ONRC's Jim McCarthy
Responds to KWUA's Oregonian Commentary
Hello Folks,
Perhaps you've already seen the editorial I've pasted below. While I
think it's admirable that the irrigators are raising funds to help
the coast, unfortunately a lot of the other statements below should
be taken with a large grain of salt. And I also disagree that
advocating for long-term solutions in the Klamath is finger-pointing
-- the focus is on finding solutions for the Klamath's problems, and
a big part of that (besides dam removal, water quality improvements,
and river habitat and upper watershed restoration) is changing
government water management so it's fair for everyone who depends
upon the river -- including fishermen and farmers. To do this we need
a respectful public debate.
Now, as for the points in the piece below, I'll go through the main
ones if you don't mind some detail.
If we want to talk about historical references to Klamath water
quality, we can also look at the account by Albert Gatschet, on a US
Geological Survey of the Klamath Area in 1873, provided the following
description of the Upper Klamath Basin:
"Upper Klamath Lake, with its beautiful and varied Alpine scenery,
verdant slopes, blue waters, and winding shores, is one of the most
attractive sights on the reservation."
Don't overlook that mention of blue waters. I think we all have to
acknowledge that clear-cutting of forests in the Williamson, Wood,
and Sprague rivers above Upper Klamath Lake, the conversion of a
couple hundred thousand acres of water-filtering wetlands to
agriculture, and ongoing pollution from farm runoff and towns must be
playing a significant role in harming the water quality in the lake
today. That's not pointing fingers, it's just what happened. Nobody
did it to harm fish on purpose. But now, we need to figure out ways
to improve water quality, like restoring forests and rebuilding some
of those water-filtering wetlands. Denying that we've created a
problem here doesn't help anybody.
I also keep hearing about how releasing water from Upper Klamath Lake
would be bad for salmon since the lake water is just too warm. I
assume they're talking about water released in the summer and fall,
not the spring, since in the spring we are talking about snowmelt
coming into a lake at 4,140 feet above sea level. Temperatures
regularly drop below or near freezing at night around here in March
and April. Trust me, that lake is cold enough for salmon when it's
filling up with snowmelt, and I do believe it would be a benefit to
get higher flows from the lake down to Iron Gate and the outmigrating
young salmon in the spring. I expect most salmon fishermen would agree.
As for the hottest time of the year, such as the hot summer of 2002
during the massive fish kill, here is what the scientists for the
Klamath Tribes, who live on Upper Klamath Lake, had to say in a
public statement on September 27, 2002 about claims the lake water
was too warm to help salmon:
"The media has been devoting extensive coverage to the ongoing major
die-off of salmon and steelhead in the lower Klamath River, and will
likely continue to do so. As we observed so often during the water
crisis in 2001, incorrect information is frequently conveyed as fact
in the recent media reports. Specifically, water in Upper Klamath
Lake is said to be too warm to be released to the Klamath River, that
this warm water would harm the salmon if it were released. The
following quotes illustrate how this idea is being conveyed:
Eureka Times-Standard, article written by John Driscoll, quote from
Jeff McCracken, spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation:
"I just don't know where (cold water) would come from," McCracken
said, as Upper Klamath Lake is shallow and warm.
Oregonian, article written by Michael Milstein:
"The issue now of releasing more warm water, we don't really want to
see that happen," said Dan Keppen, executive director of the Klamath
Water Users Association. "We don't want to see the fish
suffer."
Temperature (and other water quality parameters) has been intensively
monitored in Upper Klamath Lake in 2002. A subset of the monitoring
locations for which data is immediately available is shown in Figure
1 (results from other sites can be viewed at: http://oregon.usgs.gov/
projs_dir/or207/klake_data.html). At the USGS site GP4, water
temperature was recorded hourly through most of the summer at a
location 1 m above the lake bottom. At the Klamath Tribes sites,
water temperature was measured between 1000 and 1400 hours at 1 m
intervals in the water column.
Median daily water temperatures in Upper Klamath Lake have
consistently been below the lethal limit for adult salmon since
August 4, although hourly temperatures exceeded the lethal limit for
portions of each day during a six day period in mid-August (Figure
2). From about August 21 up to the present, water temperatures in
Upper Klamath Lake have been well below the lethal limit for salmon.
