Plumas Lake Ca

Appellate justices bar class-action status in lake-poisoning cases

The state's Herculean effort to wipe the northern pike out of Lake Davis in Plumas County wreaked havoc on the economy in and around Portola, but the city and owners and operators of businesses and property may not proceed in court against the state as a class, an appellate court has ruled.

The character and interests of the proposed plaintiffs are far too varied to allow them to press a single lawsuit as a class, a three-justice panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento decided.

The justices struck down class certification granted by Plumas Superior Court Judge Janet Hilde. Their ruling means the plaintiffs will have to sue the state individually.

In 1997 and 2007, the California Fish and Game Department dumped thousands of gallons of rotenone – a naturally occurring poison deadly to gilled creatures – into the scenic mountain reservoir and its tributaries to rid them of the invasive, voracious fish.

After the 1997 poisoning, which was unsuccessful, the Legislature determined the area's residents had suffered economic harm and appropriated more than $9.1 million to compensate them.

After the 2007 poisoning – during much harder economic times – six individuals, a family trust, an RV park and the city of Portola filed damage claims with the state Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board, but the claims were rejected.

The goals of Fish and Game were to preserve tourism in the sparsely populated area and to prevent migration of the pike to other bodies of water.

In 2007, in addition to the poisoning, Fish and Game widely publicized its plan, closed all roads to Lake Davis, and placed large, blinking signs on Highway 70 advising the public what was going on.

According to the plaintiffs, the signs were unclear and misleading, prompting a widespread belief that the entire area, including Portola, was closed. They also allege that Fish and Game left the signs up for more than a week after the roads were reopened.

The forest around Lake Davis remained closed from September 2007 through January 2008, and the lake was not again certified as a source of drinking water until May 2008.

In 2009, a group of financial stakeholders sued Fish and Game and others, claiming the agency's solution for the pike problem created a decline in tourism that adversely affected business income, property values and tax receipts for the period leading up to and following the eradication process.

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California Place Names, The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names

The American Angler

California for the sportsman, being a collection of hints as to the haunts of the wild things of hoof, claw, scale and feather of California's land and water; the way to reach them, and some suggestions as to approved methods of capture

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Aquatic insects of California, with keys to North American genera and California species