The
Klamath Project and the Klamath Dams: Fixing the Klamath Part 2
By Joel Gallob of the News-Times
September 27, 2006
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A map of the central Klamath Basin
from the time before dams and irrigation projects changed the face of
the region shows a Lower Klamath Lake that is much larger than today's
and a Tule Lake that is also much bigger than today's Tule Lake. Upper
Klamath Lake (the northernmost of the three large lakes) is about the
same size as today's Upper Klamath. (Picture provided by Kevin Bastein) |
There are two related groups of
improvements in the Klamath Basin. One is the Klamath Project, which provides
irrigation water to farmers. The other is a series of dams that provide
electricity. The dams also provide flow management on the river.
The basin's first water diversion was built in 1906, and work on the Klamath
Project followed into 1918. For a few days that year, the Link River, linking
Upper Klamath Lake and the mini-lake, Lake Ewauna, ran dry.
Local farmers said it was not the first time and that such dry spells impaired
the Klamath as a salmon river. South Coast fisherman Scott Boley, who grew up
in the Klamath and recently visited the region with other members of the
Oregon Salmon Commission, agrees. He says strong wind pushed water back from
the Link River mouth, drying it up for several days. Jim McCarthy, Klamath
issues spokesman for the Oregon Natural Resources Council, agrees that winds
were part of the cause, but says the dry riverbed was something new, one of
the first environmental problems from the project.
Hydrology
Upper Klamath Lake is the chief source of the Klamath River. It receives water
from the Cascades, and from the Wood, Sprague and Williamson rivers on its
north side. On its south end, the brief Link River flows past Link Dam (where
water can be directed to the Klamath River or for irrigation) and into little
Lake Ewauna; it then becomes the Klamath River, flowing south, then west to
the Pacific.
Lower Klamath Lake is south of the river. Once fairly huge, it is now much
reduced, according to both McCarthy and Klamath Water Users Association
Director Greg Addington.
When the Klamath River was running high, overflows would go to Lower Klamath
Lake. The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) drained much of Lower Klamath Lake in
1917 - thus, says McCarthy, ending its huge water retention capacity and
destroying its natural flood and drought buffering function.
In an essay on "Dammed Klamath River History Lesson," in Outdoors
magazine, Barbara Hall reviewed "In the Land of the Grasshopper
Song" by Mary E. Arnold and Mabel Reed. That book, Hall wrote, details
the swings of the Klamath River, near which the two women lived in 1908-09.
Summertime crossings, it says, were easy, with sand bars and low water; but
come the rains, crossing the Klamath - before artificial flood control - was a
major task.
The book, however, has itself been challenged as inaccurate, according to
fisherman Don Stevens. And Iron Gate Dam, according to Kurok Klamath River
coordinator Craig Tucker, was built to moderate flow problems with Copco 1 and
2 dams above it.
The dry spells of the 1920s and '30s, McCarthy said, were worsened by
artificially low flows, "and got so bad the lake bed at Lower Klamath
Lake caught on fire. Smoke billowed across schools that were closed as a
health hazard. There's peat under the soil, and it burns."
Addington tells a slightly different story about Lower Lake. Both he and
McCarthy agree that before the project, when the river overflowed, it would
send water to Lower Lake. Lower did not naturally feed water the other way,
into the river. But its water is now pumped there. So, Addington says, this
part of the project helps the Klamath River (and its fish), by adding water
that, left in Lower Lake, just evaporated.
Tule Lake, east of Lower Klamath Lake, was naturally separate from the river,
a terminal evaporative sump for rivers draining in from its east. During the
Dust Bowl era, when Tule was largely dried up, farmers leased about half its
footprint from BOR. After the Dust Bowl ended, the farmers wanted to continue
doing so. That meant BOR had to remove much of the lake's water, or the farms
would be flooded. BOR sent a pipeline west through Sheepy Ridge to Lower
Klamath Lake. Now, winter rains from Tule Lake are shunted to Lower Lake. In
summer, to get water for the farmers, the project has to pump in water.
McCarthy says the project turned Tule "upside-down."
Addington, when asked about the changes at Tule Lake, replied "there's
truth to everything you said." The Sheepy Ridge pipe to Lower Lake is a
one-way tunnel, he said, and in the summer, Tule's farmers "are kept
wet" with Lost River water. Canals divert its winter flow to the Klamath
River, but in summer feed water into Tule.
East of Tule, Clear Lake and Gerber Reservoir drain into Tule, and, says
Addington, their water, after being used by irrigators, also enters the
Klamath River from Tule via Lower Lake.
Addington says the net result of the project is to increase flows in the
Klamath River by avoiding evaporative losses that would naturally occur
without the changes.
McCarthy disagrees. And, he says, the crops absorb some of the water sent to
irrigators and the water that reaches the river after irrigating farms is
warm, sediment-laden, and laced with pesticides and herbicides that harm fish.
Addington replies much of the region's water "is not Brita-filtered water
to start with," because the soils at Upper Lake and Lost River are full
of phosphorus, which produces high algal growth. And, he says, the shallow
waters of the two Klamath lakes are too warm to help salmon, which need cold
water.
