April 2003
Board and Friends:
Below please find some of the recent articles on our troubled fisheries.The American River fish kill leads off the artilcles. I especially like the McCraken's quote. You'd think he hadn't spent the past decade appologizing for other kills on the American and that they didn't know this was going to happen!
John
Sacramento Bee - 3/5/03
by Stuart Leavenworth, staff writer
Federal water managers killed thousands of baby salmon last week when they cut back flows into the American River below Folsom Dam. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had ramped up releases into the river to maintain water quality far downstream in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
But when they reduced flows last week to save water for later, they inadvertently stranded—left high and dry&—thousands of fall-run Chinook salmon and an undetermined number of steelhead trout, an endangered species.
Bureau officials say the fish stranding illustrates the tradeoffs of managing Folsom Lake, which is used for drinking water, hydroelectric power, recreation, fisheries and Delta water quality.
"You fix one thing and, whoops, something happens somewhere else," said Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the reclamation bureau.
State biologists say they warned the bureau beforehand that quick drops in river flows could hurt the offspring of salmon that spawned last fall.
Hundreds of thousands of these fish are now hanging out in shallow side channels of the American River, and are vulnerable to rapid water drops, according to Mike Healey, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game.
"We are looking at a very high number of juvenile salmon," said Healey. "It couldn't have happened at a worse time."
Unnatural river fluctuations imperil fish across the West, as utilities and water managers vary their hydroelectric output or provide extra water for irrigation.
Last month, the Bureau of Reclamation increased flows in the American River from 3,500 to 5,500 cubic feet per second. Bureau officials say the extra flows prevented saltwater from creeping up the Delta and violating standards set in the Bay-Delta Accord, a state-federal pact for restoring the Delta.
Last week, the Bureau decreased flows in the river to about 2,500 cubic feet per second, said McCracken. Because of a relatively dry winter, federal officials are trying to save Folsom's water for drinking supplies and summer fish migrations.
Federal officials acknowledged that thousands of fish may have died but note than in any given year millions of salmon are born in the upper American River.
Healey said that at least 10,000 fish died, a significant loss, but noted that an accurate estimate of the kill is difficult.
"All the gulls and crows came in and picked them clean," he said.
Along with stranding young salmon, the reduced flows exposed the egg nests—"redds"—of steelhead trout, an endangered species, Healey said.
The flows could drop more.
Federal and state officials held a teleconference Tuesday to discuss plans for dropping the river farther.
The fish flap comes as federal and local officials are touting efforts to improve fish habitat in the American River, a major source of fall-run Chinook for the state's commercial and recreational fishing industries.
Last week, bureau officials showed off some of the $2.3 million they are spending on a retrofit for Folsom Dam. The retrofit is aimed at providing colder water for young fish, such as those that perished last week.
Portland Oregonian - 3/3/03
by Michael Milstein, staff writer
Federal water managers will pay farmers in the Klamath Project $4 million to idle farmland and irrigate their crops from wells this summer, leaving water in Upper Klamath Lake for protected fish.
Farmers who do not take the offer could still end up short of water in what is becoming a very dry year.
The Endangered Species Act requires specific amounts of water to aid endangered lake fish called suckers and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River. In the dry summer of 2001, such wildlife demands left little water for farmers in the federal Klamath Project, and many watched their crops wither.
This year is looking just as dry, with the mountains ringing the Klamath Basin holding barely half their typical moisture.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will begin taking applications today for a federally funded "water bank" that is one element of a Bush administration plan to ease competition for Klamath's water supply. The bank will compensate farmers to not use water, freeing it for needs such as supporting protected fish.
Federal officials will offer farmers $187.50 an acre to leave farmland dry, said Dave Sabo, manager of the Klamath Project. The amount is roughly similar to the revenue farmers could expect for each acre of a standard crop such as alfalfa. Officials expect to sign up about 12,000 acres.
Some farmers could also receive supplemental funds from other agencies to plant cover crops for wildlife, Sabo said.
The bureau will also offer farmers with wells $50 an acre foot—a unit of water equal to 326,000 gallons—to pump water onto their fields rather than irrigating from project canals that draw water from Upper Klamath Lake.
"We're trying to minimize the amount of land that relies on Upper Klamath Lake for water," Sabo said.
Farmers will have until the end of the week to sign up for the program, which was delayed while officials waited for Congress to pass a federal budget.
Together, the land-idling and well-pumping will cost about $4 million and should allow 20,000 to 25,000 acres within the project to go without irrigation water from the lake, Sabo said. That will reduce the farmland dependent on lake water by about 15 percent and cut the project's water use by about 50,000 acre-feet—about 15 percent of its demand in a dry year.
Federal biologists have mandated that a water bank supply at least 50,000 acre-feet for species needs this year. Next year, the required amount jumps to 75,000 acre-feet.
