[env-trinity] Fixing the Klamath; Part I

[Josh Allen]

Fixing the Klamath; Part I: Why the Klamath matters here (The first in a
multi-part series)
 By Joel Gallob Of the News-Times

http://www.newportnewstimes.com/articles/2006/09/13/news/news16.txt 

 

 

Early in the 20th century, the federal Bureau of Reclamation developed a
plan to use the Klamath Basin, straddling the Oregon-California border,
and the adjacent Lost River basin for farming.

Through the "Klamath Project," the bureau dammed rivers, drained
wetlands, cut forests, dug canals, diverted waters, and enabled the
irrigation of tens of thousands of acres in the basin. Farmers began to
raise potatoes, onions, alfalfa, barley and other crops in areas east of
the Cascade Range that are naturally been semi-arid, even though they
are laced with wetlands and lakes fed by runoff from that range.

Starting at about the same time, a series of dams were built on the
Klamath River; only one was designed as part of the irrigation effort
and the others were intended for power production and flood control.

Copco 1 was built in 1918; Link River Dam (key to the Klamath irrigation
effort) in 1921; Copco 2 in 1925; J.C. Boyle Dam in 1958; Iron Gate in
1962; and Keno Dam in 1967.

For decades, it appeared to most everyone - except the Native American
tribes who relied on Klamath salmon for their food and culture -the dams
and the Klamath Project had succeeded.

But both the irrigation system and the power production have become
embroiled in controversy; it appears there was a price to be paid for
their successes.

There are different views on just how to allocate the blame for the
reduced Klamath salmon runs between the irrigation diversions, the
effects of the dams, and other causes, as well. Still, the bill appears
to have come due in 2001 and 2002, when a regional drought lowered water
levels in the Klamath to the point where farmers, who need it for
irrigation, found themselves fighting conservationists, Native tribes
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who all wanted the water for
fish.

In 2001, Klamath farmers confronted federal marshals for several weeks
at the head-gates that kept water available for endangered sucker fish
(also known as mullet) in Upper Klamath Lake and for threatened coho
salmon in the Klamath River. Some 1,400 family farms received no
irrigation water and suffered serious economic losses. Some went into
bankruptcy, some went out of business.

In the summer of 2002, the Bush Administration overrode the US Fish &
Wildlife Service and restored full irrigation flows to the farmers. That
spring, there had been smaller die-offs of juvenile fish in the Klamath;
come September, tens of thousands of returning Chinook salmon died in
the river. The original estimate was 35,000; later estimates doubled the
number. The cause, according to the National Research Council of the
National Academies was "two types of pathogens that are widely
distributed and generally become harmful to fish under stress,
particularly if crowding occurs."

The findings of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife report, "Klamath River Fish
Die-Off September 2002: Causative Factors of Mortality," reached the
same conclusion conservationists and Native American tribes had reached
- that low flows below the Klamath's Iron Gate Dam, (the dam closest to
the ocean and the die-off area), caused by upstream irrigation
diversions, had created the conditions causing the epidemic which led to
the die-off in the river's lowest 40 miles.

In 2005, Oregon and California coast commercial salmon fishers joined
the fish in helping pay the Klamath Project bill. Fish from the reduced
2001 outgoing run were coming back and had to be protected. The 2005
salmon season was limited to prevent fishers from catching many of the
returning Klamath Chinook.

This summer, the worry about returning Klamath Chinook led to a virtual
closure of the commercial ocean salmon season, a first-ever shutdown
(with a few exceptions) along 700 miles of coast from below the Columbia
River to California's Point Sur.

The closure led to calls for changes in how the Klamath Basin, Klamath
lakes, and Klamath River are managed. It led, also, to the Klamath
farmers, in an effort by the "Klamath Bucket Brigade," providing aid to
coastal salmon fishers struggling to survive the season. And it has led
to various proposed solutions to the problems of the Klamath.

