, because we put the cui-ui on becauseit was a very important fish to the PyramidLake Tribe. We kind of incorporated thetribe into the project. We kept them advisedof all of the things we were doing out there,and we even would go out and meet withthem in setting seasons and limits and allthat. We tried to keep them as closelyinvolved as we could. And when they saidthey wanted this, or they didn't want that, welistened to them. Then if we had goodreason for telling them we didn't agree withthat, or that we did agree with it, we'd tellthem that. And that's when we were havingour very close relationships with them. Weworked very well together.

Seney: Let me ask you, when you were saying you'dtake the Indians' views into considerationand you tried to keep them posted andcooperate with them and listen to them onthings: Why was that? Was that becausethey had some kind of political influence, orbecause you thought it was fair to do that?


25

Or maybe a combination of both?

Pyramid Lake Indians Control the Lake

Trelease: Well, mostly it was probably we wanted tobe fair with them, because we felt that theyhad been pretty badly treated in the past. And we didn't want to destroy ourrelationship with them by keeping them offto the side in a lake that was theirs. Wewanted to bring them into it and make thempart of the restoration plan and the wholeprogram there.

Seney: Could you have operated independentlywithout their approval? (Trelease: No.) Didyou have the statutory authority to do that?

Trelease: No. No, the lake belongs to them, and it'son a reservation, an Indian reservation. Andan Indian reservation, as I understand it, isjust like another nation within the UnitedStates. And except for Congress, whiteman's regulations don't apply to thereservations. Well, I don't even know iffederal [regulations apply]–I guess federalregulations might, probably like in civilcases. But you've seen situations whereeven federal officers were not allowed to


26

come onto reservations. So I don't know alot about that, but it was my understandingthat we had no authority at all over there,and the only way we could have any impactwas by cooperation.

Seney: Tell me, what were the elements of thisrecovery program of Pyramid Lake?

Fisheries Recovery Program

Trelease: Well, the primary thing was recognizingwhat the problem was, and the fact that thelake would still support trout. And then weembarked on a stocking program to see if wecould acquire any results out of that kind ofa program. We knew the trout, if there wereany in the lake, we knew that they weren'table to get up into the river to spawn. Andwe knew too that if we were going to restoreany fishing to the lake, it was going to haveto be by stocking fish in the lake and lettingthem grow there. But we didn't knowwhether little ones–we stocked little fry,fingerlings and reared fish–which one wasthe most apt to be successful. So we triedsome of each, and on the larger fish wewould fin clip them and remove one or moreof their fins so that if and when they werecaught, they would be recognized. The real


27

tiny fish and the fingerling, we didn't knowwhat would happen with those, because wewouldn't be able to differentiate those, otherthan if they were unmarked we would knowthey weren't any of the marked fish weplanted.

Seney: But you wouldn't know if they werefingerlings or whether they were fry.

Trelease: No. One of the things that also occurred thattriggered a lot of interest out there: There's aspecies of fish called Sacramento perch outthere. They were also found in WalkerLake. Over in Walker Lake you could catchthem very readily by hook and line. But Iand Dr. LaRivers had tried several times tocatch them by hook and line [from PyramidLake], and we never could. And yeah, wecould catch them in nets, and we knew theywere out in the lake. Then we'd see theiryoung ones around in the shallow shorelineareas.

So I got some friends of mine fromthe department, and we went out there onemorning to try and catch those fish. Andthis was in a winter month, because we hadtried in the summer and couldn't catch them.


28

So we thought, "What the heck, let's try it inthe wintertime." So we went out there thiswinter and the first cast that I made I tiedinto this big trout. This was in the lake closeto the mouth of the river. And the reason wewent there was we thought maybe theinflowing water would have some impact onthe Sacramento perch there. And so that'swhere we went. Well, the first cast I got thislarge trout and immediately I thought it wasone of the old original native Pyramid Lakecutthroat trout. And that got me too excited,and I started trying to horse the fish in andlost it.

So right away, though, we began tohook up more of them. And pretty quick wegot one in and we found they were notcutthroat, they were big rainbow, and theywere fish up in the five-pound class, andthey were rainbow. We came to theconclusion that they must have gotten intothe lower river, below the Derby Dam, andspawned there successfully, and got backinto the lake. Or else it was either that,or–and this was a more probableexplanation–is that during some high-waterperiods, they came down from the TruckeeRiver in the vicinity of Reno and Sparks andabove, came down over Derby Dam and


29

went on into the lake. In any event, theywere there. So we got pictures of them andput them in the paper, and that stimulated alot of interest. And almost the day after,when we went out to Pyramid, we couldn'thardly find a place to put our lines in,because people were all over the south endof the lake there.

Seney: And that was your object, was to stimulateinterest?

Trelease: That was our object, was to stimulateinterest, because even with the research thatwe were doing, and the positive outlook thatwe had on the lake, we still weren't gettingas strong of support among the public as wewanted, because they weren't as aware of itas we were, you know.

Seney: The public–you mean the fishermenespecially.

Trelease: Yeah. But when that [news article] cameout, that stimulated a lot of interest.

Seney: I'm sure it did!

