Klamath Basin Water Crisis Upholding Americans

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Twisting the spigot won't solve water issues

Herald and News 11/19/03

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service's report on the 2002 fish die-off in the lower Klamath River bears an important resemblance to one issued in October by the National Research Council: It doesn't single out the Klamath Reclamation Project for blame, though it does cite low flows as one of several reasons for the fish kill. The Project and river flows are connected, but that doesn't necessarily mean the Project killed the fish.

Both reports focus on a multitude of factors, including river flows, as the reason that an estimated 34,000 salmon died in the lower Klamath River a year ago.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's report, issued Tuesday, cited the large salmon run, crowded conditions in the lower river, low stream flows and hot weather for the deaths.

A month earlier, a report was put out by the National Research Council, a group formed by the National Academy of Sciences to investigate the 2002 fish kill and the cutoff of irrigation water on the Klamath Reclamation Project in 2001.

The Research Council said that one possible explanation for the fish kill was the "unusual combination of temperature, flow and migration conditions...possibly in association with weather that prevented the river from showing nocturnal cooling." That report also said that a change in the channel caused by high flows in 1997-98 may have stopped fish from getting up-stream when the river was low.

Though it might seem logical that leaving water in the river that would normally have gone to irrigation would have helped the fish in 2002, there is strong skepticism that more warm water flowing to the lower river would have done any good. The effect of high water temperature has been a key part of all of the reports written on the 2002 fish kill.

In addition, the upper Basin isn't the only possible source of help for the lower Klamath River. The Trinity is the Klamath's biggest tributary and a more likely source of cold water than the Upper Klamath Basin is. But most of the Trinity is diverted before it gets to the Klamath.

A point we've been trying to make for years is that there's a lot we don't about fish biology. That gets proven as we go from one fish controversy to the next.

A year ago, when the fish die-off was in progress, we said the reasons for it were likely to go beyond one factor, and that 2002 "is a drought year and when water runs short, wildlife does suffer and die."

Such things remain part of nature even though the hand of man has made many changes on the Klamath.

In 2001, it was wrong when federal agencies tried to meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act and provide more water for fish by turning the only spigot they had available - the one that turned off irrigation water from the Klamath River to the Klamath Reclamation Project.

It would have been wrong again had the federal agencies given the same spigot another twist in 2002.

Klamath Basin irrigators shouldn't be solely responsible for solving the Klamath Basin streamflow problems.

The "H&N view" represents the opinion of the newspaper's editorial board, which consists of Publisher John Walker, Editor Tim Fought, City Editor Todd Kepple and Opinion Editor Pat Bushey. Most of the editorials are written by Bushey.