Klamath Water Users Association 

After a yearlong barrage of criticism and blame stemming from advocates for higher Klamath River flows, Klamath Project irrigators this week were vindicated by long-awaited findings from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The final report from the NAS Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath Basin was released on Tuesday and is seen by the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) and many others as a critical step towards ensuring proper assessment and maintenance of healthy fish populations. The final NAS report is important to local farmers and ranchers for several key reasons:

1. The report clearly indicates that recovery of endangered suckers and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath Basin cannot be achieved by actions that are exclusively or primarily focused on operation of the Klamath Project.
2. The committee also reconfirmed its findings from an earlier report that found no evidence of a causal connection between Upper Klamath Lake water levels and sucker health, or that higher flows on the Klamath River mainstem help coho salmon.
3. The NAS committee determined the operation of the Klamath Project was not the cause of the 2002 fish kill and that changes in the operation of the project at the time would not have prevented it.

This latter issue – a matter of considerable controversy in the past year – was seen by many irrigators as vindication of local views that were largely ignored in outside media coverage of the fish die-off. Despite last summer’s decision by federal judge Saundra Armstrong, which did not link Project operations to the fish die-off, environmentalists and many in the media continue to maintain that the Klamath Project was responsible for the fish deaths (see related story, Page 3).

"This report is consistent with what we have been saying for years – the Klamath Project cannot solely bear the burden for species recovery in this basin," said Dan Keppen, KWUA Executive Director. "A

watershed-wide approach to species recovery – one that addresses all the stressors to fish – is essential to improving our environment and saving our local economy. We share the NAS report’s vision that increased knowledge, improved management, and cohesive community action will promote recovery of the fishes."

The NAS report clearly shows that the Klamath Project alone cannot solve the problems of the entire watershed. With that said, water users want to avoid pointing the finger at other parts of the watershed in an attempt to shift blame.  

"We cannot allow interpretation of the NAS report -especially by advocacy groups who do not live off the land - to divide the agricultural community," said Keppen. "I'm hoping we can use the report as a catalyst to improve the collaboration required to address the basin-wide problems we face. We know we can develop locally derived solutions to address most of the NAS report recommendations. We should do this together, and not wait for the government or outside interests to do it for us. It's the only way we can protect the economic livelihood of our communities."

The recent final report completed by the National Research Council of the National Academies Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River Basin (committee) is, for the most part, very positive and consistent with the approach water users have taken since the early 1990s. However, there are some findings and recommendations contained in the report that may present all Klamath River stakeholder groups with some tricky challenges. Key recommendations of the report are discussed below.

Suckers - The report finds that there are no signs that the populations of suckers are returning to their previously high abundance. Removal of Chiloquin Dam and expansion of spawning on the Sprague River are emphasized by the committee, which is consistent with KWUA recommendations developed over 10 years ago. The report concludes "there is no basis for optimism that manipulation of water levels has the potential to moderate mass mortality of suckers in Upper Klamath Lake (UKL)".

Phosphorus Loading into UKL - Of significant importance to UKL tributary irrigators, the report notes that much attention has been given to the possibility of reducing the phosphorus load passing from the watershed to Upper Klamath Lake. According to the committee, the prospects for suppressing algal blooms by this means in UKL seem poor, because about 60% of the external phosphorus load is derived from natural sources.

Introduction of Suckers into Lake of the Woods – one of the most controversial recommendations in the report is the "elimination" of non-native sport fish populations and reintroduction of suckers in Lake of the Woods, one of the most popular recreational lakes in the region. This will undoubtedly generate opposition from community tourism leaders and resort and cabin owners along the shores of this popular tourist destination.

Coho Salmon - The reports finds the most important probable cause of impairment of coho salmon is excessively high summer temperatures in tributary waters that are not affected by Klamath Project operations. The report notes that coho habitat has been seriously degraded in tributaries, and that an even more important coho stressor might be competition and predation from large numbers of Chinook salmon and steelhead that are released from hatcheries to the main stem.

Hardy Flow Studies - The NRC Committee addressed the controversial draft Hardy Phase II report, a draft study that contains recommendations water users believe to be fatally flawed. The committee saw the modeling approach as flawed by heavy reliance on analogies between habitat requirements for Chinook salmon and habitat requirements for coho salmon. To the extent that this approach is carried into the final Hardy report, which is currently being developed, the NRC Committee’s skepticism about the validity of the analogy would also be carried forward. In addition, the NRC Committee concludes that rearing of coho in the Klamath main stem is much less important than rearing of coho in tributaries, which are the preferred rearing habitat of coho. The draft Hardy Phase II study does not deal with tributaries.

