Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
Upholding rural Americans' rights to grow food,
own property, and caretake our wildlife and natural resources.
Our Klamath Basin
Water Crisis
Upholding rural Americans' rights to grow food,
own property, and caretake our wildlife and natural resources.
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Turbine repairs shut off water to Calif hatchery,
killing fish http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/09/22/state1732EDT7558.DTL Turbine repairs shut off water to Calif hatchery, killing fish JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press Writer Monday, September 22, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (09-22) 14:32 PDT GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- PacifiCorp is investigating why water was shut off to a Northern California fish hatchery during maintenance on a hydroelectric powerhouse, killing 70,000 young salmon and steelhead spawned from fish that survived last year's Klamath River fish kill. The loss of 40,000 yearling fall chinook and 30,000 yearling summer steelhead on Friday means the California Department of Fish and Game will not meet its annual goal for releasing fish into the Klamath River to make up for spawning habitat lost to a string of hydroelectric dams. "It's not going to be a catastrophic event," said Pat Overton, senior hatchery supervisor at the department's office in Redding, Calif. "The program will still be pretty successful, coming close to meeting our mitigation goals." PacifiCorp spokesman Jon Coney said work was being done Friday morning on the century-old powerhouse on Fall Creek, which drains from southern Oregon into Irongate Reservoir on the Klamath River, located east of Interstate 5 about five miles south of the Oregon border. "Somewhere along the line water was shut off," said Coney. "We don't know how or why. "We launched an investigation to make sure it doesn't happen again." Overton said he was told workers were diverting water from one turbine to another when a valve was closed, shutting off water to rearing ponds at the Fall Creek Hatchery, where salmon and steelhead hatched at Irongate Hatchery nearby are raised to yearling size before release. Water was shut off for about 40 minutes before an alternate source was opened, Coney said. The yearling chinook and steelhead were spawned from fish that survived the 2002 run that lost 30,000 fish in low water conditions in the lower Klamath River, Overton said. The yearling 40,000 chinook amount to 3.7 percent of the annual goal of more than 1 million chinook reared each year, but 22 percent of the 180,000 chinook held longer to reach yearling size, Overton said. Because they are larger, yearlings generally have a higher survival rate than fingerlings. The 30,000 steelhead lost amount to 15 percent of the annual goal of 200,000, which has not been met for several years, Overton said. The Fall Creek and Irongate hatcheries were built to make up for spawning habitat lost when a series of hydroelectric facilities were built on the Klamath River below Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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 |
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