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In an Effort to Save Salmon, Irrigation Policy Is Reversed
New York Times ^ | September 27, 2002 | TIMOTHY EGAN

Posted on 09/27/2002 8:55:12 PM PDT by liberallarry

SEATTLE, Sept. 27 — More than 10,000 chinook salmon have died in the Klamath River in northern California in recent days, leaving biologists stunned and Indian tribes and fishermen angered at the Bush administration, which they say caused the deaths by favoring farmers in one of the most contentious water disputes in the West.

Federal officials, while not conceding that administration policy had anything to do with the die-off, said they would reverse an earlier policy and begin releasing water from Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon in an effort to revitalize the Klamath River downstream. The slow-moving river is littered with thousands of dead, bloated salmon, rotting in the sun.

Biologists say they have never seen a salmon kill of this size. It comes six months after the Bush administration decided to divert more Klamath Lake water to irrigation in the Klamath basin, saying the decision would satisfy farmers and comply with environmental laws.

Indian tribes and fishermen say the administration broke the law — and starved the river — by favoring farmers over fish.

"We're seeing dead fish everywhere; it's just tragic," said David Hillemeier, a biologist with the Yurok Indian Tribe in northern California. "No matter what happens now, the damage is done. We could lose 30,000 fish."

Although biologists disagree on what caused the fish to die, they say a very warm and dry September in the Pacific Northwest and low water flows in the Klamath River are the two major reasons the river is too low for fish to move upstream and spawn, as they would normally do this time of year. Instead, the fish are crowded into small pools and dying of disease.

On Thursday, fishermen and environmental groups went to federal court in Oakland, Calif., charging the Bush administration with giving too much water to irrigation interests at the risk of thousands of salmon, including coho, which are listed as threatened with extinction, and king salmon, or chinook, which are considered the most desirable and grow to 70 pounds or more.

"Basically, the administration created a drought in the lower river," said Zeke Grader, with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen, the largest trade group of salmon fishers on the West Coast.

"We were expecting a really good run of fish this year. And now we've got the federal government essentially killing fish to satisfy their irrigation interests."

Bush officials said they had acted on the best information from scientists and were baffled by the death of the salmon. Allocating more water to irrigators, who staged protests last summer when they were denied their usual amount of water for farming, may not have been a factor in the die-off, the officials said.

"It's an anomaly," said Mark Limbaugh, director of external affairs at the Bureau of Reclamation, which controls water in the upper Klamath Basin. "No one has ever seen a problem like this, and it may very well turn out to be a natural phenomenon."

The Indians say that the warm and dry weather has not affected any river except the Klamath and that the fish die-off can be directly tied to the withholding of river water.

"We begged them for more water, starting in the spring," said Sue Mastern, chairwoman of the Yurok Indian Tribe, which has 4,500 members and lives in northern California. "They would not consult with us. They ignored us. And now people are feeling helpless and outraged. It's just a sickening feeling."

Just six months ago, the Bush administration held an elaborate ceremony in Klamath Falls, where officials released water for irrigation that had been held up because of concerns for endangered fish. As farmers chanted, "Let the water flow," Bush officials unveiled a 10-year plan that they said would settle the water war, one of the biggest in the West.

Property rights groups and farm interests portrayed the fight as a battle between sucker fish, which live in Upper Klamath Lake and were dying because of little water, and farmers, who depend on backed up river water to irrigate 200,000 acres. The downstream salmon, and the Indians and fishermen who depend on them, were largely forgotten in the debate, though some biologists warned that there was not enough water to satisfy all the interests.

Under Indian treaty law, the federal government has a "trust" responsibility to tribes and their water, fishing and property rights.

"This water will be released beginning today to meet tribal trust responsibilities and to support the migrating salmon during this emergency," Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said. "We are doing our best to respond to this situation."

Federal officials say the water release, which they call a "pulse" and will go on for 14 days, may not be enough to help the thousands of fast-dying fish. "No one is certain exactly what effect the water will have on fish," said Steve Williams, director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. "But we are all determined to do something to quickly address the situation."

Fish runs vary greatly. The 10,000 fish killed this week are more than the river's entire salmon population in some years. Other years, like this one, are more bountiful, and biologists had been expecting a big run on the Klamath.

It will take about three days for today's first release of water to make it downstream to where the fish are trapped in warm pools. The release comes at a time when irrigators say they have adequate water to give some back to fish.

"We believe increasing the flows is justified at this time," said Dan Keppen, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents 1,500 farm families. "We had an extra slug of water available, and we've got a cushion right now."

Indians and fishermen say it is precisely that extra water that should have gone to other needs of the river starting last spring.

"It's been clear all summer long that this river is ailing," said Kristen Boyles, a lawyer with Earthjustice, an environmental legal group, which is suing the administration on behalf of fishing groups and others. "Now we have this massive die-off, and it's the result of six months of water mismanagement."


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: dieoff; klamath; salmon
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This looks like a text-book example from an environmentalist's handbook; limit growth or face the destruction of the natural world.

Since this phenomenon has never before been observed in this river - and didn't happen in other rivers - it was almost certainly caused by the administration's water policy.

1 posted on 09/27/2002 8:55:12 PM PDT by liberallarry
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To: liberallarry; TonyWojo; Joe Brower; My Favorite Headache; nunya bidness; sauropod; Teacher317; ...
So they're not sure what's causing the fish to die, but they're releasing more water anyway?

Enviral-creeps and their junk science. I wouldn't be surprised if they poisoned the fish themselves given their proclivity for hoaxes.

Did anyone think they would go away after the bucket brigage?