Yet, says McCarthy, the river sustained huge fish runs before the irrigation
project - and the dams - went in.
The dams
The Link River Dam is a key to the irrigation project; the other five dams on
the Klamath River are for power generation and flow management. (One of the
five, Keno, has never actually produced power.)
The five are owned by PacifiCorp, which provides power to 1.6 million
customers and owns 8,500 megawatts of generating capacity. In parts of Oregon,
Washington and California it operates as Pacific Power, elsewhere as Rocky
Mountain Power. Its predecessor was Copco (California Oregon Power Company).
Going downriver from Upper Klamath Lake one first finds Link River dam, owned
by BOR. Next is Keno Dam, then J.C. Boyle, Copco 1, Copco 2 and finally, Iron
Gate Dam. They produce 150 megawatts, enough for 75,000 homes.
The Link River dam has fish screens, but according to the Klamath Basin Tribal
Water Quality Working Group website, fish still get caught in the turbines.
According to the working group, the gradient between it and Keno Dam, 20 miles
downstream, is mild, so Keno slows an already sluggish reach, further warming
the water. Scientists have found problems there of low dissolved oxygen, high
biological oxygen demand, and high ammonia levels in this reach, placing it on
the state's impaired water bodies list.
J.C. Boyle Dam is five miles below Keno. Its reservoir is also listed on the
state 303(d) list of impaired water bodies, for high temperature, low
dissolved oxygen and other problems.
Neither Copco 1 nor Copco 2 has fish ladders. The California Water Resources
Control Board has found water quality issues in both, according to the working
group.
Iron Gate Dam is 176 feet high and the second newest. According to the working
group, it has no fish passage facility; and below 10 feet, its reservoir is
without oxygen. The working group states that both NOAA (National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries and the California Department of Fish
and Game have said Iron Gate is responsible for the loss of native coho,
spring Chinook and summer steelhead. Before it, the working group states,
"residual populations of these species existed in spring-fed areas below
Copco." Now, according to Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen's Associations, the salmon and steelhead runs once abundant in the
upper basin are gone above Iron Gate Dam.
The Link River dam, Keno and J.C. Boyle (all in Oregon) have upstream fish
passage facilities, unlike Iron Gate and both Copco dams in California. But
the fish passage at Link Dam, the working group states, is ineffective and
doesn't meet federal or state criteria.
PacifiCorp spokesman Dave Kwamme says the dam reservoirs act as settling
ponds, allowing excess nutrient (that feeds harmful algae called mycrosystis)
and sediment to drop to the reservoir floor, cleaning the water. So, he says,
'the dams actually improve water quality" in the lower river. "If
you removed the dams, you'd still have poor water quality from Upper Klamath
Lake," with its agricultural, livestock, industrial and urban
surroundings, its warm, shallow waters, and its algae, he said.
Tucker replies the blue-green algae, while it thrives on phosphorus, also
needs the water to be warm - and the dams allow the water trapped behind them
to heat up. The algae make people and animals sick. It grows in summer, dies
back in fall and winter. Its decay uses up dissolved oxygen, Tucker says,
creating problems for fish and other organisms. And the warm water may have
played a role in the 2002 die-off; the warm water coming from behind Iron Gate
dam, he says, may have kept the salmon waiting for cooler flows before going
further upriver - causing the overcrowding linked to the die-off.
Tucker also says the dams also block access to habitat. Iron Gate dam blocks
access to Spencer Creek and Jenny Creek, he said, "which have good
habitat if the fish could get to it." The waters behind J.C. Boyle dam
cover over "a lot of good-sized cold water springs" Chinook once
used as cold-water refuges in summer.
Even the Salmon River, a once-great tributary for salmon that is downstream of
Iron Gate dam, he said, "last year hosted just 90 spring salmon."
Tucker says the warm Klamath water Salmon River fish need to go through has
shrunk that river's population.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council, which regulates West Coast federal
fisheries, stated in a 2005 letter to then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton
"the most important factor" impeding salmon recovery in the Klamath
River is the "inadequately low flow" allowed by BOR.
Both the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Department
of Fish and Game have called for removal of the Boyle, Copco 1 and 2, and Iron
Gate dams to improve water flows and water quality, and allow fish passage.
The Hoopa, Karuk and Yurok tribes along the lower river have seen their salmon
catch plummet along with that of coastal fishers. Further upriver, the Klamath
Tribe, which had depended on Upper Klamath Lake mullet (also called sucker
fish), is now allowed to catch one fish per year for ceremonial purposes.
These tribes strongly urge dam removal.
This summer PacifiCorp, which is in the process of re-licensing the dams,
stated a willingness to consider dam removal. Kwamme says that "is not
our preference," but might be doable if PacifiCorp's property rights are
respected and its customers not harmed.
Joel Gallob is a reporter for the News-Times. He can be reached at 265-8571
ext. 223, or joel.gallob@lee.net.
