What's the best strategy for restoring Klamath Salmon to the Upper Klamath River Basin?

The train is rolling to get more federal funding to restore salmon to the Upper Klamath River Basin. Here's why I think that is a bad idea:

If ESA-listed salmon are restored by the federal government to the Upper Basin they will be an "experimental population" and could be removed at any time by a decision of the federal Interior Department. That could actually happen and may be likely if Trump becomes president. In contrast, if the ESA-listed salmon are allowed to repopulate the Upper Basin on their own, they will retain the protection of the federal ESA until they are fully recovered and safe in the Upper Basin.

 

 

That is why I believe those who truly care about salmon themselves (and not just their or their tribe or organization's interest in salmon, restoration jobs and funding), will advocate for giving all Klamath Salmon, including Spring Chinook and Coho, the opportunity to repopulate the Upper Basin on their own.

 

What is most needed now is an assessment of Upper Klamath River flow needs using existing information. Then we can go about seeking the flows Klamath Salmon need by purchasing and retiring irrigation water rights from willing sellers who receive irrigation water via the US Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Irrigation Project. There is no way we can restore abundant salmon if we refuse to even assess what flows the Klamath Salmon need for real recovery.

It should be a scandal that we've spent so many millions on "restoration" for so many years and we still have no comprehensive assessment of the Upper Klamath River's flow needs. That assessment, using existing information, could be done in three to six months and should be our restoration priority. But instead organizational interests are trumping solid assessment and substituting their own restoration priorities.

 

Why Passive Restoration will work best:

Experience and research has made clear the errors humans make when they are in change of "restoration." According to one broad assessment  of salmonid restoration:

 

"We reviewed habitat assessments and recovery plans to identify ecological needs and statistically compared these to the distribution of co-located restoration projects. We deployed two metrics at scales ranging from the sub-watershed to ESA listing units; one describes the unit scale match/mismatch between projects and ecological concerns, the other correlates ecological need with need treated by projects across units. Populations with more identified ecological concerns contained more restoration effort, but the frequency of ecological concerns in recovery plans did not correlate with their frequency as restoration targets."

 

Too often it is "politics" which determines restoration priorities rather than the true priority needs of salmonids. For example, salmon naturally stray from their natal streams, sometimes widely. That evolutionary trait is why it would be better for Klamath Salmon and Steelhead if they are allowed to repopulate the Upper Basin on their own schedule. Based on what happened in the Elwha River and elsewhere, we will be amazed at how quickly salmonids repopulate the Upper Basin on their own if given the chance. 

But the tribes and others are unwilling to allow the Klamath's "weak" stocks, including Coho and Spring Chinook Salmon, to repopulate the Upper Basin on their own. Humans apparently can not resist getting their hands on the fish and playing God. This is an ongoing problem across time that has plagued western efforts to recover Pacific Salmon and Steelhead.

 

Instead of trying to preempt Klamath Salmon's repopulation of the Upper Basin, we should trust Klamath Salmon to repopulate the newly available habitat opened up via dam removal. We humans should concentrate human efforts to help them on improving water quality in the Upper Klamath River. The best way to do that is to establish many more treatment wetlands at the margins of Keno Reservoir below Klamath Falls, in the decommissioned dam reservoir footprints and elsewhere. 

 

 

Keno Reservoir in the Upper Klamath River Basin

 

Upper Klamath flow assessment/restoration and wetland restoration below Klamath Falls are clearly what our salmon most need. But these are not a priority for those in change of allocating restoration funding. That is a sad thing for Klamath Salmon and our River.

.................

 

Readers, please leave a comment. What do you think would prove to be the most effective strategy for restoring Klamath Salmon to the Upper Klamath River Basin? 

Better late than never: Water deal supporters may finally sue to aid Klamath Coho

The Earthjustice press release stated it precisely: "Commercial Fishing & Conservation Groups Join Native American Tribes’ Legal Action to Protect Klamath Salmon and Fishing Communities." After nearly three years of urging by scientists, activists, Native youth and KlamBlog, the Klamath River tribes and fishing organizations which have long claimed leadership in defending and restoring Klamath Salmon have finally taken action to challenge federal policies which starve the Klamath of water flows and which, in recent years, killed most juvenile salmon before they could reach the Pacific Ocean. 

It has been something like the breaching of a dam: first the Hoopa Tribe, then the Karuk and Yurok Tribes, and finally the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens' Associations (PCFFA) and Klamath Riverkeeper have declared their intention to legally challenge the 2013 Biological Opinion which allowed the US Bureau of Reclamation to starve the Klamath River of flushing spring flows so essential to the health of the River and Klamath Salmon.

While we question why it took them this long, KlamBlog hopes that tribes and fishing groups, which had grown bleary eyed and docile through sitting in the back rooms for too long with too many white lawyers, have finally regained clear vision and courage. But before we get too hopeful, let's look more closely at the crisis which prompted the notice that a legal challenge may be coming.

Felice Pace: Why the Klamath Deals failed and what ought to happen now

Below KlamBlog presents the views of its editor, Felice Pace. on why the Klamath Dam and Water Deals failed to secure the endorsement of Congress. Felice argues that understanding why Klamath legislation failed in Congress is essential to crafting a successful path to dam removal and restoration of the Klamath River, its salmon and aquatic ecosystems. Read on to find out why the longest serving Klamath River activist believes legislation is not needed to get the dams out and restore the River. 

Why the Klamath Deals failed and what ought to happen now

Felice Pace

For those who would craft a successful way forward toward dam removal and restoration of the Klamath River and Klamath Salmon understanding why the Klamath Dam and Water Deals failed is essential information. This article presents actual and unreported reasons the deals failed to be endorsed and funded by Congress in 2015, additional congressional hurdles legislation to authorize and fund the deals faced, and why the tribes which supported the deals (the Yurok, Karuk and Klamath Tribes) have apparently decided not to continue hoping for a better result in a future Congress. Finally, this article suggests a way forward toward dam removal, water balance and river restoration that I believe offers the best chance of success and the least vulnerability to legal challenges.

