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What about sucker fish?
Published May 29, 2003
Two things are bothering me regarding the controversial water situation here in the Basin and downriver.
When all of this controversy started, it was the sucker fish this and the sucker fish that and we had to preserve them as there were so few.
We have adjusted lake levels, in-creased habitat, purchased ranches to expand marsh area, worked on methods to expand spawning areas, built a new fish screen costing $14 million to reduce entrainment of 1 million juvenile suckers at the A Canal diversion, cussed and discussed the breaching of Chiloquin Dam (nothing yet) paid farmers to idle ground and divert that water to aid the fishery, and most disastrously, taken all of the water from the farm community in 2001 to protect these fish, that in the first place may not have been so near extinction.
Since that time, the count seems to be better and the energies of the environmental people and the Tribes are concentrated on the salmon downriver. Neither of these people seem to be interested in delisting the suckers. Nor will they commit to just how many of the suckers are enough to satisfy their needs. One wonders what the real agenda is?
So now we have the press and the lawsuits concentrating on the salmon needs in the Klamath River.
A big meeting was held in Redding the first part of May to discuss the management of the 50,000 acre-feet of water purchased from the agricultural people of the Basin. Present were the Bureau, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the concerned Tribes. Interestingly, not there were farmers who supplied the water from the ground they will not cultivate.
Granted, these farmers were paid by the Bureau for this water that was going to help flush the young salmon smolts down the river to the ocean in the months of April and May. However, because of a wet spring and adequate water for this flushing, those concerned want this water for later in the season. In these later months, this water is going to be considerably warmer.
The National Research Council, among others, has advised that water stored in a shallow lake such as Klamath Lake, may warm to the point that it is detrimental to the fish in these later summer months. The Tribes declined to participate in the original discussions for the allocation of this 50,000 acre-feet of water, but now want to reallocate this purchased water to another time frame.
May I suggest that those wanting to change the program come up with the dollars for this water and then they can put it where and when they want? A big surge of warm water down the river in late summer is certainly a change from the historic pattern. Before the dams were constructed, the Link River frequently ran almost dry in the fall season and the fish seemed to have done well.
Frank King
Klamath Falls
Two things are bothering me regarding the controversial water situation here in the Basin and downriver.
When all of this controversy started, it was the sucker fish this and the sucker fish that and we had to preserve them as there were so few.
We have adjusted lake levels, in-creased habitat, purchased ranches to expand marsh area, worked on methods to expand spawning areas, built a new fish screen costing $14 million to reduce entrainment of 1 million juvenile suckers at the A Canal diversion, cussed and discussed the breaching of Chiloquin Dam (nothing yet) paid farmers to idle ground and divert that water to aid the fishery, and most disastrously, taken all of the water from the farm community in 2001 to protect these fish, that in the first place may not have been so near extinction.
Since that time, the count seems to be better and the energies of the environmental people and the Tribes are concentrated on the salmon downriver. Neither of these people seem to be interested in delisting the suckers. Nor will they commit to just how many of the suckers are enough to satisfy their needs. One wonders what the real agenda is?
So now we have the press and the lawsuits concentrating on the salmon needs in the Klamath River.
A big meeting was held in Redding the first part of May to discuss the management of the 50,000 acre-feet of water purchased from the agricultural people of the Basin. Present were the Bureau, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the concerned Tribes. Interestingly, not there were farmers who supplied the water from the ground they will not cultivate.
Granted, these farmers were paid by the Bureau for this water that was going to help flush the young salmon smolts down the river to the ocean in the months of April and May. However, because of a wet spring and adequate water for this flushing, those concerned want this water for later in the season. In these later months, this water is going to be considerably warmer.
The National Research Council, among others, has advised that water stored in a shallow lake such as Klamath Lake, may warm to the point that it is detrimental to the fish in these later summer months. The Tribes declined to participate in the original discussions for the allocation of this 50,000 acre-feet of water, but now want to reallocate this purchased water to another time frame.
May I suggest that those wanting to change the program come up with the dollars for this water and then they can put it where and when they want? A big surge of warm water down the river in late summer is certainly a change from the historic pattern. Before the dams were constructed, the Link River frequently ran almost dry in the fall season and the fish seemed to have done well.
Frank King
Klamath Falls
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