Mr. Fought,
If the newspaper would see fit to list the e-mail address of the
various reporters, I would have sent this to Dylan Darling instead of
to you. I wish to take issue with the ever expanding notion that the
dams on the Klamath River are responsible for the demise of the Upper
Klamath River Salmon Runs. I don't have issues with the article Mr.
Darling wrote other than that. It seems that there is an expanding
tendency in society today to be politically correct, rather than simply
correct. That is quite unfortunate, for decisions influencing future
water resource management decisions need to be based on correct
information. With all of the controversy involved in the Klamath River
water wars, that item ought to be more than self evident at this point
in time.
In the instance of the dams, it is very simple to look at the
Klamath
River dams with the lack of fish ladders and leap to the apparently
obvious conclusion..."no wonder there are no Salmon, they can't get
past the dams". That seems to be the mantra of the tribes, and
therefore this is the position that seems to have become a recurring
theme in media representation of the issue. Now obviously the dams will
prevent re-establishment of any upstream salmon runs. However, that is
not the point. The point is that the dams did not extirpate the salmon,
the Federal Government did. They did it by 1898, twenty years before
the first dam. They did it under the guise of the US Bureau of
Fisheries (the precursor agency of the US Fish and Wildlife Service) at
a site called Klamathon. This is somewhat downstream from Iron Gate
Dam. The Bureau of Fisheries was concerned with low Salmon runs and
became convinced that the newly developed concept of fish hatcheries
would be the solution. There began a period in the late 1890's where
the Bureau of Fisheries established a fish trap at the Klamathon site,
with the idea of replacing natural run fish with hatchery fish. The
best science of the day (actually French science, maybe we should blame
the French) was that hatchery propagation would provide a eight fold
increase in fish production. The conclusion seems to have been that
replacing natural runs with an eightfold increase in hatchery fish
would be the obvious solution to the low Klamath River Salmon runs.
This is chronicled in John C. Boyle's much ignored book, Fifty
Years
on the Klamath. In this book are copies of actual correspondence
between the California Department of Fish and Game and concerned
Klamath River sportsmen who were questioning the lack of provision for
a fish ladder on the original Copco Dam. The California Fish and Game
response said that the fish ladders were un-necessary because their
extensive surveys had determined there were no anadromous fish runs
present.
It is a separate decision whether or not it is a good thing to try
and re-establish upriver salmon. The point is to be sure we correctly
include historical information in the debate. Also we need to be wary
of terms such as Best Management Practices and Best Available and the
Law of Unintended Consequences. Those things are what got us into this
mess in the first place. The Bureau of Fisheries used the Best
Available Science to conclude that the Best Management Practice was to
replace natural anadromous runs with hatchery production. The obvious
unintended consequences affect everyone. It has instead become vogue to
trash agriculture or the power companies for the problem.
Steve Cheyne
October 17, 2005