THE PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION
OF
FISHERMEN'S ASSOCIATIONS
From Fishermen's News of August, 2001
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Home Page "Diversion of water is potentially one of the most serious factors adversely affecting salmon in western Oregon and northern California ... [W]ater rights and attendant diversions have a potentially strong effect on salmon and represent an important constraint on fisheries management." --- Status and Future of Salmon in Western Oregon and Northern California, Center for the Study of the Environment (the so-called "Botkin Report"), Commissioned by the Legislatures of Oregon and California (May 1995).
The Upper Klamath Basin has been much in the news lately. The recent headlines about the Klamath Basin and its water struggles, however, should come as no surprise to coastal salmon fishermen. It was fishermen whose livelihoods were destroyed and whose once booming salmon fishing ports from Fort Bragg to Coos Bay were economically devastated long before this year when upper basin farmers, finally forced to give up some water to the fish by court order, ever felt any economic pain. It was fishermen who for years demanded much needed water reforms in the Klamath Basin but were ignored. It was fishermen who had to suffer massive Klamath River juvenile salmon die-offs in the last 5 of 7 years because of poor water quality caused by the federal water project. And it was fishermen - specifically PCFFA -- who finally were compelled to bring the lawsuit that finally made these water reforms possible, and who are hotly defending those reforms from constant Congressional attacks by those who do not believe fishermen have a right to exist.
The current 'Klamath Water War' is in reality just the result of federally subsidized Klamath Irrigation Project farmers finally having to leave enough water in the river - though just barely enough - to prevent downriver salmon extinction in a record drought. It is also a result of the Bureau of Reclamation's long history in the Klamath Basin (as elsewhere) of delay, denial and mismanagement of water resources to the detriment of fish and fishing-dependent communities.
Make no mistake - the west coast commercial salmon industry is in a pitched battle to restore salmon to the Klamath. We are in a fight for our lives. To our once proud salmon fleet, the outcome of this struggle will mean the difference between renewed jobs and prosperity, or economic extinction. This is why the Klamath Basin 'Water War' matters to the commercial salmon fishing industry, to individual family fishermen, and to coastal communities in a big way.
Historically, the Klamath Basin was the third most productive salmon river system on the west coast, producing a salmon escapement of between 660,000 to 1.1 million adult fish annually including chinook, coho, pinks and chum salmon as well as abundant steelhead. Only the Columbia and the California Central Valley river systems produced more. As European settlers came to the Northern California and Southern Oregon coastlines, the Klamath Basin coastal fisheries sustainably supported many canneries served by a large fishing fleet, and helped build and feed coastal ports like Eureka and Crescent City and Coos Bay.
The 9,691 square mile Klamath Basin, however, extends far inland and in many places is very dry. The great salmon runs of the Klamath Basin, therefore, were utterly dependent on both the quality and amount of water in the Upper Klamath River and its tributaries (which include the Trinity and Shasta Rivers), and particularly the water from the natural storage lakes in the Upper Basin. These large but shallow wetland lakes (including Upper Klamath Lake) naturally stored large amounts of water and gradually released it downriver during the dry parts of the year at just the right time to support abundant salmon runs. The roughly 350,000 acres of natural wetlands in and around these lakes also helped filter pollutants, including naturally occurring nitrates and phosphates, out of the river.
Then, in 1907 the newly formed Bureau of Reclamation entered the Upper Klamath Basin, with its mission to 'let the deserts bloom.' The Upper Klamath was desert indeed, receiving an average annual rainfall of less than 12 inches/year. Only the huge but very shallow Upper Klamath Lake and the other massive wetland lakes in the upper basin, dependent on snow melt from the surrounding mountains, gave the illusion of abundant water supplies. Over the next decades the Bureau proceeded to systematically dike and drain wetlands (then considered merely a nuisance), dam rivers and develop the natural upper basin lake water storage system primarily for commercial agriculture. The Bureau of Reclamation enticed farmers to settle in the Upper Klamath Basin with free homesteads and promises of unlimited federally subsidized water.