Why Klamath Legislation failed in the 114th Congress

There can be no doubt that the #1 reason legislation to authorize and fund the Klamath Dam and Water Agreements failed to become law was opposition by Republican members of the US House of Representatives to removal of PacifiCorp's Klamath River Dams. While that opposition has an ideological component, opposition to both the KHSA Dam Deal and the KBRA Water Deal by Klamath County Commissioners in Oregon and opposition by Siskiyou County California Supervisors to the KHSA Dam Deal is what convinced Oregon Congressman Walden and California Congressman La Malfa to oppose any legislation that would have resulted in removal of any Klamath River dam.

Opposition to the Dam and Water Deals convinced House Republicans to oppose S 133 

However, opposition to dam removal in the US House does not explain why a bill supported by both senators from Oregon and both Senators from California not only failed to pass the Senate but even failed to get a hearing in the committee which had to pass the bill before it could get a vote by the full Senate. So why did S 133, the Klamath Basin Water Recovery and Economic Restoration Act of 2015, fail to get a hearing in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources? The answer is Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski.

The Yurok Tribe's KBRA Withdrawal: Turning point or same old strategy?

The Northcoast and Klamath River Basin were astir last week when reports appeared on local news websites indicating that the Yurok Tribe would "no longer support" the KBRA Water Deal. Those reports brought hope to river communities that a federally-orchestrated deal which has divided tribes, fishermen, environmental groups and communities might finally meet its demise.

 When the KBRA was signed in 2010 it was almost universally heralded as

a balanced and durable solution to disputes over Klamath River water that would 

result in "Peace on the River". Events since reveal those claims as dubious at best.

.

Close reading of the notice released by the Yurok Tribal Government, however, indicates that the "withdrawal" is actually a negotiating tactic which seeks to use the KBRA's "dispute resolution process" to regain the "bargained for benefits" those leaders thought they had secured when they signed the KBRA.  The Notice requests that the Klamath Basin Coordinating Council, a body called for in the KBRA that has already been established, "expedite any attempt to resolve the dispute."
 

But the Yurok Tribe's  Notice of Withdrawal also states that The Upper Klamath Basin Comprehensive Agreement (UBCA), which was finalized in March 2014 without the participation of the Yurok Tribe, "provides additional benefits to member parties that upset the bargained for benefits of the KBRA and KHSA" and amounts to "a return to the old Oregon-California/Upper Klamath-Lower Klamath division of the Klamath River system..." 

The Yurok Tribe's statement goes even further, declaring that the "bargained for benefits" tribal leaders thought they had secured when they signed the KBRA "have become unachievable." The statement begs one fundamental question: if benefits to the Klamath River and the Yurok Tribe are now "unachievable" why are Yurok leaders invoking a process that is intended to "resolve" disputes? And why are they traveling to Oregon again this week to engage in further negotiations?

Tight-lipped leaders

Local reporters have sought clarification of apparent contradictions in the Yurok Tribe's statement. They have also asked tribal leaders to provide specifics on the "bargained for benefits" those leaders believe were promised in the KBRA but are now "no longer achievable". Yurok government leaders have so far declined to provide clarifications.

Meanwhile, the Eureka Times-Standard reports that the Karuk Tribe and Oregon's Klamath Tribes will also withdraw from the KBRA at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t pass legislation sponsored by Senator Ron Wyden to legalize and fund aspects of the KBRA, KHSA and UBCA. Craig Tucker, the Karuk Tribe's Klamath River Program Coordinator, has spoken to reporters; Tucker claims the dispute is not about funding for tribal government programs but he also failed to provide specifics on which KBRA "bargained for benefits....have become unachievable."

KlamBlog invites leaders of the Yurok and Karuk Tribe to open up and inform the people; this blog will publish messages from them which let river residents know the nature of "bargained for benefits" Yurok and Karuk tribal leaders hope to regain.  

Collaborative Water Management Vetoed by Irrigators

One KBRA "benefit" Yurok and Karuk leaders clearly expected when they signed the KBRA was a collaborative approach to managing Klamath River Basin water. That meant officials of tribes which signed the KBRA would be consulted when Reclamation develops Annual Operating Plans to manage Klamath River Basin water.

The KBRA was signed in 2010. Early in 2011 the US Bureau of Reclamation released its plan for managing Klamath River water in the coming year, including projected irrigation water delivery, lake levels in Upper Klamath Lake and flow releases to the Klamath River. As envisioned by the KBRA, "party tribes" (the three tribes that signed the KBRA) were involved in developing the 2011 Operating Plan.

The plan called for spring flows in the Klamath River in excess of those required to comply with the Biological Opinion implementing the Endangered Species Act. The higher flows were intended to ameliorate a growing salmon disease epidemic in the Klamath River below Iron Gate Dam. At that time about 40% of the juvenile salmon tested were found to be diseased. That alarmed scientists because "normal" fish disease rates in Pacific Salmon Rivers rarely exceed 10%. The scientists knew higher spring flows would lower the River's water temperature and flush disease organisms from river gravels; that in turn would lower the rate of infection in Klamath Salmon.

Gill Rot or "Ich" is a natural fish disease that has become epidemic among juvenile

salmon migrating down the Klamath River. Up to 100% are infected. Telemetry studies 

indicate 92% of the juvenile salmon succumb to disease before they can reach the ocean. 

Higher spring flows in the Klamath River meant that Upper Klamath Lake, source of the Klamath River and of irrigation water for most Klamath Project water users, would fill more slowly. Because filling Upper Klamath Lake as early in the year as possible maximizes subsequent irrigation water delivery, the Klamath Basin's Irrigation Elite did not like the idea. Using the Klamath County Chamber of Commerce as their tool, those irrigators orchestrated an intense campaign to "convince" the US Bureau of Reclamation to (as the campaign's popular bumper sticker insisted) "Fill The Lake First".  

