Did some more homework and learned a few things.

The federal govt. is involved in this via USFWS because they were party to the Hatchery Environmental Impact Review put out by CA DFG in 2010 and are in some way specifically involved with Los Vaqueros.

How exactly they are involved, and why they might have a say here is unclear but word is DFG is waiting for the USFWS to look at the situation and give their blessing on trout stocking. Sounds like USFWS carries the bigger stick here.

Meanwhile USFWS are reportedly "short staffed" so they aren't able to give the blessing.

Short staffed could mean they are dying to do it but don't have time. It could mean they don't care at all and are using "short staffing" as an excuse to do nothing. Short staffed could mean they prefer tromping around in the brush hunting frogs or downloading the latest cool ringtones for their phones.

It could mean something in between those spectrums. One thing's for sure - they did have time to write page after page of detail about how to protect frogs and salamanders during the recent dam construction

https://www.communicationsmgr.com/projects/losvaqueros/docs/2009-0201-1%20Los%20Vaqueros%20Reservior.pdf

Interesting to note that frog barriers must be made from jute, coconut, twine or similar fibers. Who knew you could make frog barriers from jute?

Also interesting to see that when a water district wants to flood out a couple hundred acres of land to make a dam, they have to compensate by protecting land at about a 1 to 3 ratio. So for flooding 460 acres they have to protect 1,380 other acres. And for screwing up 2.18 acres of frog habitat and .82 acres of salamander habitat, they have to create, restore or enhance 6.54 acres somewhere else. It's sort of an eye for 3 eyes policy. An interesting and not altogether terrible plan.

While browsing these wonderful documents filled with fun words like extant and extirpate, I did some map study. In the where they talk about Los Vaqueros and how it relates to the Red Legged frog, they talk about a place called Unit ALA-1A.

I cut the map from the government site and overlayed a little google earth screenshot so show how this "Unit ALA-1A" where frogs have some form of special protection compares with the location of the lake. They don't seem to overlap. A puzzle? If ALA-1A doesn't cover the lake, maybe USFWS has no jurisdiction at all? Maybe the map I found is just old. Maybe USFWS has jurisdiction anywhere frogs might be.

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/8789-map.jpg

So more homework is needed. With the goal being to identify the people in the US Fish and Wildlife Service who have the power to give the blessing of the stocked trout. I wonder if they issue a decree like a king, or a snazzy PDF filled with science jargon. Or maybe, like Ceasar they simply take their thumb and point it upward.

Upward and onward.