[env-trinity] Eureka Times Standard- Reclamation crimps Klamath flows to 2002 fish kill levels

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127%257E2896%257E2141144,00.html
KLAMATH BASIN
Reclamation crimps Klamath flows to 2002 levels
Eureka Times-Standard - 5/11/04
By John Driscoll, staff writer
A change in the amount of water that will be sent down the Klamath River has prompted concerns from lower river communities that fear another fall fish kill.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has reworked its operation plan for the summer, deeming the year "dry" instead of "below average." A lack of rain this spring dropped the inflow of water to Upper Klamath Lake well below previously expected levels. 

The dry-year flows are the same as those during the fall of 2002, when 34,000 salmon died. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that year's run got trapped in the hot lower river, leaving them susceptible to the diseases that killed them.

The 3-year-old salmon that will return to the river this year are the progeny of the 2001 run, when an estimated 200,000 young salmon died in the spring. 

This year, a water bank is boosting flows from Iron Gate Dam during the spring and summer months. Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said 75,000 acre feet has been purchased from farmers in the Upper Klamath basin, in keeping with the biological opinion issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

But beginning in August, almost no additional water will supplement flows some fear could again be lethal to migrating fish. 

Flows from Iron Gate in August are now scheduled to be 581 cubic feet per second, and in September 731 cfs. Flows in a below average year, for comparison, would be 1,021 cfs in August and 1,168 in September. 

"If we don't have a plan in place that's going to augment the flow," said Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith, "when we get to the fall we're going to be facing the same kind of horrible disaster we had two years ago."

Regulations to limit the already tiny commercial take of salmon have been tightened, with bag limits and the total number of fish taken commercially reduced. 

Fish managers also are watching anxiously to see how many 2-year-old salmon -- called jacks -- return this year, the offspring of the 2002 run hit by the fish kill. 

A biologist with the Yurok Tribe said he had concerns with the flow schedule, and was meeting with tribal officials Monday. The officials did not return the Times-Standard's call by deadline. 

Last year, Reclamation asked a federal district court judge overseeing a suit on the Trinity River to free up 50,000 acre feet of water to stave off a fish kill in the lower Klamath. Some credited the fall releases with protecting the run of salmon. 

The suit by Central Valley irrigator Westlands Water District has held up a restoration plan for the Trinity River. Flows to that river, per order of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will be higher this spring than in years past. 

The big slug of water was scheduled by the Trinity Management Council, and will be spent by mid-July. The council did not schedule releases in the fall.

Reclamation's McCracken said he didn't know if the government would go back to court to seek Trinity water to boost fall flows. 

On that front, Humboldt County has filed a complaint with the State Water Resources Control Board, asking it to press Reclamation to honor a 45-year-old water contract for 50,000 acre feet, which the county has said it would use to boost fall flows. #



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