‘No Socialized Hobbies!’

That was the word today from Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign Coordinator for the Karuk Tribe, as he explained why he, the Karuk Tribe’s Vice Chair Leaf Hillman and commercial fisherman Dave Bitts, of Eureka, are suing the California Department of Fish and Game.

They filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court this morning. The complaint alleges that the DFG is illegally using taxpayer’s money to run its suction dredge mining program — which litigants say allows hobby miners to dredge in places “known to be critical habitat for endangered and at-risk species such as Coho salmon, Pacific lamprey, and green sturgeon,” according to a news release.

DFG was court-ordered to rewrite its suction dredge rules to reflect knowledge of species that were listed for protection after the current rules were written — and it was supposed to have completed the California Environmental Quality Act review process and changed its regulations by June 20 of last year.

That didn’t happen. DFG said it hadn’t the money to do the review. The tribe and others tried legislating change; the governor wouldn’t sign it. Two weeks ago, the Karuk Tribe and a commercial fishermen’s group and others petitioned DFG Director Don Koch to write emergency regulations restricting dredging. They wanted that to be contingent upon the State Water Resources Control Board’s granting half a million bucks to the DFG to do the CEQA review. The money was granted but the petition was rejected.

Thursday evening, DFG spokesperson Jordan Traverso said that, legally, the DFG couldn’t impose emergency regulations based on the criteria the petitioners offered.

So now there’s the lawsuit.  Said Craig Tucker on Thursday by phone:

We’re seeking whatever remedy we can now. If we have to file lawsuits we’ll file lawsuits. This is phenomenally important to the Karuk Tribe. And for those guys not to step up and protect these fish, I just can’t tell you how disappointed we are.

He added that, with all the talk of cuts in state government, the program for “3,000 hobby miners” might be a good place to start.

By 5 p.m. today, DFG Director Koch’s office hadn’t been served with the lawsuit, said Traverso, and so they weren’t ready to comment on it yet.

 

River of Renewal

At the premiere showing in San Francisco at the American Indian Film Festival, left to right: Steve Michelson, DVD producer; Leaf Hillman, Vice-Chair, Karuk Tribe; Lyle Marshall,  Chair, Hoopa Valley Tribe; Merk Oliver, Yurok Tribe; Ray Matz, Yurok Tribe; Stephen Most, author of River of Renewal (book and film). Photo by Thomas B. Dunklin

The Klamath River, in all of its beauty and turmoil, runs through the consciousness of many. And it’s always in the news: fish dying, parasites swarming, dams dropping (perhaps), farmers shaking hands with fishermen, powers-that-be talking.

So we just wanted to remind you of several screenings this week and weekend of River of Renewal. The 54-minute documentary directed by Carlos Bolado is based on Stephen Most’s book River of Renewal: Myth and History in the Klamath Basin.

The film won Best Documentary Feature at the 2008 American Indian Film Festival. Covering the territory from the farms in the dry upper basin on down the river to the ocean, it tells the story of the water war and ecological crises in the Klamath Basin through the eyes of Jack Kohler — a Welsh-Yurok/Karuk who grew up in San Francisco.

The screenings:

Today, Feb. 5, 5:30-7 p.m. at Founders Hall 118 at Humboldt State University. Stephen Most will be there.

Friday, Feb. 6, 6 p.m. at the Yurok Tribal Headquarters in Klamath. Most will be there to answer questions. And, Troy Fletcher, the Yurok Tribe’s Policy Analyst and lead negotiator in the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement talks, will talk about those negotiations as well about the recent Agreement in Principle between the stakeholders and federal and state leaders to remove the dams.

Saturday, Feb. 7, 7 p.m. at the College of the Redwoods campus in Crescent City. Fisheries geo-videologist Thomas B. Dunklin — the guy who took that incredible photo of a Pacific lamprey on the cover of our paper last week — will be screening some salmon footage before the documentary.

Sunday, Feb. 8, 7 p.m. at Westhaven Center for the Arts at 7 pm.

 

Avast, Ye Miners!

