On May 7, 2001, a throng of thousands, including federal lawmakers and state and local officials, held a "bucket brigade" in Klamath Falls to protest the federal government's short-lived decision to cut off irrigation water in order to protect threatened fish in the Klamath River.

Nearly five years later, commercial fishermen and coastal communities in Oregon and California need a bucket brigade of their own to protect them from a looming economic disaster similar to the one that threatened Klamath Basin farmers.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski formed the head of the line on Tuesday. In his bucket was a request that the Bush administration declare Oregon's salmon fishing industry a federal disaster if - more realistically, when - trawlers are shut down this season after three straight years of dismal chinook salmon returns to the Klamath River.

Closure of the Pacific Coast's commercial salmon season would cripple businesses that depend on fisheries. It would also devastate coastal communities, many of which were struggling economically before the new restrictions were proposed. The loss to Oregon alone from a season closure could hit $40 million.

As Register-Guard reporter Winston Ross noted in a recent story, a federal declaration would trigger only modest relief in the form of small business loans or additional unemployment compensation. But it could play a pivotal role in buttressing Northwest lawmakers' arguments for increased federal appropriations for beleaguered West Coast's salmon fisheries.

Congress should move swiftly to provide that assistance. It should start by approving legislation being drafted by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., to provide up to $150 million in fishery relief and another $60 million to monitor the Klamath River. Lawmakers who balk at this expenditure should recall the hefty relief packages that Congress approved for farmers in the drought-stricken Klamath Basin several years ago.

Meanwhile, Congress and the Bush administration must address the underlying problems that have turned the Klamath River into a hostile environment for fish. Any long-term solution must address the federal government's historical diversion of unsustainably large volumes of water for farmers, as well as the dams that block passage for salmon and create warm water reservoirs that encourage the growth of fish-killing parasites.

Much of the scientific groundwork already has been done. Three years ago, the National Academy of Sciences made an impressive series of recommendations for restoring the Klamath to health. They included restoration of wetlands, the removal of dams and the reformation of agricultural and timber practices. Those recommendations were shunted aside in favor of more politically appealing alternatives. As a result, the river, and the salmon that once thrived in it, have declined to the point where closure of the salmon season may be a necessity.

After a massive fish kill four years ago, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and other groups sued the federal government, charging that its 10-year plan for managing water in the Klamath River was scientifically flawed and violated federal law.

So far, the federal government is faring in the legal proceedings about as well as a chinook in the Klamath. Last fall, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's Klamath plan, and the studies (called a biological opinion) on which it was based, provided too little water for salmon. Earlier this week, a federal judge issued an injunction ordering the government to increase water levels in the Klamath in order to ensure salmon survival.

With that injunction and a hefty snowpack this year that should provide adequate water to meet the needs of both farmers and fish, the administration and Congress have a window of time in which they can craft new and workable solutions for the Klamath.

Gov. Kulongoski plans to invite Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and newly appointed Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to get a first-hand look at the potential effects of a closed fishery season.

He should remind them to bring their buckets.