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This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
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The laws and regulations which govern the
development of water pollution clean up plans
require that those plans: Will a new Klamath
Clean-Up Plan Restore Klamath Water Quality?
Right now the North Coast Water Quality Control
Board (NCWQCB) – the entity charged with
assuring water quality on the Northcoast and
Klamath – has begun the process of developing a
Water Quality Restoration Plan for the Klamath
River. This is a critical part of what is called
the TMDL Process. The Restoration Plan is where
the rubber of science hits the road of
enforcement. A good plan will provide for the
corrective actions and enforcement mechanisms
needed to (finally) clean up the Klamath.
The NCWQCB is currently conducting “scoping” for
the Water Quality Restoration Plan including
five workshops where the Water Board’s staff
will present the Plan and receive written and
oral comments from the public. The five
workshops are as follows:
TMDL and background documents and information is
available at the
NCWQCB’s web site.
Comments can be submitted until 5 PM on March
27th to: MStJohn@waterboards.ca.gov.
The Klamath River is listed as “impaired” as
required by the Clean Water Act because its
waters will not support the “beneficial uses” of
that water - as expressed in water quality
standards established for the River. The Klamath
is impaired by excessive amounts of nutrients
and organic matter, high water temperatures, low
dissolved oxygen concentrations, and the
blue-green algae toxin microcystin. These
impairments are damaging beneficial uses
including salmon and other fisheries, Indigenous
cultural uses and recreation.
Livestock polluted
water from Johnson and
The #1 source of these impairments is well
established but not well known: it is the
agriculture industry. Water being released from
the Klamath Straits and Keno Reservoir in the
Upper Basin is highly polluted and most of that
pollution is agricultural waste water. The
Shasta and Scott Rivers are also polluted and
the main source by far is agriculture – both
direct deposit of manure by livestock and
agricultural waste water released to the river.
The temperature, low dissolved oxygen and
microcystin toxin impairments are directly
related to this agricultural pollution.
PacifiCorp’s dams and reservoirs – both the 4
that are proposed for removal and the one that
is proposed for transfer to the Bureau of
Reclamation – make the bad water quality they
receive much worse. But they are NOT the main
source of Klamath River’s water quality
problems.
If it is going to succeed the clean-up plan
adopted by the North Coast Water Board will need
to learn from the failures of past water quality
and fisheries restoration efforts. It must also
assure that – unlike clean-up plans developed
for the Shasta and Scott Rivers - it will get
the job done now and not years in the future.
Water pollution is the main cause for epidemic
disease levels in the Klamath and certain
tributaries which are wiping out salmon and
steelhead production before the young fish can
reach the ocean. It is unclear whether Klamath
Salmon can survive if clean-up is long delayed
or is ineffective.
Overgrazing and unfettered access to
streams - Johnson Creek Watershed,
Past efforts to clean-up pollution which comes
from agricultural operations have failed when
they have relied upon voluntary approaches or
upon agencies – like the Resource Conservation
Districts – which are controlled by polluters. A
25-year effort to clean up pollution in
Chesapeake Bay has been declared a failure
because the voluntary approach to agricultural
and other pollution has not worked. Chesapeake
Bay advocates are now calling for
effective enforcement.
The 20 year effort to restore Klamath Salmon
under the 1986 Klamath Act which used similar
“collaborative” methods also failed. Wild
Klamath salmon stocks have continued to decline
in spite of expenditure of $40 million and more
on “restoration” projects. Too many of those
projects delivered benefits to landowners and
organizations but not to salmon and watersheds.
Will the “Klamath River Water Quality
Restoration Plan” being developed by the North
Coast Water Board again choose “voluntary” and
“collaborative” approaches which have failed in
the past here and across the nation?
Stay tuned……or, better yet, get involved!
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