Project by project, human re-engineering diverted water and altered upper basin natural flow patterns, taking a toll on a once-functioning landscape and the many species that rely on its water. An estimated $50 million in federal irrigation aid and subsidies was provided to transform the Klamath Irrigation Project's terrain into what it is today: flat fields of wheat, potatoes, barley, alfalfa and onions, covering more than 204,000 acres of dried lake bed and drained marshes. However, the conversion of more than 79% of the Upper Basin's wetlands greatly reduced its natural water storage capacity and simultaneously increased the water demand. In addition, without wetlands to act as a natural filter for breaking down pollutants carried by agricultural runoff, the overall quality of water also became a serious problem.
Today, from its headwaters to the estuary, the Klamath River is now the most polluted river in Oregon, and one of the most polluted in California. Downriver river fisheries now get what is essentially agricultural wastewater to swim in, rather than a clean, cool river.
Hydroelectric development completed the picture of Klamath Basin habitat fragmentation. In 1917, the first of two Copco Dams was completed, blocking salmon passage to hundreds of miles of spawning habitat in the upper basin. Several other hydropower dams were to follow. By 1962 the final and southern-most dam of the Klamath Hydroelectric Project, the 173 foot Iron Gate Date, was completed - with no fish passage. All anadromous runs of salmon and steelhead, once abundant in the upper basin, are now extinct above Iron Gate Dam. The Iron Gate Hatchery was constructed at this time, located just below the dam, as an attempt to help mitigate for those losses, and it is still the most important fall chinook production hatchery in the Klamath Basin. But that hatchery too is dependent on both the water flows and the water quality of whatever water is released, first from the Klamath Irrigation Project by the Bureau of Reclamation, and then below Iron Gate Dam by its current owner, PacifiCorp.
Discounted by the Bureau of Reclamation, and until recent court orders rarely part of its planning, were the water and fishing rights of its Indian neighbors. Originally the Upper Klamath Lake supported a Tribal subsistence fishery of more than 50 tons per year as well as a booming recreational fishery and at least one cannery. However, the long-lived mullet (their common name, though they are technically 'suckers,' a term now perjoratively used by the irrigators) plunged in numbers as farming impacts were felt, until they were listed on the federal Endangered Species List in 1988 and all remaining Tribal subsistence harvests ceased. Today the Klamath Tribe is allowed to catch one fish each year for purely ceremonial purposes.
Little noticed also was the impact of Klamath Project operations on downriver salmon fishermen and the salmon-dependent lower river Hoopa, Karuk and Yurok Tribes.
Even as late as 1979-1982, and in spite of declines, Klamath fall chinook still accounted for roughly 30 percent of all salmon harvested from fishing communities from Fort Bragg, California to nearly Florence, Oregon, the region called the 'Klamath Management Zone (KMZ).' Yet for decades there have been fewer and fewer salmon coming out of the Klamath River. In spite of a few upward 'blips' based on temporarily favorable ocean conditions or slightly better rainfall, the trend has usually been downward as both water flows and water quality in the Klamath river steadily declined. Season cutbacks and reductions became the rule within KMZ ports as fisheries managers were forced to keep pace with these declines. In the past 20 years especially, the end result has been systematic economic strangulation of KMZ coastal ports, culminating in almost complete closures by the early 1990's.
The declines have been catastrophic. Compare even the old rebuilding goal of 68,900 spawners, abandoned in 1986 as unachievable, to the historical run average annual levels of 880,000 spawners, and you see that the current Klamath River fall chinook salmon productivity is now less than 8 percent of its historical abundance. For coho salmon, once the workhorse of the west coast fishing industry, the numbers are less than 1 percent. Chum and pink salmon, once abundant in the Klamath, are long gone and totally extinct.
These collapses spelled economic disaster for all the once booming salmon fishing ports within the Klamath Management Zone (KMZ). Today there is little or no fishing allowed in the KMZ (even in good years), under the 'weak stock management' regimes that require us to minimize impacts on weakened Klamath stocks. Fishermen whose families have lived in those ports for generations are now forced to fish hundreds of miles further south or (if they have permits) further north to be able to make a living at all.
