Report Lists Klamath, Salmon Rivers Among State's Most Threatened Wild Places

Report Lists Klamath, Salmon Rivers Among State's Most Threatened Wild Places

April 11, 2005
by Dan Bacher

A new report, released in Oakland on March 29 by the California Wilderness Coalition, features the Klamath and Salmon River watersheds among California's 10 most threatened wild places.

The analysis, the fourth in a series of annual reports, considers the urgency and impact of threats to these landscapes, including water diversions, off road development, logging, and drilling. Several places included in this year's report, such as the Klamath Basin, were listed last year.

It is hoped by fishermen's groups, Indian Tribes and environmental activists that the report's release will spur action by the federal and state governments to preserve and restore the Klamath and Salmon rivers and other California wild areas.

"California's wilderness and wild rivers provide more than 60 percent of the state's clean drinking water, and offer recreation opportunities to millions," said Coalition Executive Director Mary Wells. "But once they're gone, they're gone forever."

The Klamath River serves as significant habitat for the coho salmon, currently listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), king salmon and steelhead. The Klamath, one of the west's largest rivers, reaches from northwestern California to southeastern Oregon and historically sustained large and vibrant tribal, commercial and recreational fisheries.

The river was the third greatest salmon-producing river in America, hosting an average of 880,000 spawning salmon and steelhead each year, according to Glen Spain, Northwest Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA). Today dams and excessive water diversions have taken a dramatic toll on the salmon and steelhead of the Klamath Basin.

Today the salmon runs are less than one tenth of what they once were. The fish are subject to major fish kills in 5 out of 7 years, the most dramatic being the adult fish kill of September 2002 when over 70,000 salmon perished in the lower Klamath.

"The Klamath River is indeed endangered," said Spain, "and so are the many fishing-dependent communities that rely on the river for their livelihoods. However, the causes are largely man-made. These communities have been deliberately put at risk by short-sighted and biased federal water decisions that favor taking too much water out of the river at the expense of fishermen and fishing jobs."

The gorgeous Salmon River is one of the Klamath's most important tributaries and serves as one of the last cold water refuges for spring run chinook salmon. Once the most prolific run of salmon in the Klamath Basin, only hundreds of the "springers" return today. The report documents how poor federal logging practices and mining operations have contributed to the declines in that watershed.

Past fish kills caused by federal agency water decisions have taken a tremendous economic toll on the ocean commercial and recreational fishing industry. The Bureau of Reclamation's decision in 2002 to provide full water deliveries to Klamath Basin farmers at the expense of fish is driving major shutdowns of commercial and recreational fishing opportunities in California and Oregon this year, in spite of record runs from the Central Valley river system. Many salmon are "simply missing in action" in the 2005 adult runs because they were killed in the river as juveniles in 2002, according to Spain.

"In the spring of 2002 the missing salmon hatched and spent their first few months in the low-flowing Klamath River," explained Spain. "That year flows in the river were deliberately kept so low by the Bureau of Reclamation that the water warmed up too much and conditions either didn't allow the young fish to grow properly or killed them outright."

The report highlights what the Karuk Tribe of the Middle Klamath has known for years; some of their most important cultural and natural areas are slowly but surely being destroyed. "For the Karuk, the second largest Tribe in California, the destruction of the Klamath and Salmon Rivers go beyond the loss of a pristine wilderness - they represent the loss of a subsistence fishery and the desecration of sacred sites," according to the Tribe.

The Karuk believe that the confluence of the Salmon and Klamath rivers is the "center of the universe" - "Katimin" - and they hold their annual "World Renewal Ceremony" there.

"We gather at Katimin to remake the world as our ancestors have since time immemorial," according to Leaf Hillman, the Tribe's vice-chairman. "We gather to pray for all people and things that make up this world, for their health and their success. The impact that dams, diversions, and logging have had on this place and on the people that depend on it for both their physical and spiritual well-being is nothing short of desecration."

The Karuk Tribe, along with other basin tribes and a host of environmental and fishermen's groups, are currently working to restore both rivers. This includes an effort to remove Klamath River dams, owned by the Scottish Power subsidiary PaciCorp, through the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) relicensing process now underway.

The growing movement to take down the dams was highlighted by an historic march and rally on March 14 at the State Capitol in Sacramento. The four Klamath Basin tribes - the Yurok, Hoopa, Karuk and Klamath - joined with their allies in the fishing, farming and environmental communities in an effort to convince the Governor to become "Conan the Riparian" by calling for the removal of the six dams that block salmon and steelhead from migrating into their historic habitat.

The other "threatened wild places" listed in the report are the Sierra Nevada Forests, Algodones Sand Dunes, White Mountains (Furnace Creek), Cleveland National Forest, Tejon Ranch, Los Padres National Forest, Giant Sequoia National Monument, Golden Trout Wilderness Addition and Medicine Lake Highlands.

"California's last wild places face increasing pressures from growth and development, yet we can act now to protect and preserve what remains," said wilderness outfitter and guide Dave Willis of Sierra Treks.

To download California Wilderness Coalition's Our Natural Heritage At Risk, log on to: http://www.calwild.org/resources/pubs/10most05.php. For more information about the Report itself, contact Julie Dixon, Resource Media, at: 916/446-1058.