Trelease: We even got a letter from the Fallon area in


30

which they told the commission they didn'twant us to do any research out there. Andthe reasoning I'm sure–this is my ownopinion–was that they didn't want us to doany research out there because they didn'twant to see a fishery restored out there,because it could conflict with their watersupply.

Seney: What year are we talking about now, thatthis is going on?

Trelease: Well, this would have been, I'd say, between1947 and 1949.

Seney: Now when you say you got a letter fromFallon, was that from the Truckee-CarsonIrrigation District, or . . .

Trelease: No, I don't recall. I think it was from theirsportsmen's group that they had. Like I toldyou before, every county had a sportsmen'sgroup. Well, they continued on an unofficialbasis. They weren't part of our state system,after the state kind of took over all of theoperations. But these local sportsmen'sgroups would send information in advisingthe commission of what they'd like to seeand what they didn't want to see. We gotthis letter in which they didn't want to see us


31

do any research out there [at Pyramid Lake].

Seney: Well, they were quite right about that,weren't they?

Trelease: Yeah, they were. Yeah, because once thatfishing began to take hold, and the generalpublic started to see the effects of it, peoplestarted getting on our side, and we wererequested and made numerous speeches toservice groups all around Reno, Sparks,Carson City, even Truckee. And peoplewanted to find out what was going on outthere.

Seney: Talking about your restoration project andabout the lake?

Efforts to Restore Pyramid Lake Fishery

Trelease: We would tell them what we were doing,and then at that time this Washoe Projectwas coming into the picture, and theCalifornia-Nevada Compact Commissionwas trying to get that project, the WashoeProject, underway and get it completed,because that would give more water to thestate of Nevada and state of California forother purposes. We were trying to get in,


32

and we'd go to numerous CompactCommission meetings, and our efforts weretrying to get water recognized for fish andwildlife for both Pyramid Lake and theStillwater Wildlife Management Area.

Seney: When you say "recognized," do you meanrecognized as a beneficial use?

Trelease: As a beneficial use, yes. We met with verystrong opposition.

Seney: Was the state of Nevada divided over this? Imean, the state government? I mean, youwere wanting the water to get down intoStillwater Marsh (Trelease: And PyramidLake.) and Pyramid Lake. What other partof the state of Nevada took a different view?

Defining a Beneficial Use for Water

Trelease: Well, there were others, like the StateEngineer's Office. They didn't recognize theuse of water for fisheries or for wildlife as abeneficial use at that time. The powercompany [Sierra Pacific Power] wasstrongly opposed to seeing water used forfisheries. They wanted to see it used fordomestic use and power generation. Theagricultural interests: they didn't want to see


33

it used for fisheries or game or wildlife,because they wanted to see it used for thegrowing of crops. So we had all these otherentities, but we felt an obligation to thesportsmen, and we also had an obligation tothe Fleischmann Foundation because theywere the ones that provided the money forthe research for the specific purpose oftrying to restore Pyramid Lake. That wasone of the main objectives. So we continuedon with our research and it was successful indeveloping the fishery.

Then once that fishery startedcoming into being that's when we began toget support from all these service groups thatwe had been talking to. And there was oneperiod of time there where if we had wantedto, I think we could have killed the WashoeProject. But we didn't, that wasn't ourobjective. We wanted to just be recognizedas part of it and have part of the waterprovided for the fishery at Pyramid Lake,and we even submitted a plan for aconsiderably less amount of water than theywould have gotten if the Washoe Project hadnever gone through, because the WashoeProject would have tapped the flood watersthat were reaching Pyramid Lake. So the


34

flood waters were helping to maintain thelake's level.

But with what we had proposed as aflow for fisheries, it was a scheduled flowwith the maximum flow of only thirty-fivesecond-feet. It would have been less thanthey would have gotten out of those floodwaters. But even that was rejected at first. And the Bureau of Reclamation, they wereopposed to us at first, again because theywanted the water for other purposes. So wewere kind of alone in fighting all these otheragencies. And we were even told once bythe power company to get out of their way orthey'd steamroller right over us. They toldus that in a public meeting. And thenWarren Toby and I one time were invited toleave a Compact Commission because theydidn't want us to apparently hear some of thethings they were talking about, so we had toleave.

Seney: You did leave?

Trelease: Yeah, we had to leave.

Sierra Pacific Power

Seney: Well, I would think when Sierra Pacific


35

Power tells you in a public meeting get outof the way or they'll steamroll over you,that's a pretty potent threat from SierraPacific.

Trelease: It was a potent threat, but see, in those days,there wasn't the interest in recreation andfish and wildlife that developed later. Andpeople just kind of accepted that fish andgame would be pushed aside for all theseother uses. They'd been doing that for solong that they just figured that was the wayof life. But we didn't feel that way. So, wekept going back and going back, and makingthese requests and putting stumbling blocksin their way in every way we could, trying toget water [fish and wildlife] recognized aspart of the beneficial uses, so at least, thatwe'd get some flow into the lake to try andhelp the lake and restore the fishery, andalso for the Stillwater Wildlife ManagementArea. And like I say, we met with strongopposition at first. But then things startedchanging on a national level.

Seney: This would be the early 1960s?

