MEDIA
ADVISORY
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Greg Addington, Executive Director
greg@cvcwireless.net
cell# 541.892.1409
The
Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) learned today,
April 25, 2006
that Congressman
Mike
Thompson (D-CA) plans to introduce legislation in Congress to provide emergency
relief for coastal fishermen and provide funding for Klamath restoration
activity.
The
legislation appears to have three primary components:
- It
would provide $81 million in emergency appropriations for impacted
commercial fishermen, tribes and related businesses in the region;
- It
would direct the Department of Commerce to complete a Klamath Salmon
Recovery plan within six months, and after completion of the plan $45
million would be allocated for conservation projects, including in river
monitoring of diseases and parasites, additional ocean and river population
monitoring, operation and maintenance of stream gauges for flow monitoring,
fish passage on National Forest lands and restoration of aquatic habitats in
the lower basin;
- The
Department of Commerce would be required to report to Congress on the
progress of the Klamath on a yearly basis.
Broadly,
KWUA is on record as supporting the apparent goals of the bill, which include
mitigation of impacts of fishing restrictions and improvement of Klamath salmon
stocks. On Monday, April 24, KWUA sent a letter supporting declaration of a
fishing disaster to the Secretary of Commerce.
KWUA supports relief for fishing families, Tribes and communities who
will be impacted by the federal harvest restrictions.
While
we see the need for financial assistance to parties affected by fishing
restrictions, we do have some concerns with the proposed legislative package.
The environmental restoration provisions of the bill seem well-intended, however
it is not clear how new money and a new process will compliment efforts already
underway (see accompanying list).
Irrigators
support the need to better understand the river through monitoring and
measurement. There is much to learn about fish populations and the stressors
that affect them. However it is
important to make sure that efforts are coordinated and that funding goes to the
agencies that are best qualified to conduct these activities. Unfortunately this
legislation does not address that issue.
Finally,
we are concerned that mandating a coho recovery plan be in place within a six
month time-frame will not allow important, highly relevant processes to play
out. These include finalization and National Academies of Science (NAS)
peer-review of the Hardy flow study, the Bureau of Reclamation’s naturalized
flow study, and ongoing collaborative processes to deal with salmon issues.
KWUA
continues to support a comprehensive watershed-wide approach to recovery of all
Klamath fish species as outlined in the 2004 Klamath report from the National
Research Council of the NAS. Having not been contacted by the sponsors of this
legislation, we are unclear how this legislation incorporates those
peer-reviewed, scientific objectives.
We
urge Congressman Thompson to approach this issue in a bipartisan manner. It is
our understanding that members of Congress who represent areas of the
Klamath
River Basin
and have sincere desire to help address these issues had no advance knowledge
of the bill or any opportunity to help craft language that would ensure
successful passage of any beneficial legislation. KWUA also urges that any
consideration of the bill reflect the interests and inputs of stakeholders
currently engaged in addressing these same issues in a constructive manner.
KWUA
will further evaluate the bill in the near term and develop its positions and
recommendations more fully.
###
A
partial list of restoration activity and research currently underway appears to
include many of the concepts in this legislative package.
Current
Ongoing Restoration and Research Activity in the
Klamath
River Basin
Arcata
Fish and Wildlife Office:
Salmon
related modeling analyses including-
- Salmon
runs over the period of record
- Determining
the optimum flow for production
- Naturalized
flow analysis
- Production
estimates
- Composite
suitability programming, to allow computation of escape and distance to
escape cover
- Shasta
and
Scott
River
Habitat Assessment Study Planning Assistance
-
Klamath River
habitat suitability criteria development
- Klamath
Spawning distribution and abundance
Additional
Studies ongoing-
- Coho
survival and migration behavior in relation to Iron Gate Discharge
- Collection
of juvenile chinook by hydrologic reach for pathogen infection rates and
histology
- Collection
of juvenile coho for histology
- Habitat
distribution and life history study plan
- Analysis
of Klamath hydrology and fish returns
- Analysis
of water samples for spore densities
- Water
quality analysis of data and nutrients)
- Analysis
of
Shasta
River
spectral imagery for riparian and instream classification
- 2D
hydrodynamic analysis of Pecwan riffle for adult fish passage
- 2D
Hydrodynamic and habitat modeling Training
Karuk
Tribe:
- Water
quality collection: Data sondes and nutrient suite
- Big
Bar and
Salmon River
outmigration trapping
- Radio
telemetry of salmon smolts during adverse mainstem Klamath conditions
- Habitat
evaluation of radio tagged, juvenile coho
Yurok
Tribe:
- Water
quality collection (Data sondes and nutrient suite)
- Habitat
evaluation of radio tagged, juvenile coho
Salmon
River
Restoration Council:
- Big
Bar and
Salmon River
outmigration trapping
- Otolith
collection for microstructural analyses
- Radio
telemetry of salmon smolts during adverse mainstem Klamath conditions
Siskiyou
RCD:
- Habitat
Assessment Study Plan Development
- Habitat
Inventory
- Limiting
Factor Analyses
Shasta
RCD:
- Habitat
Assessment Study Plan Development
- Remote
Sensing for GIS Analysis of Spectral Imagery
Idaho
State
University
:
- Hydrological
analysis of departure for the Klamath and significant tributaries
Bureau
of Reclamation Funded:
- Juvenile
coho survival and migration behavior in relation to
Iron Gate
releases
- Mainstem
Klamath River adult coho spawning surveys
- Development
of a Conservation Implementation Program, including salmon considerations
Trinity
River
Restoration Program:
- Outmigration
monitoring at Willow Creek
- Pre
and post channel reconstruction habitat analyses
- Outmigration
Database support
- Outmigration
monitoring coordination
- TWGs
and many subcommittees
Otolith
Microstructural Analyses:
- Trinity
River Hatchery and natural
-
Iron Gate
Hatchery
-
Salmon River
spring chinook
Section
10, NMFS Research Permit:
- Coverage
for a wide variety of studies and incidental take of coho
- Recent
modification gave coverage for direct take of coho for disease analyses