A little over a hundred years ago, there were no dams on the Klamath River. While the mouth of the river didn’t look too different than it does now, a photograph taken around 1900 shows there was enough water in the system to support a ship offshore.
Jamie Holt, the Yurok Tribe’s lead fisheries technician, showed that photo to the people who attended a virtual seminar on the traditional ecological knowledge, science and management of salmon species on Friday. With dam removal scheduled to take place in the coming years, Holt said the photograph is an important reminder of how much the dams have altered the river’s ecosystem and how it’s cared for.
Walls, Holt said, “they’re just not meant to be within our system.”
Holt described how the tribe’s scientists trap fish like the Coho, Chinook and steelhead salmon at different stages of life and monitor qualities like how quickly they’re growing and if they’re showing any outward signs of poor health.
This is important to do because of how the dams have impacted the temperature and flow of the river. High temperatures and low flows can lead to outbreaks of a parasite known as C. Shasta in the juvenile salmon, which happened last year, and fish kills like the kind seen in 2002 when thousands of adult salmon died.
“Just like us in the summertime, when we want to cool down and the river’s hot, we head to the creek,” Holt said. “These guys do the same exact thing.”
The poor water quality resulting from the lack of proper water flow can help foster diseases that spread more quickly when the fish are all packed closely into the cooler creeks.
“Just like we’ve seen with COVID,” Holt said, “you get in a small area, it passes really quickly.”
Last year’s C. Shasta outbreak among the juvenile fish was unprecedented, Holt said. Klamath fish have an inherent ability to fight the parasite that other juvenile fish introduced to the system do not. But last year the whole river became a hotbed for the disease.
“Typically the hotbed is way up by Iron Gate Dam to around the Shasta River,” Holt said. “This speaks back to flow and the need for a scouring of the system.”
The river needs a flushing, Holt said. Rocks and sediment scour the bottom of the river when there’s enough river flow, keeping molds, diseases and giant algae blooms from being able to grow.
When that sediment is prevented from flowing the way it should, it leads to those outbreaks and also creates a host of problems for insects like stoneflies the fish rely upon for food.
“What we’re hoping to see in the future if dam removal happens, and hopefully this is happening, we won’t see these things,” Holt said. “This won’t be a part of the future of our river. It will just be a thing of the past.”
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently released its environmental impact statement on removing the dams on the Klamath, which is a major milestone in getting the dams removed. The agency is seeking public feedback on the statement, which can be found at bit.ly/3DwoOIi, until April 18.
Watch the full video of Holt’s presentation at bit.ly/3DwQMDI.
Sonia Waraich can be reached at 707-441-0504.