Trelease: I'd say it would be about that time, yeah. And more and more interest started to


36

develop in environmental issues. And that,coupled with our efforts on the lake in tryingto get water recognized [for fish andwildlife], finally begin to get some of theagencies to start looking a little more closelyand giving a little more consideration to us. And eventually it came around to where wegot more recognition, and we even gotrecognition for that thirty-five second-footflow of water that we had proposed.

Washoe Project

Originally we had proposed ahundred second-feet, but, soundly, we againmet with opposition on that. I think wemade the mistake of making two proposals:one for a hundred second-feet and one forthirty-five. And the thirty-five was thelesser of two evils in the eyes of theopposition. We settled for the thirty-five,and it then was recognized and consideredinto the Washoe Project documents thatwent through Congress, you know. And thatfinally became an act, and when it did, why,those recognitions were there for the flow ofwater into the lake, and for beneficial use.

Seney: Did the Washoe Project legislationrecognize fishery as a beneficial use?


37

Trelease: As I recall it did. Because of letters that wewrote and I believe they accepted, and thenby this time now the Fish and WildlifeService was getting into the act, and theIndian Service [Bureau of Indian Affairs]was beginning to take a more forcefulattitude towards protecting the interests ofthe Indians. Prior to that time, and clearback to the instigation of the NewlandsProject, the Indian Service was not taking astrong stand in favor of the Indians, becausethey were pretty well dominated by theBureau of Reclamation. And so there was aconflict and they just didn't make mucheffort.

But then as these changes began tocome about, they began to swing in behindus, and they were supportive of what wewere trying to do. And all these thingstogether began to make the Bureau change,they began to become more cooperative, andthey began to accept some of the things wewere putting into these letters andsupporting them. So that when thesedocuments went to Congress, I think one ofthe statements was that the use of water forfish and wildlife would be recognized as abeneficial use. I think that's in there. I


38

wouldn't swear to it, but I believe it is.

Seney: Can you comment on your first contactswith the Bureau of Reclamation as you'reworking with the Fish and WildlifeService–or maybe even earlier as you'reinterested in Pyramid Lake? Do youremember your first contacts with theBureau.

Relations with the Bureau of Reclamation

Trelease: Yeah, my first contact was that they werevery negative towards our interests, and theyjust kind of felt we were not a significantenough interest to pay much attention to us. Well, I'll mention his name, because in thelong run we worked out together alright. But there was a fellow by the name of HollisHunt, and he was in charge of the CarsonOffice which was the one that wasconcerned with Pyramid Lake and theNewlands Project. And at first he and Ididn't get along at all, and then one day Ireceived a call from him and he wanted togo out to Pyramid Lake with me and seedifferent flows that occurred in the river. And when it got down to the point where Ithought it was still suitable to allow thesebig fish to come up and go back down, to let


39

him know. So I received this call from him,and I said sure I'd be glad to do that.

And this surprised me, becausebefore that he was always so negative, youknow. So when I kept going out there andchecking the river in the places I felt werepretty critical outside of the delta area, andwhen the flows got to the point that I felt theflows were as low as we could [safely] go,that's when I called him and we went outthere together. And the flows at that timewere between a hundred second-feet andthirty-five second-feet. So that was how wearrived at our thirty-five second-footminimum flow. And that all went into thesedocuments that went to Congress.

Seney: As a result of your taking him out there, Itake it he didn't oppose you on that then–heaccepted the thirty-five second-feet flow.

Trelease: Yeah. By that time, getting out there withhim kind of opened our eyes, both of us, oneach side's viewpoints and everything, and itwas helpful. Before that, all I'd ever done ismet him at these meetings and there he had alot of the other people that were alsoopposed to us, that I think he felt he had to


40

take a stronger position against us, becausethey were looking over his shoulder. Butwhen we were alone out there, I found outhe wasn't a half-bad guy. (both chuckle)

Relations with Sierra Pacific Power

This also happened with a fellow inthe power company. His name was GeorgeDevore, and he's the one that told us [to getout of their way or they would stemrollerright over us].


Seney: This is September 12, 1994. My name isDonald Seney and I'm with Mr. Thomas J.Trelease at his home in Verdi, Nevada.

Trelease: Actually, I am in California. This is inCalifornia.

Seney: Oh we are? I see the Sierra County sign. Ithought maybe it was California.

Go ahead about Mr. Devore and thepower company.

Trelease: Yes, I was telling about George Devore. He


41

and I just didn't see eye-to-eye at all, but astimes begin to change, and as the CompactCommission developed, kind of an oddthing happened there. George, in the earlypart of the Compact Commission, was reallythe only one that had a lot of very goodknowledge on the flows of the river, becausehe'd lived with it for a long time. AndCalifornia was kind of at a disadvantage,because they didn't have that kind ofinformation. But then the Colorado Riversuit that was going on terminated down7

there, and they had a group of people, andit's my understanding that these computerpeople working on the Colorado River weretransferred to Sacramento and some of themwere put on this Washoe Project. So thenthey began to feed all this information, allthese past records into the computers, andbefore long they had it in a situation wherethey could come up with accurateinformation quicker than George Devorecould.

