While California salmon advocates have been happy with Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger's focus on environmental problems in the Klamath River basin, some are voicing concerns about the administration's approach, including how a $10 million pot of money directed at the river will be spent.

Much of that money will go to projects in the Shasta and Scott rivers, tributaries of the Klamath, including leasing water to increase flows for salmon in the Klamath. Critics say using restoration funds to pay farmers for water, and to help them comply with regulations, sets a bad precedent.

In a letter to California Fish and Game Department Secretary Ryan Broddrick, the chair of the California Advisory Committee on Salmon and Steelhead Trout, registered concerns about how the money would be used.

Vivian Helliwell wrote that the committee recommends the money be available on a competitive basis to all counties in the Klamath watershed, not just to deal with problems associated with irrigated agriculture in Siskiyou County.

Helliwell also asked that Fish and Game help Humboldt County get access to 50,000 acre feet of Trinity River water that could be used to improve flows and water quality on the Klamath River -- for free.

The projects were developed with help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa tribes, as well as Shasta Valley and Siskiyou resource conservation districts, said Greg Hurner, Fish and Game deputy director. Potential projects also include lining irrigation districts, installing screens on water diversion to protect juvenile fish, and putting in water-level gauges.

”The $10 million is about protecting fish,” Hurner said, “and getting it out there as efficiently as possible to do things that will immediately benefit fish.”

In answer to concerns about using restoration funds to buy or lease water for fish, Hurner pointed to a fund used to do the same thing on the Sacramento River. He said people's water rights need to be respected.

The governor has increasingly drawn attention to the Klamath River, and this week joined with Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski to announce a summit to consider removing dams on the river. That follows recent developments that may require dam owner Pacificorp to install expensive fish ladders on its dams, and a California Coastal Conservancy report that found dam removal would be safe and relatively cheap.

That's encouraging, said Karuk Tribe spokesman Craig Tucker. So is the emphasis on the Scott and Shasta rivers, he said, which will see meaningful projects turn around quickly through the restoration money. He said more water is needed in the Klamath, but it should be found through permanently retiring some water rights.

”We agree that leasing water is bad policy that will come back to bite us in the future,” Tucker said.

The federal government, too, has been buying millions of dollars worth of water for the past several years from farmers in the Upper Klamath Basin.

Mitch Farro with the Pacific Coast Fish, Wildlife and Wetland Restoration Association said the Scott and Shasta rivers are obviously over taxed by diversions, and finding water for fish shouldn't depend on whether someone wants to sell it.

”We shouldn't have to spend public money to buy our water back to protect public resources like salmon on a year-by-year basis,” Farro said.