Panel Calls for Broader Effort to Save Klamath Basin Fish

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, October 22, 2003 (ENS) - Diverting water from upstream farmers is not the key to protecting endangered and threatened fish in the Klamath Basin, a federal panel of experts said Tuesday. The committee's report recommends that federal agencies charged with protecting the fish instead focus on initiatives to restore habitat, remove migration obstacles and reduce summer water temperatures in tributaries.

The continued emphasis on water levels "is too narrow a basis for the recovery of the suckers or salmon," said William M. Lewis Jr., a water expert with the University of Colorado at Boulder and chair of the National Research Council panel that wrote the report.

The panel examined the federal government's efforts to protect and restore three fish species in the Klamath River Basin. The 12,000 square mile basin includes Oregon's Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River, which runs 250 miles from the lake and down through northern California before emptying into the Pacific Ocean.

The Shortnose sucker and Lost River sucker, endemic to the Upper Klamath Basin, were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1988. Coho salmon native to the Klamath River were listed as threatened under the ESA in 1997.

In 2001, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) agreed to a plan that required higher water levels to protect endangered suckers and higher flows to protect threatened coho salmon. This required the diversion of water from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Irrigation Project - an action that prompted angry protests by local farmers.

The Klamath River winds 250 miles to the Pacific Ocean and its region attracts 80 percent of the Pacific Flyway's waterfowl. (Photo courtesy American Rivers)

The project has cut the total river flows during drought summers by as much as 80 percent compared to levels prior to construction of the irrigation project.

As a result, some 80 percent of the Klamath Basin wetlands are gone, entire lakes are drained and the salmon fishery has greatly diminished.

The competing interests for the water do not just include farmers and fish - several Native American tribes have treaty rights to fish from the Klamath.

The Bush administration decided in 2002 not to enforce the plan, a move that appeased the farmers, but drew sharp criticism from environmentalists.

Some critics - and the California Department of Fish and Game - have suggested that the administration's decision contributed to the death of some 30,000 migrating adult salmon in the fall of 2002 in the Klamath River. Most of the salmon killed were chinook, which are not listed as endangered or threatened.

In its final report the committee reiterated its determination that neither the river flows nor temperatures that occurred during the fish kill were unprecedented and that neither flow nor temperature conditions alone can explain the fish kill.

The panel said that maintaining water levels higher than that of the recent past is not likely to be effective in restoring sucker populations and also determined that the effect of higher minimum flows in the Klamath River on coho salmon is unlikely to lead to their recovery.

"We found that the prevailing scientific sentiment in the basin - 'More water is better for fish' - was the wrong approach," said panel member Jeffrey Mount, a river management expert and geologist at the University of California at Davis. "Instead, what matters to the survival of these fish, and to the many others at risk in the basin, is where the water is, when it is there, what its quality is, and what the habitats are like."

The panel recommended that some adjustments - including increased summer flows down the river - were needed to the operation of the federal irrigation project, but not as severe as those originally proposed by the fisheries agencies.

More than 33,000 salmon died in the Klamath River last year and conservationists blame low water levels. (Photo courtesy American Rivers)

The committee estimated that the research, monitoring, and remediation outlined in its report would cost about $25 million to $35 million over the next five years, excluding costs for major projects such as dam removal.

It recommends that federal agencies develop new recovery plans for the fish within two years, with a renewed focus on modifying forestry and road construction activities on federal lands that are causing damage to fish habitat.

Suckers are not showing signs of recovery, the panel said, and the report recommends the removal of the Sprague River's approximately 12 foot high Chiloquin Dam, which blocks as much as 90 percent of the spawning habitat for suckers above Upper Klamath Lake.

The spread of a kind of algae called aphanizomenon poses a serious risk of suckers, the panel reported, and it recommended the establishment of new populations of endangered suckers at locations other than Upper Klamath Lake.

The panel identified excessively high summer temperatures in tributary waters as the biggest threat to coho salmon and recommended that agencies try to procure cool water to reestablish lower summer temperatures in streams along with long term efforts to increase natural streamside vegetation.

To improve habitat and migration routes for coho salmon, the committee also recommended the removal of two dams.

"Our main conclusion is that you can not fix Upper Klamath Lake, although there are some good things that can be done to the Klamath River," said panel member Peter Moyle, a biologist at the University of California at Davis. "The main solutions lie in the tributaries."

Environmentalists, commercial fishers and Native American tribes are wary of that sentiment and insist that parts of the basin should not simply be written off.

The report offers a useful and fairly comprehensive look at the efforts to protect fish in the Klamath Basin, but does not offer any realistic, short term recommendations, says Kristen Boyles, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, improving flows and water quality through restoration would double the value of the lower Klamath River's current $800 million sport fishing and tourism economy. (Photo by Dave Menke courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The report offers a "roadmap for long term solutions," said Steve Pedery, spokesman for the environmental group WaterWatch of Oregon. "But we have a short term endangered species problem."

Environmentalists say that in the short term, the federal government should do everything it can to make the water in the basin more hospitable for fish and increased water flows - and demand reduction - should be part of the equation.

"Right now we need to make sure there is water in river," Boyles said.

In a statement released Tuesday, Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton said the report vindicates the Bush administration for its decision in 2002 not to release water for the fish and said the agency is reviewing the panel's recommendations.

The administration's statement is misleading, Boyles said.

"This report does not find that the low flow regime was not the cause of the fishkill - it says the verdict is unclear and that the jury is still out," Boyles told ENS.

In July 2003 the administration's plan for the Klamath Irrigation Project, which water levels at last year's levels, was found by a federal judge to be in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The judge ordered the plan to remain in effect for 2003 while the federal agencies rewrite it, yet made no determination what should happen in 2004 if a new plan has not been finalized. This sets the stage for further controversy on April 1, 2004, when the next irrigation season begins.

The overarching problem in the Klamath Basin, Pedery explained is that "too much water has been promised too many interests."

"This report does nothing to address that," Pedery said.