Death in the Klamath

E magazine | Jan/Feb 2003 | Orna Izackson

[alwaysconservative]

Yummy!

My favorite (simple) salmon recipe involves putting filets in the baking pan, skin side down, and mixing Bigelow's Black Currant honey with lime juice (2 parts honey to one part lime juice), then spreading the honey-lime mixture liberally over the filets and sprinkling lightly with sweet basil and fresh ground pepper. Bake until done, basting if necessary with more of the mixture, and remove skin before serving. Sometimes I add some dried currants to the honey-lime mixture for added interest.

[Harleys Mom]

I would guess that if we compared the amount of livestock and crops lost because of the Klamath drout and the salmon fish loss, the lost livestock and crops would have fed many more people.
PS: I like salmon patties in white sause. Keep it simple.

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Greetings FloridaGeezer, FReepers, et al:
The latest count is about 33,000 dead fish. Most of those come from the fall chinook run, which before the kill was estimated to come in at 60,000 fish. But some of the dead are steelhead and threatened coho salmon

Seems like the watermelon boy needs to watch more Discovery Channel than MTV? Chinook, coho, and steelhead are semelparous (spawn only once and then die).

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Imagine that, an enviromentalist wacko, thought the spawn cycle die off was irrigation waterflow related. The watermelon crowd. Green on the outside, red and seedy on the inside.

[tubebender]

Hubel...I live in Eureka and try to stay on top of local issues so help me out here. It is my understanding that when Trinity Dam was build the agreement called for about 60% of the flows to remain in the North Fork but over the years the Westlands Irrigation District got that reduced to around 10% . One court agreed with the tribes and other downriver parties to release more water but another court stayed the ruling. I said on another thread a few weeks ago that Trinity Lake could have released more water this fall but really there should have been no releases and let mother nature play her hand.

[hubel458]

Hello friend-The only problem of not releasing water, say to keep it more natural, is they are hatchery spawning many more numbers than natural that grow up and come in and need water to not be crowded to get upstream. All of this is a tax paid benefit for fisherman and tribes which I am glad to pay my share.And I care as much for their welfare as I do the farms.The diversion has to be straightened out, like last year about 600,000
acre ft went to S Cal and 450,000 acre ft went into river.
They have gotten a little more back over the years.
And that was a little dryer year than normal in Trinity watershed.This year it is definately wet so far, way above average.To be done right they need about 550,000 ac ft left in river, no matter wet or dry and the releases geared to when fish come in...IE don't do like this year when judge gave them a 100,000 ac ft and they shot it all down in spring, when they already had a 125,000 bump for spring above base flows.Should of had that water on hand for Aug-Sept
fish returns in this dry year.There was room in Trinity Lake to store it.Let the rest above Trinity guarantee, whatever it is be stored and used over the hill.It will vary from year to year.IE keep
Trinity guaranteed a minimum not a percentage.In real wet years
Trinity and over the hill storage will even it out so as to have water in dry years there and protect Trinity minimum.
If this would have been done right, the fish wouldn't have died.Politics and mismanagement killed fish.And old Thompson
and cronies standing in his district, looking up the hill to
the east crucifying Upper Basin farms is crap, when they need to make a right turn and vent their ire to the south, and straighten it out.Ed Hubel.

[SierraWasp]

Good, Willie!!!

I'd sure rather have baked salmon, than to keep having to shred these half-baked EnvironMentalist's perpetual false perpetrations on the public!!!

Shred 'em hell... Let's just shift-can 'em!!!

[marsh2]

steelhead are not a salmon. They are a trout and can go out, come in to spawn and go out again.

Was at the coho negotiating meeting all day. Last year's (winter 2002) coho run was low, but a lot of people refused usual entry for fish counts because they were mad at the state coho listing.

As they are pretty much a 3 year age class - with VERY few 2 year jacks. This means that their offspring coming back in three years would be low. 2001 was a good year and their offspring will be back in 2 years for an anticipated good run. You can't compare coho from year to year for trend.

Chinook comes back at 2, 3, 4 years so comparing runs from year to year for trends is more credible.