7. It is believed that Mr. Trelease is referring to Arizona v.California, 373 US 546 (1963). For more information, see Justia USSupreme Court, "Arizona v. California, 373 US 546 (1963),"https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/373/546/. (Accessed2/2019)


42

Well this then put him at adisadvantage. And then he began to try toget all of the support he could for gettingwater into the state of Nevada, get it on ourside of the state line. And lo and behold, hestarted becoming friendly with me, andeventually we got to respect each other quitea lot. When he left we had a healthy respectand knew each other and liked each other.

Seney: Sierra Pacific Power has, I suppose, adeserved reputation for being somewhatpragmatic in these matters.

Opposition to the Fish Recovery Plans

Trelease: Yeah, they were. Well, like I said, thepower company–well, the ones that wereopposed to us was the power company, theCity of Reno, the City of Sparks, WashoeCounty, the Bureau of Reclamation, theTruckee-Carson Irrigation District, and thenthere was another irrigation district right inReno.

Seney: The Washoe County Water ConservationDistrict?

Trelease: That may have been the name of it. I knowtheir interest primarily focused around Boca


43

Reservoir.

Seney: They're the ones who paid for Boca.

Trelease: Yeah, and Mr.Dick Taylor was the one thatwas in charge of that. They were somewhatopposed to us, although they were a littlemore cooperative, because they had a kindof a chunk of water that was not part of thewhole picture, because they had the storedwater in Boca Reservoir. But those are thegroups who were opposed to us.

Seney: Sounds like everyone was opposed to you.

Trelease: They were. We were about the only onesthat wanted to see the [for fish and wildlifeuse] water–and the sportsmen, of course. But we were their voice, you know.

Seney: Well, it sounds to me like from what you'vesaid that the real changes occurred not somuch locally, but nationally in terms ofchanges about environment and Indianrights, and those filtered down and had animpact locally. Is that kind of the way itwent?

Support for Fishery Recovery Emerges


44

Trelease: Well, there were two main factors thateffected a real change. First and probablyforemost was the development of thefishery. So people were going out and theywere getting these fish, and that stimulated alot of local interest. And it was the localinterest–we could have stopped that WashoeProject at one point there, because they werestrongly on our side. They wanted water forPyramid Lake. Then when this recreationthing came into the picture, that was kind ofa simultaneous thing, but slightly behind thedevelopment of the fishery. That augmentedthe support that we were getting, and beganto put more and more pressure on theseagencies and interests who were opposed tous. And gradually I guess they could see thepicture on the wall and started comingaround giving us more recognition.

And then finally the icing on thecake–and this is after the Washoe Projectand after the development of the fishery andits recognition as a national resource, thefinal thing was the [law] suits that theIndians brought against the water users onthe Truckee River system to get waterrecognized for their fishery, which went tocourt, and eventually they won in theSupreme Court. They were awarded water.


45

It's my understanding, and I don't have thewording on it, but they were awarded watersufficient to allow the maintenance of thefishery of their lake.

Seney: The Endangered Species Act is importanttoo isn’t it?

Trelease: Yeah, that was an important one, especiallyon the cui-ui. But that also applied to thecutthroat trout. But again, that was part ofthe environmental interest that wasdeveloping in those days. And that law hada substantial effect in the Washoe Projectand on the Truckee River's system, becausecui-ui were recognized as a rare andendangered species, and so was the cutthroattrout. And we were instrumental–we weren'tthe only ones–but we participated in gettingboth of those species recognized as rare andendangered species. I think now thecutthroat has been elevated to a threatenedspecies now. But the cui-ui is stillconsidered a rare and endangered species.

Seney: Do you recall when the Indians began to usethe courts to press their rights for morewater?


46

Pyramid Lake Tribe Uses Court to Press Their Rights

Trelease: I remember when they hired an attorney towork for them. He, up to the time Iretired–well, even before–they filed theirsuit with another attorney. Some conflict, Idon't know just what the conflict was, arose,and they let that attorney go, and then theyhired another attorney. I think he was aprivate attorney. They hired a second one. And then they got some attorneys from theJustice Department out of Washington. Andthen the suit was filed, I think, about thetime they got their second attorney.

Seney: Would that be Mr. [Robert] Pelcyger?8

Trelease: No, even before him. This is a little hazy inmy mind, I can't think of his name. Hecame over, I believe, from Winnemucca, andhe worked with Bob Pelcyger, and also afellow by the name of King, that passedaway during that period of time. Either the

8. Robert Pelcyger participated in Reclamation's Newlands SeriesOral History Project. See, Robert (Bob) S. Pelcyger, Oral HistoryInterviews, Transcript of tape-recorded Bureau of Reclamation OralHistory Interviews conducted by Professor Donald B. Seney for theBureau of Reclamation, in 1995 and 2006, in Reno, Nevada, andBoulder, Colorado, 1995 interviews edited by Donald B. Seney and allinterviews further edited by Brit Allan Storey, senior historian of theBureau of Reclamation, 2013, www.usbr.gov/history/oralhist.html.


47

private attorney filed the suit, or maybePelcyger or King. It was right in that sameera. They filed a suit which finally went onup to the Supreme Court.

