[env-trinity] KWUA Requests Delayed Hatchery Release- Fish Kill on Klamath?

[Tom Stokely]

It is rumored that there is a juvenile fish kill on the mainstem Klamath River from Ceratomyxa.  Can anybody provide additional information on this?

Tom Stokely
530-628-5949

Salmon release date questioned 
Klamath Falls Ore. Herald & News - 5/20/04
By Dylan Darling, staff writer
Millions of hatchery-produced chinook salmon fingerlings are set to start their swim to the Pacific Ocean down the Klamath River.

But Bureau of Reclamation officials are asking if some of the salmon can wait until fall to swim. 


The California Department of Fish and Game planned to release a million of the tiny fall-run salmon into the river from the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery today. Another million are set to swim on May 24 and another 3 million on May 31.

On May 13, the Department released its first million fingerlings. The fingerlings are ready for release when about 90 of them weigh about a pound together, said Mike Rode, staff environmental scientist for the department. 


The state hoped to release the salmon soon because flows in the Klamath River will be sharply curtailed in June, Rode said.

The river flows will be less than expected because of a change in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's water year type for the river because of a drop in inflow to Upper Klamath Lake. The Bureau regulates how much water goes down the river by guiding PacifiCorp's management of its Klamath hydroelectric project dams. 


Dave Sabo, manager of the Klamath Reclamation Project, said he was in discussions with the department this morning about the possibility of holding a million of the salmon back until next fall and letting loose the ones that are released farther down in the river.

"But we didn't get an answer from them," he said. 


The Bureau offered to pay $65,000 for the holding of the salmon until fall. Bureau officials are waiting for a response and should get it today, Sabo said.

Reports of a disease spreading among salmon between I-5 and the Scott and Shasta rivers, prompted the request for a lower release spot. 


Concerned about the release of the salmon, the Klamath Water Users Association wrote a letter to the department's regional manager.

In it, the water users ask a number of questions about how the department manages the salmon and suggests that the department coordinate its releases with the Bureau's flows. 


Dan Keppen, water users executive director, said the water users are concerned about the releases because when things go wrong with salmon on the river, the Klamath Reclamation Project and its irrigators usually get the blame. # 




KLAMATH RIVER BASIN
Klamath farmers, fish short on water
Less-than-expected mountain runoff spurs fears of an irrigation shut-off and a fish kill.
Associated Press - 5/21/04
KLAMATH FALLS - The amount of water running out of the Cascade Range snowpack has fallen below expectations, leading federal water authorities to scale back releases for Klamath River salmon and urge farmers to conserve on irrigation.

The water shortage has revived fears that farmers could face another irrigation shut-off like 2001 and the Klamath River could see another massive fish kill like the one in 2002.

"People are obviously going to tighten up their belt as much as they can, but I'm not sure what else we can do," said Dan Keppen of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents farmers on the Klamath Reclamation Project.

Tribes along the Klamath River in California are concerned that lower flows this fall could re-create conditions that killed 33,000 adult salmon in September, 2002.

"We're really concerned, basically because we're setting ourselves up for a similar situation," said Toz Soto, fisheries biologist for the Karuk Tribe.

The lack of runoff prompted the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to reclassify 2004 as a dry year, reducing by about a third the amount of water mandated for threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River while leaving full water deliveries to farmers on the Klamath Project in place.

The bureau has been sending extra water down the river this spring to help young salmon make their migration to the Pacific Ocean.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Reclamation paid farmers to tap private wells for crops after realizing that Upper Klamath Lake, the primary reservoir for the Klamath Project, was not filling. The water table has since fallen in parts of the arid basin.

"I'm real nervous about how this is going to turn out," said Dave Sabo, Klamath Project manager for the bureau. "It's critical that people pay attention to what they're using" for irrigation.

Runoff from the mountain snowpack was originally predicted to be close to average levels, leading to more water being released downstream through the winter and early spring. Projections have since fallen to 38 percent below average, Sabo said.#



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20040524/4ea9fbfb/attachment.html>