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Greetings marsh2, FReepers, et al:

Thanks for the correction, I should have known better: proof read twice, post once. :)

All are very tasty. Needless to say, I've grow very impatient with communists masquerading as environmentalist; attacking sportsman, timber, and agriculture.

[hubel458]

Hoopa Tribe to appeal judge's Trinity River decision By John Driscoll The Times-Standard The Hoopa Valley Tribe has stepped up to appeal a U.S. District Court judge's trouncing of a widely supported 2000 decision to put more water down the Trinity River. The tribe is an intervenor in the case waged by the Central Valley's Westlands Water District and power interests against the U.S. Department of the Interior. Judge Oliver Wanger ruled in December that flows allowed down the Trinity be capped at the amount allowed during dry years, and that the Interior Department complete a supplement to a lengthy environmental study in 120 days. But this year is shaping up to be wetter than last year, and 44 of the 120 days to complete the study have already gone by. The tribe wants a stay of Wanger's decision, and argued that the potential harm to fisheries outweighs the harm to irrigation and power interests. "We have no other option but to continue to fight for the life of our river, the fish and our way of life," said tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall. "In 2000 the federal government made a promise to us that there would be more water left in the river. We will not stand by and let this court allow economic greed to destroy the Trinity River." As much as 90 percent of the Trinity River above Lewiston Dam has been sent to the Central Valley since the 1970s. The tribe has doggedly fought to get more water back in the river and restore its battered fishery. After decades of study, in 2000, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed an order to allow half of the upper watershed's water down the Trinity, the key tributary of the Klamath River. Irrigation giant Westlands Water District and others immediately sued. A call to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, one of the plaintiffs in the case, was not immediately returned. Tom Schlosser, who represents the Hoopa Tribe, said he expects Wanger to grant some of the tribe's wishes. The tribe must first ask Wanger for a stay, but Schlosser said he expects it will have to go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Schlosser said Wanger understands the Trinity River and its diversion, and believes he recognizes how important the water is to salmon, especially after the September fish kill on the Klamath, which killed 33,000 chinook salmon. Most of those were bound for the Trinity. "I think the judge is sensitive to that," Schlosser said. Inflow into Trinity Lake is 154 percent of average and storage in the lake, which was significantly drawn down last year, is at 110 percent of average. Even with little precipitation for the remainder of the winter, the year should be wetter than an average year. The tribe contends that "under long-standing reclamation law, other CVP (Central Valley Project) users do not compete with but clearly take second priority to Trinity River restoration uses of Trinity River water. From its inception, the Trinity River Division was directed to divert only water that was 'surplus' to the present and future water needs of the Trinity basin," including fishery restoration. Schlosser said the appeal is just another round in a long fight. "Westlands lives or dies based on extracting the blood of the Trinity River," he said. In December, the Interior Department settled a case with Westlands for $140 million to retire 33,000 acres of poorly drained land in the western San Joaquin Valley. Interior did not buy the water that irrigated the land, however, and has proposed getting the money to buy the land from a variety of sources -- including money for restoration efforts.

-----------

Folks lets wish them luck-The counties and other groups in upper basin should join in suit to help tribes.So should the counties and towns in lower basin, and they should drop the suits against upper basin.We need to get the extra storage going now adjacent to UKL.Please Call Walden and Smith to get them on the ball to get BarnesAgency lake storage done.This may be a year when things get fixed if we all work at it.Trinity flows balanced and completed storage in upper basin.Ed Hubel.

[hubel458]

Project farmers are being told that they will have
a whole bunch taken away from them in this years delivery.
When the lake gets full in few days, and no extra storage,
the flows from Irongate will be up to the level that Hardy
wanted in late winter and spring. And Interior planning on taking more from farm deliveries after that.What Hardy
couldn't do Norton and Woolridge is doing.They tell farms that storage and extra water from above lake won't
count toward water bank.Walden won't go along with this kind of outcome. Let's hope he is as pissed as I am, and
him and congress straighten it out.They say they need extra water, but when it gets started towards developing it,
there is no credit for it!!!Extra stored and found will keep river up and lake is full, why drive out the farms.
Shorting the system will short the refuges, then they will
have to buy well water for that.




A bucket I have, an object of honor, is fast turning into a piece of plastic, by the actions of backstabbers in
the administration.Ed Hubel.