Reclamation quickly caved, acceding to the Irrigation Elite's demands. Not only did the agency not provide higher spring flows in 2011, Reclamation has not provided them since, even as salmon disease infection rates in the Klamath River continue to rise. As previously reported by KlamBlog, during 2014 and 2015 up to 100% of juvenile salmon migrating down the Klamath River were found to be infected with one, and in many cases two, salmon diseases. In 2014 only 8% of juvenile salmon outfitted with radio transmitters below Iron Gate Dam made it to the estuary and the Pacific Ocean. Those facts confirm that the salmon disease epidemic is killing most wild and hatchery salmon produced in the Klamath River and its tributaries before those young salmon can make it to the ocean. 

Having successfully undermined the KBRA's collaborative water management "bargained for benefit" the Irrigation Elite turned next to removing teeth from the Endangered Species Act. The result was the 2012 joint Biological Opinion (Bi-Op) for Coho Salmon and two sucker species (Kuptu and Tsuam or Lost River and Shortnose Suckers).

The new Bi-Op prioritized filling Upper Klamath Lake early in the year over providing higher spring flows for salmon. That decision was justified by claiming high spring lake levels are needed by Kuptu and Tsuam. It ignored findings of independent scientists empaneled by the National Research Council. Those scientists found "no scientific evidence" indicating that higher lake levels would benefit the two native sucker species.

As reported by KlamBlog, the joint Biological Opinion was a charade intended to remove the "burden" of the Endangered Species Act from the Irrigation Elite while claiming it was being done to benefit endangered species. Irrigation interests rewarded the federal officials who orchestrated the charade: one has since retired and now sits on the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) Board of Directors, the second was showered with praise at KWUA's subsequent annual dinner.

It is unknown whether Yurok leaders consider the higher spring river flows needed to control the Klamath River's salmon disease epidemic to be one of the "bargained for benefits" promised by the KBRA but never delivered. But that is irrelevant. Yurok leaders should insist not only on being in the back room when Reclamation plans yearly operations but also that the corrupt 2012 Biological Opinion must be redone. Furthermore, those leaders, as well as leaders of the Karuk Tribe, should stand firm that any "resolution" to the current "dispute" must guarantee the higher spring flows scientists tell us are needed to control the salmon disease epidemic currently killing most of the juvenile salmon migrating down the Klamath River.

Ongoing KBRA "dispute resolution" negotiations are a true test of Yurok and Karuk tribal leadership: Will these leaders be satisfied with admission to the back room where Reclamation makes decisions about Klamath water management, or will they insist that federal water managers provide the Klamath River flows salmon need to survive and thrive? KlamBlog will be watching and will let the public know whether the leaders prioritize the needs of fish or simply want access to the back room where Reclamation and the Irrigation Elite continue to call the shots. 

Have the lessons been learned?

Whatever results from current "dispute resolution" negotiations, there are lessons to be learned from what has unfolded since the KBRA was signed in 2010. One lesson is that the much heralded KBRA "harmony", in which tribes and irrigators look out for each others interests, was a sham from the start. The "return to the old Oregon-California/Upper Klamath-Lower Klamath division of the Klamath River system" noted in last weeks notice from the Yurok Tribe did not begin with the recent signing of the Upper Basin Comprehensive Agreement (UBCA). It began in 2010 soon after the KBRA was signed.  

The durability of the Upper Basin-Lower Basin "division" was also indicated in March of 2013 when the State of Oregon, a KBRA signing "party", issued its Final Order of Determination in Oregon's Klamath Adjudication . That order affirmed "time immemorial" rights of the Klamath Tribes to flows in streams that discharge into Upper Klamath Lake. The State, however, denied the Tribes' claim to flows for fish in the Klamath River below Upper Klamath Lake. In other words, Oregon affirmed those tribal water rights which are compatible with the interest of the Irrigation Elite (maximum inflow to Upper Klamath Lake) and denied tribal water rights which would benefit the Klamath River and Klamath Salmon.

As part of the next and final phase of Oregon's Klamath Adjudication, the Klamath Tribes' Government has filed court papers challenging Oregon's denial of their claim to water flows for fish in the Klamath River below Upper Klamath Lake. By signing the recent Upper Basin Comprehensive Agreement (UBCA), however, the Tribes agreed to withdraw its pending court challenge of that denial. Klamath Tribal leaders are willing to abandon their claim to the Klamath River flows fish need if Congress passes legislation by Senator Wyden that would return to the Tribes a portion of the illegally terminated reservation (now national forest land) and provide economic development funds so that the Tribes can build a lumber mill and get into the wood products business. 

As KlamBlog has noted from the beginning, at its heart the KBRA is about buying off tribal interests so that the water salmon, Kuptu and Tsuam need remains with federal irrigators. And it is about removing the "burden" of the Endangered Species Act from the shoulders of the Irrigation Elite. The KBRA is anything but balanced as Yurok and Karuk leaders are, hopefully, finally realizing. And that is why the KBRA as well as the more recent Upper Basin Comprehensive Agreement should be relegated to the dustbin of history. There are good deals and there are bad deals; from the standpoint of the River and Klamath Salmon the KBRA and UBCA are bad deals that no amount of "dispute resolution" can fix.

There is also a deeper and more profound lesson KlamBlog hopes all those who care about the health of our Klamath River and Klamath Salmon will take from what has transpired since the KBRA was signed in 2010: The real power of a tribe to secure durable benefits for rivers, salmon and tribal members depends on the water rights that tribe has asserted. The failure of the Yurok Tribe to assert its inherent reserved right to Klamath River flows in Oregon's Klamath Adjudication was and remains a colossal mistake. Until Yurok leaders recognize that mistake and take decisive action to secure those inherent water rights, the Tribe will remain in a weak position to negotiate for the River, Klamath Salmon and the related interests of its members.

Securing the Yurok Tribe's reserved right to Klamath River restoration flows may take a generation. But that is a short time in the life of a River. Let's hope Yurok leaders take the long view.

More ESA "protection" for the Klamath Basin's Irrigation Elite

The Klamath Falls Herald and News got the headline just right: House passes Walden’s plan to help protect Klamath Project water users (emphasis added). The article goes on to report that "the proposal would confer applicant status on those irrigators, ensuring that they are included in Endangered Species Act consultations that could affect operations of the water project they rely upon." Republican Congressman Greg Walden was able to add the provision to the "Western Water and American Food Security Act" which passed the House with "bipartisan support". The legislation now goes to the U.S. Senate.

