The Pumps Gotta Go

Modern Picture Jones Pumping Plant
Scale: See the vehicles on opposite side of canal?

“There’re two sets of pumps drawing water from the Delta. One’s run by the feds and sends water to Southern California. The state runs the other one, the one blown up last night. It sends water to farms on the west side of the valley.”

Jackson stretched his legs and continued. “The pumps are huge, like 25,000 volts. They suck water out of the Delta and pump it up a hill to a canal, where it flows down the valley by gravity. They put them in back in the 50s and right away knew they had a problem. Fish that got sucked into the pumps were chopped to pieces. So they dug canals to take water to the pumps and put up screens so the fish couldn’t get in the canals.”

“Sounds like it would work,” Grant said. “What’s the problem?”

“Lots of controversy.” Jackson said, wagging a finger in the air. “Fish get caught in the screens and have to be pulled out of the water and trucked back to the Delta, far away from the canals. A lot of the fish die in the truck, plus bigger fish hang around the dump sites and gobble up the smaller ones. This has been going on for more than fifty years and they say it’s drastically affected some fish counts, particularly the little ones. And now that the Delta smelt is on the Endangered Species list, environmentalists are calling for the pumps to be shut off.”

“But if the pumps are shut off, where will L.A. get their water?” Grant asked.

“Exactly. No judge would ever go along with it, which is why they’re going after the farmers’ water first. They figure it’ll be easier to take water from a few farmers than twenty million people.”

* * * * *

Continuing from my last post about certain fish species in the San Joaquin Delta and the Tuolumne River, central to the controversy are two sets of huge siphon pumps. Both draw significant amounts of water from the Delta and ship it south.

What Officer Jackson told Grant in this scene, and what Lightfoot told the gang while sermonizing on the riverbank, is mostly true. I’ll admit I made some stuff up to further the story along (it is a work of fiction) and likely got some other stuff wrong (again: fiction).

But here’s an update to the novel: a federal judge began restricting water deliveries from the pumps in 2007. Restrictions became so severe that much of the west side of Central California has reverted back to desert, unemployment hit 45% in some counties, and billions of ag revenue has been lost.

All because the Delta smelt was put on the Endangered Species List. Here is one of the little buggers, 5 to 7 cm (2.0 to 2.8 in) long:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sacramento

Even if this had happened in the novel, it wouldn’t have been enough for John Lightfoot. Yes, the pumps have chopped up over 20 million baby salmon (that part’s true), but the pumps aren’t the whole picture. What he’s really after are the dams that control river flow.

That was the deal he’d struck with the two old Paiutes.

The pumps were for him, for fun. Because he couldn’t stand to let them be.

Want To Know Who The Bad Guy Is?

    “Like I said, I didn’t think you had,” Grant said. “But I’m going to ask you the same question I asked the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund: can you recall ever kicking anyone out of your group for espousing violence?”
    There was another pause. “Who did you talk to at the Sierra Club?”
    “Tom Richardson.”
    “Hmm.... Did he say he knew anyone like that?”
    “He said maybe, but he would have to check into it. Why?”
    “I’m surprised he didn’t mention Samuel Raimes.”
    “Well, he didn’t. Who’s Samuel Raimes?” Grant wrote the name on his pad.
    “I’m not saying he’s involved in this,” Cranston said. “I haven’t heard anything about him for, oh, eight or nine years. For all I know he could be in prison by now.”
    “Tell me about him.” Grant was all ears; he finally had a name, someone to run down.
    “I did some computer work for the Sierra Club years ago and had to attend a few board meetings. They talked about Raimes in one of the meetings.”
    “What’d they say?”
    “That he was tired of waiting for the judges and politicians to do something about the... Let’s see... Something to do with salmon.” Cranston went quiet for a few moments while he thought. “I remember now. He was upset about the salmon counts in the Tuolumne River. They were dropping and he didn’t feel enough was being done about it. That’s true, by the way. The Chinook salmon are nearly extinct in some rivers.”
    Grant said, “I’ve heard that.”
    “He wanted the Tuolumne River and the Delta returned to their natural state, which, unfortunately, will never happen. But I don’t remember them saying he wanted to blow up anything or kill someone. They just said he was crazy.”

In a "who done it," there are two ways to reveal who the bad guy is: you can keep it a secret until the end, or nearly the end, or you can tell the reader early on. Both methods have merit.

