Klamath water will be released to aid fish

Faced with a massive adult salmon kill on the Klamath River, federal officials hope an extra flow will cool the river and keep more salmon alive.

Federal water managers say they will release a jolt of water down the Klamath River today to break up a massive fish kill, one that already has wiped out 10,000 to 40,000 salmon and steelhead trout.

Federal authorities were still evaluating the planned water release Thursday, but have agreed that some kind of extra flow, as early as today, is needed to relieve "a dire tragedy," said Mark Limbaugh, director of external affairs for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Washington, D.C.

"We are unsure if this release will solve the problem," Limbaugh said, "but we want to do something as quickly as possible. We've looked at our (reservoir) storage and decided we have some flexibility."

Thousands of fall-run Chinook salmon -- some as large as 40 pounds -- have died since last week in the lower Klamath River, which once supported one of the most productive fisheries on the north coast.

Biologists say the fish are dying of gill disease, caused by lethallywarm temperatures in the river, although they disagree on whether the Klamath Project -- a federal irrigation project 200 miles upstream -- shares major blame for the higher temperatures.

For weeks, the Yurok and Hoopa Indian tribes have been urging federal authorities to release more water to the river. The bureau has resisted, citing a National Academy of Sciences study that questioned whether extra flows of unnaturally warm water from Iron Gate Dam would provide much help to fish.

On Thursday, however, the bureau agreed to work with the National
Marine Fisheries Service on an experimental release of water from Iron Gate Dam. With any luck, the onset of cooler weather should help cool the lower river and help disperse an unusually large run of fish, said Limbaugh.

"We are not sure of the duration of the flow, or how much will be released," he said.

Federal authorities also are evaluating a release of water from dams on the Trinity River, which flows into the Klamath River near where the fish kill is occurring. Flows on the Trinity, however, are the subject of a lawsuit by Westlands Water District and Sacramento Municipal Utility District, giving water managers less flexibility.

Limbaugh said the extra flows were unrelated to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Oakland. That suit, filed by the Earthjustice group on behalf of several environmental groups and U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, asks the National Marine Fisheries Service to revise its 10-year plan for coho salmon recovery on the Klamath River.

"The current plan relies on guesswork and voluntary measures," said Glen
Spain of Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, one of the plaintiffs. "In spite of more rainfall, salmon actually have less water in the river this year than during last year's record drought."

Last summer, federal authorities cut off water to Klamath Basin farmers to protect coho salmon and two types of endangered lake fish. After months of protests, Interior Secretary Gale Norton agreed to give more water to farmers this year, and less for fish -- a decision made before Northern California experienced one of its hottest Septembers on record.