But nothing is certain, including the exact cause of the 2002 fish
die-off. It may seem common sense to figure that fish need water, and
salmon need cold, clear water - and a shortage of both would damage the
Klamath salmon. But the Klamath Water Users Association says upstream
water diversions did not cause the crisis, and that Upper Klamath water
is too warm to have helped the fish had it been released. Further, South
Coast salmon fisherman Scott Boley, who grew up in the Klamath and
returned there recently with other coastal fishers to talk with Klamath
farmers, says the strong returning Chinook brood in 2002 and consequent
overcrowding in the lower Klamath, with or without the water diversions
for farmers, was enough to cause the 2002 die-off.

Even if the environmentalists, fishermen, California Department of Fish
and Game and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are correct in believing
competition between fish and farmers for Klamath flows caused the
die-off, there in no guarantee the required water will go to the fish.
The flows, especially in drought years, may not be enough to meet all
the claims on them.

Salmon runs

One thing certain is that, before the Klamath was dammed and diverted,
it was the West Coast's third greatest salmon stream, behind the
Columbia and Sacramento rivers. It drains a basin of 9,691 square miles
that gets less than 12 inches of rain per year, but is also watered by
runoff from the Cascades Range.

According to an April 2005 article by John Hamilton, Gary Curtis, Scott
Snedaker and David White in "Fisheries," published by the American
Fisheries Society, the Klamath River in 1908 was filled with salmon. It
quoted a Klamath Falls Evening Herald article of Sept. 24, 1908 that,
"There are millions of the fish below the falls near Keno, and it is
said that a man with a gaff could easily land a hundred of the salmon in
an hour, in fact they could be caught as fast as a man could pull them
in."

One estimate, the article noted, put the Klamath salmon runs at 650,000
to 1 million fish.

Chinook historically used the whole length of the 350-mile long system
including the distant tributaries of Upper Klamath Lake. But much of
their best spawning sites were in the middle reach at, above, and now
underneath the river's dams and reservoirs.

Steelhead, too, made it into the tributaries of the Upper Klamath Basin,
as did coho salmon. They prefer smaller streams than Chinook, and
historically spawned mainly in the upper basin (as did sockeye and pink
salmon, and cutthroat trout). The coho are down to 1 percent of
pre-project numbers, according to an article by Zeke Grader of the
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, in the Fishermen's
News of August 2001. The chum and pink salmon are gone. The coho runs
are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The Chinook
are protected under the Magnuson Stevens Act.

But when people spoke of immense Klamath salmon runs in years gone by,
it was the Chinook they were referring to. The Chinook have spring and
fall runs, and if the basin were somehow returned to a state of nature,
it is the spring runs (aided by Cascades and other melt water) that
would re-colonize the Klamath to its highest springs. The fall Chinook
(protected by the truncated 2006 salmon season) might make it that far
up in good water years, but not in lesser years.

Geography

The Klamath region is one of the most complex in Oregon. Besides
receiving water from the Cascade's eastern slopes, it also gets runoff
from the ridges, small mountains and streams to its east. Historically,
its lakes grew and shrunk naturally with the seasons, and were
surrounded by great wetlands. With two wildlife refuges and an abundance
of fish, birds and other critters, the region has been called the
Everglades of the West.

Three large lakes are at the heart of the region: Upper Klamath Lake,
Lower Klamath Lake, and Tule Lake.

Various streams flow into the north side of Upper Klamath Lake; at its
south end, the Link River flows out beside the city of Klamath Falls,
into a brief, mini-lake (Lake Ewauna) and then becomes the Klamath
River. It flows south and then bends east, heading through canyons and
past dams to the ocean. There is also Lower Klamath Lake, which is
connected to the river. Tule Lake, further east, had naturally been
separate, a terminal evaporative pond, but has been connected to the
broader Klamath system by man.

Clear Lake, and Malone and Gerber Reservoirs, east of Tule and the
Klamath lakes, add their water to the upper Klamath system.

Several smaller rivers further downstream feed into the Klamath River,
including the Shasta, Salmon and the Scott rivers. Finally, just 43
miles before the Klamath reaches the ocean, the Trinity River - the
biggest single tributary - enters into it.

The fish die-off in 2002 took place within the first 36 miles from the
mouth of the river, downstream from virtually all of this. What happens
in the basin, affects the salmon - and the Oregon coast.

Joel Gallob is a reporter for the News-Times. He can be reached at
265-8571 ext. 223, or joel.gallob at lee.net.

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