Downward-ratcheted restrictions and ultimate closures long predate any ESA listings, by the way, and can only be blamed on the declining runs themselves, which were in turn caused primarily by declining water flows and deteriorating water quality from the Upper Klamath Basin. In a very real way, the Bureau of Reclamation has put us out of business to supply federally subsidized farmers. Water needed to protect some of the west coast's largest and most economically valuable fish runs, worth at least $4.5 billion to the national economy, was systematically shifted upriver to grow potatoes, sugarbeets and onions in the middle of a desert.
Some still blame the closures of these ports on the reallocation of harvests to the Indians. When legal opinions in 1994 made it clear that even what little harvest there was had to be split 50-50 with the Tribes, this was indeed a sudden final economic shock, but as all of these runs have continued to decline toward extinction it became clear that the Tribes and commercial fishermen would soon each be getting 50 percent of nothing at all. Thus we now have common cause with the lower river Tribes, as with sportfishermen and with affected coastal communities, to fight to protect and restore the Klamath River salmon runs for all of us -- before it is too late.
Finally, in 1997 the plight of the once abundant coho salmon in the Klamath River became so grim that it had to be federally listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Coho, of course, are just the indicator species' for the health of the river. Whatever will kill a coho will also kill a chinook or a steelhead. Thus it is all Klamath-based salmon fisheries that are threatened, not just coho.
In 1998, 1999, and then again and vastly worse in 2000, the lower river salmon runs again suffered massive juvenile die-offs of hundreds of thousands. Poor quality, nitrate-laced and minimal water flows from Iron Gate Dam caused fatal water temperatures, massive algae blooms and increased disease.
Most of this was directly attributable to Klamath Project mismanagement by the Bureau of Reclamation. In 2000, for instance (also a very dry year), the Bureau provided 100 percent of water deliveries to its irrigation contractors while shorting the wildlife refuges and struggling downriver salmon fisheries. Water quality and flow has been so bad below Iron Gate Dam in past years that even Iron Gate Hatchery, which must use the same water as in the river itself, suffers massive fish kills and production failures. By 2000 it became clear that downriver fishermen, salmon-dependent industries and the Tribes were threatened with extinction along with the fish.
Salmon, of course, swim wherever they please. With all the Klamath salmon stocks under stringent 'weak stock management' constraints, and the Klamath Management Zone (KMZ) almost entirely closed to protect them, fishermen from the KMZ ports have had no choice but to go sometimes hundreds of miles south or north to be able to fish at all. Even then, Klamath stock encounters have become a primary limiting constraint on allowable harvest on many surrounding stocks in west coast salmon fisheries below the Columbia River.
Worse, as California salmon fishermen experienced this year, the massive Central Valley hatchery production can swim by the millions right into the closed KMZ area, where they become completely unavailable. Even though we know the fish are there in great numbers, we cannot catch them for fear of excessive Klamath encounters. This means potential losses in the tens of millions of dollars for California fishermen and coastal economies.
The Klamath is thus the lynch-pin, the key indicator stock and the gatekeeper to a whole lot of ocean salmon harvest. And one major key to restoring salmon to the Klamath Basin is to reform the gross over-appropriation of the basin's limited water supply by the bloated and overdeveloped Klamath Irrigation Project. The fight for the Klamath is therefore not only a fight to prevent extinction for coho salmon, but for all salmon in the Klamath Basin river system, and thus to protect many of our coastal communities and our livelihoods from economic extinction.
After the fish kill in 1999, and then a much worse one in 2000, fishermen had had enough! With the ESA listing of coho, we also finally had a legal lever to promote major water reforms. In April, 2000, PCFFA began the process of filing suit against the Bureau of Reclamation to finally require it to consult with NMFS and US Fish & Wildlife Service, as required by the ESA, on the environmental impacts of Klamath Project operations on the ESA-listed fish.
