[env-trinity] Report Lists Kllamath, Salmon Rivers Among State's Most Threatened Wild Places

[Daniel Bacher]

Report Lists Klamath, Salmon Rivers Among State's Most Threatened Wild 
Places

by Dan Bacher

A new report, released in Oakland on March 29 by the California Wilderness 
Coalition, features the Klamath and Salmon River watersheds among 
California’s 10 most threatened wild places.

The analysis, the fourth in a series of annual reports, considers the 
urgency and impact of threats to these landscapes, including water 
diversions, off road development, logging, and drilling. Several places 
included in this year’s report, such as the Klamath Basin, were listed last 
year.

It is hoped by fishermen’s groups, Indian Tribes and environmental activists 
that the report’s release will spur action by the federal and state 
governments to preserve and restore the Klamath and Salmon rivers and other 
California wild areas.

"California’s wilderness and wild rivers provide more than 60 percent of the 
state’s clean drinking water, and offer recreation opportunities to 
millions," said Coalition Executive  Director Mary Wells. "But once they’re 
gone, they’re gone forever."

The Klamath River serves as significant habitat for the coho salmon, 
currently listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act 
(ESA), king salmon and steelhead. The Klamath, one of the west’s largest 
rivers, reaches from northwestern California to southeastern Oregon and 
historically sustained large and vibrant tribal, commercial and recreational 
fisheries.

The river was the third greatest salmon-producing river in America, hosting 
an average of 880,000 spawning salmon and steelhead each year, according to 
Glen Spain, Northwest Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of 
Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA). Today dams and excessive water diversions 
have taken a dramatic toll on the salmon and steelhead of the Klamath Basin.

Today the salmon runs are less than one tenth of what they once were. The 
fish are subject to major fish kills in 5 out of 7 years, the most dramatic 
being the adult fish kill of September 2002 when over 70,000 salmon perished 
in the lower Klamath.

“The Klamath River is indeed endangered,” said Spain, “and so are the many 
fishing-dependent communities that rely on the river for their livelihoods. 
However, the causes are largely man-made. These communities have been 
deliberately put at risk by short-sighted and biased federal water decisions 
that favor taking too much water out of the river at the expense of 
fishermen and fishing jobs.”

The gorgeous Salmon River is one of the Klamath’s most important tributaries 
and serves as one of the last cold water refuges for spring run chinook 
salmon. Once the most prolific run of salmon in the Klamath Basin, only 
hundreds of the “springers” return today. The report documents how poor 
federal logging practices and mining operations have contributed to the 
declines in that watershed.

Past fish kills caused by federal agency water decisions have taken a 
tremendous economic toll on the ocean commercial and recreational fishing 
industry. The Bureau of Reclamation’s decision in 2002 to provide full water 
deliveries to Klamath Basin farmers at the expense of fish is driving major 
shutdowns of commercial and recreational fishing opportunities in California 
and Oregon this year, in spite of record runs from the Central Valley river 
system. Many salmon are “simply missing in action” in the 2005 adult runs 
because they were killed in the river as juveniles in 2002, according to 
Spain.

“In the spring of 2002 the missing salmon hatched and spent their first few 
months in the low-flowing Klamath River,” explained Spain. “That year flows 
in the river were deliberately kept so low by the Bureau of Reclamation that 
the water warmed up too much and conditions either didn’t allow the young 
fish to grow properly or killed them outright.”

The report highlights what the Karuk Tribe of the Middle Klamath has known 
for years; some of their most important cultural and natural areas are 
slowly but surely being destroyed. “For the Karuk, the second largest Tribe 
in California, the destruction of the Klamath and Salmon Rivers go beyond 
the loss of a pristine wilderness  - they represent the loss of a 
subsistence fishery and the desecration of sacred sites,” according to the 
Tribe.

The Karuk believe that the confluence of the Salmon and Klamath rivers is 
the “center of the universe” – “Katimin” – and they hold their annual “World 
Renewal Ceremony” there.

“We gather at Katimin to remake the world as our ancestors have since time 
immemorial,” according to Leaf Hillman, the Tribe’s vice-chairman. “We 
gather to pray for all people and things that make up this world, for their 
health and their success. The impact that dams, diversions, and logging have 
had on this place and on the people that depend on it for both their 
physical and spiritual well-being is nothing short of desecration.”

The Karuk Tribe, along with other basin tribes and a host of environmental 
and fishermen’s groups, are currently working to restore both rivers. This 
includes an effort to remove Klamath River dams, owned by the Scottish Power 
subsidiary PaciCorp, through the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) 
relicensing process now underway.

The growing movement to take down the dams was highlighted by an historic 
march and rally on March 14 at the State Capitol in Sacramento. The four 
Klamath Basin tribes - the Yurok, Hoopa, Karuk and Klamath - joined with 
their allies in the fishing, farming and environmental communities in an 
effort to convince the Governor to become “Conan the Riparian” by calling 
for the removal of the six dams that block salmon and steelhead from 
migrating into their historic habitat.

The other “threatened wild places” listed in the report are the Sierra 
Nevada Forests, Algodones Sand Dunes, White Mountains (Furnace Creek), 
Cleveland National Forest, Tejon Ranch, Los Padres National Forest, Giant 
Sequoia National Monument, Golden Trout Wilderness Addition and Medicine 
Lake Highlands.

“California's last wild places face increasing pressures from growth and 
development, yet we can act now to protect and preserve what remains," said 
wilderness outfitter and guide Dave Willis of Sierra Treks.

To download California Wilderness Coalition’s Our Natural Heritage At Risk, 
log on to: http://www.calwild.org/resources/pubs/10most05.php. For more 
information about the Report itself, contact Julie Dixon, Resource Media, 
at: 916/446-1058.