Lake-wide average water temperatures measured at a depth of 1 m
(Klamath Tribes sites) compare well to daily median water
temperatures measured at site GP4, providing confidence that water
temperatures measured at GP4 adequately reflect prevailing lake-wide
conditions.
Therefore, the portrayals of Upper Klamath Lake water temperatures
being too warm to send downstream because of concerns about harming
the salmon are clearly incorrect. The US Bureau of Reclamation, the
Klamath Water Users Association, and anyone else portraying the
present situation in this manner should stop immediately, because the
facts directly contradict this position."
Folks should contact the Klamath Tribes if they'd like to confirm
things haven't changed since 2002.
If were' talking about releases from Iron Gate Dam itself, the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation's own 2002 Biological Assessment found that
water releases from Iron Gate remained below the temperatures in the
main river year-round, except for a one-week window in the fall. A
study by Deas and Orlobb (1999) also showed that higher flows can
reduce the adverse warming impacts of the Shasta and Scott rivers,
two main tributaries with frequently high water temperatures.(Deas
and Orlobb, Klamath River Modeling Project, Report No. 99-04,
University of California, Davis 1999.) In addition, modeling in Deas
and Orlobb (1999) and by the Institute for Natural Systems
Engineering (1999) also show that higher flows protect salmon against
deadly daytime water temperature spikes during warm weather.
(Institute for Natural Systems Engineering, Evaluation of Interim
Instream Flow Needs in the Klamath River: Phase I, Final Report,
Dept. of the Interior 1999.) Releasing more water from Iron Gate
would help reduce water temperatures, improve salmon habitat, and
minimize chances of more fish kills in a variety of ways.
To get some background of the "environmental water bank" mentioned
below folks should check out the General Accounting Office's 2005
report on the program. Here's a quote of interest:
"[Bureau of] Reclamation estimates that the 100,000 acre-foot water
bank requirements for fiscal years 2005 through 2011 will cost at
least $7.6 million annually, bringing the total water bank costs to
more than $65 million."
Unfortunately, while it does some good to have this program providing
more water for fish in the short term, it's extremely expensive, and
come 2011, it will have gotten us no closer top long term solutions
in the Klamath. Here's what the GAO had to say in the same report
about long term:
".the total cost to retire 50,000 acres [as a permanent demand
reduction equivalent to the annual water bank], assuming land is
available from willing sellers, could range from $15 to $130 million,
depending on the mixture of low and high valued land offered for sale."
This is why many advocate for land retirement as a solution-- it's
cheaper, it's long-term, and it's been done before.
As for the claims of using "only 3 to 4 percent of Klamath River
flows in an average year." Here are some facts:
Of the some 470,000 acres of irrigated land in the Klamath Basin
(USGS number), under half -- 230,000 acres -- is in the Klamath
Project. Thus, Klamath River diversion in the project only represent
about half of what is diverted in total, since much gets diverted
before it ever reaches the Klamath River.
The Klamath Irrigation Project itself diverts roughly 25% (450,000
acre-feet) of the Upper Klamath Basin's entire mean annual flow (1.8
million acre-feet). Total irrigation diversions tend to be even
greater during dry years, to compensate for drier soils and increased
evaporation. This further reduces already low river flows. (Hecht and
Kamman, Initial Assessment of Pre- and Post Klamath Project Hydrology
on the Klamath River and Impacts of the Project on Instream Flows and
Fishery Habitat, Balance Hydrologics 1996, pp. 15, 21)
Historically, the Upper Basin's contribution was most critical during
drought summers, often providing more than 40% of the river's entire
summer flow. Over the past 35 years, irrigation demand has slashed
the upper river's essential flow contribution to the lower river.
Now, Upper Basin irrigation flow management often provides only 5 to
10% of total river flows during drought years-an 80% reduction from
pre-Project contribution levels. (Hecht and Kamman 1996, p. 35)
In the driest years as much as 46% of the available water in the
upper Klamath Basin has been diverted for agriculture or, of the
whole pie in critically dry water years (of which there were two in
particular in the 1960-1997 record), 46% on average went to Project
deliveries, and therefore 54% went to Iron Gate (middle and lower
river) flows.