Making the reader wait until the end of the story allows you to build suspense, perhaps more so than tipping your hand early on. 

The most common way to handle the identity of a bad guy is to make it one of the characters the reader is familiar with, but was completely unaware it was him or her. It could be the jealous aunt, or, yes, even the butler. It should be a big shock the reader didn't see coming. When watching films on TV or DVD, it's always fun to stop the show and guess "who done it." A clever author will have most guessing wrong.

I've written that I read a lot of John Sandford books (all of them, in fact). Sandford occasionally keeps the identity of the bad guy(s) hidden while still letting the reader know something about him or her. He'll give the bad guy a nickname, such as something the press might be calling him. In his first novel, the bad guy was called "Maddog." The reader didn't know the Maddog's true identity until about halfway through the story, but that didn't stop Sandford from telling you a lot about him.

In THE MIGHTY T, I let the reader know who the bad guy is in the first chapter; I even let the cops know who he is early on. It's still fun to watch them go about trying to catch him because he's always a step ahead, the characters are interesting, the dialogue is good, and there's enough action to keep your attention even though you already know "who done it."

If the story is well-written, I enjoy both ploys. How about you?

Lightfoot Makes Them Pay For What They’ve Done

Old Photo of Jones Pumping Plant, circa 1958

Tonight, before they drove their bomb to the Jones Pumping Plant, Lightfoot felt the need to tell them why the pumps had to go. Again.

He stood next to the river, his back to the water, in his Indian getup, lecturing: “The salmon fed the Miwuk for centuries. They caught enough to dry…”

The rest of the gang sat on the ground and swatted at mosquitoes, which were plentiful and so aggressive they pushed through the thick layer of repellant the gang had slathered on. The pests seemed to ignore Lightfoot, much to the other’s disappointment; they were sure he wouldn’t be so long-winded if he was being eaten alive like they were.

“Then the white man came. He dammed the Tuolumne in 1923 and 1926, and once more with the New Don Pedro Dam in 1971. And he thought, in his arrogance, he could ‘manage’ the Tuolumne, improve on Nature’s perfect wisdom.”

Donaldson tuned Lightfoot out and mentally reviewed his part in tonight’s mission: he was to drive the truck bomb. Driving the bomb wasn’t dangerous, it wouldn’t explode unless it was detonated, but if the cops pulled him over he’d go to prison for a long time while the others went free.

“The mighty and noble salmon might have survived the white man’s dams, but when the white man decided to send water from the Tuolumne to southern California, they sealed the salmon’s fate.” Lightfoot’s face filled with grief that quickly morphed to rage.

“In 1951, the white man installed six 25,000-horsepower pumps near Tracy. These killer pumps siphon the Tuolumne out of the Delta and push the water through 15-foot-diameter pipes at a rate of 768 cubic feet per second.” He spat the numbers out.

The numbers meant nothing to Roberts, who was also trying to ignore Lightfoot’s ranting. How much water was in a cubic foot? He didn’t know and didn’t care. Lightfoot had him riding in the truck with Donaldson, to keep an eye on him. “If he suddenly grows a conscience, shoot him and drive the truck yourself. If he gets sick or has a heart attack, push him out and take over.” Lame.

“The pumps draw water from the Delta and lift it 197 feet into the Delta-Mendota Canal. There’s no salmon in the Delta-Mendota Canal. Do you know why? Because the pumps cut the salmon to pieces!!!”

The group had heard the speech so many times they were ready for Lightfoot’s outbursts; no one flinched. The first time Lightfoot delivered the Pump Talk, Griffith did some fact-finding research—for all the shack didn’t have, it did have a broadband Internet connection.

He learned the California Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that operated the Jones Pumping Plant, which they would hopefully blow up tonight, went to great lengths to stop fish from getting sucked into the intake canal that took water to the gigantic pumps. Various types of fish-screening devices were used and were, for the most part, fairly effective. A fish had to be less than one and a half inches long to make it through the screens.

So Lightfoot’s speech about the salmon getting cut up in the pumps was bullshit. When he told this to the others, everyone except Danny, they had all had a good laugh.

What Griffith didn’t tell the others was that while the small immature fish—the babies—couldn’t get through the screens, they often couldn’t get away from them either: the screens cut the fish up, not the pumps. Lightfoot was right, his timing was just off.