Walden's effort to "protect" federal irrigators from the Endangered Species Act implements one of the main objectives of the KBRA Water Deal: to provide "relief" to Klamath Project Irrigators from requirements of the federal Endangered Species Act. That relief will also come in the form of wink-and-nod approval of Habitat Conservation Plans that KlamBlog predicts will remove ESA constraints on irrigation within the sprawling federal irrigation project. KlamBlog has previously written in depth about what we call the KBRA's "wink-and-nod" approach to implementing the ESA. The newer Upper Basin Comprehensive Agreement extends the same ESA "relief" to irrigation interests above Upper Klamath Lake.   

In the news report Walden states that the provision he championed formalizes what is already the practice: the US Bureau of Reclamation  routinely involved organizations representing irrigators in consultations with the US Fish & Wildlife and National Matrine Fisheries Services. Those consultations focus on impacts the 200,000 acre irrigation project has on Kuptu, Tsuam and Achvuun (Shortnose and Lost River Suckers and Coho salmon).

Walden's move may be in response to an investigation being conducted by the Department of Interior.  A former employee has alleged that Reclamation misspent funds which were appropriated to benefit fish and wildlife in order to pay for private growers to pump groundwater for irrigation. Involving a private entity in agency-to-agency government consultations may violate rules designed to protect such consultations from private interest influence. That may be why Walden is pushing the provision now, that is, to legalize what is otherwise an illegal practice. Whether it is legal or not, commercial interests should not be part of ESA consultations which by law are supposed to be based on the best available science and the scientific opinions of expert agencies.

Of course Reclamation does not include all those to whom it supplies water in those ESA consultations. Instead, the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA), which is controlled by a handful of large and powerful growers, is given a seat at the table while smaller irrigators are left outside.

Growers who dominate Klamath irrigation politics live in mansions like this one 

near Tule Lake. When they don't get their way they advertise their dissatisfaction.

And what about the tribes, fishermen and others who have a vital interest in how Klamath River water is managed? Why doesn't Mr. Walden want to give them a seat at the ESA consultation table too? With so many of us dependent on Klamath River water, why is just one interest singled out for special treatment with respect to those ESA consultations?

Undue influence and taxpayer support:

Members of the Klamath Tribes question their leaders' deal making

From KlamBlog's editor: Below you will find a recent Press Release from the group Honor the Treaty of 1864, comprised of members of the Klamath Tribes. You can contact the group via e-mail to Kayla Godowa-Tufti: godowatufti27@gmail.com. Here's how the group describes itself:           "Honor The Treaty of 1864 is a group of like minded individuals who want to honor our ancestors and our 7th generation by protecting our resources and our rights. While these ideas are not new and many people before us stood for the same things we do, our group was officially formed in 2014. We welcome all people who support our cause."  And here's a quote from the Press Release:           "The KBRA does nothing to heal historical and spiritual damages for Klamath, Modoc, Yahooskin people. By securing water primarily for agricultural purposes, the KBRA and associated documents perpetuate these damages and continue to inflict pain, trauma and division amongst our people." Kientpoos Prayer Pole at Captain Jack's Stronghold  The Modoc are now one of three tribal peoples comprising the federal Klamath Tribes  The Press Release follows upon a new proposal to transfer a portion of the Winema National Forest to the Klamath Tribes in exchange for their agreement to the KBRA and the more recent Upper Basin Agreement. Among other concessions, the Klamath Tribes would relinquish their claim to flows in the Klamath River below Klamath Falls.  The Klamath Tribes' claim to Klamath River flows to support tribal trust species is the last best hope for Klamath Salmon. The current minimal flows, which are very close to Klamath flows negotiated in the KBRA, would be locked in if Senator Wyden's Klamath legislation becomes law. While the Endangered Species Act can prevent "jeopardy" to listed salmon, the Act can not provide the water needed to restore salmon to abundance. Tribal in-stream flows for salmon, where they exist, can provide restoration flows. Wishing to keep western water with current, mostly-white irrigation interests, the federal government is working hard to convince tribes  throughout the West that funding for restoration is a substitute for the water fish need. The new group of Klamath dissidents is not buying it.   With the current minimal Klamath River flows up to 100% of the young salmon migrating down the Klamath River become infected with at least one and often two fish diseases. Only 8% of radio tagged juveniles survive to reach the ocean. As a result, most of the adult salmon returning to the Klamath River Basin in some years are Trinity River fish and many of them originate in the Trinity River Fish Hatchery. Salmon populations dominated by hatchery fish have much lower genetic diversity as compared to runs where wild salmon predominate.  The US Bureau of Reclamation refuses to provide the flushing spring flows which scientists tell us are needed to reduce the Klamath River juvenile fish disease epidemic. Keeping spring inflows in Upper Klamath Lake allows Reclamation to maximize irrigation water deliveries.  Yurok and Karuk tribal government leaders thought they had negotiated for higher spring flows in the KBRA; they have discovered, however, that Reclamation will not provide them. This bad situation would be locked in if the Wyden legislation becomes law.  Gill rot is one of several fish diseases epidemic in the Klamath River. Low levels of disease  are normal in Pacific Salmon Rivers but Klamath disease levels are unprecedented. The three tribes which signed the Klamath Water Deals now sit on a "Flow Account Scheduling Technical Advisory Team" or "FASTA". KBRA tribes have gained access to the back rooms where decisions are made; but Reclamation continues to decide who does and does not get water; when the US Bureau of Reclamation is in charge irrigation is always t he top priority; fish and wildlife get mostly lip service. Tribal member who are part of Honor the Treaty of 1864 question whether trading away the in-stream flows fish need in order to get into the timber business is truly in the interest of the Klamath, Modoc and Yahoskin Peoples. Here is their press release:

Trinity Victory not a solution for Klamath Salmon

There was good news in January for those who value and depend on Klamath River Salmon. Lawyers for the Department of Interior released a legal opinion finding that Humboldt County's right to 50,000 acre feet of the water stored behind Trinity Dam is distinct from water designated when the dam was built to sustain Trinity River fisheries. The US Bureau of Reclamation, part of the Interior Department, had claimed the opposite. That allowed them to divert more water from the Trinity and ship that water to corporate farms far to the south in the San Joaquin Valley.