Seney: Well that one, actually the Indians didn't doso well on. That one they didn't let themreopen the Orr Ditch Decree. I mean, they9

won some rights on that, but it wasn't reallya big victory for them. There was a suit thatcame sort of in the midst of all that. TheOCAP suit in Judge [Gerhard] Gessel's courtin Washington, D.C., where the judge saidthat T-C-I-D had to use the water moreefficiently and divert more into Pyramid

9. The Orr Ditch Decree was entered by the U.S. District Courtfor the District of Nevada in 1944 in United States v. Orr Water DitchCo., et al. The decree was the result of a legal action brought by theUnited States in 1913 to fully specify who owned water rights on theTruckee River and had rights to storage in Lake Tahoe. The Orr Ditchdecree adjudicated water rights of the Truckee River in Nevada andestablished amounts, places, types of use, and priorities of the variousrights, including the United States’ right to store water in Lake Tahoefor the Newlands Project. The decree also incorporated the 1935Truckee River Agreement among Sierra Pacific Power Company (nowTruckee Meadows Water Authority), TCID, Washoe County WaterConservation District, Department of the Interior, and certain otherTruckee River water users. See, Truckee Carson Irrigation District,“What is the Orr Ditch Decree and why is it important?” http://www.tcid.org/support/faq-detail-view/what-is-the-orr-ditch-decree-and-why-is-it-important (Accessed 5/2016)


48

Lake. That was one I think that maybe theywon more than what became known asNevada v. the United States.

Trelease: Well, I remember the first court. It wasappealed. Then it went to San Francisco, Ithink, and it was appealed there, I believe. Both of those cases the Indians lost. Then itwent to the Supreme Court. Maybe that'sthe one you're talking about.

Seney: Right. And it did define some of the rights,but they won a big victory when the courtruled that the Secretary of the Interior couldtake the water from Stampede Reservoir anduse it for Pyramid Lake.

Trelease: Well that's probably the one I'm thinking of.

Seney: Yeah, to use it to restore Pyramid Lake. (Trelease: Yeah.) So the Secretary of theInterior has the authority to do that.

When did you retire from Fish andGame?

Trelease: I retired in 1976 and that's why I'm gettinginto a hazy area.

Seney: Right, some of these things come a little bit


49

after 1976.

Trelease: Yeah, because I started working for theattorneys for the state while I was stillemployed with the Fish and GameDepartment. They assigned me that as partof the project. And then I retired, and Icontinued working with the state for a while,and then when I got completely out of it,that's when I began to lose contact with it,and I'm kind of hazy about what happened inthe courts because I wasn't personallyinvolved.

Seney: I want to go back to ask you a little bit moreabout the original recovery. When you putthe fry in–and define for me and for thepeople who are going to read this–what doesit mean when you say a "fry" when you'retalking about fish?

More on the Pyramid Lake Recovery Program

Trelease: When trout first hatch out, they have theyolk sac still attached to them, and theirmouth parts aren't fully developed to wherethey can eat, so they live on that yolk sac. They consider that the alevin or fry stage. Then as they continue to grow, then their


50

mouth parts fully develop, the yolk sacshrinks up, and then they begin to ingestoutside food. And as they're doing that,they're growing, and when they get up toabout the size of your finger, probably of asmall man, they start calling them fingerling. And then when they get up to about sixinches long, they start calling them rearedtrout.

At each stage, the fry stage, they'remore susceptible to predation becausethey've got even insects that prey on themthen, plus all the diseases that will affecttrout, you know, plus larger predators thatwill eat them. And then they get up tofingerling stage, they probably eliminate alot of the insects that can prey on them, butthey still have other predators that will eatthem, besides the diseases. Then when theyget up to six inches long, they have fewerpredators, but they still have diseases andthey still have predators that can eat them. And then about that size, they start biting onhooks and they can be affected by man then.

Seney: The major predator.

Trelease: Yeah, the major predator. So when we setup the programs at Pyramid Lake, we took


51

those things into consideration, and we wentfor six-inch fish to try and get them awayfrom chubs, which were very abundant inPyramid Lake, and they can get up to aboutfourteen inches in length, and they will eatsmall fish. They can't, I don't believe,handle a six-inch trout, though. So that waswhy we went to planting reared fish, and itworked, and they continued growing out inthe lake and they'd come back and therewere some phenomenal catches made onlarge fish out there.

Well then we found that people wereusing bait that would catch the little fish,and they would catch fish even down to tenand twelve inches long. We knew the lakewas capable of growing much larger fish andwe wanted to see them get to be trophy fish. So people that were using bait like salmoneggs or worms or something like that, theywere catching too many of those small fish,so we told the Indians, "We'd like to see aregulation which would prohibit the anglerfrom using bait, and he could only useartificial lures. And then we'd like to see asize limit of seventeen inches put on, whichwould get the fish through that first year'sonslaught of anglers after they were planted,


52

and give them the chance to get some realsize on them." And the Indians went alongwith this.

Seney: How long would it take the average six-inchreared trout to get up to seventeen inches? One year?