KWUA is currently developing a detailed assessment of the NAS final report. The NAS final report can be downloaded at: www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/

A draft report leaked by an anonymous source to the Eureka Times Standard and reported on the same day the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released its final report on Klamath Basin fishes has further clouded the issues surrounding the 2002 Klamath River fish die-off. However, discussions with high-level agency officials have revealed that the draft report was a very early version of a final report – yet to be released – that will differ substantially from the draft.

An article in The Eureka Times Standard that appeared one day after the release of the NAS report suggests that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) had information that may have changed the way the NAS committee reached conclusions on the 2002 die-off. The Times Standard – which serves communities along the northern California coast – alleged within days of the September 2002 fish die-off that the dead fish were a product of poor management of water within the Klamath Project. In the year that has elapsed since the fish die-off, that paper has printed a series of editorials and articles that have consistently attempted to link Klamath Project operations with the fish die-off.

This week, despite the NAS findings that suggest otherwise, the Times Standard continued to stick to its guns. On the day that the NAS report was released, the Eureka paper apparently received from an anonymous source a draft version of the executive summary of an USFWS report prepared last spring. According to the Times Standard, the draft summary points at flow releases from Iron Gate Dam as the primary variable different from other years when salmon runs of equal or larger size migrated unharmed – a finding very similar to that endorsed by a draft controversial California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) report released just months after the fish die-off. The draft leaked to the Times Standard was apparently an early version of the pending final report, and, according to senior USFWS officials in Sacramento, has since been substantially modified after further agency review.

The final NAS report did not concur with the allegations made by Yurok Tribe biologists, environmental activists and CDFG within days of last year’s unfortunate die-off of salmon on the lower Klamath River. Even though the fish die-off occurred 200 miles downstream from the Klamath Project, at a location below the confluence of the main stem Klamath River and the Trinity River, these critics quickly assigned blame to reduced river flows caused by Klamath Project farmers and ranchers. The NAS report disagreed, and found "no obvious explanation of the fish kill based on unique flow or temperature conditions is possible".

"It is unclear what the effect of specific amounts of additional flow drawn from controllable upstream sources (Trinity and Iron Gate Reservoirs) would have been," the NAS committee found. "Flows from the Trinity River could be most effective in lowering temperature."

Committee Chairman Dr. William Lewis in a teleconference call on Tuesday noted that some alternative factor or factors, other than river flows or temperature, contributed to the fish die-off.

"The reason for the fish die-off is unproven at the moment," he said.

The Klamath Fisheries Coalition early next week will host a tour of the coastal communities dependent on the fishery resources of the Klamath River. Approximately 20 Klamath Project irrigators and Upper Basin elected officials will share dinner on Monday evening and participate in a tour on Tuesday. The tour is the second event this year where Upper Basin agricultural interests and coastal community leaders have met to begin to seek common areas of interest. Last summer, the Klamath Water Users Association conducted a tour of the Klamath Project for their coastal guests.

The tour will kick off with a dinner on Monday night that will feature speakers who will outline the history of the lower Klamath River and changes to it in recent times. Fishery biology, status and stocks will also be reviewed. The tour will visit coastal ports in southern Oregon and northern California on Tuesday. Klamath Basin farmers will get a first hand opportunity to view and learn about commercial fishing boats, local hatcheries and canneries, and the importance of fishing to the local recreational economy. Local experts will also discuss other economic and commercial aspects.

The economy of the Brookings area is dependent upon retirees and other tourists who are drawn to the area for its recreational fishing opportunities and mild weather.

The coastal group first met with Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) representatives last February in Brookings to begin discussions on potential collaborative efforts. At that time, it was decided that a tour of the Basin, followed by a coastal tour attended by a delegation of irrigators, would be an appropriate means of allowing both sides to better understand the other’s issues.

Both the fishermen and the farmers believe that the series of Klamath watershed lawsuits lodged by environmental groups in the past year should not detract from potential collaborative efforts to address fisheries challenges along the river.

"I believe that we will have more influence on the
management of the river if we develop a spirit of cooperation between upriver and downriver interests, and start viewing the river as the entire watershed," said Ralph Brown, Curry County Commissioner and a commercial fisherman. "Through cooperation we can identify the real problems affecting Klamath River salmon and begin to solve them."

Klamath Water Users Association
2455 Patterson Street, Suite 3
Klamath Falls, Oregon 97603
(541)-883-6100 FAX (541)-883-8893 kwua@cdsnet.net

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