On the Klamath River, pain flows downstream

Remember when the government shut off water to farmers in the upper Klamath Basin, and everybody from the White House to The Wall Street Journal came running to the rescue?

Well, where are they now that the feds are poised to shut off the economic lifeblood of coastal towns from central Oregon on down the full length of California, because the Klamath River is too shallow and sick to sustain salmon?

When it comes to economic power, political support and public sympathy, it sure makes a difference what end of the river you call home. It seemed like every elected official in Oregon trooped down to Klamath Falls during that long, hot summer of 2001 to stick up for the family farmer. Today, with federal fisheries officials talking seriously about shutting down fishing along 700 miles of coastline, there is no similar rush to the aid of the family fisherman.

Dave Bitts, vice president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman Associations, a California fish lobby, predicted that one closed season would knock out much of the already weakened Pacific salmon fishing fleet. This is no small economic hit to the region: Salmon trolling and its associated jobs represent $150 million in economic activity in Oregon and California.

A full closure would be a tragedy for fishing ports and families up and down the coast. But at this point, it's hard to see how a fishing shutdown can be avoided this summer. Klamath River chinook populations have plunged below the numbers needed to sustain the species. Yes, there are many other salmon from other rivers in the ocean, but there is no selective way to harvest them without killing more Klamath salmon.

The real issue here is that the Klamath River is sick, rife with disease, dewatered by irrigation and blocked by dams. No one should lay all this at the feet of upper Klamath Basin farmers, who are among a cast of thousands, including huge agribusinesses in California's central valley, that rely on water from the Klamath River and its tributaries.

Yet if you want to understand who's won and who's lost the fight for water in the Klamath, look upriver, and look back to 2002. The farmers, thanks to the intervention of the Bush administration and Congress, got their water back. Then a few months later, an estimated 70,000 salmon, some of them chinook, died in the warm, diseased waters of the Klamath.

There's been a fierce debate about the cause of the die-off. However, an investigation by the California Department of Fish and Game blamed federal policies for the low, warm water and disease outbreak. However you want to assign blame, the region sure could use the offspring from those 70,000 Klamath fish about now.

Of course, that is warm water under the bridge. But what is still alive is the question of whether the federal government is willing to balance the economic interests of upstream and downstream communities, not just on the Klamath, but everywhere fish and fishermen continue to come in last.