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<p class=MsoNormal><span class=articletitle><b><u><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Klamath
confluence</span></font></u></b></span><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<!--subtitle--><!--top author info-->
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=articlebyline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>John Driscoll The Times-Standard</span></span></font></span>
<span class=articlebyline><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=articledate><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><!-- overline-->Article Launched: 05/22/2006 04:30:26
AM PDT</span></span></font></span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The mouth
of the <st1:place w:st="on">Klamath River</st1:place> is a scene frozen in
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<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Low
clouds drape over greenest hills. A few Yurok fishermen watch the surf, trying
to hook Pacific lamprey with sticks and flip them on shore. Whales blow just
off the beach. A 6-foot green sturgeon lies in the bottom of a boat. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
river, heavy with snowmelt, is wide. The place is eerily quiet, and it's likely
to stay that way. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
year, the tribe's allocation of fall chinook salmon is below what it considers
its subsistence level. Commercial fishermen along 700 miles of coast will not
have a salmon season. The ocean sport fishing season is crimped up and down the
coast. River anglers cannot keep any adult fall chinook on the Klamath or <st1:place
w:st="on">Trinity river</st1:place> after September, a devastating blow to
campgrounds and shops and guides who count on fishermen. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>These
groups have long pointed fingers at each other. River fishermen sometimes
grouse about Indian gillnets, Indians sometimes gripe about ocean commercial
fisheries, and so on. Many in these groups have come to a sort of truce, based
on an acknowledgment that the river that once produced the third largest salmon
runs on the West Coast no longer puts out enough fish to go around. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the
past five years, the river has become the centerpiece of a desperate
environmental and economic struggle. Farms upstream and hydropower dams need
water that salmon need, too. Fish diseases that hammer young salmon are more
prevalent than once realized. Toxic algae has been found brewing in the river's
reservoirs and downstream and may pose a risk to swimmers, according to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Faced
with a total fishing closure this year, fisheries managers hedged their bets
that ocean and tribal fishing wouldn't cut too deep into the number of
naturally spawning chinook salmon predicted to return to the river. They
enacted an emergency rule, dropping the projected number of these fish that
will be allowed upstream from 35,000 to 21,000. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The Yurok
allocation for this fall is 8,000 fish, most of which are expected to be
hatchery fish. That's less than two fish per tribal member this year, and it's
not enough to support a commercial fishery that some of them earn income from. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But if
the water crisis of 2001 in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Upper</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
-- when the federal government shut off water to most of its irrigators to free
up water for salmon -- and the fish kill of 2002 did anything, they steeled the
resolve of many to fix the river. Perhaps more than ever, there is reason for
hope. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>”I
may not see it, my dad may not see it,” said Yurok fisherman Tommy
Willson. “Hopefully it will help out my son further down the road.”
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-weight:bold'>A flowing together <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Indeed,
so many events are coming together at once that it seems almost guaranteed that
there will be major changes on the river soon. Some are already in swing. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
Klamath's main tributary, the <st1:place w:st="on">Trinity River</st1:place>,
is seeing major restoration work, some of which depends on big flows that are
being seen this year. The Hoopa Valley Tribe recently won its 20-year battle
against <st1:place w:st="on">Central Valley</st1:place> irrigators to get more
water in the river. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The Yurok
Tribe has put aside its pitched public fight with <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Upper</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> irrigators, vowing
to work together for a solution. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
license for four hydropower dams on the main stem of the Klamath has run out.
Relicensing them has been a process that is revealing a lot about their effects
on the river. Their owner, PacifiCorp, was recently bought by Warren Buffett's
MidAmerican Energy Holdings. A change of guard at PacifiCorp has the Yurok
Tribe encouraged that the company may take a different approach to settlement
talks that, while confidential, are reportedly yielding results. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service have
demanded that PacifiCorp install fish ladders on its dams to pass salmon into
areas where they once spawned. The company disagrees with the approach -- which
would almost certainly cost more than $100 million -- and has appealed the
matter. It wants to trap fish and haul them over the dam. Under the 2005 Energy
Act, PacifiCorp will take its case to an administrative law judge at one of the
agencies. There is no precedent. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>”No
project has gone through this process yet,” said David Diamond, an
analyst with the U.S. Department of the Interior. “A lot of it depends on
how the judges interpret their mandate.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
hearing is expected to take place in August, after which the agencies will file
revised provisions. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>PacifiCorp
has also loosened up about allowing the California Coastal Conservancy access
to test sediment trapped behind its dams for toxins, key for considering their
possible removal. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Willson
is convinced that taking out the dams will improve conditions for salmon, and
change the face of salmon fisheries on the West Coast. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-weight:bold'>Urgent care <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>And while
all of these political, financial and regulatory machinations are taking place,
there are on-the-ground approaches being taken. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>At
McGarvey Creek just upstream from the mouth, the Yurok Tribe is counting and
tagging fish. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This year
is a good year -- relatively speaking -- for chinook salmon. That is, there
were six spawning adults that swam upstream. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>”They're
in a sad state, no question about it,” said Ben Laukka with the tribal
fisheries department. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Steelhead
and cutthroat trout appear to be faring better. From a trap on the creek,
Andrew Antonetti pulls a bucket full of steelhead and coho smolts, and a pair
of chinook fry. Scott Gibson anaesthetizes a fish, measures it, clips a fin so
it can be identified as caught, and surgically implants a tag that marks the
individual fish and allows it to be tracked. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Also in
the bucket is a brook lamprey, which as adults only get to be about 8 inches
long, and two juvenile Pacific lamprey. These spend seven years in the Klamath
watershed's gravels before migrating to sea. They return and some are caught by
tribal members, but the runs have appeared weak lately. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Tribal
Councilman Raymond Mattz suspects low water in the river may doom the young
lamprey. Another once-important fish, the candlefish, has virtually vanished. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>”When
you see something disappear off the face of the Earth, it's pretty
shocking,” Mattz said. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Laukka is
under no illusion that studying the fish, and performing restoration like
removing barriers to fish and decommissioning sediment-bleeding logging roads,
will produce immediate results. These are long-term solutions to the river's
many woes, he said. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Those
deep-rooted problems have at least earned one of the greatest rivers in the
West the wide attention it warrants at precisely the time that so many critical
decisions need to be made. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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