[env-trinity] Low Flows on Klamath River Result in Disease Outbreak

[Daniel Bacher]

Low Flows on Klamath River Result In Outbreak Of Disease

by Dan Bacher

An outbreak of disease in migrating wild salmon smolts on the Klamath River 
has led tribal, state and federal fishery biologists to fear yet another 
major juvenile fish kill on the Klamath River this spring.

Lower than normal releases from Iron Gate Dam have resulted in water 
temperatures already up to 63 degrees in the Klamath below the dam. The low, 
warm flows are the result of the Bureau of Reclamation downgrading the water 
year type from a “below average” to a “dry year.” This reclassification will 
reduce the amount of water held in Upper Klamath Lake and released to the 
Klamath River and National Wildlife Refuges for fish and wildlife.

“We are finding a high incidence of Ceratomyxa Shasta disease - 50 to 80 
percent - in the rotary fish traps that we operate on the Klamath at Happy 
Camp and above the mouth of the Salmon River,” reported Toz Soto, lead 
fisheries biologist of the Karuk Tribe.

C. Shasta is a disease endemic to the river that has been responsible for 
past juvenile fish kills on the river. The disease becomes an epidemic when 
the fish get stressed in low, warm conditions.
The Bureau recently dropped Iron Gate releases from 1800 cfs to 1500 cfs 
after the irrigation season began in the Klamath Basin. At the same time, 
agriculture is also diverting water from the Shasta and Scott rivers, major 
tributaries of the Klamath that have been beset with salmon and steelhead 
kills in recent years.

“The colder than normal weather has also diminished the snowmelt,” said 
Soto. “The releases are well below the 50 year average - normally the flows 
would be 500 cfs more this time of year.”

Steve Pedery, Outreach Director of WaterWatch of Oregon, noted that the 
Bureau’s move comes after large water deliveries were promised to irrigators 
within the Project, as was done in previous years.

“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,” said Pedery.

Based on the high incidence of diseased fish, Soto believes  that many have 
probably already perished before making it down to Somes Bar. The Klamath is 
unique in that the water quality improves as the river courses downriver and 
receives water from more pristine tributaries like the Salmon River, Indian 
Creek and Clear Creek. The water released from Iron Gate is nutrient-rich, 
having received irrigation runoff from the farms of the Klamath Basin.

“The water quality in the main stem above the mouth of the Scott is really 
poor,” he stated. “If we had better management on the Klamath, we would at 
least see a lower incidence of  disease. We’re looking at the results of 
poor water management; the same old story as in previous years.”

There is still much to be learned about the disease. It isn’t found in 
pristine tributaries like the Salmon River, Indian Creek and Elk Creek, only 
in the main strem Klamath and the Shasta River. It is believed that the 
disease finds an intermediate host - a polychaete worm - in the riverine 
areas of reservoirs like Iron Gate and Copco, according to Soto.

“There is a yearly chronic fish kill on the river,” added Soto. “It probably 
is a natural thing for some mortality to occur, but the current water 
management is definitely having an impact. We are hoping that we don’t find 
hundreds of thousands of dead salmon in the pools downriver next month like 
we did in the spring of 2000.”

To date, the tribe hasn’t observed hatchery fish in the traps. The Iron Gate 
Fish Hatchery released a total of 3 million juvenile salmon into the river 
on May 13, 20 and 24. They plan to release approximately 2 million more fish 
in coming weeks, according to Kim Rushton, manager of the Iron Gate Fish 
Hatchery.

The Bureau of Reclamation recently offered to pay the Department of Fish and 
Game $65,000 to to delay the release of the fish, along with advising them 
to release the fish downriver, according to an article in the Klamath Falls 
Oregon. Herald and News on May 20.

However, Rushton said the hatchery is already planning to raise 900,000 fish 
to yearling size at Iron Gate as part of a program instigated in 1979. This 
will be 180,000 yearlings less than the DFG released last year, since the 
Fall Creek hatchery where the additional fish were raised has been shut down 
because of state budget cutbacks. He was not sure at press time whether 
funding for the yearlings would come from the state or federal governments.

These yearlings will be released into the main stem of the Klamath in 
mid-November, when water conditions are cold and much more conducive to 
survival. “The survival rate of these fish is 3 to 4 times that of smolts 
released in the spring,” said Rushton.

The outlook for salmon survival this year isn’t looking good under the 
current river management regime. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 2001 
changed the policy to favor agribusiness over fish after Klamath Basin 
farmers protested the cut-off of irrigation water. Bush political adviser 
Karl Rove engineered the policy change in an effort to curry agribusiness 
support for the re-election of an Oregon Republican Senator.

The result was a series of juvenile fish die-offs and the Klamath adult 
chinook fish kill of September 2002, the largest fish kill in U.S. history. 
The crisis that juvenile salmon now suffer in the Klamath River is a 
political one that requires a political solution - better long term, 
sustainable management of the Klamath watershed for fish and wildlife.

“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,” said Pedery. “The Trinity joins 
the Klamath a little over 40 miles from the Pacific Ocean. The region where 
fish are currently sick and dying is over 100 miles upstream.”