* * * * *  

Thankfully for the gang, the end of Indian Class is seconds away. Do you think Lightfoot’s “sermon” sounds rehearsed? It does, for a good reason: He’d typed and memorized it before giving it the first time. And he’s no Winston Churchill.

Lightfoot blames the decline in Tuolumne River Chinook salmon on the two dams controlling the river and the massive siphon pumps in the San Joaquin Delta. But the dams didn’t build themselves, and the pumps didn’t drop out of space and land in the Delta like some piece of space junk: humans were responsible, so humans had to pay for what they’d done.

The O’Shaughnessy Dam at Hetch Hetchy was constructed and is operated by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The Don Pedro Dam belongs to the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts. Lightfoot targets the three utilities for revenge, specifically, their general managers.

THE MIGHTY T begins when Danny, a member of Lightfoot’s gang who’s crazy-good with a sniper rifle, and just plain crazy, targets one GM from the top of the twelve-story DoubleTree Inn in Modesto. He hits his target and empties the rest of the clip into the plaza below. (Read Chapter 1 to see what happens to Danny when he’s no longer useful to Lightfoot.)

The pumps in Tracy are run by the State of California; far too big a target for Lightfoot. Who would he send his gang to kill, the governor? Turning the 150-foot-long pump building into rubble will have to suffice. Those pumps won’t be killing salmon for years after he’s done with them.

The Genesis of John Lightfoot’s Motivation

The bomb was ready and everyone was well rested; time for Indian class.

Lightfoot led the others down a narrow pathway to the banks of the Tuolumne River, as he had done almost every night since they’d arrived in La Grange. He was wearing stereotypical Native American garb: a headband with a few turkey feathers, vest and chaps made of faux cowhide, and makeup he applied under his eyes and on his cheeks.

He wore the Indian getup every day now, which made the others nervous even though, so far, he only wore it on their property and by the river. He didn’t want Mindy out and about in La Grange because she might attract attention, but he could wear a cheap Indian outfit?

At first, Lightfoot had simply wanted to show the others the river, thinking that when they saw how low the water was and how few salmon there were, they would understand why certain things needed to be done, why some people had to die for the sins they’d committed against the river, and more importantly, the salmon.

But one night became two, two became three and three a week, a week a month, two months, then six.
Night after night, he lectured on the Tuolumne band of Miwuk Indians, whom he said had lived peacefully along the Tuolumne River for thousands of years, on the Tuolumne River itself, and on the salmon that returned each year to spawn.

It was here at the river he first told the others he was part Miwuk. “Bullshit,” Griffith told Roberts and Donaldson later. “If he’s part Indian, I’m an Eskimo.”

* * * * * 

This is one of my favorite scenes in THE MIGHTY T. I call it “Indian Class.” John Lightfoot, the bad guy, leads his gang to the banks of the Tuolumne River and delivers a sermon they’d heard a hundred times.

They’d murdered eleven people in two days and planned to blow up some gigantic water pumps in the San Joaquin Delta early the next morning. Then, come the following Monday, they planned to… We learn all about why in this scene: the genesis of Lightfoot’s motivation.

We also get to peek inside the gang member’s minds, to see what they really think of Lightfoot. They’ve got him figured out, but he’s got them by the short-hairs; they’ll do anything he tells them. (Find out why in Chapter 6.)

Chinook salmon
Image credit: www.thekitchn.com

Lightfoot is obsessed with the declining Chinook salmon population in the Tuolumne River. Sure, the rest of us are concerned about the salmon, too, especially the salmon fishing industry. But are we willing to kill thousands to fix the problem? Lightfoot is.

Who can know why he’s so obsessed with the salmon? Why do YOU become obsessed with odd things? Something in your brain clicks and there you are, washing your hands for the hundredth time today. His was the salmon. Strange, I know.

At the end of the excerpt you learn Lightfoot claims to be part Miwuk. He’s not, but he’s convinced himself he is. You’re naturally curious why: In his mind, it gives him legitimacy. The Miwuk lived along the Tuolumne for centuries, until they signed a treaty giving their land up in exchange for a reservation.

If he’s Miwuk, the river and the fish are his, and he has an obligation to protect them. Watch out.

Oh, and John Lightfoot’s not his real name. It’s not even a Miwuk name.

In the next post, you’ll learn who’s to blame for the poor salmon’s plight. Boy, do they pay.