2 posted on 09/27/2002 9:19:47 PM PDT by AAABEST
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To: AAABEST
Ugh. I'd get a couple of the fish and send them to a lab for my OWN tests. I don't trust these goons after the lynx hair incident...
3 posted on 09/27/2002 9:21:10 PM PDT by Black Agnes
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To: Black Agnes
I would never believe ANYTHING the watermelon people say.
4 posted on 09/27/2002 9:30:08 PM PDT by herewego
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To: liberallarry
In the Midwest, the price of salmon is way down. The price of catfish is at new highs.
If river management is so bad, why is fileted salmon CHEAP?
5 posted on 09/27/2002 9:31:41 PM PDT by PizzaDriver
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To: liberallarry
"No one has ever seen a problem like this, and it may very well turn out to be a natural phenomenon."

I find this quite plausible. Just look at it this way - what condition would the Klamath river be in were there no dam to hold a resivoir to supply the river with water? With the drought, it is likely that the river would be as low or even lower than it is with the maintinence flows from the lake. The enviro-nazi crack monkeys just don't get it -

6 posted on 09/27/2002 9:39:21 PM PDT by TheBattman
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To: PizzaDriver
If they're so friggin' endangered why are we eating them at all??!!
7 posted on 09/27/2002 9:40:34 PM PDT by Let's Roll
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To: AAABEST
I wouldn't be surprised if they poisoned the fish themselves

Sorta like the Blood Trail, only different.

8 posted on 09/27/2002 9:47:35 PM PDT by Askel5
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To: TheBattman
A substantial % of the water in the Lower River is suppilied by the Trinity. Is that low as well. The Salmon don't usually go up stream until the first big rain of the fall Has that happened yet? And what about Iron Gate and Copco why aren't they releasing water?

Something is fishy here. The amount of water suppilied by Klamath Lake to the river is small Compaired to that suppilied by the Shasta, Scott and Trinity Rivers. Perhaps the current drought has much to do about the fish kill.



9 posted on 09/27/2002 11:32:21 PM PDT by Tamerlane
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To: Tamerlane
The Scott, Shasta and Salmon provide a small amount of water compared to the Upper Klamath, which constitues about a third of the flow 200 miles at the mouth where this fish kill is happening.

The Scott and the Salmon Rivers have no dams, lakes or reservoirs. Once the snow melts, the surface water is gone. The Salmon has very little irrigation. The irrigation on the Scott is about over.

The Shasta has a very small reservoir - Lake Shastina. It is naturally a warm system and doesn't contribute much to overall flows.

Copco and Iron Gate haven't very much storage capacity. Basically, they are for regulation of flows for hydropower. This is drawn off the top two feet. The rest of the reservoirs are unusable and can't be drawn down.

I believe something like 60% of the Trinity River flows are diverted through Lewiston Claire Eagle Dam to the Sacramento River system. The court ruled that the tribes couldn't get more than the 40% of flows for their fish.

With the Trinity the way it is, the water just isn't there. If the Klamath Project did not have its system of reservoirs and lakes created for irrigation, the water just would have gobe down the river in the spring and wouldn't be there naturally for the fish. There just isn't the snowpack there was years ago. Dr. Drake has done a study on the Scott showing the trend is declining.

It is a tragedy, but farmers and ranchers shouldn't have to continuously mitigate for it on their backs and out of their pockets without reimbursement. This is everybody's problem and society at large should pay any cost for salvaging the salmon.



10 posted on 09/28/2002 12:40:52 AM PDT by marsh2
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To: AAABEST
BTTT!!!!!
11 posted on 09/28/2002 3:04:50 AM PDT by E.G.C.
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To: TheBattman
The Indians have been around there a long time. If they have never seen a die-off like that then this is one hell of a drought.

Then there's the question of why this drought has affected only this river in this way.

12 posted on 09/28/2002 3:10:10 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: PizzaDriver
I give up. Why? They sure aren't getting salmon from this river.
13 posted on 09/28/2002 3:11:44 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: Tamerlane
I don't know the area. It appears you do. Would you ping me if you find out more about this? I'd like very much to see a follow up on this. Thanks.
14 posted on 09/28/2002 3:14:29 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: marsh2
There just isn't the snowpack there was years ago. Dr. Drake has done a study on the Scott showing the trend is declining

I need some clarification here. Is Dr. Drake saying that the whole river system is declining due to declining snow packs? That the salmon would had to face this problem anyway - a few years down the road if man hadn't diverted water for his own uses?

If that's true then won't farmers and urban dwellers soon have to face it as the snowpack continues to decline? And why haven't we seen die-offs on the other rivers? Should we expect similar die-offs on them in the coming years?

15 posted on 09/28/2002 3:24:30 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: liberallarry
This was caused by the previous policy!! If the water had been used for irrigation all along - there would be no fish !!

This article is reprinted today on the front page with a different title and quite a few "Bush" references as the NYT continues partisan politics.

16 posted on 09/28/2002 4:48:40 AM PDT by The Raven
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To: liberallarry
In Washington state the dnr kills more fish than this. So what if the indians and the fishermen are mad, their greed has reduced the fish population more than low water levels.
17 posted on 09/28/2002 5:15:45 AM PDT by RWG
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To: The Raven
Politics are an unfortunate part of human existance. I'm trying to focus on the real problems, their causes and solutions.
18 posted on 09/28/2002 6:40:18 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: RWG
Greedy fisherman, greedy Indians, greedy farmers, greedy people.
19 posted on 09/28/2002 6:43:14 AM PDT by liberallarry
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To: liberallarry
Here is the Study by Dr. Drake - et al. http://www.snowcrest.net/siskfarm/scottfallflows.html

Here is a page with links on flows:
http://www.snowcrest.net/siskfarm/flows.html

Have at it.
20 posted on 09/28/2002 8:39:42 AM PDT by marsh2
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