Curtailment of commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast of California and Oregon are now in place and no one is happy about it. This is a direct result of the Klamath River fish die-off in 2002 and little has been done to eliminate the problem of sufficient water flow for the fish.

But here is some good news that may help this fishery in the future. The facts seem to be the river has parasites and insufficient flows for returning salmon and this is a direct result of the administrations water policies, which are degrading the river habitat and lowering the rivers carrying capacity of fish. This has been going on since the year 2000, with farmers, Indians and fishermen all fighting over the water that flows down the Klamath.

Although restrictions on fishing this year can be blamed on reduced habitat from poor water management, the administration controlling the water flow claims that the problem is over fishing. This does not exist according to many organizations and individuals throughout the fishing community.

Just recently, two separate decisions address the roots of the Klamaths problems from both water quality and quantity.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was ordered to raise flows in the Klamath River immediately by an Oakland federal court. Last October, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals ruled against the government, saying a biological opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Bureau of Reclamation was flawed in claiming that there would be no threat to salmon by delaying a boost in flows until the end of a 10-year management period, so called phase 3 water flows.

This was followed by a 2002 lawsuit by commercial and sport fishing organizations, Native American tribes and environmental organizations in response to the Bush Administrations decision to reduce the flowsa dry year on the Klamath and divert water to Klamath Valley farmers. The result? An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 adult salmon and steelhead died, the largest fish kill ever on the Klamath and one of the largest in the United States.

Judge Saundra Armstrongs decision ordered the government to boost water flow in the Klamath to the phase 3 level starting April 1 and to develop a new biological opinion for Klamath salmon.

In the second major decision benefiting the Klamath fisheries, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the fisheries branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced recently that fish ladders must be installed on four Klamath River dams.

This will open up thousands of miles of spawning habitat that will now become accessible to fish.

This is likely the best news of all.

Although labeled as a recommendation, the relicensing process means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must now make fish ladders a requirement for dam relicensing.

Dams mostly create warmer water than would be otherwise, encouraging the growth of parasites that are deadly to fish.

Perhaps the owners of the dams (PacifiCorp.), will decide to remove them, because the cost of installing fish ladders would be much greater. The four dams involved here do not provide water for farms, or domestic use, but were originally built to generate electricity, primarily for irrigation pumping.