North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman, who had pushed for release of the legal opinion, hailed its release in a special press release: 
          Humboldt County’s annual right to 50,000 acre feet of water from Trinity Lake is not a close call – it was explicitly guaranteed by statute and in a federal contract six decades ago, but these commitments have been ignored by the federal government....I’m gratified that the Solicitor thoroughly examined this issue and that the Interior Department heeded my requests to publicly release the solicitor’s findings.  The disclosure of the Solicitor’s legal opinion confirms the position I have argued for the past two years and is an important step toward honoring the promise Congress made 60 years ago.

Before becoming an elected official, Congressman Huffman was an environmental lawyer at the NRDC where he specialized in water law. 

Ich (Gill Rot) Disease 

If followed by the US Bureau of Reclamation, the legal opinion should make more water available to prevent unnatural die-offs of Klamath-Trinity Salmon. But using Trinity water to mitigate for inadequate flows and terrible Klamath River water quality is not a solution. Trinity River water enters the Klamath low in the watershed at Weitchpec. Increased Trinity water releases can help prevent adult salmon die-offs in the Lower River but will not prevent juvenile salmon migrating through the mid and upper Klamath River from contracting fish diseases which are related to poor water quality and low river flows.

Scientists and government reports confirm what has been hidden from most citizens: In 2014 up to 100% of the juvenile Chinook salmon monitored while migrating down the Klamath River were found to be diseased. High disease rates occur in every dry year as flows are cut and always poor water quality gets even worse. Biologists tell us these fish may or may not die as juveniles but are significantly less likely than healthy salmon to survive long enough to return, as adults, to spawn in Klamath tributaries.

Algae clogs the River starved of flows to maximize irrigation water delivery

Why is it that the yearly tragedy of Klamath River juvenile salmon disease and mortality is not reported in the media? And why is it that the self-proclaimed defenders of Klamath Salmon - the Yurok and Karuk Tribal Governments - whose leaders have claimed that for their peoples "salmon is everything" are not bringing this information out and taking action to address the Klamath's salmon-killing flows and terrible water quality?

In essence, the Yurok and Karuk Tribal Governments have become docile in the face of ongoing Klamath outrages because they agreed in the 2010 KBRA Water Deal to support the Bureau of Reclamation's management of Klamath River water. Reclamation manages Klamath water to maximize diversion and delivery of irrigation water. Under the KBRA the Klamath River gets minimum flows barely sufficient to prevent ESA listed Coho salmon from going extinct and a promise of higher spring flows when and if there is water in excess of irrigation demand.

These tribes have also become increasingly dependent on funding from the US Bureau of Reclamation to run their fisheries and restoration departments and projects. If these tribal governments were to anger Reclamation managers that funding could and would be cut off. In essence, it is jobs and government funding which help make Karuk and Yurok leaders docile in the face of ongoing threats to salmon. 

To make matters worse, the Upper Basin's Klamath Tribes recently agreed to give up their claim to Klamath River flows for salmon below Upper Klamath Lake if the federal government comes up with money to buy land and for economic development projects. The Klamath Tribes' leaders want to get into the timber business and they are willing to give-up their right to Klamath salmon flows if the feds will finance their business plans.

Are the Yurok, Karuk and Klamath tribal governments selling out Klamath salmon? Each person must judge for herself. KlamBlog takes note, however. that humans are adept at rationalizing their decisions. It is thus likely that tribal government leaders truly believe they are acting in the best interest of the River and Klamath Salmon. Like many other tribal governments across the West, most restoration organizations and even some environmental groups, these leaders have bought the idea that funding for "restoration" can substitute for the river flows needed to restore salmon to abundance.  

Where they have water rights related to fisheries, federal tribes have a right to river and stream flows sufficient to restore fisheries to the point where they can provide a moderate living for the tribal folk who depend on them. Across the West, however, the right to restoration flows is being negotiated away by tribal government leaders in exchange for funding for tribal programs, infrastructure and "restoration".

Historians will look back at these water deals as the second great rip-off of the American West's Indigenous natives: first they took the land and tried to "exterminate" the people; now, with the acquiescence of tribal governments, they are taking the water for the modern equivalent of a fistful of beads. History will not look kindly upon tribal government leaders who made these Faustian water deals. 

History will also make clear that the idea we can substitute "restoration" for the water flows a river needs is hogwash. Unfortunately, by then it will likely be too late for Pacific Salmon.

Wyden's Klamath Bill: More welfare for the Irrigation Elite

One would have thought that benefits conferred on federal irrigators - and their captured agency, the US Bureau of Reclamation - by the the two Klamath Water Deals (The older KBRA and newer Upper Basin Agreement) would have been enough. After all, not only has Reclamation already used taxpayer funds to implemented many of the costly "benefits" for federal irrigators included in the KBRA, but Congressional backing for the Deals would essentially insulate federal irrigation, the growers it serves and 40% of the total diversions from the Klamath River Basin from tribal water rights claims. Additionally, if Wyden's Bill were to become law, the Klamath Tribes' claim to flows in the Klamath River would be relinquished. That claim is the only practical path to achieving restoration flows in the Klamath River.

Senator Wyden apparently did not believe the Deals benefited the Irrigation Elite quite enough, however. And so he added a new special interest tax break to the legislation he authored. Tacked on at the end of Wyden's Senate Bill 2727, the Klamath Basin Water Recovery and Economic Restoration Act of 2014, is a section titled "MODIFICATION OF TAX EXEMPTION REQUIREMENTS FOR MUTUAL DITCH OR IRRIGATION COMPANIES." That part of the bill would amend Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code; section 501 is the part of the Code which defines which organizations "shall be exempt from taxation under this subtitle."
Here the substance of the new tax break:
           "In the case of a mutual ditch or irrigation company or of a like organization to a mutual ditch or irrigation company, subparagraph (A) shall be applied without taking into account any income received or accrued (I) from the sale, lease, or exchange of fee or other interests in real property, including interests in water, (II) from the sale or exchange of stock in a mutual ditch or irrigation company (or in a like organization to a mutual ditch or irrigation company) or contract rights for the delivery or use of water, or (III) from the investment of proceeds from sales, leases, or exchanges under subclauses (I) and (II),..."

