Meanwhile, it's almost a surety that those fish will be back here - of course, many, many years from now -- in light of the news last week that PacifiCorps pulled it's application to re-license the four hydroelectric dams along the upper Klamath River. If granted, the license would have allowed PacifiCorp to operate the dams for another 50 years. But federal biologists imposed a mandatory condition that salmon must be able to swim past the dams on their own. And that, say dam opponents, is just too risky and too expensive.

The decision to pull their application signals the end, insiders say, to the Portland-based company's fight to keep the dams - and, perhaps, the beginning of a whole new set of environmental contingencies with which area farmer and ranchers will have to contend.

A PacifiCorp spokesman confirmed that company and government officials from California, Oregon and the federal government are discussing transferring ownership of the dams, which could happen as soon as Sept. 30. Details of the transfer and its ramifications will likely leak out sooner. In the end, the transfer will likely result in the decision to remove the dams and implement the Klamath Basin Restoration agreement. But that agreement has within it contingencies that farmers and ranchers will have time to habituate themselves to the presence of Salmon in our area - and, perhaps, have certain protections from Endangered Species Act lawsuits typically brought on by aggressive environmental lawyers and activists.

Some Indian tribes - particularly the Hoopa on California's northern coast - have opposed the deal and, until they sign on, there is little hope that they - along with others who are against the agreement -- will conform to the agreement's anti-lawsuit contingencies. In other words, even if the dams come down and the Salmon come back, area farmers and ranchers could still find themselves and their livelihoods menaced by aggressive lawsuits.

Meanwhile, the machinery is already turning and, last week, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission said chinook salmon should be able to grow in the Upper Klamath Lake area now blocked by dams on the Klamath River. The Commission voted to change Oregon's fisheries management plan for the Upper Klamath Basin to allow biologists to prepare for the day - years down the road - when salmon will be able to reach some 300 miles of habitat blocked the past century by hydroelectric dams.

"It's been a long time coming," said commission Chairwoman Marla Rae. "We have to start somewhere."

"What we are doing is basically getting ahead of the curve to learn some information how (salmon) function in the system," said Chip Dale, regional director for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Expectations are that adult salmon, steelhead and lamprey will begin swimming upstream throughout the length of the Klamath River on their own, but no one knows how they will react when they hit Upper Klamath Lake - Oregon's largest lake and the source of the river, said Dale.

Biologists will study which stock of fish, whether wild or hatchery, local or from another watershed, will do best in the area, and develop plans to reintroduce salmon eggs, or young salmon to the lake and the tributaries flowing into it and see what they do, Dale added.

Because spring chinook generally are the fish that swim farthest into the headwaters to spawn, biologists expect chinook are the species to most likely spawn and return to the Upper Klamath Lake. However, the Klamath's spring chinook run is practically extinct. A related strain can be found in the Trinity River, the Klamath's primary tributary, he added.

Some folks in our community have said that salmon in our area were few and far between, long before the dams. They argue that the dams have guaranteed high-water levels in the lower Klamath River in dry years, helping fish survive in bad times. It's the good times that had environmentalists and Indian tribes worried, as fish counts plummeted even when there was plenty of water in the river. - P.H.

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