[env-trinity] Siskiyou Daily News -Environmentalists claim victory in Klamath River water ruling

[tstokely at trinityalps.net]

 http://www.siskiyoudaily.com/articles/2005/10/20/news/news2.txt 

Environmentalists claim victory in Klamath River water ruling

SAN FRANCISCO - Environmentalists are claiming a victory for their position
following the Oct. 18 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that rejects
the Bush administration's water diversion plan for the Klamath River
because “it fails to protect threatened Klamath River coho salmon.”

“The ruling is hailed by Klamath River tribes and surrounding communities
dependent on a healthy fishery,” said Howard McConnell, chairman of the
Yurok Tribe. “This is an example of how the ESA serves as the last line of
defense to protect working families and tribal culture.”

The essence of the court's ruling is that more water needs to flow down the
Klamath River in order to protect the coho salmon, declared a threatened
species in 1997. The court rejected the Bureau of Reclamation's plan to
share the water with irrigators while maintaining what it considered
adequate water for the fish.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the
Bureau of Reclamation's irrigation plan from 2002 to 2010 provides the coho
with only 57 percent of the water it needs and fails to explain how the
species will survive. The bureau controls water flows on the Klamath from
its dams and reservoirs.

“The agency essentially asks that we take its word that the species will be
protected if its plans are followed,” said Judge Dorothy Nelson in the 3-0
ruling. The court told a federal judge in Oakland to order the government
to take immediate steps to preserve the coho.

The Bush administration, joined by Klamath Basin farmers who depend on
irrigation water, argued to the court that the eight-year water plan was
the best estimate of the coho's survival needs in the face of conflicting
scientific reports. The plan proposed an increase in flows in 2010-11.

In spite of strong runs of coho salmon returning to the Iron Gate Hatchery
on the Klamath River, the court said the coho, which has a three-year life
cycle, might be extinct by the time the flows picked up.

Environmentalists make a genetic distinction between hatchery and stream
hatched salmon, a distinction the court accepts in its claim that the coho
salmon are near extinction. Other biologists question that claim, pointing
out that the distinction is minute and the coho population, inclusive of
the hatchery fish, is robust.

“It is pathetic we have judges making decisions based on unsubstantiated
studies,” said Deb Crisp, Executive Director of the Tulelake Growers
Association. “Either they are misinformed or some people have a
preconceived idea of what the conditions are in the Klamath River.”

Crisp said the decision is disappointing but she believes it will be
appealed. She believes the lawsuit is an attack on agriculture from people
who would like to remove all of it from the Klamath Basin.

“We have followed all the requirements,” she said. “If what we are doing is
so bad, why has there not been another fish die off. I am highly suspicious
of the one in 2002.”

The court used a government report for its decision that identified a
Bureau of Reclamation-directed low water flows as a prime reason for a
major salmon kill on the Klamath in 2002, a situation that reportedly
decimated commercial stocks of chinook salmon in addition to the coho. To
protect the endangered fish, which mingle with other species when they
reach the Pacific, the government has severely restricted commercial ocean
fishing this year as far south as Monterey.

Klamath River irrigators, however, have also contested this argument,
claiming that the lack of water flow from the Trinity River, which merges
with the Klamath River before reaching the ocean, is a contributing factor
to the 2002 incident. Water is diverted from the Trinity River to feed the
canal to the Bay Area.

“Our interest is in getting fish back to the Klamath River because we
depend on it for our livelihood,” said Glen Spain, northwest regional
director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, a
plaintiff in the case. He said the ruling should lead to a “better and more
balanced water plan.”

“It's always been irrigators first,'' said Earthjustice attorney Kristen
Boyles, who represented environmental and fishing organizations challenging
the Bush administration's plan. “Fishing communities and tribal communities
dependent on these fish ... have been ignored.”

