Panels weigh in on fish studies 

Peer reviews will be used to determine viability of the KHSA 

By SARA HOTTMAN

H&N Staff Reporter

July 10, 2011

   The federal agencies that hired the panel said it missed the mark on its assignment: to act as a peer review of two settlement agreements and associated studies, assessing if as written they would further chinook salmon populations, which is among habitat restoration goals.

   However, three other panels reviewing habitat restoration plans for lamprey, resident fish, coho salmon and steelhead stayed on point, said Dennis Lynch, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist and manager of the $18 million sedimentation study that includes the four fish reports.     

   Over the past year, 12 federal agencies have been compiling the Secretarial Determination Overview Report, which will inform Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s determination on whether removing four dams on the Klamath River is in the public interest and will help increase endangered fish populations as part of the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement. The secretary will begin review of the report in March 2012.

   KBRA and KHSA are sister agreements, together forming a $1.5 billion initiative to remove four PacifiCorp dams, establish sustainable water supplies and affordable power rates for irrigators, help the Klamath Tribes   acquire a 92,000-acre parcel of private timberland, and fund habitat restoration in the area.

   The reports informing the secretary’s decision to remove or keep the dams make a foot-high pile and are growing, said Greg Addington, director of the Klamath Water Users Association, an irrigator group.

   Among the stack are Klamath River Expert Panel reports.

   The panels are to act as peer reviews, looking at already gathered research and drawing conclusions about the status quo, the species’ future with dams, and the future without the dams and with the KBRA. Those conclusions are included in the final report for comparison.  

 What the expert panels found   

   The Klamath River Expert Panel groups concluded, in summary:

   Lamprey, submitted Jan. 14, 2010

   Species: There are seven lamprey species in the Klamath Basin; one is a saltwater species and six are freshwater.

   Conclusion: The panel wouldn’t say definitively whether removing dams would improve conditions for lamprey, but did say habitat improvement measures in the KBRA could help increase lamprey populations.  

   The panel said removing dams would open 69 miles of potential lamprey habitat along the Klamath River. Water temperatures would be more variable — higher high temperatures and lower lows — and there would be less blue-green algae. River flows would be less extreme and there would be less evaporation.

   “Sediment supply will continue to be far less than the river’s” capacity, the panel wrote. Adult lampreys need gravel for spawning and larval lamprey need fine-grained substrate to burrow.

   Resident fish, submitted April 11, 2011

   Species: Four sucker species and four trout species in the Klamath Basin.

   Conclusion: Removing dams could “provide greater   promise for preventing extinction of (suckers) and for increasing overall population abundance and productivity,” the panel wrote.

   The panel said it would also increase bull trout and redband and rainbow trout populations, particularly between Keno and Iron Gate dams.

   Proposed water quality improvement measures, if carried out as planned in the KBRA and other clean water plans, will help in some areas, including areas to help bolster redband and rainbow trout productivity.

   But, the panel concluded, the measures will not improve most of Upper Klamath Lake.

   Coho and steelhead, submitted April 25, 2011

   Species: Coho salmon and steelhead, a type of trout.  

   Conclusion: Removing dams will improve conditions for coho salmon only a “small” amount with more usable habitat, the panel wrote. More significant improvements are possible “if the KBRA is fully and effectively implemented.”

   Populations would likely increase between Keno and Iron Gate dams, but “very low present population levels … indicate large improvements are needed to result in moderate responses.”

   The C. shasta parasite that has been killing large numbers of juvenile salmon must be addressed in order for KBRA measures to be effective, the panel said.

   However, the panel concluded dam removal and habitat restoration could increase population and distribution of steelhead with more available habitat.

   Chinook salmon, submitted June 13, 2011

   Species: Chinook salmon.

   Conclusion: Removing dams could result in a “substantial increase” in chinook salmon populations between the Keno and Iron Gate dams, the panel concluded.

   However, the panel was uncertain if the same population increases would   occur upstream of the Keno Dam. It could be “large,” but the panel said it didn’t have enough information to be certain.

   Without dams, chinook will be able to migrate to the upper basin, the panel wrote, but in order for populations to grow, water quality must improve and diseases that kill salmon must be reduced.

   The panel wrote it is dubious the KBRA will work, but also wrote, “The proposed action appears to be a major step forward in conserving target fish populations, compared with decades of vigorous disagreements, obvious fish passage barriers, and continued ecological degradation.”