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<DIV class=RTE><FONT face="Courier New">Another Bush Administration Fish Kill in the Making:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=RTE><FONT face="Courier New">Low Flows on Klamath Result In Outbreak Of Disease In Young Salmon <BR><BR>by Dan Bacher <BR><BR>An outbreak of disease in migrating wild juvenile king salmon on the Klamath River has led tribal, state and federal fishery biologists to fear yet another major fish kill on the Klamath River this spring. <BR><BR>Lower than normal releases from Iron Gate Dam have resulted in water temperatures already up to 63 degrees in the Klamath below the dam. The low, warm flows are the result of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation downgrading the water year type from a “below average” to a “dry year.” This reclassification will reduce the amount of water held in Upper Klamath Lake and released to the Klamath River and National Wildlife Refuges for fish and wildlife. <BR><BR>“We are finding a high incidence of Ceratomyxa Shasta disease - 50 to 80 percent - in the rotary fish traps that we operate on the Klamath at Happy Camp and above the mouth of the Salmon River,” reported Toz Soto, lead fisheries biologist of the Karuk Tribe. <BR><BR>C. Shasta is a disease endemic to the river that has been responsible for past juvenile fish kills on the river. The disease becomes an epidemic when the fish get stressed in low, warm conditions. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=RTE><FONT face="Courier New"><BR>The Bureau recently dropped Iron Gate releases from 1800 cfs to 1500 cfs after the irrigation season began in the Klamath Basin. At the same time, agriculture is also diverting water from the Shasta and Scott rivers, major tributaries of the Klamath that have been beset with salmon and steelhead kills in recent years. <BR><BR>“The colder than normal weather has also diminished the snowmelt,” said Soto. “The releases are well below the 50 year average - normally the flows would be 500 cfs more this time of year.” <BR><BR>Steve Pedery, Outreach Director of WaterWatch of Oregon, noted that the Bureau’s move comes after large water deliveries were promised to irrigators within the Project, as was done in previous years. <BR><BR>“Under the new flow management regime, Klamath salmon will face similar flows to those of 2002—a year when thousands of juvenile salmon were killed in the spring and over 34,000 adult salmon were killed in the fall by low flows and disease,” said Pedery. <BR><BR>Based on the high incidence of diseased fish, Soto believes that many have probably already perished before making it down to Somes Bar. The Klamath is unique in that the water quality improves as the river courses downriver and receives water from more pristine tributaries like the Salmon River, Indian Creek and Clear Creek. The water released from Iron Gate is nutrient-rich, having received irrigation runoff from the farms of the Klamath Basin. <BR><BR>“The water quality in the main stem above the mouth of the Scott is really poor,” he stated. “If we had better management on the Klamath, we would at least see a lower incidence of disease. We’re looking at the results of poor water management; the same old story as in previous years.” <BR><BR>There is still much to be learned about the disease. It isn’t found in pristine tributaries like the Salmon River, Indian Creek and Elk Creek, only in the main strem Klamath and the Shasta River. It is believed that the disease finds an int
ermediate host - a polychaete worm - in the riverine areas of reservoirs like Iron Gate and Copco, according to Soto. <BR><BR>“There is a yearly chronic fish kill on the river,” added Soto. “It probably is a natural thing for some mortality to occur, but the current water management is definitely having an impact. We are hoping that we don’t find hundreds of thousands of dead salmon in the pools downriver next month like we did in the spring of 2000.” <BR><BR>To date, the tribe hasn’t observed hatchery fish in the traps. The Iron Gate Fish Hatchery released a total of 3 million juvenile salmon into the river on May 13, 20 and 24. They plan to release approximately 2 million more fish in coming weeks, according to Kim Rushton, manager of the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery. <BR><BR>The Bureau of Reclamation recently offered to pay the Department of Fish and Game $65,000 to to delay the release of the fish, along with advising them to release the fish downriver, according to an article in the Klamath Falls Oregon. Herald and News on May 20. <BR><BR>However, Rushton said the hatchery is already planning to raise 900,000 fish to yearling size at Iron Gate as part of a program instigated in 1979. This will be 180,000 yearlings less than the DFG released last year, since the Fall Creek hatchery where the additional fish were raised has been shut down because of state budget cutbacks. He was not sure at press time whether funding for the yearlings would come from the state or federal governments. <BR><BR>These yearlings will be released into the main stem of the Klamath in mid-November, when water conditions are cold and much more conducive to survival. “The survival rate of these fish is 3 to 4 times that of smolts released in the spring,” said Rushton. <BR><BR>The outlook for salmon survival this year isn’t looking good under the current river management regime. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 2001 changed the policy to favor agribusiness over fish after Klamath Basin farmers protested the cut-off of irrigation water. Bush
political adviser Karl Rove engineered the policy change in an effort to curry agribusiness support for the re-election of an Oregon Republican Senator. <BR><BR>The result was a series of juvenile fish die-offs and the Klamath adult chinook fish kill of September 2002, the largest fish kill in U.S. history. The crisis that juvenile salmon now suffer in the Klamath River is a political one that requires a political solution - better long term, sustainable management of the Klamath watershed for fish and wildlife. <BR><BR>“The problems plaguing juvenile salmon in the mid Klamath region highlight the fallacy of arguments that water diversions from the Trinity River are the primary source of the Klamath’s woes,” said Pedery. “The Trinity joins the Klamath a little over 40 miles from the Pacific Ocean. The region where fish are currently sick and dying is over 100 miles upstream.” </FONT><BR><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></div></html>