Klamath volunteers carve paths to cold streams for salmon

John Driscoll

The Times-Standard

July 12, 2007  

The Klamath River is getting hot -- killer hot, especially for young salmon that have struggled for years to survive diseases that set in during the summer.

A group of Orleans area volunteers, nonprofit organizations, public agencies and the Karuk Tribe have moved rock and gravel from the mouths of creeks on the middle Klamath River in a stop-gap effort to open up cold-water refuges for the little fish.

Last week, for example, volunteers working with the Mid Klamath Watershed Council wielded shovels to create passages between Ti and Stanshaw creeks and the Klamath.

The work is not the solution to the many problems fish face on the Klamath, said Sandi Tripp, director of natural resources for the Karuk Tribe. But it's critical, she said, especially for threatened coho salmon that spend lots of time in the river before migrating to sea.

”It's truly a killing zone for the fish out there in the river,” Tripp said. “The only saving grace is to open small tributaries.”

As flows have dropped from Iron Gate Dam, and air temperatures have risen, parts of the river are now peaking at above 76 degrees. Small, cold tributaries that run though forests and are fed by springs and seeps can be 10 degrees cooler than that, providing significant relief for little fish.

”Any fish that decides to go up there has a whole lot better chance of survival than staying in the river,” said Gary Flosi, senior biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game.

Coho and chinook salmon and steelhead use the refuges until the tributaries and the rivers begin to swell with fall rains. The initial work to create the makeshift passages for fish was experimental, Flosi said, but over time it was clear that the cool-water sanctuaries at the mouths of creeks were more important than first realized.

Flosi, too, said the work is not a long-term solution, but may be one of the few viable options to protect young salmon while solutions to the complex problems of the Klamath are hashed out among the varied stakeholders in the basin.

Other projects bring in Caltrans, Fish and Game and the U.S. Forest Service. Fish-blocking culverts are targeted for replacement, and road work is done to prevent landslides from clogging creeks.

The volunteer efforts to do the work at the creek mouths have gained momentum in recent years. People in the mid-Klamath region are more and more bound together by river restoration projects -- something everyone can agree on, said Nancy Bailey, a project coordinator for the Mid Klamath Watershed Council.

”More and more people are understanding the critical nature of the creeks,” Bailey said.

John Driscoll can be reached at 441-0504 or jdriscoll@times-standard.com.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material  herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have
expressed  a  prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and  educational purposes only. For more information go to:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

Source:  http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_6356992