[env-trinity] SF Chronicle Editorial May 2 2006

[Byron]

  _____  

EDITORIAL 


A hard choice on Klamath salmon


Tuesday, May 2, 2006

 JUST OFF Northern California's rocky coast, the ocean teems with salmon.
Prime conditions on the state's biggest river, the Sacramento, have swelled
the numbers. 

Why then are federal regulators cutting the season by 60 percent along a
700-mile stretch of California and Oregon coastline? Because the state's
second-biggest salmon-producing river, the Klamath, is on life support. The
result makes for a bitter choice: Because salmon are indistinguishable once
they swim into the Pacific, the fish-catching at sea must be curtailed to
safeguard the dwindling numbers from one river. 

The pared-back season is a hard outcome. Water diversions, dams, logging and
development have harmed the clean, cold flows of water needed for rearing
salmon. Commercial fishermen are paying the price for problems caused by
others, and many may go bankrupt. 

This huge price shouldn't be ignored. Federal authorities should use the
opportunity to mend failed policies and consider new approaches. Drought,
which cut steady flows needed to raise salmon, may be uncontrollable. But
other destructive policies to steer water to farmers or allow
migration-blocking dams must be re-thought. This winter's heavy rainfall may
restore rearing conditions, a gift that mustn't be wasted. 

The Klamath needs help badly. The minimum number of returning salmon is
pegged at 35,000 by wildlife experts, though only 25,000 are expected this
season. To accommodate this lapse, commercial boats will face a limited
season that aims to push fishing away from the mouth of the Klamath north of
Eureka. Expect the price for wild, local-caught salmon to soar as a result. 

In the short run, the Klamath's problems may push Congress to aid the
state's $100 million salmon industry. But finding money in deficit-fixated
Washington may be hard. 

Longer-range solutions may be just as hard, given the way the Klamath was
treated in the recent past. A White House move in 2002 flipped the spigot on
the upper Klamath to send water to farmers in southern Oregon. That move, in
a low-water year, meant less for salmon, who died by the thousands in warm,
sluggish pools downriver. It was a lesson in destructive environmental
decision-making that ignored sound science. 

Salmon are a hallmark of the outdoors, thriving in clean surroundings. It's
time to restore this image to the Klamath.

 

Byron Leydecker

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

Advisor, California Trout, Inc

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 383 9562 fx

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org

http://www.fotr.org

http:www.caltrout.org 

 

 

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