Clearing up the myths, misinformation, and finger pointing surrounding the 2002 Klamath River salmon kills.

Fiction #1 - This fish kill was an isolated event.

FACT:  Fish kills and low flows go hand in hand in the Klamath River.  While the magnitude of adult salmon killed the by the present conditions in the Klamath is unprecedented, low flows and fish kills have long gone hand and hand in this river.  There have been several major kills of juvenile salmon in the Klamath River in the last decade due to low flows, and nearly every spring production of salmon smolts is vastly diminished for the same reason.  Low flows prevent young fish from finding cover along the river�s edges, and the related high temperatures, low oxygen levels, and poor water quality can be lethal to fish.

FACT:  Chronic low water flows are at the heart of this fish kill. The chinook run returning to the Klamath River this month was relatively strong, due in part to the good river flows the fish experienced as smolts in 1999 and 2000, and good ocean conditions that provided them with plenty of food.  But as soon as these fat, healthy salmon enter the Klamath River they are forced to swim upstream in a sickly, polluted trickle of water, with temperature spikes reaching as high as 80 degrees Fahrenheit and sustained temperatures in the mid-70s (most experts agree sustained temperatures above 65 degrees are lethal to salmon).

These high temperatures have likely killed many fish outright, but have also spawned a disease outbreak known as “gill rot.”  This disease affects salmon suffering in high water temperatures by destroying their respiratory system, causing them to suffocate.  The low flows currently going down the Klamath have trapped salmon in tightly packed schools in the main channel of the river, creating the perfect conditions for an epidemic of this disease.

FACT:  Water flows and water temperatures are directly related. As the level of water released into a river decreases, the depth of the river and the velocity with which it moves also decreases.  Shallow water heats up in the sun much faster than deep water, and the slower a river’s current moves, the longer the water has to warm.  Worse, low flows such as those currently being experienced in the Klamath River dry up side channels-channels that are often shaded by vegetation and offer salmon some refuge from the hot sun.  Low flows also reduce the depth of the deeper pools in the river, further reducing the salmon’s ability to escape the heat.

As early as last spring fishing and conservation organizations, as well as Native American Tribes, predicted that the drastic flow reductions in the Klamath River resulting from the Bush Administration’s management plan could result in a fish kill.  In a major story in the 8/26 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, Troy Fletcher, Executive Director of the Yurok Tribe, stated:  “We’ve always been concerned about low flows, and this year, the flows are among the worst we’ve ever seen.  The conditions are terrible.  We have fish dying all along the river.”

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration ignored these warnings.

FACT:  The low flows and high water temperatures of the Klamath River sparked the outbreak of these diseases.  Several illnesses have likely played a role in the Klamath River fish kills.  The disease that appears to have killed the majority of salmon is referred to generally as “gill rot.”  Salmon suffering through the stress of high water temperatures are especially vulnerable to this disease, which kills fish by destroying their respiratory system, causing them to suffocate.  Several other temperature-related illnesses are also likely to have played a role.  The low flows currently going down the Klamath trap salmon in tightly packed schools in the main channel of the river, creating the ideal conditions for the spread of disease.

California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Paul Wertz, quoted in the 9/25 Eureka Times-Standard, pointed out the connection:  "Warm water stresses the fish that would otherwise have no problem with diseases."

FACT:  The Irrigation Project that drains water from the Klamath is also the primary source of pollution in the river.  The Bureau of Reclamation�s massive Klamath Irrigation Project is largely responsible for the Klamath’s poor water quality.  Agricultural runoff laced with pesticides, fertilizers, and animal waste flows from the Project down the Klamath Straits Drain and into the Klamath River.  Much of this pollution stays in the river all the way to its mouth, and when water flows are low, the pollution is more concentrated.

Once it passes the Oregon border, the Klamath enters an isolated region, and runs for much of its length down a narrow canyon.  Relatively little additional pollution enters the river in this stretch.  Yet the US Environmental Protection Agency lists nearly the entire Klamath River, from Iron Gate Dam to the ocean (a 185 mile stretch), as water quality impaired due to low water flows, high temperatures, and unnaturally high levels of nutrients.

High water temperatures caused by low flows are also related to decreased levels of dissolved oxygen fish need to survive.  The higher the water temperature, the less able the water is to absorb and hold oxygen.  Thus when the flows are low the fish get hit with a “double whammy” of both high temperatures and less oxygen.

High water temperatures also combine with nitrate fertilizers from the upper basin to encourage the growth of massive algae blooms, which then die off and suck up more oxygen from the water as they decompose, killing even more fish.  All these impacts are ultimately related to total flow.

FACT:  This is nothing more than an attempt to duck responsibility by circular finger pointing. While the Trinity, Scott, and Shasta Rivers certainly have problems, these do not exonerate the massive Klamath Irrigation Project for the harm it does to salmon. There was even less water flowing into the Klamath from the Trinity, Scott, and Shasta during the summer of 2001, but there was no fish kill.  In fact, the Bureau of Reclamation left more water in the river last year, during the height of last year�s record-breaking drought, than during this year in spite of far more rainfall this year than last.