The water bank measures are solely to meet endangered species requirements for water and do not guarantee the more than 1,000 project farms will not face cutbacks in supply if the year remains dry, Sabo said. Supplies of snow in the mountains remain so slim they will probably melt by April, rather than providing steady runoff through June as usual.
"The project could still face shortages because of drought conditions," he said.
Sabo said he expects enough farmers will idle their land or shift to well water to meet the water bank goals. Many are already concerned that drought conditions may leave the project short of water toward the end of the summer and may opt for the certain revenue provided by the water bank.
"I think we'll have a lot of people interested in a bird in the hand," he said.
Dan Keppen of the Klamath Water Users Association said farmers are disappointed that even with the water bank in place, they have no assurances of continued water for those who do not sign up to idle their land or use well water. Farmers have pushed the Bush administration for such assurances.
"If the water's shut off and some people have gotten compensation while others take a hit by going without water, it'll be a disaster," he said.
Portland Oregonian - 3/2/03
by Tim Holt
Talk about unwelcome summer reruns. With a below-normal snowpack in the Cascades, above-normal temperatures in the Klamath Basin and a continuing stalemate among its various stakeholders, the stage is set for a replay of the Klamath water wars.
Before the shouting and finger-pointing begin, why is it conflict in the Klamath seems unending while other watersheds have settled their battles?
Washington farmers and orchard owners in the broad, flat plain of the Walla Walla, for example, have agreed to restore flows that revive stocks of endangered bull trout and steelhead. "There was very little pontificating," Trout Unlimited's Jeff Curtis recalls of the growers who sat across the bargaining table from him. "They admitted they were breaking the law, and it just became a question of how quickly they were going to fix the problem."
That kind of quiet problem-solving rarely makes the front pages. But defiant farmers threatening to battle anyone who gets between them and the spigots do. A larger story has been lost in all the Klamath brouhaha: The federal Bureau of Reclamation provides the philosophy and support that has enabled its more vocal farmer-clients to launch their own single-minded crusade for full, uncompromising water deliveries.
Because the federal government makes the final water delivery decisions in the Klamath Project, its farmers are shielded from litigation over violations of environmental laws.
The bureau's mandate, when it was created by Congress in 1902, was to attract settlers to the arid lands of the West by building dams and irrigation systems, transforming vast tracts of desert to arable, productive farmland. In an era of abundant water, the bureau built seven dams and 516 miles of irrigation ditches in the Klamath Basin.
Today, in a far different era, its Klamath Project is an increasingly isolated oasis still trying to operate as if supplies of water to its 1,400 family farmers were limitless.
Its more vocal farmers, taking their cue from their parent agency, are playing a higher-stakes game than their counterparts in other watersheds, eschewing the bargaining table and instead pushing for no cutbacks in water deliveries. So far, they've been remarkably successful at using the media and buttonholing politicians to make their case.
The century-old policy of protecting the farmers explains, for example, why it took the bureau a decade to install a fish screen on its main irrigation diversion canal at Upper Klamath Lake after being told it was in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
More recently, in a watershed that saw the deaths of 33,000 endangered salmon last fall, the bureau successfully pushed to reduce minimum stream flows in the Klamath River-all to protect water deliveries to its client farmers. Many farmers work out disputes While the Klamath seems locked in a pattern of denial, foot-dragging and endless studies, farmers in nearby watersheds have been sitting down with government agencies and conservationists working out solutions to water disputes.
It's not that other growers are more altruistic than their Klamath counterparts—no farmer wants to give up water rights. But few growers have the protection the Klamath farmers have. Most, when confronted with lawsuits and other repercussions from environmental law violations, must deal with them directly as members of privately operated irrigation districts.
Walla Walla growers were threatened with having their water supply cut off and the possibility of severe criminal and civil penalties. Growers were draining a two-and-a-half-mile stretch of the river every summer to irrigate their fields and orchards. The practice was stranding hundreds of bull trout and thousands of steelhead, both listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
"They knew if they didn't change their practices they'd be taken to the woodshed and that it would be very painful," said Mike Bireley, who, now retired, was a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife official at the time.
The growers soon reached an agreement to restore minimum flows in the previously dried-out stretch of the river. That was in 2000—no fish have been lost since because of inadequate stream flows. Some eventually give in The small landowners on the forested slopes of the Rogue River Valley, on the other hand, went through a long period of denial as pressure was applied by the National Marine Fisheries Service and conservation groups to remove or modify a dam that hindered salmon and steelhead passage to the upper Rogue River.
As is still the case among some Klamath farmers, at first the Rogue River farmers denied any responsibility for the problem. After several changes in leadership in the Grants Pass Irrigation DistrictÑgoing back and forth from pro-dam to anti-damÑand nearly going bankrupt from $750,000 in legal bills, district members finally voted overwhelmingly to take down the dam.
