| New Slaughter On The Klamath Water Shut Off To Baby Salmon: by Tim McKay |
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A turned-off switch at the Iron Gate Dam led to a new tragedy on the beleaguered Klamath River last month.
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October 2003
Deprived of water, some 70,000 yearling Chinook salmon and summer steelhead—the progeny of the survivors of a massive salmon die-off in the summer of 2002—perished at the river’s Fall Creek fish hatchery.
Ironically, the state-run hatchery was put in place as mitigation for the loss of habitat when Iron Gate Dam was built 40 years ago.
The disaster was a public relations blow for the Scottish-owned company Pacificorp, which operates Iron Gate, five other dams and seven power plants on the Klamath, and now is investigating how the 40-minute water shut-off occurred.
Pacificorp is seeking to renew its federal operating license, due to expire in 2006, and is resisting dam removal as an alternative—as is the Bush administration.
Bush’s chief operative, Karl Rove, also has been accused of seeking political gain by tampering with flows upriver from the Klamath Irrigation Project, a factor that could have contributed to the low-water death of 35,000 to 40,000 adult salmon. Fish biologists said it was the biggest fish die-off in U.S. history.
Off Target
The new fish kill means the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) will not meet Pacificorp’s goal for releasing fish to make up for the loss of habitat from the hydroelectric dams.
Pacificorp spokesman Jon Coney said water was being diverted from one turbine to another in the century-old dam powerhouse when a valve was closed, shutting off water to the hatchery rearing ponds.
DFG officials said the death toll represented 22% of the Chinook salmon that are held out longer to reach yearling size since they have a higher survival rate than younger fingerlings.
The steelhead casualties represented 15% of the annual goal of 200,000, a target that hasn’t been reached for several years.
Hatcheries were once touted as a means to make up for the loss of habitat resulting from dams and water-quality problems. In recent years, however, many fisheries scientists have found hatchery programs to be actually contributing to the extinction of wild salmon runs.
At the national level, aside from the probe of Rove called for by Senator and Presidential candidate John Kerry, California Senator Dianne Feinstein has urged Interior Secretary Gale Norton to release a long-delayed water flow study of the Klamath.
The so-called Hardy study, named for a hydrologist retained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1997 to determine if tribal fishery needs are being met, preliminarily called for greater releases from Iron Gate during spring and summer for both smolts and spawners.
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Updated Wednesday, October 01, 2003 |
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