During late summer of 2002, tens of thousands of fat, healthy chinook salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead trout entered the Klamath River, charging upstream to spawn. Before they reached mile 40 of their journey, over 33,000 were dead, wiped out by the river’s unnaturally hostile conditions. The salmon–and the communities dependent upon them–were victims the federal government’s lopsided water management policy in the Klamath. Earlier that year, federal officials in charge of the Klamath Irrigation Project, a massive irrigation development in the Klamath’s Upper Basin, ignored warnings from their own and outside scientists and provided more water to irrigation ditches than to the drought-parched river. The result was an unprecedented ecological and economic disaster: the largest adult fish kill in recorded Western U.S. history.

The federal agencies responded with immediate, but temporary, increases in river flows. At the same time, federal agencies and irrigator interest groups protested to anyone who would listen that the vast amounts of water diverted by the Klamath Project had nothing to do with the massive fish die-off. Such protestations had no basis in fact. For decades, excessive diversions to the Klamath Project have had a profound negative impact upon Klamath River flows, fisheries, and the economies and communities of the Klamath River. As the American public began to understand after the fish kill, a century of mismanagement and abuse has robbed the Klamath Basin of much of the water that gives it life.

According to the National Marine Fisheries Service and independent hydrologists, the pre-Project Upper Basin provided the main source of flow for the Lower Basin in late summer and fall, and was an especially important source of water during drought years. In addition to the region’s formerly vast lake and marshland water storage, the Upper Basin’s extensive volcanic aquifers supplied naturally high year-round flows. Now, the development and operation of the Project has significantly reduced summer flows in the Klamath, and threatens the survival of the river’s fisheries and communities.

In 1998, the federal government contracted with Dr. Thomas Hardy of Utah State University to provide the definitive scientific evaluation of the water needs for the Klamath’s salmon. As the study neared completion, the Bush Administration inexplicably allowed Dr. Hardy’s funding to lapse. The de-funding of Hardy’s crucial study has stalled efforts to find a scientific, sustainable balance to serve the needs of all communities dependent upon the Klamath’s resources.

The “Lowlights” – Negative Biological, Economic,
and Cultural Impacts

• The Klamath Irrigation Project diverts roughly 25% (450,000 acre-feet) of the Upper Klamath Basin’s entire mean annual flow (1.8 million acre-feet). Total irrigation diversions tend to be even greater during dry years, to compensate for drier soils and increased evaporation. This further reduces already low river flows. (Hecht and Kamman 1996, pp. 15, 21)

• Historically, the Upper Basin’s contribution was most critical during drought summers, often providing more than 40% of the river’s entire summer flow. Over the past 35 years, irrigation demand has slashed the upper river’s essential flow contribution to the lower river. Now, Upper Basin irrigation flow management often provides only 5 to 10% of total river flows during drought years—an 80% reduction from pre-Project contribution levels. (Hecht and Kamman 1996, p. 35)

• California Department of Fish and Game biologists determined low flows caused the massive 2002 fish kill, and they predict the Klamath’s current flow management plan will likely cause significant fish kills during dry years in the future. (CDFG Fish Kill Report

  2002, pp. 54, 57)

• Low flows and fish kills have long gone hand and hand in the Klamath River. Significant water quality-related fish kills occurred in 1994, 1997, and 2000; out-migrating young salmon suffered extraordinary mortality in 1995; unnaturally high stress levels brought outbreaks of the parasite Ceratomyxa shasta in 1994, 1995, and 1996; and in the spring of 2002, water diversions to Project irrigators dropped river flows dramatically, stranding hundreds of young salmon.

• April, May, and June are particularly critical months for salmon fry. Small juvenile fish require streamside edge habitat, preferably areas of inundated vegetation, to avoid predators and escape from strong water currents. Low flows narrow the river channel, greatly reduce essential edge habitat, force fry into harsh mid-channel currents, and dramatically increase mortality due to predation and exhaustion.

• High river flows are also essential for young salmon smolts migrating to the sea. Robust flows lower smolt travel time and reduce deaths due to migration delays, predation, and exposure to poor water quality.

• 2002’s fish kill eliminated roughly one-third of the returning generation of chinook salmon before reproduction, and lessened reproductive success for the greatly weakened fish kill survivors. This blow to the run will also drastically reduce the fishing harvest opportunities in 3 to 4 years time–when 2002’s surviving eggs mature to adults. This in turn perpetuates more losses for the next generation of fish.

• According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the portion of the Lower Basin economy dependent upon river tourism and non-commercial sport fishing currently generates $800 million per year. The USGS estimates the value of the Lower Basin economy would more than double in value with increased river flows, improved water quality, and restored fisheries. In contrast, the irrigator economy of the Upper Basin is valued at $100 million per year, and is heavily dependent upon tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer and electrical power subsidies.

• Roughly 3,150 family-wage jobs are lost to the in-river and coastal commercial salmon fishing economy as a direct result of the Klamath’s degraded habitat and resulting poor fish runs. (Institute for Fisheries Resources 1998, p. 18)

Salmon occupy a central position in the cultural, spiritual, and traditional sustenance ways of the Yurok, Hoopa Valley, and Karuk Tribes along the Klamath River. Loss of the historic, vigorous salmon runs in the Klamath represents an irreparable loss to these Native American cultures.