While their counterparts in the region have learned—often through painful necessity—the art of deal-making and compromise, the Klamath Project farmers embrace an entirely different set of skills: public relations and politicking.
When their water was shut off in 2001, a vocal contingent of farmers successfully portrayed itself in the media as symbols of the beleaguered farmer, beset by forces wanting to "cleanse" them from the American countryside. At the same time, they worked the corridors of power effectively, persuading Interior Secretary Gale Norton to restore 57 percent of normal water deliveries in a year that had 52 percent of normal rainfall.
And they were instrumental in killing legislation sponsored by Senator Ron Wyden that would have paved the way for a federal buyout of Klamath farmland by those willing to sell. That bill would have eased the water crunch. But it is viewed by the hardcore group as the first step toward "cleansing" the Klamath Project of farmland. Outside pressures grow Now forces beyond the purview of the Bureau of Reclamation are chipping away at its domain. Native Americans are just beginning to assert long-held rights to Klamath water. Globalization and Nafta are driving down prices for many of the commodities grown by Klamath farmers.
In 2006, when a 50-year-old power contract expires, a substantial rate increase looms for the electricity that drives the project's irrigation pumps. And it's unlikely the bureau can indefinitely resist pressures to share more water with endangered fish and other wildlife.
The federal government must exert more leadership than it has for a Klamath solution. It created the Klamath Project, negotiated the treaties with Native Americans and is responsible for protecting endangered wildlife. Only the federal government has the authority to balance all these competing interests.
Sadly, it's proven adept only at responding to a small but vocal minority of Klamath farmers. At the same time the bureau has failed to come up with a long-term, consistent policy among its warring agencies.
That could change. Last year President Bush set up a Cabinet-level task force, charging it to look into "the complex issues in the Klamath River Basin" in a report due in September.
We can only hope this will be more than another dead-end study. An administration led by a self-described "uniter, not a divider" has done little to bring the warring Klamath parties together. Instead, it has aggravated existing divisions in the region.
The Final Report of the National Research Council (NRC) on the Klamath Basin water crisis (see Sublegals, 6:20/04; 5:06/01), originally scheduled for release in March, has been delayed until June or July of this year. The report is intended to provide more scientific clarity about the Klamath water crisis that caused a massive fish kill in 2002 (see Sublegals, 6:18/01; 6:18/02; 6:18/03; 6:17/06; 6:16/01; 6:15/01; 6:14/01; 6:13/01; 6:12/07; 6:02/09; 5:23/08; 5:21/03; 5:20/09; 5:18/01; 5:17/02). Its delay now means there will be no official re-consultation on or changes to the current 10-year Biological Opinion (BiOp) for Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed coho salmon in the Klamath River Thus, the same water plan that led to last year's extensive lower river fish kill will be in effect until well after most of this year's irrigation season is over. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), which operates the Klamath Irrigation Project, now intends to implement water deliveries called for in the second year of that 10-year water plan. With precipitation and snow pack still at drought levels, the result will be that the amount of water released to the lower basin will be the same or less than what flowed down the river during last year's fish kill, in which more than 33,000 mostly fall chinook salmon perished. That September 2002 fish kill, apparently the worst in U.S. history, was blamed in a report by the California Department of Fish & Game (CDFG) on insufficient water flow in the lower river, primarily as a result of the upstream diversions (for a copy of that report see: http://www.pcffa.org/KlamFishKillFactorsDFGReport.pdf). Coupled with the late summer die-off, it may be impossible, as well, to prevent a repeat of last spring's less visible but significant die-off of juvenile salmon. This occurred from March through May and was also attributed to extreme low flows in the river which this year may be even less.
Some have blamed a lack of water in the Trinity (the major tributary of the Klamath) for low flows during the fish kill, but flows from the Trinity River during September 2002 were actually the highest in more than 20 years, i.e., at full "Record of Decision (ROD)" flows during that month. Last year water flows below Iron Gate Dam were only about 75 percent of those required during the 2001 record-breaking drought and deemed then as the "minimum to prevent extinction," but only 55 percent of those deemed necessary for ultimate salmon recovery according to existing (but not yet released) Department of Interior-sponsored flow studies.
The 2002-2012 BiOp also contains significantly lower initial flows than deemed necessary to prevent extinction, and reaches those higher "target flows" only in years 9 and 10. This "phase-in" of the minimum flow required to prevent extinction, and various other exemptions in the first several years of the Biological Opinion, are being challenged in court by PCFFA and other litigants, including the Yurok and Hupa Tribes along with U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA). Unless litigation succeeds in restoring essential downriver flows, it is now highly likely a second severe fish kill will occur in 2003. A hearing date on the request for a preliminary injunction in the coho BiOp lawsuit, aimed at assuring adequate lower river flows, is now scheduled for 29 April. PCFFA, meanwhile, has pushed the CDFG to demand NMFS initiate consultation immediately with the Bureau to avert a similar catastrophe this year.