[Update: Curtis Knight of CalTrout has chimed in to let us know that adult die-offs are high profile, but juvenile mortality sometimes approaches 90% due to water quality, temps and disease. If that keeps happening, there won't be any adults to die off later...]
Those of you who enjoyed the massive Klamath salmon die-off in 2002 (one of the largest in US history, which is now being directly attributed to an illegal Karl Rove PowerPoint presentation) will no doubt be happy to hear the process is beginning to repeat itself.
Today’s dead salmon on the Klamath (Klamath Riverkeeper photo)
Orleans, CA - As Klamath River temperatures rise and the region’s below average snow pack continues to recede, the Klamath River’s salmon are again in trouble. These conditions, coupled with increased observation of disease,
mortality, and average run size predictions have prompted the Klamath Fish
Health Assessment Team (KFHAT) to increase its fish kill readiness alert
level to yellow.
The simple truth? The Klamath is dying, and here’s what many of the players are doing about it:
- Warren Buffett — whose holding company owns PacifiCorp (who owns the dams) — is hiding in Omaha, unwilling to meet with anyone about PacifiCorp
- PacifiCorp continues to fight dam removal in the name of “maximizing shareholder value”
- The FERC relicensing process crawls along
- The current administration — now implicated in illegally injecting politics into the scientific/management end of the Klamath and causing the 2002 die-off — opposes any resolution
How bad is it? This from the Klamath Salmon Media Collaborative Web site:
“These diseases are particularly lethal in combination with increased temperature and static flow conditions caused by the Klamath Dams. Citizens monitoring the river have already reported seeing dead fish,” according to Regina Chichizola, the Klamath Riverkeeper.
Nat Pennington, fisheries coordinator with the Salmon River Restoration Council said, “In recent years juvenile die offs have become annual events. We really need to get a handle on exactly how many juvenile salmon are dying in the Klamath River each year. Disease monitoring and outmigrant trapping are the only tools we have. When we go check fish traps and find a lot of sick fish we are left wondering how salmon ever actually make it through the Klamath gauntlet to the ocean.”
“We’re forgetting how to catch and cook salmon while we are getting very good at counting sick and dead salmon. These diseases have become a chronic problem. Dam removal and river restoration is clearly the cure” said Pennington.
Is it possible to shed a tear for a river and its fish? Keep the Kleenex handy.
The Water Wars Rage On
If you doubt for even a second the water wars aren’t already raging in what’s left of Northern California’s wild places, consider what’s happening within an hour’s drive of the Upper Sacramento’s headwaters:
- The Klamath is going under, the result of killer dams and upstream diversions for marginal agriculture holdings.
- Nestle (and a host of other water bottling plants) are pumping water from the watershed at a rapid rate, and the county economic development director welcomes them with open arms.
- The raising of Shasta Dam has moved beyond the original 6 foot “estimates” — now they’re talking about 18 feet.
Stay tuned. As the summer progresses, the snowpack will disappear, water temperatures will increase, water quality in Iron Gate Reservoir will go toxic, and the chances of a salmon die-off will increase.
See you scooping dead salmon from the Klamath, Tom Chandler.
[tags]klamath, klamath river, pacificorp, warren buffett, shasta dam, karl rove[/tags]
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
isaac roman 06.21.07 at 4:43 pm
thanks for keeping us informed—–honestly. there has to be changes
Jim McCarthy 06.22.07 at 10:56 am
There have been some interesting public statements made recently about the Klamath dams and fish kills which I believe paint only part of the picture. There is no doubt dams are a huge problem for salmon, but so are water quality and water quantity, due to factors beyond the dams. Removing the dams will only solve some of the Klamath’s problems, and removal is 20 years away at the most optimistic. It’s just common sense that we’ll have to take big steps on water quality and quantity first, to keep the salmon (and salmon communities) around long enough to benefit from dam removal. So when you hear people talk about Klamath River fish kills and dams, please remember what the scientists have said:
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s 2002 Biological Assessment found water releases from Iron Gate remained below the temperatures in the main river year-round, except for a one-week window in the fall. A study by Deas and Orlobb showed higher flows can reduce the adverse warming impacts of the Shasta and Scott rivers, two main tributaries with frequently high water temperatures.[Deas and Orlobb, Klamath River Modeling Project, Report No. 99-04, University of California, Davis 1999] In addition, modeling in Deas and Orlobb (1999) and the Institute for Natural Systems Engineering also show higher flows protect salmon against deadly daytime water temperature spikes during warm weather. [Institute for Natural Systems Engineering, Evaluation of Interim Instream Flow Needs in the Klamath River: Phase I, Final Report, Dept. of the Interior 1999] Releasing more water from Iron Gate would help reduce water temperatures, improve salmon habitat, and minimize chances of more fish kills.
Now, it is also a fact that irrigations diversions, the majority of which go to the Klamath Project, determine flow levels at Iron Gate Dam. I’m not trying to hurt some people’s feelings– that’s just the world we live in folks. What does this have to do with fish kills? The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s report on the 2002 Klamath River fish kill laid the blame for the kill squarely on flows out of Iron Gate Dam. “Throughout our investigation we have sought to identify conditions that would likely trigger a fish die-off and that were different in 2002 in comparison to other years. The fish die off in 2002 coincided with low total basin discharge and the lowest discharge at Iron Gate for years with large run sizes. Also, in 2002, the proportion of total flow contributed by Iron Gate was the lowest among high run years with the four lowest flows… This analysis supports the conclusion that 2002 featured an unique combination of low discharges (especially from Iron Gate Dam) and high run size.” (USFWS, Klamath River Fish Die-Off September 2002: Causative Factors of Mortality, p 34)
What options do we have to prevent future fish kills? Here’s what the state of California had to say in its report about the 2002 fish kill:
“Flow is the only controllable factor and tool available in the Klamath Basin (Klamath and Trinity rivers) to manage risks against future epizootics and major adult fish kills. Increased flows when salmon are entering the Klamath River (particularly during low flow years such as 2002) can improve water temperatures, increase water volume, increase water velocities, improve fish passage, provide migration cues, decrease fish densities and decrease pathogen transmission between fish.” (September 2002 Klamath River Fish Kill: Final Analysis of Contributing Factors and Impacts, California Dept. of Fish and Game, July 2004, Executive Summary)
So let’s find ways to keep those river flows up, clean up the water quality, restore habitat, AND get the dams out.
Regards,
Jim