The federal government does not have control over private landowner water use in the Scott, Trinity and Shasta Rivers, making it a convenient scapegoat.  However, the Bureau of Reclamation does control the Klamath Project return flows and those do have a major impact.

The Klamath Project water users also like to point the finger at lower river farmers, blaming them for taking too much water out of the river below.  While there is no doubt that many of the Klamath River’s tributaries are also suffering from de-watering, this fact increases the importance of maintaining large Klamath Project water releases that are crucial for sustaining the fish, and means the absence of these water releases has that much more impact.  As the major water user in the basin, and as a federal agency, the Klamath Irrigation Project cannot shirk its responsibilities to protect public resources by simply pointing the finger at others.

FACT:  The 2002 fish kills began when the Klamath River was flowing about 25% lower than it did in 2001.  There were no fish kills in the fall of 2001.  Higher water flows would have allowed salmon to escape the heat of the sun by sheltering in shaded areas along the stream banks and in side channels, or hiding in deeper pools.  Faster moving water and a deeper river would also have served to keep temperatures down all summer long.  And finally, high flows would have allowed salmon to disperse across a much wider area of the river, reducing the stress upon the fish and the spread of disease.

In the days following the beginning of the fish kill, the Bush Administration scrambled to put more water in the Klamath River.  If more water won’t do fish any good, why are they working so hard now to increase flows?

Scientists with the Klamath Tribe recently released a statement documenting that water in the Upper Klamath Lake was well within temperature ranges that would have helped salmon for all but a few days in August of this year.  The Bureau simply made the political decision not to release it in order to give it to Project irrigators.

FACT:  The Klamath Irrigation Project is the single largest water user in the entire basin, and the single largest source of water pollution.  It has a massive impact on the overall health of the river. Extremely polluted agricultural runoff from project operations is spilled back into the river through the Klamath Straits Drain, causing water pollution problems in the river all the way to the mouth.  And from July 11^th, 2002 to August 31^st(with the exception of one day), 2002, more water was flowing down the main irrigation canal inside the Project than was being released into the river from Iron Gate Dam, according to data from the US Geologic Survey and US Bureau of Reclamation (chart of flows available upon request).  For example, on July 31^st, 905 CFS of water was flowing down the “A” Canal, while only 776 was being released into the Klamath River from Iron Gate Dam.

Iron Gate Dam, where the Bureau of Reclamation controls the entire river’s flows, is at river mile 190, but flows from the dam have a great influence on the rest of the river all the way down to the estuary.  In fact, according to the NMFS 2002 Biological Opinion (pages 86 & 87), during September these Iron Gate Dam releases typically account for more than 60 percent of total river volume as far down river as Orleans, which is close to the estuary at river mile 59 and just above where the Trinity River tributary comes into the mainstem.

FACT:  The real experts say low flows are the culprit.  While scientists are always careful to avoid becoming entangled in politics, the real experts on the health of the river--those actually doing research on it--agree that low flows and high water temperature are behind this fish kill.

Bush Administration spokespeople, and scientists on the payroll of the agribusiness industry, are the ones claiming this fish kill is a mystery.  This is not science--it is politics. They are borrowing a page from the tobacco industry’s book, and arguing that not enough is known to make conclusions, while waiting for the anger over the fish kills to subside.

FACT:  The Bush Administration is picking and choosing the science it likes.  When experts with federal fish and wildlife agencies said in the spring of 2001 that more water was needed to protect Klamath River salmon, the Bush Administration set out to find science that was more to their liking.  They hired the National Research Council to review some of the science surrounding water issues in the basin.  Though the Council has thus far concluded that more research is needed to justify major policy shifts one way or the other, the Administration and irrigators have seized on their interim results to proclaim “fish don’t need water.”

This “fish don’t need water” claim has become the guiding principle of the Bush Administration’s management of the Klamath Basin.  They have ignored scientifically based studies that disagree with the NRC, and strong criticisms of the review raised by Klamath River experts, in order to maximize irrigation deliveries in the upper basin.  The result has been dramatically lower river flows (as compared to the bare minimum survival flows of 2001), and salmon, as well as the Native American and commercial fishing communities that depend on them, left high and dry.

FACT: Although the 2002 fall Chinook run was relatively large in comparison to recent years, it was still far below historical numbers.  With the California Department of Fish and Game estimating losses as high as 70,000 individual fish, over half the total 2002 Klamath fall Chinook run may have died before every getting a chance to spawn.  What this means is that half of these fish did not lay eggs, cutting future harvest opportunities In other words, the 2002 Klamath fish kill meant lost economic opportunities and lost Tribal harvests for many fish generations to come.

The results of this fish kill have been devastating to commercial fishing communities.  In 2005 and 2006 commercial salmon fishermen in Northern California and along the Oregon Coast faced severe harvest restrictions as a result of this kill and the ongoing juvenile fish kills.  These closures have pushed many families into bankruptcy, and lead Congress to enact a $60 million disaster relief package to help sustain the commercial fishing fleet until something can be done to restore Klamath salmon runs.