Klamath Project Irrigators get full water delivery; Klamath Refuges get the shaft...again!

The US Bureau of Reclamation has released its 2014 Drought Plan for the Klamath Irrigation Project. The Plan responds to Upper Basin stream flows projected by the US Geological Service on May 1st at less than 25% of average within the Lost River Basin and at between 25% and 69% of the long-term average for streams discharging into Upper Klamath Lake.

In spite of a third year of drought, however, full irrigation deliveries will be made to irrigators in the Tule Lake Area of the Lost River Basin and some irrigators in the area just North of Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges. Other irrigators who receive water via the Bureau's Klamath Project will receive 1 acre foot of water this year which is about 1/3rd of what they would like to receive. Most of those irrigators, however, also have irrigation wells from which they will draw any additional water they need this growing season.

So, one way or another, irrigators within the federal Klamath Project will not experience drought this year; they will be able to farm as if precipitation and snowpack were at normal levels.

Once again, however, Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges - while not mentioned at all in the Bureau's Drought Plan Press Release - will not receive water this summer. Once again permanent and seasonal marshes on these refuges will be bone dry while surrounding fields are green and growing.

Dewatered marshes surrounded by green fields is a common sight

at Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges

(Photos by Brett Cole) 

In a just West, water shortages are shared equitably among users; but in the Klamath River Basin things are different. Within the Bureau-operated Klamath Project, drought has been all but abolished for a select group of irrigators who happen to also be the most wealthy and politically well-connected Klamath Basin irrigators. That is why KlamBlog has dubbed those folks The Irrigation Elite. 

Through a complex web of family corporations, trusts and leases, irrigators 

 like John Crawford control thousands of acres in the bed of  the former Tule 

Lake. The political influence of the Klamath Basin Irrigation Elite is also large.

Greasing the Irrigation Gears

Full irrigation water delivery for the Irrigation Elite in the face of a third year of drought is possible because the KBRA Water Deal has provided corrupt "wink and nod" implementation of the ESA within the Klamath River Basin. Post-KBRA ESA consultations ignore the findings and recommendations of two independent science panels established by the National Research Council which is part of the nation's highest science body. Independent NRC scientists found that there was no scientific justification for maintaining high water levels in Upper Klamath Lake in order to provide for the ESA-endangered Kuptu and Tsuam (aka Lost River and Shortnose suckers). In fact, the science panel pointed out that years when reproduction of these endangered fishes was relatively good corresponded to lower - not higher - Upper Klamath Lake water levels.

Nevertheless, high lake levels continue to be prescribed as an ESA measure by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The real reason this continues to be done has nothing to do with the ESA. High Upper Klamath Lake levels result in maximum irrigation deliveries to federal irrigators. Former US Fish & Wildlife officials responsible for continuing ESA measures which result in maximum irrigation deliveries have been rewarded by the Irrigation Elite; one former official has been awarded a place on the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) Board of Directors. KWUA is a tool of the Irrigation Elite.

In similar fashion, the National Marine Fisheries Service continues to ignore recommendations of the second NRC independent science panel. Those scientists said that the methodology used to determine Klamath River flow needs for ESA-listed Coho salmon had been misapplied. They called for a "basin-wide" flow assessment in order to properly determine Coho flow needs. That was back in 2008; but NMFS has taken no action to implement the needed study. Instead Klamath flows have been set at the bare minimum which will prevent "jeopardy". That all but guarantees Klamath River salmon stocks will not recover but will remain perpetually on lists of threatened, endangered and at-risk species.

Tribes are no help

It is settled law that, where they hold treaty or reserved rights related to fisheries, federal Native American tribes have a right to sufficient water to keep the fish to which they have a right in a condition in which those fish can provide a "moderate living" to tribal members. That amount of water is well in excess of what can be obtained for fish via the ESA. The ESA can prevent "jeopardy" for listed species but it cannot provide for recovery of ESA-listed species. Federal ESA Recovery Plans are voluntary; they have no regulatory force. Treaty and reserved tribal rights, on the other hand, have the full force of law; compliance with those rights can be compelled via federal courts.

That means those Klamath River Basin Tribes which have treaty or reserved rights and which have signed the KBRAⁱ have traded away their rights to the amount of water needed for recovery of Coho salmon, Kuptu and Tsuam for other considerations, including funding for tribal government programs and for fish "restoration". Leaders of these tribes have been persuaded that - when it comes to fish recovery - money for "restoration" can be substituted for water flowing in our rivers and streams.

Both the KBRA and the more recent Upper Basin Water Agreement project substantial decreases in demand for irrigation water. Both deals call for relying on federal funding to retire water rights above Upper Klamath Lake through purchase from "willing sellers". Promoters of the deals speak as if those demand reductions had already been achieved. KlamBlog believes, however, that willing sellers will not materialize; who in their right mind would sell their water rights in today's West? A much better strategy is to hold onto the water rights and lease them to other farmers or for in-stream flows as is currently taking place in the Scott River Basin and in other places in California. Demand reduction under the KBRA and Upper Basin Agreement is pie-in-the-sky.

Those who know Klamath and Pacific Salmon issues are familiar with the statement that for so-and-so tribe "salmon is everything". When viewed in light of the actual deals struck by these tribes, however, it can be seen that the statement is political rhetoric detached from on-the-ground reality. As for any government entity, the first priority of a tribal government is to maintain funding for government operations. Since most tribes are dependent on the federal government to fund their government's operations, the tribes are in a weak and compromised position going into negotiations with the feds.

