Scott River Groundwater Study Plan Politics

Next to the PacifiCorp’s dams, the greatest impediment to restoring salmon, steelhead and a healthy Klamath River Basin may be the progressive dewatering of the Scott River. Unregulated groundwater pumping in the Scott Valley bottoms is likely directly connected to the steady decrease in Scott River flows (check here for a peer review study on this topic due out soon). Groundwater pumping in Scott Valley has increased dramatically with 99 irrigation pumps in 1976 and 228 in 2006. Irrigation pumps generally pump between 100 and 1,000 gallons per minute. Groundwater pumping now accounts for more than half of irrigation in the Scott River Basin.

The North Coast Water Board suspects that groundwater pumping is an important factor in low flows which are directly related to river water temperatures that are out of compliance with established water quality standards and which, in the Scott River, are much too warm to support salmon and other cold water fishes.

For this reason, the Water Board has provided funding to Siskiyou County – which has first jurisdiction over groundwater pumping – to complete a groundwater study designed to determine the impact of the pumping on river water temperature. But the draft study plan which has been prepared in response will unnecessarily delay finding the answer and is loaded with many other study objectives that are not necessary to determine the impact of pumping on river water temperature.

Klamath River restoration advocates are urging a more focused study that will provide an answer soon – before Chinook salmon are extirpated from most of the watershed as a result of dewatering and high water temperatures.

The Scott River Watershed Council – which along with Siskiyou County has resisted dealing with groundwater pumping impacts – has scheduled a meeting to get input on the groundwater study plan. Here are the details:

Scott River Watershed Council Meeting

November 27, 2007 @ 7:00 p.m.

Fort Jones Community Center

Topic: Scott Valley Groundwater Study Plan

Public Comment Encouraged

The Scott River Groundwater Study Plan is available as a 2 Mb .pdf document at the following address: http://groundwater.ucdavis.edu/ScottValley.htm

KlamBlog encourages those who desire a healthy Scott and Klamath River to attend the meeting and to contact the Northcoast Water Board which is funding the study. Please make the following points:

· The salmon can’t wait for a long-term groundwater study and such a study is not needed to provide the information which the Northcoast Waterboard needs to determine the impact of groundwater pumping on Scott River water temperature.

· The study must be narrowly focused on the information the Waterboard – which is providing 100% of the funding for the study – needs. If Siskiyou County wants additional information, they should seek it in a separate study and not delay addressing the problems that must be addressed to restore salmon and the Scott River.

· If Siskiyou County refuses to focus the study and shorten it to a reasonable amount of time, the Northcoast Waterboard should take back the funding and do the study themselves.

Send comments on the Scott River groundwater Study Plan to:

RKlamt@waterboards.ca.gov

BMcFadin@waterboards.ca.gov

Please copy your comments to: unofelice@gmail.com and stay tuned - in the months ahead KlamBlog will review restoration efforts in the Scott River Watershed and attempt to answer the question: Should California Department of Fish & Game give Scott Valley ranchers and farmers a permit to "Take" Coho salmon?

While we wait!

Many Klamath watchers are anxiously awaiting the Klamath "Settlement" Proposal which has been in confidential development for well over a year and which is said to be nearing completion. KlamBlog has commented previously on some of the sticky issues, including the potentially prohibitive cost to taxpayers (see the November 6^th post).

This package of proposals is definitely not going to solve all of the Basin’s biggest problems. For example, the water management problems resulting in the progressive dewatering of the Scott River are not “on the table”. And we must retain skepticism about proposals put together under the watchful eye of a Bush Administration Interior Department that has rarely if ever taken sufficient care of the environment. It is also disconcerting that the Klamath Water Users Association and the Karuk Tribe have heavily promoted the Settlement Proposal before key provisions were negotiated.

Whatever is in the final package, however, it will have been the product of many long hours of work by many dedicated people; therefore it will be deserving of close study and careful consideration. But the proposals should not be considered either a unified whole or a done deal that can not be altered. Rather we should consider them just what they are – a set of proposals negotiated by a sub-set of Klamath Basin interests which deserve study and consideration but not blind allegiance.

