On the environmental scoreboard, the score right now in my mind is 1 to 1.

We won the Shadow Cliffs back ponds issue.

The ongoing battle is over trout plants.

You, me and anyone with half a brain knows that stocked trout are not an environmental problem in our warm water fisheries. But the Center for Biological Diversity has sued the California Department of Fish and Game and forced them to study every single location in the state where trout are stocked to see if it's OK to stock trout.

In thinking about this (and boy have I thought about this) I think the best way to fight this right now is to go after one specific location and try to get trout stocked again.

I think Los Vaqueros reservoir near Livermore, CA is the place to wage the battle.

Los Vaqueros is as man-made as they come. There was a tiny creek there - dry most of the year - that was dammed up to make a lake that is filled with Delta water.

From that Delta water comes every possible variety of delta fish. Striped bass, silverside, Wakasagi Minnow, carp, threadfin shad, Sacramento Blackfish, etc. And in to that mix they've stocked landlocked king salmon, rainbow trout, kokanee salmon, brown trout, largemouth bass, channel catfish, and how knows what else (crappie, bluegill, ???)

The notion that stocked rainbow trout offer any substantive threat to native species (the species whose entire habitat was flooded by a lake mind you) is beyond absurd. It's ludicrous to the point of insanity.

And yet here we are, years after the lawsuit, and the CA DFG doesn't have the budget to conduct the right studies to prove the trout won't impact red legged frogs and tiger salamanders. On top of that, for some reason that I am still exploring, the Department is being required to get approval from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in addition to whatever survey they conduct.

This additional level of study is unprecedented at other locations on the approved waters list (do you really think USFWS signed off to stock Contra Loma or Rancho Seco!). It's complete nonsense and if I had to guess it's simply a legal maneuver from a beleaguered DFG that has become gun shy in the midst of legal action and bureaucratic mud.

So I don't know how to win this one. But I didn't know how to get Shadow Cliffs reopened either. And I've been after the trout stocking thing for a while now with no real progress yet. But I'm feeling buoyed by a little success and spoiling for a new fight.

Noah Greenwald and Deborah Sivas, if you are reading this, you are two truly sad and ignorant human beings. Ignorant to the environment you live in, naive to the reality of nature, naive to the complexities of of real ecosystems.

You've sued the CA DFG and forced them to make the environment worse. You've taken away recreation for the average citizen and turned kids to video games and drugs. You've sent people who would have been happy to catch a stocked fish off to hunt down our real native species. You've wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money that could have been spent protecting and improving the environment.

I'm tired of you and your wrongheaded, ignorant policy. Open your mind zealots. Get away from the computer and get out in to nature. Learn what you are really doing. Realize that all you've done in our warm water reservoirs is cause harm.

I'm coming after this one. Los Vaqueros. Trout. It's time to get it right.