Trelease: Well, the first year that we planted them,they wouldn't make it. The second year theycould make it. But some of them wouldreach the seventeen-inch size limit. So thenwe went to a nineteen-inch size limit, andmade it so that the angler couldn't keep afish under nineteen inches. And that seemedto be working. Then the fish started comingin on their third summer out in the lake,they'd pass the nineteen-inch size limit, andthen they'd be caught the following fall astwenty-, twenty-five-inch fish–be real nicefish. And the Indians went along with us onthat. Then later after we relinquished ourpart in the fishery of the lake, the Fish andWildlife Service then started coming inpretty strong.

Seney: You turned it over to them, did you?

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Takes Over RecoveryProgram


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Trelease: The Fish and Wildlife Service had morefunds at their disposal than we did. Andthey built hatcheries to supply fish to thelake. We kind of got into a conflict withthem, and finally our State Fish and GameDepartment just pulled out it, said, "Youtake it." And we got out of it totally. Wehated to do it because we felt we had alegitimate place in the program out therebecause we had started it and developed andrestored the fishery.

Seney: What year was it that you got out and turnedit over to them?

Trelease: I'd say it was in the 70s. I'd have to go backthrough my records to find that out. Anyway, we pulled out of the managementof the lake entirely. It was after the fisheriesproject was started at the lake and the newdam was built at Marble Bluff, and the fishfacility was put in. We had helped developall the plans for that, and worked with theBureau of Reclamation, even went back toDenver, Colorado. They had a model whichthey had built there where they could putflows of water through there that would beequivalent to so much flow [in the river]. Then they got sand and gravel from the


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Pyramid Lake area and took it back there tosee how much velocity it would take beforeerosion would become a problem downthere. We even worked with them and wentback there on that. So we felt we had alegitimate place in the management, but theFish and Wildlife Service didn't exactly feelthat way, nor did the Indians. The Indiansfelt that they could get more out of the Fishand Wildlife Service because they had morefunds to work with [than we did]. So we gotout of it. And the Fish and Wildlife Servicethen took over the management.

Well, one of the first things they didis start changing regulations. And fromwhat I've heard since, the fishing had gonedownhill. It wasn't maintained at the levelthat we had it. One of the things they didwas to take off the nineteen-inch size limit. Just too many fish that second year werebeing taken under the seventeen [inch sizelimit].

Seney: So the catch of big fish began to decline.

Trelease: Yeah. So the fishing began to show signs ofit. We had men out there working duringthe fishing season [when we were involvedin the management]. A fellow by the name


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of Kay Johnson worked with us, and he didan excellent job of getting creel census data. He and Warren Toby would work out therein all kinds of weather, getting creel censusdata which showed us what was happening,you know.

Seney: "Creel census data," meaning?

Trelease: Well, you stop the anglers after they'vefinished coming off the lake, you find outhow many fish they caught, you measureeach fish that they caught and get the weightof it, and [check to see] if there's any taggedfish–that's with metal tags or other types oftags, you get that off of the fish [that wereplaced on the fish prior to planting them]. Ifthey had any clipped fins, you'd get that offthe lake. And you'd find out how long theangler fished to catch the fish that he had. You get the number of anglers as they comeoff. You get a wealth of information thatgave you the opportunity to evaluate yourtagging programs and your fin-clippingoperations and your planting operations. Wewere tagging and marking fish at differentsizes.

So that's what we were doing, and


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that was helping us to evaluate [the fishery]. And we had the good cooperation of theIndians at that time, and everybody seemedto be pleased. But when we got the thirdparty in, the Fish and Wildlife Service–andI'm not saying this to be nasty about it butit's what actually happened. I can evendocument these things. I've got files of datahere that show these things I've been talkingabout.

Seney: You mean when they began to attempt totake things over.

Trelease: Yeah.

Seney: Again, you think the motive was here on theIndians' part simply that this was a littlericher source of funds (Trelease: Yeah.) thanyou guys were.

Trelease: They still were very friendly to us asindividuals, but they could see that we didn'thave the funds to work with that the federalgovernment had, and the federalgovernment, the people that worked forthem, it's like a triangle of women andmen–they don't always see eye-to-eye. Sowe'd get into conflicts, and as we got intothose conflicts we could see that we were at


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a disadvantage because we didn't have thatkind of money. So we just figured the bestway to do is to get out of it and let thefederal government handle it, and kind ofride herd on them and see that they did thesame kind of a job that we did. That's whatwe tried to do. But there had to besomebody kind of spearheading the thing outof our department, and after I retired, wekind of lost that desire to do that, because Ihad been working on that lake for so long, itjust was part of me almost.

Seney: It meant something to you personally, did itnot?

Trelease: Yeah. And we had some good men thattook over our department, but they had a lotof other irons in the fire around the state thatwere putting more pressure on them andmore interesting to them than Pyramid Lakewas, because by that time we were out of thePyramid Lake situation and the federalgovernment was handling it. So they hadthe attitude, "Well, let the federalgovernment continue," and they'd work onsome of their programs that they thoughtwere more important. So that's kind of theway it went.


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Seney: Let me just go back to ask you one morequestion. You said when you started outwith putting the cutthroat in, you put the fryand the fingerlings and the reared fish in,and you could clip the fins on the rearedfish, so you could tell if you were gettingreared fish. How did that work out? Did thefry and fingerlings survive, or did they . . .

