Posted on 01/06/2003 4:19:31 PM PST by Boot Hill
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:30:08 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The dramatic die-off of 33,000 salmon last fall along the Klamath River in Northern California was directly caused by the Bush administration's decision to pump extra water from the river to farmers, biologists from the California Department of Fish and Game have concluded.
(Excerpt) Read more at bayarea.com ...
What this story does not make clear is that the fish kill occurred only twenty mile upstream from the ocean and about 180 miles downstream from Klamath Lake and 120 miles downstream from the Iron Gate Dam. Nor does it mention that the Salmon run that year in the Klamath was one of the largest on record. And it fails to make clear that fish kills during salmon runs are the norm with the only variable being the percentage.
This story presages this years renewed effort by the environmentalists to try to recover from their loss last year in their efforts to kill off farming in the Klamath Falls basin. That means another major FReeper effort this year to support the farmers and oppose radical environmentalism. Are you up to the challenge?
Regards,
Boot Hill
--Boot Hill
STUDY FAULTS DECISION IN KLAMATH RIVER REGION
What do you want to do?
Funny how the liberals so worked up about saving salmon just keep on eating them...
The point is, if they die on the way upstream, before they get to the pools, they don't reproduce.
Maybe Fish & Game is biased too, but the statement from the farm organization reaks as well:
Keppen, whose organization represents 1,400 farm families, said the fishery had recovered. And he said the report does not properly address farmers' concerns that the die-off might have been caused by high temperatures or toxic substances in the river.
The recovery of a fishery can't be determined at this point. In a few years, we'll see if there's a completely dead run of salmon to go along with the alleged abuse. And if there were toxins in the rivers killing the salmon, well, where did those toxins end up if not in the farmer's crops? Don't you think the farmers would be a little more worried about a poisoned river?
This is just a couple of partisan groups (farmers vs. fisherman) trying to control slim resources for their own benefit. Give them a couple of champions, a couple of nice pistols, and let them duel it out at 10 paces.....
Uh, maybe they don't read papers in CA. There was quite a fuss about this last year, and the REASON that Bush became involved was that it was basically a choice between giving water for farmers or fish... and thankfully, we finally have a President that puts Americans above food. Why is this news?
Very illogical. The toxins, if they existed, could have been, and probably were, released into the river well below the Farmer's area since (i) the fishkill was near the estuary, (ii) diffusion and mixing would probably have diluted the toxins significantly over a large distance.
First, it was a nearly record run. Ocean conditions have improved since the North to South shift in the thermal inversion called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The survival rates at sea are far higher than they were when the return rates were below 1.5% (when the fish were in trouble). Stream conditions were not the major reason for population decline in recent years.
The released water from Klamath Lake and Iron Gate that was supposed to help the fish is too warm. The flow was high enough to blow out the sand bar that usually keeps the fish at sea until it rains. Because they came in early they encountered warm water from the reservoirs (it was also during a heat wave). The fish came in and ran up to the junction with the Trinity River where there is no dam and therefore no water coming downriver. Those fish that would normally run up the Trinity to spawn sat in the forebay and overcrowded.
Overcrowding + warm water = stressed fish. Stressed fish are susceptible to disease. If one gets it, it spreads in a crowded bay like wildfire. That's what happened.
Not *very* illogical. They (farmers) are throwing the "toxins" and "high temperature" up as self-defense reasons with no evidence of either occuring.
Now, if F&G did their jobs, you'd have a toxicology report on a representative sample of the fish -- successful and unsuccessful spawners -- at various stages of the river. That is, of course, IF they did their jobs. But tis a government agency, right? They should also have records of tides & river levels at the mouth, fish counters at the mouth to tell when the larges numbers glutted the river, etc... We do that to all of our fisheries, don't see why CA doesn't do the same...
More Dept. of Fish and Game lingo BS.............
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