Aye, ye gravel grovelers, ye watery wastrels, ye ramblin’ rogues of the deep! I’ll sink yer dredges and steal yer gold, ye dirty river rats! Ye say yer dredges don’t hurt the fishes? Excuse me, but I think yer arguments are bullshit! Aaarghhh!

And thus spake Sen. Pat Wiggins, although it’s true that we may have garbled her words a bit as we struggled to hear her speak over the roar of her trusty pirate ship as it sped up the Klamath River last fall toward battle.

But Wiggins’ displeasure with the California Department of Fish and Game came across quite clearly this week as she reacted to the agency’s rejection of an emergency petition to halt suction dredge gold mining on various rivers and streams, including some on the Klamath River Basin, in order to protect vulnerable species of fish. The petition was filed by the Karuk and other tribes, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and several conservation groups. Wiggins said:

California’s once-thriving salmon populations have plummeted to the point that they face extinction unless we take immediate action. It will take courage and bold action on all our parts to bring the fisheries back to healthy levels …

[I]t’s time for our government to step up. If the Department of Fish and Game is unwilling to place the burden of rebuilding fisheries fairly upon all users, I will continue to take legislative action to get government to do its job.

Here’s how the petitioners reacted on Monday to the rejection.

The Sacramento Bee also chided the DFG  in an editorial yesterday, saying in part:

No doubt global warming, dams, logging, pesticides and other human activities kill fish and destroy habitat, but the bulk of the science strongly suggests that suction dredge mining harms fish, too.

As salmon populations dwindle, the state agency charged with protecting them protects gold miners instead.

Need a refresher on the petition?

And, uh, it was Dan Bacher at IndyBay who cleverly used the pirate photo first.

 

A Post-Dams World

In some people’s nightmare’s, ya take down the Klamath Dams and a world-engulfing blob of hell-deep muck that’s accumulated around that dam for too many years will engulf the downriver world, smothering all salmon, salmon fry, lamprey, lamprey younguns, and everyone else silly enough, in that scenario, to call the Klamath River home. And, oh, the floods!

A soggy apocalypse.

Hey — please don’t have that nightmare anymore. It’s freaky. And, besides, three reports that have just come out seem to allay some of those dam-removal fears. According to a joint news release from the Karuk Tribe and American Rivers, the reports — which were commissioned by the California Coastal Conservancy — conclude that the removal of four large dams on the Klamath River will have “relatively minor” short-term negative impacts on the fisheries but no major long-term impacts.

Most remarkably, the groups say sediment removal won’t be required.

Quoth the release:

The Water Quality report shows that the removal of the dams would:

• Eliminate or greatly reduce toxic blue green algae production.
• Greatly alleviate releases of harmful nutrients from oxygen-starved reservoirs.
• Significantly decrease summer and fall water temperatures, from 4-7° F.
• Substantially increase dissolved oxygen levels.
• Reduce dramatic fluctuations of pH levels.
• Likely reduce levels of fish disease-causing parasites.

The Downstream Biological Impacts study concludes that although fish populations will suffer some negative impacts immediately following removal, this effect will be short lived.  Specifically,

• Impacts to fall Chinook will be short-term, and the population should fully recover to pre-removal levels within five years.
• Spring-run Chinook should experience rapid recovery to pre-dam removal stock levels.
• Coho salmon should experience only short-term effects and populations will recover fully.
• Steelhead populations could be highly affected but should experience a strong recovery.
• Pacific lamprey are expected to recover relatively quickly from impacts.

The Sediment Transport analysis concludes that:

• Less than 1/3 of the sediment trapped by the dams will be transported downstream.
• Nearly all of the sediment that is transported will travel directly to the ocean without being deposited in the river.
• Flood risk will not be increased appreciably.
• Sediment concentrations will likely be significant during the first winter after reservoir drawdown.

This sounds promising, especially since PacifiCorp recently has come around to the notion of taking down those dams.

 

Dredge Fight

You can almost smell the whiff of burnt palm as gold bugs everywhere rub their hands together with ever-more-gleeful vigor. That’s because some predictions have it that gold will soar to yet higher heights this year, maybe $1,500 an ounce. Did it last year, in March, hitting an historic $1,023 an ounce. (Then it crashed, but it’s on the rise again.)