Reintroducing Cutthroat Trout into Pyramid Lake

Trelease: We don't really know.

Seney: To the extent you got them back out, werethey mostly clipped fins?

Trelease: Well, we got a lot of clipped fins and we gota lot of unclipped fish, and that's why wethought maybe some of these, particularlyfingerling–we didn't have much confidencein the real small ones, but we thought thatthe unclipped fingerling that we were puttingin were coming into the picture. Andanother thing that gave us a little support onthat is we had planted some Kokanee salmoninto the lake, and they were only planted asfingerling, and we got some of those back. But they never seemed to do well, they neverput the growth on that we hoped they would,and so we just quit fooling with them and


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they gradually faded out of the picture.

Seney: And you stuck with the cutthroat?

Trelease: We stuck with the rainbow and thecutthroat, but we tried to get more emphasison the cutthroat. But in the early stage ofworking with cutthroat there wasn't a lotknown about them, and some of ourpersonnel were the ones that developed mostof the information on the rearing ofcutthroat. And as time went on and theybecame more successful at rearing them, weput more and more in, up to the capability ofour facilities. And that's why when thefederal government came in they put in ahatchery over on the Carson River byMinden that would provide more cutthroattrout, and put in the facility at the mouth ofthe Truckee River for taking eggs from thePyramid Lake Trout that were successful,you know, with the thought that those eggsand young would be more successfulbecause they survived in Pyramid Lake, andit was kind of a natural selection thing. Nowwe agree with that wholeheartedly.



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Seney: The [original] cutthroat trout [population]died out in Pyramid Lake and that the onesthat replaced them came from IndependenceLake, is that right?

Trelease: No, it's not right, it wasn't Independence. We used to take eggs in cooperation withCalifornia at Heenan Lake. There's twoversions I've heard on how the fish got intoHeenan Lake, which is in California, southof Minden and Gardnerville. One is thatthey were cutthroat trout that came up out ofWalker Lake, [into the part of the Walkerthat lies in California] and the other one thatthey were planted in there from Blue Lake,and I don't know where Blue Lake is inCalifornia.

Seney: It's along Highway 89, back off Highway 89.

Trelease: Is that in that same area?

Seney: In the same area, yes. A little bit furtherover towards–do you know where RedLakes is?

Trelease: I've heard of it.

Seney: It's off Highway 89, back in that area, so it'sa distance.


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Trelease: Well is it part of the Walker River drainage? Is it in that?

Seney: You know, it may be, as a matter of fact.

Trelease: Well, in either case, they could possibly bethe Walker River strain of cutthroat trout.

Seney: But that would be different than the PyramidLake strain.

Trelease: That would have been a different strain. Butbecause of that, we had contacted Californiaand asked them if we could take eggs atHeenan Lake, and they graciously gave usthe authority to do that. (aside about tape) And as time went on, they kept letting ustake eggs every year there. Well, we'd takethe eggs there and take them into the VerdiHatchery, hatch them out, and then rearthem up to fingerling stage or even up toreared fish stage for planting throughout thestate, and into Pyramid Lake.

Then we started taking fingerling andhauling them up to Catnip Reservoir up innorthern Washoe County, and it was eithernorthern Washoe or northern HumboldtCounty. And we'd take eggs from there,


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after we developed runs there, and bringthem down to the hatchery as well, as wellas from Heenan Lake. And then we startedtaking eggs in Summit Lake, which wereendemic to that lake, and doing the samething, taking eggs there and hauling themdown to Verdi and hatching them out, andthen planting those out as reared fish intoPyramid. And then finally we planted someof the cutthroat into Marlette Lake which ishigh above Lake Tahoe [in Nevada], and wedeveloped a population of them up there. We took eggs up there and used them for thesame purpose. So we were getting eggsfrom all these different sources, and we'd finclip them differently to see which onesseemed to be the most successful.

Seney: Was there a difference between them?

Trelease: We would get better returns on some than onothers. And that's about the time I began toget out of the picture.

Seney: Does this turn them into a kind of a hybrid.

Trelease: They weren't hybrids, they were pure strainsof each one.

Seney: I'm thinking about when they spawn. Will


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the male of one of the other strains fertilizethe eggs?

Trelease: No, because we would only take markedmales. And we'd take like marked femalesand fertilize them and then rear [the youngand plant them] them. We tried to keepthem separate all the way through [theprocess].

Seney: You need a fish hatchery down at PyramidLake, and there is one there now, becausethe fish don't get out, right? You've got toartificially inseminate them, so to speak.

Trelease: Yeah, unless they can successfully spawn inthe Lower Truckee River below Derby Dam. And I think that there's some effort beingmade to see what they will do in that sectionof the river. But while I was with them,why, we hadn't reached that stage. We werestill stocking various strains into the lake,and checking to see how they would do. Well then when the Fish and WildlifeService came into the picture, they used thefish from the hatchery over by Minden to domost of their rearing, and then they'd stockthem into the lake. And then they built ahatchery on the reservation down by


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Numana Dam, and they would use that forrearing. I've never even been in thathatchery, so I don't know just what they'redoing there.

