By
Gerry Baksys
H&N Staff
Writer
Rehabilitating the Klamath Basin ecosystem is about more than saving the
sucker fish.
During the second of four public affairs TV programs, four of the scientists
who are researching how to restore the Upper Klamath ecosystem, stabilize
the recovery of the endangered sucker fish and find a way to provide for the
reliability of water issues said that the trick is finding a solution that
is both economical and beneficial to the environment. The programs are
sponsored by Educational Solutions and the Oregon Institute of Technology.
H&N
photo by John Stoops
LEFT
TO RIGHT: Harry Carlson of the Intermountain Research and Extension
Center, Mark Buettner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Terry Morton
of Cascade Quality Solutions, Bob Gearheart from Humboldt State University
and Larry Dunsmoor from the Klamath Tribes discuss the ecosystem on the
Upper Klamath and the best way to restore it at Thursday evening’s
public affairs TV program.
From each side
“We have to fix the river and fix it for the people that live right there
and use it,” said Larry Dunsmoor,
representing the Klamath Tribes. “That is one of our biggest challenges.
We might be able to make the river perfect, but we might make it perfect in
ways that don’t work for a person that lives there. And if we can’t do
that, then restoration will never work.”
A difficulty that often arises, said Harry Carlson of the Intermountain
Research and Extension Center, is that the group has limited funds and a lot
of work to do.
“What we try to concentrate on is what will have the biggest impact with a
limited amount of funding,” Carlson said. “So we focus on a few things.
The first is water quality, the second is habitat restoration for the fish.
We also focus on the Upper Klamath Lake and the Sprague River, areas that
can show improvement over a short period of time.”
Mark Buettner from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that fixing
anything becomes difficult because there are so many demands
on such a limited supply of water.
“First we have to realize that some things are out of our control,”
Buettner said. “First, we have relatively low precipitation that we deal
with on an annual basis (13 inches). So we are starting from a relatively
low quantity of water. Another thing is we have to deal with drought
conditions, and that makes it more difficult to balance our water needs.”
Bob Gearheart from Humboldt State University said one of the best things the
group can do to fix the water quality of the lake and help the sucker fish
is to rehabilitate some of the former wetland areas.
“Fringe areas around the lake become important for a lot of reasons,”
Gearheart said. From a water quality standpoint, the wetlands trap sediment,
remove phosphorous, reduce temperatures and function as a fish habitat, he
said.