This means increased suffering in some places, however, according to the main feature in National Geographic’s January 2009 issue, “The Real Price of Gold”, which explores the big boys of hard-rock gold mining and how they’re bringing wealth and destruction to some Third World communities.

The soaring price also has provoked excited chatter among recreational miners, including those who pan and dredge for the leavings of past centuries’ miners. However, the folks over at goldgold.com, a Web site run by a mining club called The New 49’ers devoted to suction dredge mining in the Klamath region, lately have been shaking their fists more than burnishing their palms. Once again, they are peeved at the Karuk — the upriver tribe that’s lived along the Klamath River for thousands of years.

Karuks are at it again!

reads the subject line on one entry on the group’s members forum.

The day after Christmas, the Karuk, California Trout, Friends of the North Fork and The Sierra Fund filed a petition with the director of the state Department of Fish and Game, Donald Koch, asking him to place emergency restrictions on suction gold dredge mining on sections of the Klamath, Scott and Salmon rivers and their tributaries in order to protect coho salmon, green sturgeon and lamprey. They also asked that segments of five streams on the west side of the Sierra Nevada be temporarily closed to suction dredge mining to protect native trout. They say suction dredge mining stirs up sediments, releases mercury into the streams, and kills salmon eggs and immature lamprey living in the gravels.

The emergency restrictions are necessary, says Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign Coordinator for the Karuk, because the state has been too slow to meet a court order to update its guidelines for suction dredge gold mining. The Karuk sued DFG a few years ago, saying the agency’s guidelines for dredge mining, made in 1994, fail to protect the coho salmon because it was listed by the state as threatened and by the feds as endangered after the rules were written. The DFG has to do an environmental impact study in order to change its suction dredge rules — but it hasn’t had the money to do so, says Tucker. And, legislative attempts to restrict dredge mining have failed.

But now suddenly there is the promise of money. At a hearing Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board agreed to give Fish and Game $500,000 to work on the EIS for the guidelines change, says Tucker.

You’d think there’d be high fives all around. But of course there’s a catch, and of course it has to do with the state’s budget horrors. In a letter to the board, and at the hearing, the Karuk Tribe and fellow petitioners asked the board not to promise DFG the money unless — unless — it also agreed to implement the requests in the petition to immediately restrict dredge mining.

Said Tucker on Wednesday:

We’re worried that, because of this budget crisis, that money could get yanked before they get the CEQA process started. And so that’s why we’ve moved forward with this petition because we want something to happen immediately.

The board voted to give DFG the $500,000 — with no strings attached. Regardless, said Tucker, the petition to the DFG director still stands; Koch has until Jan. 26 to make a decision. And, also this week, the petition gained the formidable support of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, whose board Tuesday to support it.

In a news release yesterday from the petitioners, Glen Spain, Northwest Regional Director of the PCFFA, said their request makes sense in light of recent restrictions on commercial fishing. Said Spain:

Last April, the state and federal government took unprecedented emergency actions to completely close California’s coast to recreational and commercial salmon fishing, something that is causing severe economic harm to businesses and communities. That is why it is critical for California Fish and Game to act now to limit recreational suction dredge mining operations and protect threatened and endangered species like coho salmon.

Tucker said dredge mining, which requires personnel to process permit applications and enforce the rules, actually costs the state money:

The fact of the matter is, Fish and Game is losing over a million dollars a year running this suction dredge program. And we see that as subsidizing the destruction of the fishery.

We wrote about another aspect of this ongoing battle a while back — those scrappy indie miners.

 

Mike T for Interior?

Holy moly…

NorCal lawmaker pushed for Interior job
By ERICA WERNER Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON-A Northern California congressman who hunts, fishes and grows wine grapes is being promoted for Interior secretary by two prominent fellow lawmakers.

California Democratic Reps. George Miller and Anna Eshoo sent a letter to the incoming administration in the past week urging consideration for Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St.Helena, said Miller’s chief of staff, Danny Weiss.

“They believe that he would make an excellent secretary, has a broad base of support and knows the issues very well, both from the environmental side and the natural resources side, and they encouraged the transition team to consider him strongly,” he said.