It is likely that, as these proposals work their way through community meetings and consideration by the state legislatures and Congress, alternatives will be explored and positive improvements in some of the proposals will be made. Above all we are going to have to be careful that proposals do not advantage one group, tribe, industry, interest or geographical area above others and that eager politicians do not run ahead with legislation before the proposals can be thoroughly vetted in our communities and within our organizations. That is what is needed as the circle of consideration expands to include all the Basin’s communities and interests.

What we will not need is more media promotion of what will definitely be a complex and costly set of proposals. Another spin campaign would not help move these proposals forward; on the contrary, spin and hype will likely create unnecessary confusion about the proposals and heightened conflict among Klamath River Basin interests.

When the proposals are finally publicly released, KlamBlog hopes to serve as a forum where a serious conversation about the merits and demerits of the proposals can take place. At that point we will invite submissions from all Klamath River Basin communities and interests.

Water Board considers action plan for sediment impaired watersheds

The Northcoast Water Quality Board has developed a Draft Action Plan to control sediment in watersheds listed by the State Board as impaired by excessive sediment. This will mostly apply to those watersheds which are listed as "impaired" by excessive sediment but do not have a specific TMDL "action plan" to control that sediment.

In the Klamath River Basin the Scott is listed as sediment-impaired but it has a specific action plan. Newly listed as sediment-impaired is the Lower Klamath (below Weitchpec). The majority of the land base in this part of the Klamath is controlled by Green Diamond Resources (aka Simpson) which – like other big timber corporations - still practices clearcutting on steep, unstable slopes. However, since some of the excessive sediment in this part of the Klamath originates upstream, the Action Plan may have implications for forest, road and watershed management upstream on the Trinity and Klamath, including on national forest and industrial forest lands.

On December 6, 2007, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will consider Resolution No. R1-2007-0095, directing staff to execute the sediment control tasks described in the Work Plan. The agenda for the December 6th Board Meeting in Eureka is available at http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/agenda/12_2007/12_2007.html .

The Work Plan itself is available at http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/programs/basinplan/sediment_workplan.html .

Questions or comments on the Work Plan should be directed to Rebecca Fitzgerald at 707-576-2650 or rfitzgerald@waterboards.ca.gov.

KlamBlog has not yet reviewed the Work Plan. However, Alan Levine of Coast Action Group is concerned about the ability of the Board to implement the Action Plan given work load and staff resources. Also, in previous sediment plans produced by the Northcoast Board key issues including logging road maintenance and clearcutting on steep, unstable slopes have been all but ignored.

Debunking One (or two) Klamath Myth

There is a common misunderstanding about the Klamath River Dams that is repeated regularly in press accounts. The dams - and there owner PacifiCorp - do not divert any Klamath River water other than for the powerhouses - a non-consumptive use; the 4 dams many of us want decommissioned have no role in agriculture, their only public benefit is power generation.

Agriculture consumes over 80% of Klamath River base flows (base flow = dry season flow). Here's how it breaks out:

• Klamath Project irrigators: subsidized water supplied by the US Bureau of Reclamation. This is approximately 40% of total Klamath River Basin irrigation.
• Other/non-federal Upper Basin irrigators (above the dams; most in Oregon). This is about 35% of total ag water use.
• Shasta and Scott River irrigators: These represent about 35% of ag consumptive water use. It does not include extensive groundwater pumping for irrigation which is widely believed to have an impact on surface flows.
  

The confidential negotiations that are going on involve the first two uses only; the Klamath Project Irrigators have publicly declared what they want from these negotiations:
1. A guaranteed allocation of water which they would have first priority to use as they see fit, i.e. for irrigation, to sell back to the feds to meet in stream flows, to sell to someone else.
2. A power subsidy: they had one under a contract with PacifiCorp that ran out; they lost claims before the Oregon and California PUCs that asked for a continuation of the subsidy. A phase out of the subsidy is in process.
3. Protection from any new Endangered Species Act-related regulation. Another common Klamath myth is that it was tribal rights and tribal legal action that reallocated Klamath River Water for in-stream flows. In reality, it was the ESA and a fisherman-environmental group lawsuit to force ESA compliance that reallocated Klamath water from irrigators to in-stream use.