KlamBlog believes the basic power dynamic in relations between tribes and the federal government explains why western federal tribes have, for the most part, agreed to water deals which trade water rights - or the ability to exercise those rights - worth billions of dollars for the modern equivalent of a handful of beads. Historians will not look kindly upon these water settlements whereby, in most cases, the Native Americans are again being taken to the cleaners with the responsible tribal leaders either clueless or in collusion. 

No solution

The Klamath Water Deals seek to resolve the Basin's water conflicts by persuading Congress to balance water supply and demand on the backs of the Klamath's wildlife refuges, through corrupt ESA administration and by pie-in-the-sky water demand reduction. If the architects of those deals get their way, drought will remain abolished for the Irrigation Elite and will be perpetuated for the Klamath Wildlife refuges. In KlamBlog's view that is not just or balanced. A solution that is not just and balanced can only deepen conflicts, not resolve them.  

___________________________________

i    The only Klamath River Basin Tribe with treaty rights is the Klamath Tribes (one federal tribal government made up of three district tribal ethnicities). The Hoopa, Yurok, Resighini and Quartz Valley Tribes have reservations and, as a result, have potential reserved rights to fish and the water needed to keep those fisheries in good condition. The Karuk Tribe has no reservation and therefore no reserved rights. The Klamath, Yurok and Karuk Tribes have signed the KBRA and Upper Basin Agreements; the Hoopa, Quartz Valley and Resighini Tribes have rejected those deals.

Triple Thanksgiving Update: Salmon run prediction wrong again, Bureau of Reclamation doles out KBRA funding, KlamBlog hiatus

This year all those who harvest Klamath River Chinook salmon ought to be particularly thankful. That's because all fisheries – commercial and sport, in-river and ocean, tribal and non-tribal – had plenty of opportunity to catch all the salmon they desire. While final catch numbers are not in, it appears that most fishers did not reach the quota allocated for their industry, tribe or sport.

Yurok subsistence fishers at the "Mouth"

The model used to predict Fall Chinook Salmon run size is supposed to get better over time as more years of spawning data are incorporated. Judging from the 2013 pre-season prediction, however, that model still has a long way to go before it will yield accurate estimates of how many Klamath River Fall Chinook are available for commercial, tribal and sport harvest in the Pacific Ocean and Klamath River.

While final totals won't be available until February, preliminary Fall Chinook counts for the Trinity, Klamath, Salmon, Scott and Shasta Rivers indicates that the actual 2013 in-river Fall Chinook Salmon run may be as little as 50% of the pre-season prediction issued by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC). That prediction was for a record breaking 273,000 Fall Chinook to enter the river system.

The PFMC's run-size forecast is used to set harvest quotas for ocean commercial, ocean sport, tribal commercial, tribal subsistence and in-river sport fisheries. Harvest quotas in turn are supposed to guarantee that a sufficient number of Klamath Chinook get to spawn in their natal streams. According to the PFMC, 41,000 Chinook must spawn naturally within the Klamath-Trinity River Basin in order to assure maximum production of adult salmon three and four years in the future.

The apparently wide discrepancy between the predicted and actual run size has even fishing advocates like journalist EB Duggan wondering whether the Klamath-Trinity Basin will "be able to make the needed escapement goals.....to sustain the run or are we going to be short?”

If you are confused by all the numbers, estimates, counts and quotas you are not alone. Salmon allocation processes and politics remain a mystery even for many who have a stake in proper salmon management. KlamBlog believes that the best guide to understanding Klamath salmon fisheries management and allocation remains “Understanding Allocation” by legendary Klamath fisheries biologist Ronnie Pierce. 

Ronnie Pierce's report, however, does not explain the very human factors which influence harvest levels and allocation of Klamath-Trinity Fall Chinook Salmon. Prominent among those human factors is the dominance on the PFMC - and on other regional ocean fishing councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Act - of industrial, tribal, government and sport fishing interests and organizations which have an economic, cultural and bureaucratic stake in maximizing the number of fish available for harvest by humans. Under these circumstances, regional fisheries councils have a tendency to be overly optimistic and to allocate more fish for harvest than ought to be allocated. The result can be missed targets for spawner escapement and depressed or even threatened fish stocks down the line.

The tendency to over-allocate and therefore to over-harvest ocean fish stocks is not, however, only a problem in US ocean waters; the phenomenon is world-wide. For those who want to better understand the dynamics of overfishing and the resulting world-wide decline and loss of ocean fisheries, KlamBlog recommends the web page dedicated to the topic. 

The Klamath Wildcard

One factor which may account for poor PFMC Klamath Fall Chinook run-size predictions is in-river water conditions during springtime and how those conditions impact the number of juvenile salmon which make it to the ocean in a given year.

Emerging from spawning gravels in the spring, most Klamath-Trinity Chinook Salmon begin their long journey to the sea immediately upon emerging. All those baby salmon must negotiate the Klamath River in order to reach the ocean where they will feed and grow for 3 to 5 years before returning to fresh water to spawn. Due to extremely bad water quality in the mainstem Klamath River, however, a number of those young salmon succumb to fish diseases; dying before they can reach the ocean.

Klamath River fish disease investigations have documented that most Klamath River juvenile salmon are disease infected by the time they reach the lower river. How many young salmon die before reaching the ocean, however, depends on how bad Klamath water quality is during spring; that, in turn, is a function of flow.

When spring flows are low, most juvenile Klamath salmoinids are infected with 

fish diseases; Trinity River juvenile salmonids had a low infection rate in 2001

In years when there is abundant snowpack and/or late and persistent spring storms, spring flows in the Klamath and its tributaries are higher and the chronically poor water quality in the Klamath, Scott and Shasta Rivers is ameliorated. During these “good years” many more juvenile salmon make it to the ocean and, therefore, more salmon return to the Klamath-Trinity River Basin three and four years later.

In essence, Klamath-Trinity Chinook Salmon production is a gamble, dependent on notoriously fickle snow pack, spring storms and resulting stream flow conditions. It is likely that the variability of spring flows – and the resulting variability in water quality conditions year-to-year - explains why Chinook Salmon runs in the Klamath-Trinity River Basin are extremely variable as well as unpredictable. Run-size estimates displayed below demonstrate the huge variability in the Klamath-Trinity Fall Chinook run over time.