…

Makes a certain amount of sense, especially from the Klamath point of view. Obama and Thompson aren’t unfamiliar, either — they coauthored Iraq legislation, among other things. Of course, Mike came out strong for Hillary early on. But that doesn’t seem to have hurt Hillary.

Downside? I’m pretty sure he has no executive experience whatsoever, and the O needs some practiced bureaucratic sword-wielders.

 

“I’ll have the salmon, please.”

The juicy news today from kabazabagazillionaire-land is that a Chinese investor has made the winning bid – $2.1 million — in a charity auction for a lunch date with Warren Buffett, head honcho of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. which owns PacifiCorp which operates certain dams on the Klamath River that cause quite a few salmon to have a major, major headache.

OK, it is for charity. Still, good taste might suggest that Zhao Danyang of Pureheart China Growth Investment Fund order something other than the anadromous entree.

 

 

Gold war

Tis the season for dredge miners to dust off their campers and mosey into the mountains for river gold.

Tis also budget season, and the Karuk Tribe and California Trout have asked Gov. Schwarzenegger to endorse a provision that the state legislature added to the 2008 Budget Bill that would place a moratorium on suction dredge mining. The groups say the moratorium will protect fish — like the endangered coho — in the Klamath and other rivers. Dredging, they say, kicks up toxic mercury that settled into riverbeds after gold smelting at mines in the 1800s, among other bad things.

“The groups’ call to limit the recreational mining technique comes as California faces the worst fisheries collapse in history,” says the news release.

The miners, meanwhile, are on it. On the New 49er’s members forum, they’ve outlined an action plan that includes pumping up their deflated war chest to fund “an aggressive lobbying offensive.” As part of that, they’re holding a drawing: “Our girls in the office will print your tickets as we receive contributions ,” writes Dave Mack.

But, he admonishes, “this is more important than winning prizes. It is about defending our right to continue prospecting for gold in California.”

We wrote about this last August.

 

Will the dams come down?

A recent AP story reports that the U.S. government and PacifiCorp are involved in talks that may eventually lead to a plan for dam removal on the Klamath River:

PacifiCorp, the federal government and the states of Oregon and California are in talks over how to resolve a proposal to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River to help struggling salmon runs.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Alex Pitts confirmed Tuesday that federal agencies and the utility are in continuing “conversations” about a hydropower agreement, but would not characterize that agreement as a way to remove the dams.

PacifiCorp spokesman Art Sasse would say only that the utility company is in talks with “key stakeholders” surrounding its application to relicense the dams.

This process is separate from the hydropower agreement, which the 26 stakeholders involved in the settlement talks had included in their restoration agreement, unveiled to the public this past January after two years of closed-door negotiations.

Reached by phone today, Craig Tucker, Klamath campaign director for the Karuk Tribe, said, “It is encouraging that the feds are stepping up.” He added that any final deal would have to be agreed upon by the tribes and other stakeholders.

 

Salmon can swim on buses

A judge ruled yesterday that TriMet (Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon) violated state and federal free speech laws when it rejected an ad (above), calling it “political,” submitted by the Karuk Tribe and Friends of the River Foundation. In February the ACLU sued the bus company over the rejection. Judge Henry Breithaupt said TriMet’s decion to reject the ad “was made on the basis of the nature of this message ” and that the decision “was not viewpoint neutral and was therefore invalid under the First Amendment.” An order and judgment is pending.

Read the news release. And, the ruling.

 

 

Picture of the Day: Local Activists Hang Banner on Orleans Bridge

 

Siskiyou Sups Vote No on Dam Removal

In a meeting last night, Siskiyou County supervisors voted unanimously to oppose the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River — three of those dams are in Siskiyou County proper. The board also opposes the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement. County representatives have been present at the settlement talks over the past two years and have consistently voiced concern over dam removal, saying that it will lead to a drastic reduction in property values and a significant cut in tax revenue for the county. Herald and News reports:

“We reaffirmed we don’t believe dam removal is in the best interest of the county,” [Supervisor Jim] Cook said after the meeting. “In the separate resolution, we said we’re opposed to the current settlement agreement.” …

Siskiyou County’s opposition was not expected to kill the agreement, but stakeholders said Tuesday they weren’t sure how the supervisors’ votes would impact the settlement process.

