The Clearlake City Council is scheduled to decide Thursday whether to join the co-management agreement for Clear Lake and the hitch, and the version in front of the council isn’t the one Lake County supervisors approved four weeks ago. A seventh tribe has been added.
The agreement is the Clear Lake Watershed and Chi Memorandum of Understanding Co-Management Agreement. Its Appendix 1, a roster titled “Participating Governments,” now lists 23. The draft the Board of Supervisors approved on July 7 listed 22.
The addition is Koi Nation of Northern California. The two documents are the 49-page draft posted to the county’s Legistar system as matter 18320 and the agreement attached to the agenda packet Clearlake posted for Thursday’s meeting. Compared side by side, they show Koi Nation inserted as party No. 7 in Appendix 1, ahead of the state agencies, with its own signature page and its own entry in the appendix where each government describes what it will contribute.
Neither the agenda nor the staff report explains when the tribe was added, or at whose request.
The agreement would seat Koi Nation alongside the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, Robinson Rancheria, the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Middletown Rancheria, the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Elem Indian Colony. Also at the table: the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the State Lands Commission, the California Conservation Corps, the State Water Resources Control Board, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, the departments of Pesticide Regulation, Toxic Substances Control and Resources Recycling and Recovery, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, the county, the Lake County Watershed Protection District, and the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport.
The chi, or Clear Lake hitch, is a minnow that lives nowhere else on earth. The state lists it as threatened, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife began work this year on a recovery plan for it under Section 2079.1 of the Fish and Game Code.
Koi Nation isn’t new to the lake’s management. The agreement itself records the connection. In the appendix listing the Department of Parks and Recreation’s commitments, the department notes a tribal memorandum of understanding with Koi Nation executed Aug. 30, 2023, running five years, covering Anderson Marsh State Historic Park at the southeast end of the lake. The department lists a second such agreement with Big Valley, executed June 21, 2024, covering Clear Lake State Park.
Koi Nation’s entry in the agreement is the only one of the seven tribal entries that hasn’t been filled in. Where the other six name the constitution or charter under which each tribe is organized, Koi Nation’s reads “as defined by the ___________________.” Where the others designate a specific officer, Koi Nation’s designates “their POSITION.” Its point of contact is listed as Rob Morgan, with an email address but no title and no phone number. Every other tribe lists a name, a title, an email and a phone.
What the council is being asked to approve is deliberately weak. City Manager Alan Flora’s staff report describes the agreement as establishing “a voluntary framework for participating governments and agencies to improve communication, share information, coordinate planning, identify common priorities, and pursue collaborative funding and restoration opportunities.” It’s “intended to support cooperation rather than create a new regulatory agency,” Flora wrote, and doesn’t transfer the city’s legislative, regulatory, land-use, contractual, police or proprietary authority to anyone else.
Flora’s report goes further, recommending that the city’s approval “remain conditioned on provisions confirming that the agreement is voluntary and nonbinding,” that it preserve every party’s existing jurisdiction, legal rights, property rights, water rights and regulatory authority, that no party be able to bind another without written authorization, and that the city be able to withdraw. Any money, contract or project that comes out of the process would need separate council approval.
The agreement runs five years and renews automatically. Any party can leave on 60 days’ notice.
It also hasn’t taken effect. Section V of the agreement says it “shall take effect upon the date of the final signature.” Lake County’s approval in July bought a signature, not an agreement. Until every one of the 23 governments signs — including whichever of them was the last to be invited — there’s nothing to co-manage under.
The council meets at 6 p.m. Thursday at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.