Lir Letter To Senators And Representatives

[jwpage]

Anyone that is concerned about the LIR, below is a sample letter to send to our Senators and Representatives.

Dear __(PLACE Senator or Congressman name here) ___

Anglers across eastern Oklahoma are holding their breath as we prepare to witness a

potential die off of all the trout in the Lower Illinois River.

A long term solution for the water issue on the lower Illinois River is needed but more

pressing is the imminent threat of a potential die off of all trout in the river when the

current "band-aid" will be removed leaving no water for the river. The situation at hand

is the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation very soon will be without any

water control to continue the mitigation trout stocking. Plus, without continuous flow in

September and October, during what is still one of the hottest periods on record, the

trout that have been previously stocked in the river will likely succumb to the limited

supply of water and poor quality of water. Water quality will likely be reduced to the

point where violation of state standards may be an everyday occurrence. ODWC will

likely be forced to cease their regularly scheduled trout stocking programs when this

occurs.

No trout = no fisherman and that spells economic trouble for Gore, Oklahoma a

community that feeds on regular visits from trout anglers across the State Of Oklahoma,

from north Texas, and from southwest Arkansas. It will definitely hurt their economy.

Please, waste no time and call upon South West Power Administration and the Army

Corp. or Engineers to develop a water release plan that will support the federal

mitigation trout stocking providing water to the Lower Illinois River sustaining the trout

population and to allow continued stocking until colder weather comes and rains refill

Lake Tenkiller.

Sincerely,

(PLACE YOUR NAME HERE)

[DaddyO]

Consider it done. I used the following website http://www.oklegislature.gov/ to find my legislative representatives and Senators and sent them the above email. If everyone that cares about this river system does the same, maybe we'll see some action.

Thanks for posting the letter JW.

[JCWolfe]

www.Tulsaflyfishers.org has this letter with links to our senators, just copy and paste to their websites.

[jwpage]

I'm a member of Trout Unlimited and received this letter via the local President. Since I wasn't sure if everyone on ozarkanglers new about this I thought I would post the letter to muster support.

Lets hope it does some good and our representatives listen.

[JCWolfe]

Got this in the weekly OWD email,

Trout stocking suspended at Lower Illinois River

Trout stocking at the Lower Illinois River near Gore has been suspended until water quality improves according to officials with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. The trout fishery is supported by water released from Lake Tenkiller. The majority of that water is released for hydropower generation. However during non-generation hours the only water available to maintain suitable flows, oxygen levels and water temperatures has come from an allocation loaned to ODWC by Sequoyah Fuels Corp. That allocation has run out.

The Lower Illinois River is one of the only two year-round trout fisheries in the state and is managed by the Wildlife Department. While the long, dry summer of 2011 has contributed to poor water quality and insufficient water quantity, the underlying issue is that there is no permanent water allocation in Lake Tenkiller dedicated to the trout fishery. ODWC is pursuing possible solutions with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other users of water in Lake Tenkiller. Officials hope that trout stocking can resume once flows are restored and water quality improves.