FACTBOX |
The Klamath is a river of arguments. Insulted since European settlers arrived in the 19th century, it is riven by competing needs from dams to farmers to fishermen -- and almost entirely broken as a natural river system.
Today it produces enfeebled salmon runs that neither feed the Indian tribes which straddle the river's banks nor sustain the fishermen who prowl the Pacific coastline. The result: West Coast salmon fishermen now face an unprecedented shutdown of their season along much of Oregon and California. The reason: to preserve a run of Klamath River salmon.
This week, the federal government will decide whether to allow ocean salmon fishing, from three miles offshore to 200 miles at sea. If, as is widely expected, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council recommends a closure, it would extend some 700 miles from Monterey, Calif., to near Manzanita on the northern Oregon Coast. The council begins meeting today in Sacramento with negotiations continuing through Friday.
The fear is that any ocean fishing would snare too many returning Klamath River fall chinook salmon. Biologists expect less than 29,000 naturally spawning salmon to return this year to produce the progeny that would, in turn, come back to the Klamath three to five years from now. Scientists consider anything less than 35,000 returning fish to be dangerously low.
Already the spring season has been closed to commercial ocean trollers, who are now hoping for a May 1 opening, but few believe it can happen. Recreational fishing is also threatened.
"Fix the Klamath," Onno Husing of the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association told Gov. Ted Kulongoski last week during an emergency meeting. "That is the cry I'm hearing up and down the Oregon Coast."
To prevent closures in the future, everyone agrees the Klamath River, all approximately 250 miles of it, must be repaired. From the high desert farms at its headwaters to the rugged mountain canyons along its path through the Siskiyou Mountains, the challenges facing the Klamath are as formidable as the river itself. Its mountains have been mined and logged, while the river and its tributaries are siphoned for farms as far away as California's Central Valley.
"We're asking of the Klamath Basin more than it can give," said Professor Jeffrey F. Mount, of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who studied the river for the National Academy of Sciences.
A closure would be little less than a disaster for many of the approximately 1,200 commercial trollers who hold Oregon licenses, and many more recreational fishermen whose boats draw tourists to the coast from spring through fall, filling hotels and bringing revenue to the support industry for the fleet. The economic impact of a closure to Oregon alone is estimated at $35 to $40 million, most of it to small coastal towns that can ill afford the loss. When California losses are included, the total reaches near $70 million, according to Hans Radtke, an economist and former member of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council.
To be sure, salmon will be widely available for consumers -- farmed salmon grown in pens now account for 4 of every 5 pounds of fresh salmon sold in the United States. Yet the chinook salmon that fill ocean waters off the Pacific Coast are touted by marketers as the "filet mignon" of salmon. Although a limited fishery will be allowed from north of Manzanita to the Canadian border this summer, the chinook salmon from those waters are likely to be expensive and hard to find.
For the Yurok Tribe, whose reservation runs along the Klamath from the ocean to 44 miles inland, getting a salmon for the occasional backyard cookout is not the essence of the matter. The tribe relies on Klamath River salmon for fishing income as well as basic nutrition for many of its 4,900 enrolled members.
"It's a spiritual issue as well," said Jeff Riggs, a spokesman for the tribe. "The salmon are prominently featured in social, cultural and ceremonial life."
"Very unusual watershed"
The troubles on the Klamath begin at its source, in Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, near the California border.
"Look at the Klamath from outer space," said Mount, of the University of California at Santa Cruz. "The first thing you notice is it is a very unusual watershed."
In a typical river emerging from the Oregon Cascades, more than half its water would come from rain and snow in the upper reaches. The river would then emerge from the mountains and flow into lowlands, where water would be extracted for farming. The rest of the flow would then descend toward the ocean.
The Klamath River is upside down, Mount said.
In its upper reaches are 180,000 acres of family farms in the Oregon high desert near the city of Klamath Falls. Those farms, through a project run by the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation withdraw 10 to 12 percent of the river's total flow before the Klamath goes anywhere. In the lower reaches of the watershed are steep mountain canyons and a temperate rainforest -- which would normally be at the headwaters.
The farms became a flashpoint in 2001 during a drought, when water withdrawals were shut off to save downstream runs of fish. A year later, when the farmers again began receiving their promised water, a massive die-off of at least 35,000 salmon in the lower Klamath River drew howls from fishermen and tribal leaders.
"The biggest dilemma we've got is somebody is always trying to find somebody to blame," said Dave Sabo, area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation at Klamath Falls. "And I guess we take the blame because we are easily identifiable as a federal body that withdraws water. But we're a relatively small component of the whole basin."
Dams and damage
After leaving the farmland area, the Klamath is dammed above and below the border with California. None of the dams has fish passage to accommodate the salmon -- the oldest dam was built in 1917. They have blocked salmon from their historic range upstream for nearly 100 years.
Those dams are owned by Portland-based PacificCorp. and are currently up for relicensing by the federal government. Last week, federal officials recommended the dam operator install fish ladders and turbine screens as a condition of getting new licenses. If adopted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, new fish ladders would restore access to hundreds of miles of rivers.
Many fishermen and tribal governments are pushing for more: They want the dams removed to improve river flows.
The dams produce 151 megawatts of power that serve about 70,000 customers in California and Oregon, said Dave Kvamme, a PacificCorp. spokesman.
"We are open to solutions, but they have to be practicable," Kvamme said. "We're interested in protecting the interests of our customers and shareholders."
After the last PacifiCorp. dam at Iron Gate Reservoir, the Klamath flows unimpeded to the Pacific Ocean. Four major rivers rush their waters into the Klamath where it cuts through steep mountains. Yet, problems persist.
In the 19th century, hydraulic mining operations blasted into canyon walls, severely damaging the rivers with erosion. Logging continued into the 20th century, further damaging the lower Klamath and its tributaries.
Irrigation takes its share from the rivers, including 50 percent of the flow of the Trinity in its upper watershed. That water is sluiced through a tunnel cut into mountains, then redirected into the Sacramento River.
As a result, water below the dams is often too hot for fish in summer. The water produces swarms of microscopic parasites that in turn attack the salmon.
Although the extensive fish disease in the lower Klamath River basin is poorly understood, it seems probable that the dams may play a key role, according to Jerri Bartholomew, a professor at Oregon State University and leading expert on disease in the lower Klamath Basin. By slowing the flow of the river, the dams may be responsible for warmer waters that propagate disease. By blocking fish passage, they may cause the salmon to clump, making them more susceptible to disease and die-off.
Bartholomew cautioned that her ideas are speculative, but seem to match the evidence in the river.
By the time the Klamath River empties into the ocean, it has been dammed, damaged and siphoned to the point where salmon have trouble surviving.
And finally, the young salmon heading out to the ocean face a gantlet of sea lions at the mouth of the river, and the enduring mystery of what will happen to them in the Pacific Ocean.
Peter
Sleeth: 503-294-4119; petersleeth@news.oregonian.com
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