Fish Declines -
Defining the Real Problems: There has been a lot of regional press concerning
the decision to severely reduce or eliminate commercial fishing along a 700 mile stretch
of California and southern Oregon coastline. The action is being taken because, for the
second year in a row, the returns of naturally spawned fall Chinook salmon in the Klamath
River failed to meet a minimum number set by federal law. The Klamath Chinook mix with
other runs up and down the coast, including the Sacramento. What happens in the Klamath
affects many coastal communities.
Last year, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors supported federal
relief money for fishermen impacted by prior
harvest limits. We know what impacts loss of access to natural resources can have on the
families and communities of those who make their living on the land and water.
Most of the articles I have read spread angry misinformation about
the probable causes of the fall Chinook’s decline. Most are targeted by an agenda
promoted by environmentalists and tribes to shut down irrigation, to remove dams, and to
eliminate logging, mining and people from the Klamath River corridor. Our lifestyles and
the way we provide food for our families in Siskiyou County are unfairly villanized as
morally inferior, so that it becomes acceptable to assault us over and over through waves
of press and agency action. It is all about perception and not fact.
No one seems to mention other factors that are cumulatively affecting
fish: (1) The Pacific Ocean is becoming warmer
and is absorbing more carbon dioxide, making the water more acidic. This is dissolving the
shells of plankton – a food fish eat. http://ushydro.ucsd.edu/
(2) The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO,) or El Nino, cyclically affects the upwelling of
plankton to the surface. (Chinook have also been affected in the Columbia.) and (3)
Hundreds of protected sea lions hammer the Klamath estuary.
As I have previously mentioned, the research being done by Scott
Foott of the CA-NV Fish Health Center, reveals that in 2005, 50% of Chinook juveniles
sampled were infected with the parasite C-Shasta and 91% infected with the parasite
Parvacapsula. 38% of the fish sampled were dually infected. The infection is generally
lethal. The infection rate has been increasing over the sampling period since 1995. These
are the same infections that caused the “fish die-off” of adult salmon near the
mouth of the Klamath in 2002.
Foott has indicated that increased flows in May did not appear to
affect the rate of infection in juvenile fish. It was actually the increase of water
temperature to 18 degrees centigrade, accompanied by a reduction in flows that finally
seemed to cause a decrease in infection in juveniles during the month of June. In
addition, the National Research Council (NRC) in its final 2003
report on the adult die off stated “...no obvious explanation of the fish kill based
on unique flow or temperature conditions is possible” and “It is unclear what
the effect of specific amounts of additional flow drawn from controllable upstream sources
(Trinity and Iron Gate Reservoir) would have been.” (p. 8) High water
temperatures may have stressed them, making them more susceptible to disease, but they did
not die of low flows. The adult fish died of disease.
Siskiyou County believes that it would be rash to rush into removal of
the Klamath River dams. There is no compelling data or studies to
demonstrate that dam removal is the best answer to assist in the recovery of fish. There
is actually information from PacifiCorp that indicates that water quality would actually
be decreased by dam removal. The County is very concerned about the impact that release of
potentially chemical-ladened sediment might have on fish.
The removal of dams at the
Iron Gate/Copco complex would affect more than 1,600 property owners. This is a fact
rarely mentioned in the press. The impacts on whitewater rafting and other businesses must
be assessed. Siskiyou County currently receives roughly $750,000 a year in taxes
from the hydropower facilities, as well as tax revenues from the properties. The impact of
dam removal to the County and local residents would be substantial. All impacts of dam
removal should be clearly stated and there should be guarantees that anyone impacted
should be made whole.
Siskiyou County believes that alternatives to dam removal have not
received the attention they deserve – fish ladders, trucking and other means of
bypassing the dams. Right now, there is insufficient information to know that there is
even a race of fish that could enter the temperature-plagued system and migrate up above
the dams to successfully spawn. The Karuk have dreams of the return of the spring Chinook
run, but it has been 100 years since the river was dammed and this won’t help the
commercial fishermen. The environmentalists have a well known agenda to remove all dams.
The County feels alternatives to dam removal should be tested on a pilot basis, until it
is shown that dam removal and the elimination of low-cost renewable energy sources is the
best answer.
The rush to point fingers at
each other over the past 20 years has obviously not achieved recovery of the fish. Our
suction dredge mining practices are halted, our Forests no longer are logged, the Klamath
irrigators are having their stored irrigation water taken and farming and ranching in the
Scott and Shasta is under continuous pressure from so many regulations, it may collapse
from the burden. It is time that we took a balanced and truthful look at what is causing
fish declines and stop the angry rhetoric and ulterior agendas. |
