California water board addresses Klamath River impairments 

“In 1992 the California State Water Quality Control Board (SWQCB) proposed that the Klamath River be listed for both temperature and nutrients, requiring the development of total maximum daily load (TMDL) limits and implementation plans.

“The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board accepted this action in 1993. The basis for listing the Klamath River as impaired was aquatic habitat degradation due to excessively warm water temperatures and algae blooms associated with high nutrient loads, water impoundments, and agricultural diversions,” states the 2008 California 303 (d) list of water quality limited segments from the SWQCB.

The list, containing “Category 5” water body segments, pertains to water segments that are listed as impaired with a TMDL required, but not yet completed for one or more of the pollutants listed for that segment. Five segments of the Klamath River, as well as both Copco reservoirs and Iron Gate Reservoir, are listed as Category 5 water bodies.

For the mainstem Klamath River from Oregon to Iron Gate, the list cites impairments as cyanobacteria hepatotoxic microcystins, nutrients, organic enrichment/low dissolved oxygen and water temperature. Also listed for other segments is sedimentation or siltation.

The list contains various potential sources of pollutants, including agriculture; dam construction; drainage/filling of wetlands; flow regulation/modification; habitat modification; hydromodification; unknown sources; industrial point sources; municipal point sources; natural sources; irrigation tailwater; range grazing–riparian and/or upland; and upstream impoundment, among others.

Other sources, listed as “out–of–state sources,” are explained in the list. “Klamath Falls (Oregon) municipal wastewater discharge, industrial facilities, and United States Bureau of Reclamation pumped discharge of agricultural waste are significant sources of nutrient loads to the Klamath River as it enters California.” The list also states that these are significant sources of organic enrichment/low dissolved oxygen.

The stretch of the Klamath awaiting a TMDL – along with the three reservoirs – may have implications for the current issue of dam relicensing, with the listing of dam construction as a potential source of some of the impairments.

According to Dave Clegern of the SWQCB Office of Public Affairs, the process of determining TMDLs on the Klamath stretch is operating independently of the dam process.

“The SWQCB does not have a seat at settlement negotiations, and must ultimately await an outcome of some kind there,” Clegern said, “For that reason, we are proceeding with our Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in a way that allows us to continue gathering material in an open–ended manner.”

Clegern stated that the EIR is targeting the impacts of pollutants and impediments on specific species in the river, largely salmon and other fish but also various other species.

There are a number of different dates for completion of TMDLs, for example; on the stretch of the Klamath from Iron Gate Dam to the Scott River, nutrients, organic enrichment/low dissolved oxygen and temperature are set to be addressed by next year, but cyanobacteria and sediment TMDLs do not have to be completed until 2021 – one year after the target date for initiation of removal of the dams set forth in the Agreement in Principle between dam owner PacifiCorp and various governing agencies.

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