Increased flows for fish probably would come at the expense of irrigation
water for farmers. Pacific Legal Foundation lawyer Robin Rivett,
representing the Klamath Water Users Association and the Tulelake
Irrigation District, said the court appears to have misunderstood the case.

“All the water that's necessary for survival of the species will be
provided in the Bureau of Reclamation's current plan,” he said.

Rivett said he was confident that the government could provide a better
explanation of its plan to U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in
Oakland and avoid a court ordered increase in water supplies.

Klamath Basin irrigators say there is plenty of water for both them and the
fish and wish to avoid a complete cut-off of irrigation that happened
several years ago, a situation that decimated agriculture in Northern
California and Southern Oregon causing many third generation farmers to
lose their land.

A coalition of commercial fishermen and conservation groups, joined by the
Yurok and Hoopa Valley Tribes, filed the lawsuit against the National
Marine Fisheries Service and Bureau of Reclamation in September 2002,
claiming that the agency's 10-year plan “failed to leave sufficient water
in the river for salmon and relied on future, speculative actions from the
states of California and Oregon to make up for the missing water.”

The lawsuit claims that in the fall of 2002, five months after the plan was
adopted, low flows in the Klamath River caused by unbalanced irrigation
deliveries killed nearly 70,000 adult salmon. Months earlier, during the
spring of 2002, the lawsuit claims that juvenile salmon died in the river
from low water conditions. The plaintiffs claim that the loss of these
juveniles is what led to the severe commercial salmon fishing restrictions
this year on the California and Oregon coasts.

“This decision gives hope to the families that depend on Klamath River
salmon,” said Glen Spain of Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's
Associations. “This case is about restoring balance to the basin so that
fishermen, Native Americans, and irrigators can all receive a fair share of
the water. We will continue to work on a new vision for the basin.” PCFFA
is the west coast's largest organization of commercial fishing families.

The environmentalist's concept of fair share is contested by the irrigators
who claim that the 2002 plan is a fair share. The irrigators also believe
that the science used by these special interest groups is skewed and their
real agenda is to pressure for the removal of the hydroelectric dams on the
Klamath River.

The dam removal concept, in fact, was mentioned in the Yurok Tribe press
release announcing its successful lawsuit decision by the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals.

The Yurok Tribe press release stated: “The Klamath was once the third
mightiest salmon-producing river in the continental US, behind only the
Columbia and Sacramento in productivity. The river has been reduced to a
shadow of its former self largely as a result of the Bureau of
Reclamation's re-plumbing of its headwaters to maximize irrigation in the
arid upper basin desert along with hydroelectric development. The long-term
answer may include buying back some of the agricultural land in the Klamath
Basin to reduce water demand, as well as decommissioning all or part of the
hydroelectric project owned by Portland based PacifiCorp.”

Some speculate that the recent attention relating to blue-green algae, an
issue driven by environmental and tribal interests, also relates to an
agenda promoting the removal of the dams, which are up for relicensing.

Salmon hatcheries were built on the Klamath River mitigating the impact of
the dams when they were constructed. For decades these effectively provided
for the fishing industry and water for the irrigators, who point out that
water flows are regulated and have not changed and say that not all the
factors relating to claimed declining fish populations are being considered.

The appeal was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of PCFFA, Institute for
Fisheries Resources, The Wilderness Society, WaterWatch of Oregon,
Northcoast Environmental Center, Oregon Natural Resources Council,
Defenders of Wildlife, Klamath Forest Alliance, and Headwaters. In the
district court, these groups were joined by Congressman Mike Thompson
(D-Napa) and the Yurok and Hoopa Valley Tribes; amicus briefs supporting
the plaintiffs were filed by the Cities of Arcata and Eureka, Del Norte,
Humboldt, and Trinity Counties, and the Humboldt Bay, Harbor, Recreation
and Conservation District.

Note: AP contributed to this report from an article written by Bob Egelko
with the San Francisco Chronicle.



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Updated: Thursday, October 20, 2005 1:36 PM PDT
 


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