Attorney, an SLU graduate, researches fish laws

CANTON — Harold M. "Hal" Thomas likes to tell the story of the fish that got away: Atlantic salmon that used to teem in Lake Ontario and the tributaries of the St. Lawrence River before they were wiped out in the 1800s by gristmills and dams that dotted the rivers.

"Here are these guys making a living fishing Atlantic salmon and in the space of a 40-year period, the fish are just gone," Mr. Thomas said.

Mr. Thomas, a California attorney and a 1974 graduate of St. Lawrence University, is spending the next few weeks in the north country researching the origins of New York laws that formed the basis for California statutes on water rights and fishing.

Man-made development and failure to enforce codes requiring equipment, such as fish ladders, that would have allowed the salmon to reach spawning beds in the Oswegatchie, Grasse, Raquette and other rivers are mainly what led to their demise.

"We could be having home-raised salmon for dinner instead of these farm fish that don't taste like anything," said SLU Outdoor Studies Program Director Baylor L. Johnson, who will collaborate with Mr. Thomas on his law journal article.

Mr. Thomas, a visiting scholar at SLU, was a student in Mr. Johnson's second year of teaching at St. Lawrence, and they've kept in touch over the years.

Mr. Thomas is a public prosecutor in Butte County, north of Sacramento, whose work includes fish-and-game cases and issues affecting public welfare, such as pollution.

"The laws that support that come out of New York, but in California, they're handled criminally, not in civil court," he said. "I've always been fascinated by water and rivers."

Mr. Thomas's research is focused with an eye toward a California case on whether dam owners and water districts should be compensated financially if they are forced to release water to save fish.

"There's millions and millions of dollars involved," he said.

Mr. Thomas also is looking for the roots of a long-held legal tradition that waterways are public highways.

"You can't compensate somebody for something you can't own," he said. "We all own the rivers."

Key to his research are two brothers, David Dudley Field and Stephen J. Field, both of whom lived in New York for part of their lives in the 1800s. David Field, a legal reformer, was the father of New York codes that were copied through the country. His brother, Stephen, moved to California during the Gold Rush. He was appointed by Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he championed the view that rivers were owned by the public.

Mr. Thomas said he believes both the Field brothers' legal inclinations were influenced by watching the demise of the Atlantic salmon and shad in New York waters.

His research also involves U.S. Supreme Court decisions and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission law.

"It's involved, but it's all tied together," he said.