[env-trinity] Disease killing young Klamath River salmon

[Thomas P. Schlosser]

I grabbed the wrong KPOP by mistake; the 2015 Annual Operations Plan, 
page 2, calls for diverting*254,500 af to irrigation*, a policy choice 
to favor irrigation over fisheries requirements.

On 5/21/2015 8:09 AM, Thomas P. Schlosser wrote:
> It's worth remebering that when Reclamation says (below) that there's 
> too little water to help now ("We decided that is not the most optimal 
> use of a very short water supply at this point,” Person said.") they 
> are still using a 2014 Annual Operations Plan for the Klamath Project 
> which, at page 2 calculates the project supply of water to be diverted 
> from the Klamath at *239,000 acre-feet*. This is what they consider to 
> be "most optimal."
> Tom
>
> On 5/21/2015 6:32 AM, Tom Stokely wrote:
>> http://www.redding.com/news/local-news/disease-killing-young-klamath-river-salmon_18847031
>>
>>
>>   Disease killing young Klamath River salmon
>>
>> Damon Arthur
>>
>> 5:50 PM, May 20, 2015
>> 5:51 PM, May 20, 2015
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>> JEFF BARNARD/AP PHOTO
>> SHOW CAPTION
>> KLAMATH RIVER, California - A disease flourishing in warm drought 
>> conditions in the Klamath River is killing young salmon and steelhead 
>> trying to migrate out to sea.
>> And while in some sections of the river disease has been found in 
>> nearly all of the fish tested, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials 
>> also said Wednesday the drought has left little water available to 
>> send downstream to improve conditions.
>> The Klamath Fish Health Assessment Team says conditions in the river 
>> are at orange, which means a fish kill is likely and federal and 
>> state agencies need to be alerted.
>> “Orange is probably underplaying the crisis,” said Craig Tucker, 
>> natural resources policy advocate for the Karuk Tribe, one of several 
>> groups with the assessment team that has biologists monitoring the river.
>> Scott Foott, project leader for the California-Nevada Fish Health 
>> Center in Anderson, said about 90 percent of the fish from Klamath 
>> brought to his center for testing have the disease, called ceratonova 
>> Shasta.
>> Foott didn’t know how many fish were dying of the disease in the 
>> river, but said mortality rate among fish with the disease is very 
>> high. Fish biologists said conditions in the river are bad this year 
>> because of the lack of rain and runoff from snowmelt.
>> Randy Turner, the fish health assessment team coordinator, said with 
>> low flows and warm water, worms that carry the disease have 
>> flourished on the streambed.
>> The problem isn’t as bad in years when the river is cooler and runs 
>> higher and faster in the winter and spring because the current kicks 
>> up the gravel and cobble on the streambed, disrupting the worms’ life 
>> cycle, he said.
>> The worst section of the Klamath River is from the Shasta River west 
>> of Interstate 5 to more than 80 miles downstream to the Salmon River, 
>> Turner said.
>> Brian Person, acting area manager of the bureau’s Yreka office, said 
>> Wednesday that after consulting with other agencies, they could not 
>> send more water downstream to improve conditions for the fish.
>> “We decided that is not the most optimal use of a very short water 
>> supply at this point,” Person said.
>> The bureau, as well as other federal and state wildlife agencies, 
>> would continue to monitor the fish in the river and could at some 
>> point decide to send more water downstream if conditions change, 
>> Person said.
>> If the readiness level on the river goes from orange to red — which 
>> means a fish kill is occurring — there is probably little officials 
>> can do because so little water is available upstream in the river, 
>> Tucker said.
>> Even if more water was sent downstream there probably isn’t enough 
>> available to benefit the young salmon, Tucker said. And if they use 
>> extra water in the spring to help the young salmon swimming out to 
>> sea, there might not be enough water in the fall to help the salmon 
>> returning from the ocean to spawn.
>> During the past few years bureau officials have had to release more 
>> water from the Trinity River to prevent a different disease from 
>> killing spawning salmon in the Klamath. That disease, called “ich,” 
>> has affected areas below where the Trinity flows into the Klamath River.
>> The young fish dying from the ceratonova Shasta in the Klamath River 
>> are upstream of its confluence with the Trinity River, Turner said.
>> It is likely a large percentage of this year’s salmon hatch will not 
>> make it out to sea, which means there will be fewer adult salmon 
>> returning back upstream to spawn in three years, Tucker said.
>> “I think we’re definitely going to take a hit when the adults 
>> return,” he said.
>> Copyright 2015 Journal Media Group. All rights reserved. This 
>> material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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