Bend News

Two rivers compose the Klamath where they join 40 some miles above the estuary sand spit and the Pacific Ocean: The Klamath and the Trinity. The Klamath runs through Oregon high desert for 100 miles and crosses into California before it picks up the Shasta River, more than 100% subscribed for irrigation and a mere trickle in summer, if that. Downstream a little further, the Scott River enters the Klamath, also oversubcribed for irrigation, the only water present in August provided by well water diverted by payments to ranchers. And so it goes down the Klamath, a river used for irrigation in its watershed. One would suppose irrigation diversion is evaporated, used by plants, or goes to ground in the watershed. However, the Trinity River is damned high in its watershed, and 75% of its total annual flow is diverted to Whiskeytown Reservoir, and then to southern California to grow subsidized cotton, corn, and fill swimming pools. That water leaves the watershed, dries up the river, and had reduced the Trinity to almost not a player in salmon or steelhead until Bruce Babbitt got more water sent down the Trinity in 1999. Enough to help, but not enough to cool the river enough to prevent die offs in drought years. Instead of 75% going south, now only 65% goes south.

The Great Klamath River die off was ordinary in terms of drought year die offs on rivers like Oregon's Rogue, where more fish have died in each of several dry years than did on the Klamath. What really happened on the Klamath was the ocean was very productive for several years, and mortality in the ocean was low. A great run of mostly hatchery salmon entered the Klamath in early August, as they now do because of hatchery manipulation and selection for early arriving fish, and the Native American gill netters had a heyday. All too soon, their iced tote in a pickup sales program to tourists on US 101 glutted the market, and the same happened to the smoked salmon market. That left the San Francisco market fish buyers in Eureka with more fish than they could sell, and the same was happening on the Columbia River to the north. The price dropped to less that $.25/lb for whole freshwater caught chinook, and the Indians quit fishing, and by the time the fish got to where the upriver sports could access them, the biological fix was in. Too many fish in too little of warm water depleted oxygen and fed pathogens, and the die off started. The decaying fish used more oxygen, and the whole process went on unabated until the blessed diurnal process started causing frosts in the highlands around Labor Day, and the river cooled, and late arriving fish had no problems except for a lot of dead relatives in the water. It was a banner year for bears, coons, gulls, eagles, and all sorts of carrion eaters. The river got a great dose of nutrients.

So today, as this is written, the prediction for the Klamath is that there is a big run coming. I expect another die off to happen because it is a drought year, the hatchery fish run too early, the ocean has been rough all season so far, and few fish have been caught in northern California and the season has not been great further north. No matter, the Trinity, the cold water tributary, will still run low because water goes to Fresno and south by way of dams, tunnels, and southern California water theft. The only blessing I can see is that wild caught chinook are better marketed today, and if the Indians catch enough fish and get them sold at a price that will prod them to fish more, maybe there will be fewer fish left in river which would match the water flows, and less of a die off will occur.

The tiny little ocean troll season last year resulted from a drought caused paucity of fish in the ocean, and the ocean has had its own problems with productivity. It was not a good time to be a salmon or a salmon troller. But those things all change with weather patterns and cycles we don't understand. You also have to wonder why anyone feels they are entitled to kill salmon and sell them if they are endangered or in short supply. I have not seen a condor season, an eagle season, a spotted owl season. Where I live, 300,000 geese winter on farmers' fields, but only very little and tightly controlled goose hunting season is allowed because one sub species that winters here had its nesting habitat raised by the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and opened to predation by things like brown bears, coyotes, wolves, and other vermin. The result is grass seed fields decimated, goose poop sliming any place they decide to eat, which includes school playgrounds, parks, golf courses, just about anywhere they chose. So many geese us the sewage lagoons for resting areas, that the water can't cleanse itself of ecoli anymore, which means water once allowed to run off in winter from those ponds now has to be further treated. Lots of geese, but little hunting. The same goes for the salmon fishing by commercial fishermen. The Klamath fish have special protections to preserve them for Native American fisheries, so vast areas of the ocean are off limits, and beyond those areas, the catch is regulated to stop when a finite number of Klamath fish are caught. That is determined by how many salmon are landed, and a known percentage have to be Klamath fish, so the season can close while you are in schools of fish. The fishermen in the ocean would be better served if they sued the southern California water thieves.

So you gotta know Oregon has one Republican congressman, and the Klamath basin is all in his district. Catch a sniff of the real deal yet? Cheney is a Republican who could not be elected to lickemup boy at the dog pound, but that is not the issue. The issue is to whup on Rep. Walden of Oregon, in any way, and to suck up to Nancy Pelosi, the queen of congress, and the guardian of California water diversion. Fishermen are a red herring for politics as usual. This deal is so blatant as to be a joke, and when it comes to jokers, Oregon elects more per capita than anyother place except maybe Washington or California. The Left Coast Jokers. Hooley has a huge part of her District in BLM and USFS timberlands now so neglected that most roads are closed by slides and windfall trees. Natural decommissioning. The fuel builds, and she fiddles in another district and out of state. The Oregon Way. The next big burn will be in her district, because all the trees south of it have already burned. So she uses her energy to punish Oregon farmers out of her district, who are the collateral damage as she tries to make a name by trying to catch Cheney. Why? He is gone in a year. Forever. The droughts and overstocked forests, the over subscribed irrigation diversions will go on, and the clean clear water of the Trinity will course its natural way through mountain tunnels, reservoirs and down canals to water cotton, corn, and fill swimming pools, not one part of which does any good for any constituent in her district.

craig moore: water diverted to Cal farmers? 650,000 acres worth from the Trinity, and there are a possible 200,000 acres from the Klamath in Oregon. The rest is the complete dewatering of the Shasta and Scott tribs for Cal ranches.

The Klamath has been a warm river since first noted by early trappers, and the Trinity cold. It is just what they are. The Oregon part of the Klamath runs through a huge marsh called Klamath Lake, an average of 8 feet deep. That warms it a lot in summer. The formerly irrigation reservoirs are in the desert, and water is held in them for an ESA listed sucker fish, and not available to Klamath salmon, all the while the irrigators are paying for the dams by their water rates charges. The nail in their coffin is a PUC deal that is taking away their cheap power to run irrigation pumps.

The Boldt decision result is that half the allowed harvest of Klamath/Trinity fish goes to the tribes. That is what determines what ocean fishermen can harvest..but the way it really works is the Indians can fish even when the ocean is closed, but to a lesser degree.

Bad ocean productivity and inshore drought play a big role, as well as environmentally poor hatchery practices. But none of those reasons mean diddle if 75% of the annual flow of the cold water trib is diverted to southern California. That impacts the ocean numbers, the oxygen in the lower river, total spawning area for wild fish, gravel movement issuess, the list is very long.

So the simplistic, easy answer is to go after Cheney who evidently tried to broker a deal to keep farmers from going broke in Oregon. The California farmers have 52 House members, including the Speaker, and two senior Senators. So the plan is to beat up on the weakest link, who is the only Republican in Oregon in the House, in his District, for political gain. Not one salmon will benefit from this theater, and evidently, the subject and people who care about it bore the crap out of others. Too bad. But if you leave it up to newspaper reporters copying press releases from politicians to be the information source, doom is close behind.

Isn't there something about the Hatch Act involved here? I used to work for a govt agency and, man, we were under tight restraints about speaking out about anything political. Times have changed: now the Republicans can speak out, act out, whenever and where-ever (not to mention however) they want. The salmon are political pawns for the neo-cons, no more no less. Tasted one salmon, tasted all the salmon: just like seen one redwood, seen them all.