A lot of changes are coming to the Klamath Basin and not everyone’s happy about them.
At a virtual hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee hosted by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) on Tuesday, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) accused the congressman, an official with the Department of the Interior, and members of the Yurok, Hoopa and Karuk tribes of being lying leftists for advocating for dam removal and the ecosystem-wide restoration of the basin.
“These leftists are simply liars,” McClintock said.
Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists have been pushing for the removal of four dams on the Klamath River — J.C. Boyle, Copco No. 1, Copco No. 2 and Iron Gate — for decades because of their impact on water quality and increasingly endangered fish species. Tribal communities weren’t consulted when the dams were being constructed nor when other environmental management decisions were being made. The resulting ecosystem-wide collapse has been threatening their survival and way of life.
But all of that work is now paying off and the dams are expected to be removed within a year or two. The infrastructure bill passed last year also dedicated $162 million for restoration projects in the basin. In the meantime, there’s limited water in the Klamath Basin as a result of drought and things aren’t looking like they’ll improve this summer.
“Although drought is not new to the Klamath Basin, communities are facing conditions at a scale and intensity we have never seen,” said Steve Guertin, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s deputy director of policy. “The impacts felt by people, fish and wildlife in 2022 are compounded by the difficult conditions of previous years and severe drought conditions in other basins across the West.”
The “badly broken” ecological infrastructure in the basin is one of the primary causes for the issues impacting all water users, he said. That’s why ecological restoration projects are playing a central role in turning the area back into a working landscape that can benefit all inhabitants.
“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to foster a collective effort to address complex water challenges and build that brighter future for the Klamath Basin,” Guertin said. “The department is committed to transparency, collaboration and continuous improvement as we address climate change and pursue long-term solutions in the Klamath Basin for current and future generations.”
But McClintock argued dam removal is bad for the 155,000 people who rely on the electricity generated from the hydroelectric project and suggested honoring tribal water rights was bad for the drought-stricken Klamath Basin farmers. Modoc County Supervisor Geri Byrne and Klamath Basin farmer Tricia Hill appeared as witnesses who spoke to those impacts.
“Once, folks from the entire basin, upriver and downriver, agreed our primary goal was strong stable communities, so we could pass our traditions and our way of life to our children,” Hill said. “For some communities, this meant fish in the river and the lake. For mine, it meant crops in the ground.”
Guertin said the federal government has provided tens of millions of dollars for drought relief to assist the communities, but Hill stressed the need for an allocation of water to preserve health and human safety, including for irrigation, in her community.
“Although we sincerely appreciate the funding directly to producers in the basin, this is not who we are,” Hill said. “We are farmers, we grow things: children, crops, communities.”
But tribal members said it was important to preserve their right to the Klamath River water, which doesn’t have enough water to meet everyone’s needs. Hoopa Valley Tribe Chairman Joe Davis, Yurok fisherwoman and attorney Amy Cordalis and Karuk Tribe Vice Chairman Robert Super appeared as witnesses to speak for those rights.
Cordalis said the salmon runs are 1% to 3% of what they used to be and other species the tribe relies upon are heading toward extinction. The Klamath River, which has been experiencing low flows for close to 700 days, needs water in order to prevent a lethal fish disease from being able to flourish.
“Most communities in the basin feel helpless because there is too little water, too much demand and basin-wide ecosystem and economic failure,” Cordalis said. “Some irrigators have responded by illegally taking water. Others turned to the courts, the tribe cancels its fishery, the cycle continues.”
Reducing flows any further would set the river up for complete collapse and lead to the kind of fish kill that happened in 2002, the largest in U.S. history, Cordalis said. All of the people who rely on the Klamath Basin are one people, she said, and they will all benefit from a healthier ecosystem.
“Satisfying the tribe’s water rights will secure more ecologically beneficial in-stream flow regimes for overall ecological health,” she said, “not just a single species like what is provided under the (Endangered Species Act).”
McClintock said fish populations would suffer because the Iron Gate fish hatchery “will cease to function” when the Iron Gate Dam comes down. The hatchery currently produces five million salmon smolts per year, he said, 17,000 of which return as fully grown salmon to spawn in the Klamath.
“And you’re going to tear all that down in the name of the salmon,” McClintock said. “This is insanity.”
Huffman pushed back on that assertion. He pointed to the fact that the hatchery was installed to make up for the loss of hundreds of miles of habitat that resulted from the construction of the dam.
“It actually is not so insane and ludicrous,” Huffman said. ” … Removing the dams reopens that habitat so you actually get a lot of salmon in return.”
Sonia Waraich can be reached at 707-441-0504.
