That is unless Al Gore needs a campaign photo
Posted on 03/27/2006 7:23:37 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A federal judge on Monday ordered the government to institute a Klamath River management plan immediately instead of waiting five more years, which means farmers could be deprived of irrigation if water levels drop low enough to threaten the survival of coho salmon.
U.S. District Court Judge Saundra B. Armstrong, who sits in Oakland, said if river levels fail to meet 100 percent of the water flow needed for the coho as determined by the National Marine Fisheries Service, then farmers who rely on the Klamath will have to do without.
That should not be a problem this year because a wet winter has left Northwest rivers swollen.
"Everyone should get what they need," said Kristen Boyles, an Earthjustice attorney who represents the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and other groups who opposed the government's plan for balancing water needs between the coho salmon and farms.
But how to meet the salmon water requirements of farmers during dry seasons still remains an open question.
"The wet winter does give us time to sit down with them and see how we can meet those requirements," said Zeke Grader, the Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations in San Francisco.
Commercial fishing organizations and environmental groups sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 2002, alleging that the government's plan to wait eight years to provide the full amount of water needed for coho survival in the water-scarce basin was insufficient to ensure the salmon's survival.
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed last year, ruling the plan to be arbitrary and capricious and not supported by science. Judge Armstrong on Monday rejected government arguments that it had new explanations supporting its plan to wait until 2010 to ensure sufficient water levels for the coho and order the salmon to immediately have first dibs on the Klamath River.
Armstrong said the federal fisheries service's "attempt here to insert a new explanation into the record is even more strained, given that the agency has already lost this case on the merits."
Stephen Macfarlane, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney who represents the agency, said he hadn't read the ruling and declined to comment.
"I don't know what it means quite yet," said Robin L. Rivett, an attorney with the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation who represents the Klamath Water Users Association, which joined the lawsuit on the government's side. "We believe the biological opinion rendered was adequate."
Rivett said he hasn't yet spoken with his client and is unsure whether another appeal will be made.
The Klamath Reclamation Project irrigates 180,000 acres straddling the Oregon-California border in the high desert east of the Cascade Range. Irrigation was cut off to most of the project in 2001 to protect threatened coho, then restored the next year.
After the irrigation shut-off in 2001, the federal agency responsible for protecting salmon, came up with a plan to phase in over eight years the full amount of water needed for coho in the Klamath. As part of the plan, the Bureau of Reclamation created a water bank, paying farmers $7.6 million last year for extra water for fish.
In the fall of 2002, after full irrigation was restored to the Klamath Project, tens of thousands of adult Chinook salmon died in the lower Klamath from diseases associated with low and warm water, as well as some coho. Untold numbers of juvenile salmon died in the spring.
Federal fisheries managers last year sharply reduced sport and commercial ocean harvests up and down the West Coast to reduce the likelihood Klamath fish would be killed. Similar restrictions could happen this year.
Got to have a Salmon Steak every now and then.,
That is unless Al Gore needs a campaign photo
How many salmon are enough ?
You don't know the half of it.
You remove and club the salmon that make it too many. When you are down to the right number you let them through so you can keep the water flowing.
I confess I don't know. More salmon would be a good thing, no ?
How many salmon are there, really? Who controls the counting methods and what liberal eco-freak college did they graduate from?
These agencies are infested with libs who think farmers are scabs on the environment they worship.
People at the scene reported last year the removal and clubbing of Salmon.
It is no longer about civil, legal conduct.
Lower salmon numbers keep the wildlife people in control.
Fish Clubbing To Proceed
November issue of The Loggers World
"The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife intends to have hatchery workers use clubs and electricity to euthanize tens of thousands of surplus hatchery salmon. It was the videotaping of fish clubbing on the Alsea River that ultimately led to filing the lawsuit that Judge Hogan recently decided. The Oregon State Legislature attempted to address this issue and passed a bill that would have made fish clubbing illegal but Governor Kitzhaber vetoed it. A lawsuit was also filed in state court challenging the clubbing, but a state judge upheld the department's right to club fish.
You're on the right track. Indian tribes do the bulk of the counting and they have exclusive rights to net-fish the river.
Can't tell you how angry it makes me to see some judge arbitrarily decree that farmer's family, home and ability to support them is less important than some damned fish.
The loss of these farms could cause trans-generational strife in those families. How does a judge do this with a clear concience?
Wonder how is the fishery on the West coast doing now?
Ah, the separation of powers at work again, i see.
I don't get it. Why do we taxpayers have to pay billions for these bizzarre irrigation schemes for farming out west, while perfectly good farmland out in the wet east and wetter down south has been returned to forest?
They paid for the construction costs long since and they have the water rights to that water just like you have rights to your land. In fact, those rights go with the land they own.
That figures.
(1) This is not irrigation of a desert. The Klamath Project was a series of shallow lakes that were drained or "reclaimed" to create farmland. It is estimated that the farmers now use less water for irrigation than was previously lost to evaporation from previous lakes and wetlands.
(2) Recent articles have perpetuated the falsehood that flows killed adult and juvenile fish. Adult fish died from disease - Ceratomyxa Shasta, Parvacapsula and Ich. The disease may have been exacerbated by prior high flows that enticed the fish into the lower river where they held in tight quarters waiting fall rains to make their journey upstream
(3) The juvenile chinook died of infection with C-Shasta and Parvacapsula. These are spores that use an intermediary host - a worm. Scott Foott (CA-NV Fish Health Center in Red Bluff, CA) has been researching the incidence of disease in the mainstem Klamath. (The disease is not currently found in the major tributaries.) Some of the results have been:
Incidence of C-Shasta in juvenile samples:
1994 - 2002 - 20-50% infected
Tissue sampling in '05 indicated 50% of sampled juveniles infected
According to 2005 samples, began seeing first infections in April in the stretch of the Klamath from the Shasta River to the Scott River. After May 11, declined in incidence
Incidence of Parvacapsula
from 1995-2002 47-88% of juveniles infected
Tissue sampling in '05 indicated 91% of sampled fish infected
Incidence in Klamath - at section between Shasta and Scott saw in early April. Jumped up to almost 100% after April 20 th. The base flow came up May 11 and he didn't see any impact. He doubts that flow affects the incidence of disease.
38% of the fish Sampled from March 9 to July 13 were dually infected. It appears that the more time the juveniles spend in the Klamath River, the more risk there is of dual infection. Parvacapsula seems to be a bigger threat than C-Shasta.
Fish studies (non-tissue) in 2004-05 indicated that 30-35% of the fish sampled were infected by C-Shasta and 77-83% by Parvacapsula In April, the Iron Gate dam releases were 1520 cfs at 10.6C temp. In May, releases were 4420 cfs at 14.1C in June releases were 1210 cfs at 18C. Incidenec of infection was 40-50% in April. Foott believes that the high flows in May had no effect on incidence of disease. When they began seeing the 18C temperatures in the water in June, saw a strong decline in the incidence of infection.
Nick Hetrick reported on the fish health workshop and idicated that the life cycle of the disease may be dependent upon water temperature.
All in all, it appears temperature, rather than flow, has a greater influence on fish survival. They may actually be killing the fish by elevating flows.
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