As an example, in two of the dryer years in the last decade:
In 1992:
466 thousand acre-feet (TAF) were diverted from Upper Klamath Lake,
18.5 TAF were returned to the Klamath River from the Klamath Straits Drain and
Lost River. Net Project water consumption = 447.5 TAF. Iron Gate Flows =
465 TAF. The percent consumption of available water downstream of the
Williamson and Sprague and above Iron Gate Dam by the Project in 1992 is
approximately
calculated as: 447.5/(447.5+465) = 49%.
In 1994:
451.2 TAF were diverted from Upper Klamath Lake, 64.1 TAF were
returned to river from Klamath Straits Drain and Lost River. Net Project water
consumption = 387.1 TAF. Iron Gate Flows = 652.1 TAF. The percent
consumption of available water downstream of the Williamson and
Sprague and above Iron Gate Dam by the Project in 1994 is approximately
calculated as: 387.1/(387.1+652.1) = 37%.
A conservative estimate for accretion of flows from springs and
tributaries between the Klamath Project and Iron Gate Dam is 300 cfs.
This rate of flow all year would yield 217.2 TAF. Using this
conservative estimate and subtracting it from the total Iron Gate
flows, in 1992 approximately 247.8 TAF of the flows at Iron Gate came
from the Project. So only 247.8/(447.5+247.8) = 35.6% of the water at
the Project was released to the Klamath River. In 1994, 434.9 TAF of
the flows at Iron Gate came from the Project (53% of the water at the
Project).
Klamath Basin irrigators have claimed for years that only 3% of the
water in the Klamath River is diverted for agriculture in the upper
basin. Indeed, of the river's some 20 million acre feet volume that
flows into the sea in a wet year, their annual, low flow month's
summer uses is about 400,000 acre feet, or 2%. But so what?--you
might as well compare that number with the amount of water in the
Pacific Ocean. What matters is the amount of water diverted when
salmon need it most--and during the upper basin irrigation season
this amount is considerable. It's just a fact. Nobody does this to
harm salmon on purpose, but it's something we have to be up front
about. There simply has been too much water promised to too many
interests.
Sources for the flow info above include Project deliveries as
reported in the Bureau of Reclamation's Biological Assessment of the
Klamath Project's Continuing Operations on Southern Oregon/Northern
California ESU Coho Salmon and Critical Habitat for Southern
Oregon/Northern California ESU Coho Salmon (aka "coho BA"), Iron
gate
flows retrieved from US Geological Survey's 'WaterResources in
California' website (http://ca.water.usgs.gov/), and the already
mentioned Balance Hydrologics March 1996 report: "Initial Assessment
of Pre- and Post-Klamath Project Hydrology on the Klamath River and
Impacts of the Project on Instream Flows and Fishery Habitat"--
commissioned by the Yurok Tribe.
Well, that's all for now. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
As you can see, I've been doing these kinds of rebuttals on the same
kinds of myths for years. I had been hoping that the sad events of
2006 had put the public debate past these attempts to muddy the
waters-- it even looked like it for a little while. I'm still hoping.
Again, it's true that ensuring enough water for the fish is just one
part of the equation in fixing the Klamath -- along with dam removal,
water quality improvement, and habitat restoration -- but getting
water to fish when they need it is a very big part. Since a lot of
the water is up here in the Upper Basin, some kind of change in
farming in the Klamath Basin is going to be crucial to solving this
problem, and that means the farmers are going to have to be part of a
solution. The key is to figure out the ways to make some changes and
still have a vibrant farm economy in the upper Klamath Basin. But
denying there is even a problem just doesn't get us there.
"Unfavorable ocean conditions" are an explanation for the weak
returns-- give me a break! That same ocean is filled with Sacramento
salmon right now. Sadly, it's just not filled with Klamath salmon.
Regards,
Jim McCarthy
McCarthy Consulting
PO Box 151
Ashland, OR 97520
541-941-9450
541-482-7282 (fax)
jmccarthy@opendoor.com