[env-trinity] More on Current Klamath Fish Kill

[Tom Stokely]

To: Env-trinity

Tim McKay did some sleuthing through Tribal and State biologists and found that there are indeed reports of a juvenile fish kill somewhere between Bauer Creek and the Scott River.  The likely culprit is Ceratomyxa shasta, an endemic parasite to the Klamath River which allegedly has a polychaete worm as an intermediate host, and a somewhat complicated life history.  As I recall, C. shasta doesn't exist in the Trinity River.  In any case, additional flows from the Trinity River do not sound like they are a viable solution to the problem because the fish kill is upstream of the Trinity confluence.  If anybody has any url references to C. Shasta or any other information, please pass it on through this list.  There is much speculation about the cause of the outbreak of C. shasta as it relates to water quality, but I have seen nothing definitive.

Below is an interesting perspective on the fish kill and water conditions in the Klamath River from Waterwatch of Oregon.  

Sincerely,

Tom Stokely

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Posted by Steve Pedery:
Hi folks, 

Concern is growing over the potential for another Klamath River fish kill this spring and summer.  Sick and dying fish have been reported in the mid-Klamath region, and the Bureau of Reclamation is now offering hatchery managers money to keep young salmon out of the river during the lethal low-flow conditions that are expected this summer.  A press release on the potential fish kill is attached to this message as a Microsoft Word document, and pasted into this message below. 

PRESS RELEASE




      May 20, 2004 Contact:  Steve Pedery, (503) 295-4039, ext. 26 

Low Water Flows, Disease Hammer Klamath Salmon, Bureau Offers $$ to Delay Hatchery Releases
 Portland--With concerns that yet another juvenile salmon kill may be beginning on the Klamath River, the US Bureau of Reclamation has contacted local fish hatchery managers offering cash in exchange for delaying their releases of young salmon.  The Bureau is also suggesting that managers release their fish into the river further downstream than normal in order to avoid the fish-killing low flow conditions that will affect the river this summer. 

Details on the Bureau's efforts to delay the release of young salmon from the Iron Gate Dam fish hatchery, or move the release to a point further downstream than normal, were reported in today's (May 20th) Klamath Herald and News newspaper.  The Bureau has offered hatchery managers $65,000 to delay the release of young fish until the fall, when flow conditions in the river will finally improve. 

"Call me a radical, but I think fish need water," said Steve Pedery, Outreach Director of WaterWatch of Oregon.  "Rather than pay fish hatcheries to keep salmon out of the river this summer, perhaps we ought to consider leaving more water in it." 

Biologists and survey crews from Klamath Basin Native American Tribes have begun work to document disease outbreaks in the mid-Klamath River, in an area running from approximately Iron Gate Dam down to the Scott and Shasta Rivers.  In this region water releases from the Bureau of Reclamation's massive Klamath Irrigation Project are the primary source of flow.  The size and severity of the current problem is not yet known, but kills of juvenile salmon have unfortunately become the norm on the Klamath River in recent years. 

Two weeks ago the Bureau announced that it was once again downgrading the water year classification for the Klamath Basin, a move which would reduce the amount of water held in Upper Klamath Lake and released to the Klamath River and area National Wildlife Refuges for fish and wildlife.  As in previous years, the Bureau's move comes after large water deliveries were promised to irrigators within the Project.  Under the new flow management regime, Klamath salmon will face similar flows to those of 2002--a year when thousands of juvenile salmon were killed in the spring and over 34,000 adult salmon were killed in the fall by low flows and disease. 

"Delaying the release of hatchery fish, or moving them downstream, might avoid the embarrassment of another major fish kill," continued Pedery.  "Unfortunately the wild salmon and steelhead of the Klamath River will still be left to face lethal low-flow conditions this summer." 

The problems plaguing juvenile salmon in the mid-Klamath region highlight the fallacy of arguments that water diversions from the Trinity River are the primary source of the Klamath's woes.  The Trinity joins the Klamath River a little over 40 miles from the Pacific Ocean.  The region where fish are currently sick and dying is over 100 miles upstream. 
  
  
  

For more information on the environmental crisis in the Klamath Basin, visit www.onrc.org or www.waterwatch.org. 

-30-



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