Is Bush really good for salmon?

Bush decision blamed for West's largest die-off of adult salmon
Last updated by lestatdelc on Sat, 10/18/2003 - 10:50pm

Scientists: Diversion of water killed fish
The dramatic die-off of 33,000 salmon last fall along the Klamath River in Northern California was directly caused by the Bush administration's decision to pump extra water from the river to farmers, biologists from the California Department of Fish and Game have concluded.

The disaster in September left one of the state's major rivers stacked with rotting salmon, some up to 3 feet long, from the mouth of the Klamath River near Crescent City to 36 miles upstream. It was the largest die-off of adult salmon ever recorded in the West.

Seeking to control a political embarrassment, the Bush administration said at the time that not enough science was available to conclude what killed the fish.

The report, issued late Friday night, marks the first official documentation suggesting causes for the die-off. It concludes that fall Chinook salmon, steelhead trout and endangered coho salmon died because the U.S. Department of Interior diverted so, much of the river's water to farming interests in 2002 that the fish crowded tightly as they returned to spawn from the ocean and fell prey to disease. The die-off killed 25 percent of the river's fall Chinook run, the report found.

State biologists also concluded that unless the federal government leaves more water in the river starting in March. "there is a substantial risk of future fish kills."

California leaders said Saturday, they will try to convince the Bush administration to devote more water to fish this year.

"We've been working hard to restore fish populations, so when you have a massacre like this it makes it all the more frustrating," said Mary Nichols, California's Secretary of Resources.

"If Interior had resisted the temptation to do something precipitous, we could have avoided, the tragedy of the fish kill and benefited everyone."

Last March, at a ceremony with more than 500 cheering farmers, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman opened the head gates on irrigation canals in Klamath Falls, Ore., giving farmers full delivery, of water from the river, amid protests from environmental groups, fishing interests and Indian leaders who predicted calamity for fish downstream in California.

The event followed a national controversy in 2001, when the feds cut water deliveries to the farmers to protect fish in a drought year, causing economic hardship and bankruptcies among southern Oregon farmers.

The amount of water that Norton ordered left in the river in 2002 was less than levels at almost any time since record keeping began in 1951.

"It's not rocket science, fish need water," said Troy Fletcher, executive director of the Yurok Tribe, based in Klamath, Calif., on Saturday. "We told the Bush administration in March they would devastate the fishery, that they would kill fish. Our predictions were accurate and they came true. The state's report proves it."

This article was published in The Spokesman Review, Spokane, Washington Monday, July 6, 2003

Time to reel out another yard or two of foil..the boogey man is out ruining everything again.

If ya run out, Grandpa2, there is always that put-away foil Christmas wrap.....it's wider and it even comes in colors!!

Grandpa: I enjoyed the foil thing as much as anyone, but it is NOT an answer to a serious issue. The facts are the administration ignored sound science by their own scientists, killed a ton of fish, tried to cover it up, suppressed a report on the issue and finally agreed to provide a bit more water the next year. This was a very easily avoided problem that was just flat screwed up by administration bureaucrats who let farmers trump fish. You should be outraged.

Dave,
Well said and Thank you!

"The good news was that the returning chinook run was so large on the Klamath that the escapement goals were exceeded despite the kill; the bad news is that the federal government, by way of the Bureau of Reclamation, is managing the river for a succession of fish kills on the Klamath by continuing with the same "Plan" that was proven, without a shadow of a doubt, to have been caused by low water flows as a result of water diversions upriver in the Klamath Basin and the Trinity reservoir systems."

Jim Martin, RFA Norcal, March 2003


Then in August 2003,

"The federal government said late last week it will send an additional 33,000 acre-feet of water down the Trinity River this summer to avoid a repeat of last year's massive Klamath River fish kill."

wasn't there a 'whistleblower' in this whole mess that worked for nmfs? didn't he get reamed for doing that, too?

OK Dave you're right about this serious situation. Water rights and allocations will be the hot buttons of our future I think...This portion of the news story says alot:

"The event followed a national controversy in 2001, when the feds cut water deliveries to the farmers to protect fish in a drought year, causing economic hardship and bankruptcies among southern Oregon farmers. "

We have had the same catch 22 problem in Washington in the Methow and elsewhere. No question that killing fragile fish stocks when it can be avoided is stupid but I think we also need to be sensitive to the other water users don't we? Doing so doesn't mean you are insensitive to fish just balanced. Or is there no room for balance?

Grandpa: I think we both want to see unnecessary fish kills stopped.
As for balance, that has very different meanings to different groups. I suspect the farmers, many of whom are farming on a National Wildlife Refuge, think balance is whatever water they need for whatever crops they want to grow, whatever way they want to use their heavily subsidized water. While to many rabid environmentalists balance is absolutely no impact on endangered fish. (While the chinook kill made the most news there were, in fact many endangered coho killed as well.)

I think that balance in this case would mean a meaningful attempt to store, conserve and reallocate as much water as possible to assure the salmon have the water they need. I just learned that several tribs of the river are often completely dewatered many yera, primarily due to irrigation withdrawls. (Is that balance?) Any excess would go to the farmers. BUT I would like to insist the farmers begin serious efforts to CONSERVE water. They need to install more efficient systems, be more careful with their irrigation, (How many times have you seen a big irrigation sprinkler shooting water all the way across the highway?) Perhaps if we charged farmers the actual cost of the water they might conserve it a bit better?

I do have compassion for a family farm struggling against corporate farms that receive huge taxpayer subsidies. But I have more for a species facing extinction due to decades of abuse.

This is a very complex issue. Let me get things stirred up.

Seems like water allocation could be improved by adding some economic incentives.

1. Users should pay what the water costs. This fee should include environmental costs. If it costs too much to grow a crop in an area, i.e. destroys too many fish, farming in that area, i.e. a national refuge, should stop. We already have enough places to farm that don't do damage and most years America produces a surplus of crops that the government buys and destroys.

2. At the same time, farmers and other people with water should be able to conserve water and sell any saved water at market prices to the next person on the list. The water in most western rivers is overallocated. There will usually be a buyer. This will provide an incentive and the economic ability for farmers to make changes or use available technology to conserve.

3. Water users are required to use water for a "beneficial use." The definition of beneficial use is quite narrow in the West, i.e. farming, power, industry, municipal, etc. Leaving water in a stream for anything else allows other users to claim the water and use it for farming, industry etc. This should be changed to allow private users to leave water in the stream for fish, wild life and recreation. If this definition were changed, recreational fishermen could buy and save water for fish.

Finally, doesn't seem unreasonable to fault Bush and his administration for the fish kill. After all, they decided to possibly injure endangered coho, in violation of the Endangered Species Act, for the benefit of farmers and politics. They took a risk with the salmon and should bear responsibility to the results. I thought Republicans were all for "personal responsibility."

Legalize industrial hemp.

We can get all the energy we need from biomass.

I personally think they should be farming elsewhere. How many millions of acres do we have for farming in this country? How many rivers do we have that support salmon? The only reason they can grow crops there is because of the irrigation. Have the government or private organizations buy them out, and turn the place back into what it was before.

A very good friend of mine in Oregon had to stop farming wheat because he could not compete with larger farms. He took over from his grandparents and has farmed wheat there for 50 years. His grandfather for 50 before that. Now he works for others. The price of wheat is similar to what it was 30 years ago but the machinery is 20 times as expensive.
He does not irrigate but he is an example of a farmer who , like thousands of others, who deserve consideration along with the fish.

When I say balance I mean consider all users and not just fishermen.