Years when few adult spawners return to Klamath streams correlate with low 

flow, poor water quality and high juvenile disease three and four years earlier 

In search of certainty

Just as agricultural producers seeks “certainty” in the water supply available to them, fishers and the fishing industry would like greater certainty (that is, less variation) in how many Fall Chinook Salmon they will be able to catch each year. Greater certainty will not come, however, in relation to snowpack and spring storms. In fact, if climate change predictions for the Klamath River Basin prove accurate, snow pack will be generally lower but even more variable than at present. Spring storms will also remain unpredictable.

There is, therefore, only one way to provide greater salmon run size predictability – and therefore greater stability - for those dependent on Klamath-Trinity Basin Chinook Salmon. If water quality improves, the rate at which juvenile salmon descending the Shasta, Scott and Klamath Rivers will become disease infected and die will go down no matter the level of the snowpack or how many storms come in spring.

Taking down PacifiCorp's Klamath River dams will help improve Klamath River water quality somewhat. But the main source of the Klamath River's poor waster quality is agriculture in the Upper Basin and in the Shasta and Scott River Basins. Unfortunately, prospects for cleaning-up agricultural pollution in those areas are not good.

We have had agricultural pollution clean-up plans in place in the Shasta, Scott and Upper Basin for over six years; but water quality has not improved significantly in those areas. KlamBlog believes the main reason we have not seen significant improvement in water quality in spite of many millions of taxpayer dollars invested in agricultural operations for "conservation" and "restoration" is the reticence of water quality officials in Oregon and California to require riparian protection and to effectively regulate polluted agricultural wastewater discharges. 

State bureaucrats will write plenty of clean-up plans which the EPA will review and approve; but until those bureaucrats summon the will to effectively regulate agricultural operations, water quality will not improve.

Unpacking the reasons efforts to regulate agricultural pollution in the Klamath River Basin have been so spectacularly ineffective is a complex topic and must await a future post. Stay tuned!

BOR doles out KBRA funding

It's official: the United States Bureau of Reclamation has declared that the KBRA and KHSA were “entered into by the Department of Interior on February 18, 2010.” The announcement came in an obscure document dated November 15, 2013. Solicitation Number R14SS98002 announces that Reclamation “intends to negotiate a Firm Fixed Price, Single Source Purchase Order, with Klamath Water and Power Agency (KWAPA), 735 Commercial Street, Klamath Falls, OR 97601-6243.” According to the solicitation document “the proposed contract action is for Reclamation's participation and obligations under two existing agreements with bearing on the acquisition of Federal power,” i.e. the KHSA and KBRA.

Reclamation's declaration may come as a surprise to those who believe propaganda issuing from KBRA/KHSA promoters. For almost three years, these promoters have been telling us that the feds could not commit to the Klamath Dam and Water Deals unless and until Congress endorses and funds them. KlamBlog has long insisted that the KBRA and KHSA are not only being implemented by the feds but that the deals are themselves creations of the Interior Department which reflect federal priorities rather than the will of those whom are called "stakeholders".

We now have it from the horses mouth (so to speak).

What is certain in these two deals is federal priorities - including taking care of Reclamation's own irrigators whom KlamBlog has dubbed the Irrigation Elite because of the many benefits - and the distinct competitive advantage – bestowed upon them by Reclamation with funding from US taxpayers. 

What remains uncertain in the KBRA and KHSA is benefits to tribes and the environment. Those benefits are sometimes wholly rhetorical and where they are real they depend on special funding authorized by Congress and not on Reclamation's regular funding which is apparently reserved via sole source contracts for the Irrigation Elite.

In KlamBlog's view that proves the wisdom of the admonishment: If you want to know what is really going on with American Government, just follow the money.

KlamBlog hiatus

KlamBlog is going on vacation for a couple of months; look for new posts coming your way in February. Until then, have a peaceful and thankful holiday season and remember to trust but verify!

The Wyden Hearing Message: How will Klamath River Basin leaders respond?

Thanks to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, Klamath water issues finally received a hearing in Congress. Sadly, however, the hearing produced little that is new....at least not from the witnesses. Leaders from state, tribal and county government, federal and private irrigation and environmental groups repeated the same tired old arguments once again. Plenty of “press” resulted but little that could be termed real “news”.

What was new came not from the testimony (which you can read on line) but rather from Senator Wyden. For one thing, the Senator announced that irrigation interests served by the US Bureau of Reclamation would receive cheap, federal power courtesy of the Bonneville Power Administration. This will provide federal irrigation interests with a competitive advantage over private irrigators in the Upper Basin, Shasta and Scott Valleys. It is another example of why we call these federally-served irrigation interests the Basin's Irrigation Elite. 

Massively Inefficient: three of dozens of energy guzzling pumps used by Klamath 

Project Irrigators to move water and wastewater to and from subsided fields

Senator Wyden appears to reject the KBRA as a viable solution. In his remarks opening the senate hearing (also available online) he noted that the KBRA “is making a big difference for the on-project irrigators. But the fact is hundreds of farm households and citizens have been left behind.”

Wyden backed that up at another point: 

          “...all parties should have a chance to have input before the committee advances any legislation and I state that whether or not they have been for the previous agreements or have differing views.”

The Senator noted that “the KBRA and essentially what has been agreed to at this point is simply unaffordable in the current federal budget environment.”

When Senator Wyden announced that the Irrigation Elite and Reclamation had obtained access to inexpensive federal power, he offered support for similar lower power rates for private irrigators. By this he meant irrigators above Upper Klamath Lake; no one has suggested that irrigators in the Shasta and Scott Valleys also receive Bonneville power. And the Senator committed to “sitting down” with “basin interests to find a long term solution that reflects both the anticipated water supply in the years to come” and the “economic issues” faced by “family farmers.”  

Senator Wyden concluded his opening remarks with a commitment:

           “I want everybody to understand that we are going to stay at this, we are going to stay at it until we find a solution this time.”