This afternoon my brother and I begin our trek from New York back home to California. Although we haven't yet plotted our trip, we plan on taking our time and enjoying each day as it comes. We'll likely be going the southern route -- to experience a part of the country we've only read about in books and seen on television. Graceland will surely be a stop along the way.

Rest assured that even though the next phase of my life is not yet clearly defined, this newsletter will continue to run as always. Next week's Capitol Action will be brought to you from my trusty PowerBook, plugged into the phone line in a room of an as-of-now unknown motel somewhere between here and California.

Since I'll be on the road until the first week of June, I won't be able to respond to any e-mails during the week, but please don't let that stop you from sending feedback; your e-mail will still be there when I do get the chance to read it.

-Gabe

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And the latest critical skirmish in California's water wars does not involve the authority of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California or water quality in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, although both those issues have received widespread attention.

Rather, it is focusing on the remote and majestic Trinity River, which flows south and westward from the mountains northwest of Redding into the Klamath River near the tribal lands of the Hoopa and Yurok reservations.

The Trinity captures little attention in the south and central portions of the state, even though the river occupies a fundamental place in California's water system. Indeed, many people don't even know where it is.

But in fact, the Trinity provides more than a million acre-feet of water a year to the Central Valley, and fully a quarter of all electrical power in the Central Valley Project -- and this in a state where water is far, far more important than gold.

The problem is that most of the Trinity, a whopping three out of every four gallons, is taken out of the river near Lewiston and diverted through a complex system of water works into the Valley, where it is eagerly awaited by the thousands of farms that depend on its water to grow crops.

To those in the north, the diversion is unfair and ruinous, damaging fisheries and habitats and the communities that depend on the water for sustenance, recreation and tourism.

But the Valley growers, who led the effort years ago to build and pay for the waterworks that transfer the Trinity, say they are entitled to the water and would face profound economic hardship if their supply were disturbed. Moreover, they are quick to point out that the federal government has reneged repeatedly on its promises to provide full entitlements, and that limiting their access to the Trinity would cripple an already wounded water delivery program.

The dispute is now coming to a head.

The U.S. Interior Department is poised to release a long-awaited study offering recommendations on the Trinity's flows, and agricultural interests are not pleased.

That's because the report is expected to recommend sharp reductions in the amount of water that is sent into the Valley. Instead, more water should be allowed to flow toward the Klamath to provide environmental protections, the report says, according to published reports.

The report is not final -- a final decision will be made next year by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

But the study, the result of nearly two decades of research and wrangling, is all but certain to wield great influence on Babbitt's decision. And environmentalists and growers are already gearing up for a major political fight on the issue.

In the north, some local residents refer to the Trinity as the "Forgotten River," because it has never taken a front-row place in the seemingly endless rounds of water wars that have convulsed California for decades.

But that is about to change: The "Forgotten River" is about to become well known, indeed.

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