The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Oregon Department of Water Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are analyzing information about the river, beginning at Link River at the outlet of Upper Klamath Lake to the ocean. Currently, they are looking at nutrients, dissolved oxygen and temperature -- listed as out of whack by the agencies.

By October, the North Coast water board hopes to have a draft document that identifies limits on these three factors -- called a TMDL, or total maximum daily load. The TMDL development team leader, David Leland, said that the plan could go to the board for approval by January.

After that, farmers, timber operators, gravel extractors or any operation that may add nutrients, raise temperatures or deplete oxygen in the river would either need a special permit, or a waiver from the regulations.

But Leland said it's too early to say what the limits might look like.

”I'm reluctant to prejudge what the action plan would be before we do the analysis,” Leland said.

The water board's role is to set goals for improving water quality, he said, and can lend support to projects that aim to achieve those goals.

A similar plan developed for the Shasta River -- a Klamath River tributary -- directs irrigators to improve the quality of water that is returned to the watershed, encourages ranchers to control erosion and polluted runoff, and directs cities to change wastewater operations to improve water quality.

State Water Resources Control Board experts are also working to put the Klamath River below the confluence of the Trinity River on a list of rivers affected by sediment runoff. Water quality assessment unit chief Craig Wilson said he hopes the recommendation, which will come with many others of its kind, will be considered by the board this summer. That will then go to the EPA for its approval.

A TMDL plan will eventually be drafted to deal with the sediment issue. How soon is a matter of where on the priority list the Klamath lands, Wilson said.