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Science clears Cheney in Klamath
salmon die-off
by Jerry
Reynolds, Indian Country Today, August 3, 2007
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http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415495
WASHINGTON - A long day for
the Natural Resources Committee in the House of Representatives July 31
began with the majority Democrats pouring discredit on the Republican
presidential administration. But almost seven hours later they had done
the same for the oversight role of Congress, boldly touted in the early
going by a succession of committee members.
For the lions of oversight had vanished by the time a scientist's
testimony solved the riddle of the Klamath River salmon die-off of 2002.
So had the television news cameras, most reporters and much of an
audience that once numbered 100 strong. A comparative few heard William
M. Lewis Jr., currently a professor of biology and a researcher in
environmental sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, former
chairman of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council
Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River
Basin, give an account of committee findings that ruled out any real
likelihood of a direct connection between a politicized water management
decision and the Klamath salmon die-off.
Lewis gave an admittedly conservative estimate of salmon mortality at
the mouth of the Klamath River in Oregon in September 2002: 32,897,
compared with other estimates that have ranged from 70,000 to almost
80,000. Of those, 1 percent, or 384, were coho salmon, protected under
the Endangered Species Act; the rest were fall-run chinook salmon. The
salmon did not die because of low water flows in the drought-stricken
Klamath River. After comparing low river flows in previous dry years
that did not produce a salmon die-off, ''The committee ... concluded
that mortality was the result of an unusual combination of conditions,
probably including unusually low flow plus the absence of a cool pulse
of flow that even a brief precipitation event might have provided.''
The salmon had come from the sea to mass in the mouth of the Klamath for
their annual migration upriver to spawn. They awaited favorable
conditions, signaled by cool water flows that would have sent them
hurtling upriver. The signal didn't come. As they continued to wait and
gather, bacterial and protozoan disease agents spread among them, common
causes of mortality among overcrowded, stressed-out fish. The immediate
mortal condition among the Klamath salmon was gill rot.
Lewis didn't mention Vice President Richard Cheney, subject of a
Washington Post newspaper article the committee took as its occasion for
the July 31 hearing. The Post's numerous sources charged Cheney with
politically motivated meddling in the scientific findings that undergird
decision-making at the Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Project, the
federal water management regime for irrigation farming in the Klamath
River Basin. The article's most explosive allegation was that Cheney's
behind-the-scenes intervention to release Klamath Project water to
irrigation farmers in the basin overturned settled scientific
recommendations against such diversions, and so contributed to Klamath
salmon mortality in September 2002, one of the largest adult salmon
die-offs in recorded U.S. history.
Amid the morning's conflicting views on the complex topic of salmon
mortality, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., had identified Lewis as the
committee's answer man on Klamath salmon science. But in the late
afternoon, following a second break in the hearing for a vote on the
House floor, Democratic Reps. Miller, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Jay
Inslee of Washington, and committee Chairman Nick Rahall of West
Virginia did not reappear to hear Lewis's testimony.
Unchallenged by any of the morning's more outspoken committee members,
Lewis laid to rest the idea that Klamath Project water management
withheld the cool pulse of flow that would have signaled migration to
the salmon. ''The NRC committee concluded that this is very unlikely.
The Klamath Project is located over 150 miles upstream from the mouth,
and water flowing through the Klamath Project accounts for only 10
percent of the flow at the mouth; large tributaries entering the river
below the Klamath Project contribute most of the flow at the mouth.
Furthermore, the Klamath Project releases water that is warm because it
comes from storage lakes rather than reaching the stream through
groundwater or surface runoff. The committee concluded that a relatively
small amount of warm water propagated over a distance of 150 miles would
not have made a critical difference to the salmon that were staging for
migration at the mouth of the river.''
In an interview after the hearing, Lewis cautioned against the
assumption that a greater volume of water flow in a river is good for
salmon. Chinook sal-mon are especially temperature-dependent, he
explained. They respond to cool water flows that reach the Klamath from
multiple sources, including tributaries, surface runoff and groundwater;
pouring stored warm water, such as the Klamath Project's 10 percent of
flow at the river mouth that went to irrigation farmers instead, on top
of the cool flows might do more harm than good to chinooks by
artificially raising the temperature of cool flows.
Of course, the findings of the Lewis committee, convened following the
die-off, amount to a post mortem account. The allegation of Cheney's
policy-making manipulations of science prior to the die-off, as part of
a ''pattern and practice'' of ''war with science'' by the administration
of President George W. Bush, remained a hot topic at the hearing.
Salmon are essential and symbolic throughout the Northwest, and more
nearly sacred among Northwest tribes. The Klamath salmon die-off of 2002
galvanized a settlement process among the region's many stakeholders in
Klamath River water management. The 26-organization Klamath Settlement
Group includes the Hoopa Valley, Karuk, Klamath and Yurok tribes. The
group issued an announcement July 24, stating that while many details of
a settlement await finalization, a set of guiding principles is in
place, as well as a commitment on all sides to develop a Klamath
Settlement Agreement by November. |
NOTE: In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html
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Klamath Water Users Association
2455 Patterson Street, Suite 3
Klamath Falls, Oregon 97603
Phone (541) 883-6100
FAX (541) 883-8893
kwua@cvcwireless.net |