The Spirit of the Stanislaus

Ex-river guide among many who fought dam

By Alex Breitler
Record Staff Writer
June 14, 2009 6:00 AM

ANGELS CAMP - With water already pooling behind New Melones Dam, river guide Mark Dubois wandered upstream and bolted himself to a rock with a 6-inch chain around his ankle.

He sat.

Authorities got word and went searching, but Dubois didn't want to be found; trees and brush cloaked him from the helicopters and boats.

He claimed to his friends, who brought him food under cover of darkness, that he was willing to drown to save the scenic Stanislaus River canyon.
But federal officials blinked; that claim could not be tested. A dry Dubois climbed out of the canyon after one week, having received assurances that the reservoir would not rise above Parrott's Ferry Bridge that year. Eventually, of course, it did, and today New Melones Lake is California's fourth-largest reservoir.

Dubois, now a prominent environmental activist, and about 150 others gathered in Angels Camp last weekend to remember the 30th anniversary of his protest, and a river swallowed up by California's growing thirst.
"I had fallen in love with the place," Dubois said. "I got completely swept into it. And I felt that the life, magic and beauty of the place - that 9 million years of evolution - was about to be eradicated if I didn't speak up."
The bittersweet reunion came, coincidentally, three days after the release of a new plan to protect steelhead on the Stanislaus. That plan from the National Marine Fisheries Service says New Melones Dam - which supplies Stockton and south San Joaquin County with much-needed water - has imperiled a fragile population of steelhead that spawns downstream.
With the focus on the Delta as the heart of California's water wars, one might forget that New Melones was perhaps the country's last great battle over a large new dam.

The Stanislaus was, as one advocate put it, "the last river lost." Advocacy group Friends of the River said the decade-long fight was "probably the biggest citizen effort to save a river and stop a dam in American history."
At stake was nine miles of Class 3 river rapids through a cave-riddled limestone canyon. Even beginning boaters could enjoy the trip, often spread over two days, recalled George Wendt, president of Angels Camp-based Outdoor Adventure River Specialists.

Much of the land was public and accessible, unlike other streams. Historic artifacts abounded. And upstream dams meant reliable year-round flows for rafters, Wendt said.

Supporters of the dam argued New Melones would increase storage while providing flood control, hydroelectric power and lake recreation. Calaveras County leaders, whose law enforcement officers spent time and money searching for Dubois, called his hideout "a cheap publicity trick."
The reservoir finally filled in 1983. The protestors lost, but Wendt said the movement triggered "a major societal shift."

"We realized we can't keep expending resources and borrowing from the future," he said.

Last weekend, Dubois, 60, of Bainbridge Island, Wash., visited New Melones on his own for the first time since chaining himself to the canyon wall. He saw the bathtub ring of mud around the lake. A half-dozen motorboats jetted through the water.

"It was just stunning to feel the death of the place, compared to the magic of the river," he said. "The place just felt dead."

Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com