Nor were we alone in this fight. Years of building closer alliances with Tribes, with recreational fishermen and with several environmental groups long active in the Basin have resulted in a strong legal as well as political alliance. Together we are pushing for water reforms within the Klamath Project and in Congress that would finally bring a fairer allocation of water to its downriver communities. We are also working together to implement other Klamath Project reforms that would reduce its overall water demand, increase its water storage and make the whole Project far more sustainable than it is today.
In March of 2001, the case of PCFFA vs. Bureau of Reclamation resulted in a smashing victory for the fish. The Court also severely criticized the Bureau of Reclamation for years of foot dragging on much needed water reforms, and literally ordered them to halt all water deliveries until such time as the Bureau of Reclamation adopted a fish protection plan fully approved by NMFS. The Bureau grudgingly did just that, completing those consultations and Biological Opinions (BiOps) within days and released it all on 7 June.
The end result - if we can hold the line - will be that many of the key water reforms that downriver fishing-dependent communities have long sought will finally take place, though only just in time to prevent coho extinction.
It is just unfortunate timing that all this is occurring in the middle of a record drought. However, given a choice between some economic hardship to some farmers, versus utter extinction of Klamath coho salmon and all chance of downriver salmon recovery forever, the federal agencies did the right thing and chose to spend the little water they had on the hope of a better future rather than prop up a federal water project that is ultimately unsustainable at present levels.
Also, this is a record drought in the Klamath Basin. Even aside from fish and wildlife protections, there would still not have been enough water in the Upper Klamath Basin this year to get most crops to market. Protections for the fish took a little water, but the drought took far more. Unforutnately, no amount of grandstanding, and no amount of blame, can make more rainfall. The real culprit in the 'Klamath Water Wars' that is affecting Klamath Project farmers is not the fish, nor even the ESA itself, but a record drought. The real culprit is also a federal agency (the Bureau of Reclamation) that has simply promised more water to more people than was actually there to give.
Even these modest water reforms in the Klamath Basin have been hard fought and must now be vigorously defended. In denial about the real causes, the farmers daily barrage the media with anti-ESA and anti-fish rhetoric concocted by outside anti-environmental 'wise use' and anti-government groups willing to martyr the Klamath farmers to their cause. Their media events are organized by highly paid outside public relations firms. We are constantly threatened by their efforts to secure a 'political fix' in Congress through last minute stealth 'riders' that would institutionalize scientific ignorance, denial and delay, or would force water agencies to act blithely as though no drought actually exists.
At root, the Klamath Project is just another bloated, federally subsidized and over-extended federal water project. Like most such projects built in a desert, it has run smack up against the fact that it is out of water. Unfortunately no amount of political posturing can ever make more rain. Even federally subsidized farmers using federally subsidized water eventually have to learn to live within the available rainfall.
In the long run, however, even the Klamath Project has to live within its means. This will involve a well thought out and federally funded demand reduction program (including willing seller buyouts and water permit reduction programs as well as better water conservation), a supply augmentation and storage program so more water is available generally, and various wetlands and ecosystem restoration efforts.
The farmers caught in the middle, however, are innocent parties who have become victims of federal water promises that could never be met. They anger is understandable, though greatly misplaced. Yet for the farmers there are many options. For them, the immediate solution is emergency economic relief. There is a long history of this, whenever farmers suffer any of a large number of natural disasters.
What is NOT an option is for a whole downriver fishing industry to be economically strangled, and their communities deliberately sacrificed, just to grow more potatoes in a desert. The days of bloated federal water projects are at an end. There are lots of places farmers can grow potatoes, but there is only one Klamath River for the salmon.
For more information and to find out what you can do, see the PCFFA website at: http//www.pcffa.org/klamath.htm
PCFFA is the west coast's largest organization of commercially fishing families. William F. "Zeke' Grader, Jr., is PCFFA's Executive Director, and Glen Spain is its Northwest Regional Director. You can contact PCFFA at either (415)561-5280 or (541)689-2000, or send us email to: fish1ifr@aol.com. Our web site is at: www.pcffa.org.