Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis Upholding rural Americans

Tribes and others are looking for ways to open 350 miles of river in the basin to the fish.

JEFF BARNARD
The Associated Press
April 15, 2004

CHILOQUIN — Ever since Gmukumps — the creator — showed them how, the people of the Klamath Marsh camped each spring along the Sprague River to spear and trap tchiyals — the salmon that swam more than 200 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the upper Klamath Basin.

“There were a lot of taboos with fish, because we were afraid no more fish would come,” said Gerald Skelton, cultural and heritage director of the Klamath Tribes.

The salmon stopped coming all the way up the Klamath River in 1910, first blocked by weirs to gather salmon eggs for federal hatcheries, and later permanently blocked by a series of dams to feed the West’s growing demand for electricity.

With PacifiCorp seeking renewal of its operating license for those dams, Indian tribes, conservation groups, sport and commercial fishermen and state and federal agencies are looking for a way to open 350 miles of rivers in the upper basin to salmon.

Though willing to study the idea, PacifiCorp did not include it in the 7,000-page application submitted in March to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — a decision that disappointed groups that took part in nearly 200 meetings the past two years.

“We want salmon reintroduced into the upper Klamath Basin,” said Klamath Tribes Chairman Allen Foreman. “That would provide not only subsistence for the tribes but recreational opportunities for nontribal members.”

The Klamath Basin was once the third-largest producer of salmon on the West Coast, after the Sacramento in California and the Columbia in the Northwest.

Since the dams were built, runs have fallen 90 percent, said World Wildlife Fund biologist Brian Barr.

PacifiCorp faces two major tests in the licensing process: whether it must restore salmon to the upper basin, and whether it must improve Klamath River water quality, which suffers from warm temperatures and the residue of livestock grazing and farming, which may or may not be exacerbated by the dams.

PacifiCorp puts the cost of new fish ladders to help spawning adults over the dams and screens to keep migrating smolts out of turbines at $100 million.

With computer modeling indicating those improvements won’t produce a self-sustaining run of fall chinook in 40 miles of river occupied by the dams, “We don’t feel it would be a good use of our ratepayers’ money,” said Toby Freeman, PacifiCorp hydro licensing manager.

Federal agencies have the power to demand fish passage, and the states can add their support. Oregon is leaning that way. California has not declared itself.

Officials hope a deal can still be negotiated to restore salmon to the upper basin.

“The Federal Power Act says that hydro projects have to balance,” said Knight. “It’s 300-plus miles of habitat involved in the coastal economy and tribes and what is this all for — 150 megawatts of power.”