Seney: Well, one of the people I'll be talking to isthe man who runs that facility, so I'll at leastbe able to ask him.

Trelease: Yeah, he'll be able to tell you how they'reusing it

Seney: Right. Did you do much down at theStillwater Wildlife Area too?

Stillwater Wildlife Area

Trelease: I was in charge of the fisheries program atStillwater, but it was primarily bass andcatfish, bluegill.

Seney: During the time that you would have been incharge of that, toward the end of that periodjust before you were retiring, was thewildlife area shrinking, the marsh shrinkingbecause of less spillage from T-C-I-D?

Trelease: Yes, partially that, and partially because ofthe drought. We had some dry years then,too, before I retired. The marsh got very


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low.

Seney: What were you doing down in the marsh? Can you tell me a little bit about the marshproject?

Trelease: Mostly I was just working with the man thatwe had assigned to that area. His name wasBob Sumner. I was working with him andwe were principally trying to maintain thebass population, which was the importantfishery there, and also catfish. That was apretty important fishery, and there weresome bluegill in there, but it was mostlylarge-mouth black bass.

Seney: Is there anything that you want to tell methat I haven't asked you about Pyramid Lakethat you think is important for us to know? And the role of the Newlands Project, andthe Bureau, and all of these things?

Trelease: Well, after I retired, I was asked to be aconsultant for the state. But I told thembefore I ever went to work with them thatmy primary interest was Pyramid Lake, andI'd help them to try and get all the water theycould, if it didn't interfere with restoring thefishery of the lake. And I did try that, and I


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tried to help the people that I workedwith–that is, the attorneys and give them asaccurate of information as I could, and I didthat. And not always was [the information Igave them] in their favor, but theyappreciated it.

Seney: What exactly were you working on that kindof put you on the other side of the question?

Trelease: Well, I tried to emphasize the lower flowsthat would sustain both the cui-ui and thecutthroat, rather than going for higher flows,I would try and focus-in on the lower flowsthat would still be successful in getting thefishery protected. And that's what my focuswas. And I worked with the attorneys andthe engineers in that same regard.

Seney: Let me ask you after all this experience withPyramid Lake, going back well more thanfifty years in your experience with the Gameand Fish Department, to kind of give meyour thoughts about the Newlands Projectand about the Bureau's activities; if youthink the Newlands Project should havebeen built in the first place; if you thinkmaybe it should be phased-out and the watershould be used for other things. Whatconclusions have you come to?


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Effects of the Newlands Project

Trelease: Well, the conclusion that I've come to is thatif the federal government had properlyrecognized the interest of the Indians andtheir commitment to the Indians, becausethey set that reservation aside, because of itsfishery. Well, instead of taking the fishaway from the water, they took the wateraway from the fish. I think that was amistake. I think if they'd have recognizedthe Indians' interests there, and includedthem in with all the other interests, and thentaken the water source and divided it up on afair basis, then everybody would have gottenconsideration. Maybe none of them wouldhave gotten all they wanted, but they wouldhave gotten their fair consideration, thateverybody would have been treated properly. And if they had done that, maybe wewouldn't have the developments inagriculture that we've got today, we probablywouldn't have the developments in the sizeof Reno and Sparks that we've got today. Pyramid Lake might have had a little moreand better fishery for the tribe, and weprobably wouldn't have all the conflictswe've got today. That's my feeling on it.


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Seney: Okay, is there anything else you want to add,because I've asked you pretty much all thequestions that I wanted to ask you about thefishery program on Pyramid Lake. I knowthere are probably many things I haven'tasked.

Trelease: Yeah, there's probably things I haven't toldyou, too.

Seney: There probably are, yeah.

Trelease: But it's because of an oversight. And then,you know, I'm not as young as I used to be,and my memory isn't as good as it used tobe. I might have gotten a few dates thatweren't quite accurate.

Seney: That's alright, we're not interested in dates somuch. We can double-check the dates. What we're more interested in is your directexperiences with the lake. Your descriptionsof the trout runs in the early days are veryvaluable and very interesting as part of therecord. Those are probably not writtendown any other place, and that's the kind ofthing that we're interested in. Are there anyother kinds of those sort of observations orrecollections that you might want to includethat maybe you haven't because I haven't


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asked the right question?

Trelease: No, it isn’t because you haven’t asked theright questions–your questions have beenfine–but there are some of the wishes that Iwould like to have seen. I wish that the Fishand Wildlife Service and the Department ofFish and Game and the Indians could havecontinued working closely together as ateam. I think more progress would havebeen made on the fishery, and I think that alot of hard feelings could have been avoided. But that’s all water under the bridge now,and it is too late, so there’s no point in goingback and looking as that. The only thing wecan do, or should do is see what we’ve gottoday and go forward on it.

Seney: Well, on behalf of the Bureau ofReclamation, I really appreciate your givingus you time and insights. It will be veryuseful.

Trelease: Glad to do it.

Seney: Thanks, again.

END SIDE 2, TAPE 2. SEPTEMBER 12, 1994.END OF INTERVIEW.


trelease. thomas j. d2 9.12.94 … · you to tell me about your mother and father, what they did,...

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