Cook believes that provisions of the agreement should be implemented.

“There are a number of things that are positive, things that can be done without dam removal,” he said, citing promises by tribes not to pursue lawsuits, the opening of discussion between different interest groups, proposals to improve salmon populations and guarantees of water supplies for Upper Basin irrigators.

Read our earlier post on the subject here.

 

Yreka, Why Now?

Tomorrow Siskiyou County supervisors will vote on a resolution to oppose the removal of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The county may also decide to opt out of the Klamath settlement agreement altogether. Representatives from Siskiyou County have been involved in the talks over the past two years — although, at first they weren’t invited to the table — and have consistently voiced concern about what could happen if the dams are taken down: Property values for houses located on reservoirs created by the dams (three out of the four dams on the Klamath are in Siskiyou County) could drop in value by as much as 50 percent, according to reports by the county assessor and the Karuk Tribe cited in a recent article in the Siskiyou Daily News.

Reached on his cellphone on Friday afternoon, Siskiyou County Counsel Frank DeMarco said that Siskiyou County’s concerns over dam removal have been on the table since day one. He described the county as “ground zero” in terms of feeling the effects of dam removal. Not only would property values decrease, but there would also be a “huge reduction of tax revenues,” he said. “That document,” he said, referring to the Restoration Agreement, which has been hailed as nothing short of historical in the national press in that it brings together diverse interests including fisherman, tribes and farmers, “is no place close to what I would have liked to have seen.” DeMarco described opposition to dam removal in Siskiyou County as overwhelming. “It isn’t even like 60/40 … it’s probably 90/10,” he said.

But Humboldt County Supervisor Jill Geist, who has played an active role in the settlement talks, is non-plussed. Reached last week, she described the county’s announcement as “not surprising.”

“We realize that for Siskiyou County this represents a pretty significant change in their landscape and politically it would be pretty difficult for them to agree with,” she said. Nonetheless, it’s not catastrophic as far as the future of the agreement is concerned, according to Geist. “Does it stop things? No,” she said.

In fact, it could even end up backfiring on Siskiyou County. According to Geist all of the settlement groups agreed to a condition early on that stipulates that not signing onto the final agreement means you don’t get your slice of the funding pie. In short, there will be no restoration aid for Siskiyou County from the almost $1 billion funding stream created by the agreement.

Still, if the situation for the county is as dire as they say it is, they might not need the restoration agreement funds — they’ll need disaster relief instead.

 

EPA Reverses Prior Decision, Declares Klamath River Impaired by Toxic Algae

In a press release sent out this morning, the Klamath Riverkeepers claim to have won a “major concession” today from the Environmental Protection Agency. In a reversal of their prior decision, the EPA has now designated the Klamath River as impaired by toxic algae.

The blue green algae, Microcystis aeruginosa, blooms in reservoirs created by PacifiCorp’s dams and exceeds international safety standards for algal toxin by as much as 4,000 fold, according to Regina Chichizola of the Klamath Riverkeepers.

PacifiCorp is presently in negotiations with the Klamath Settlement Group about the potential removal of four hydroelectric dams on the river, and the Oregon power utlility is also in the final steps of a federally mandated relicensing process with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). In order to relicense their dams, PacifiCorp will need to get a clean water certification from the states of California and Oregon, but the EPA’s decision could make that difficult.

 

Klam Dam-Blam Angers Bucket Man

Meanwhile, in the dry uplands to our east, another supervisorial race has grumbled into low gear with one Leo Bergeron, a long-time Siskiyou County rancher, insurance salesman and genuine Bucket Brigadier, tossing his cap into the ring for the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors’ First District seat. It was the latest Klamath River restoration agreement love-fest (hate-fest?) that made him do it.

From the March 12 Siskiyou Daily News:

“The main issue right now is this Klamath Basin restoration agreement,” Bergeron said. “This should have been blown out of the water two and half years ago. When the Board of Supervisors started to participate in these meetings and it became apparent the sole purpose was to remove the dams, the county should have done something. The dams have nothing to do with the restoration agreement. The county should have stepped out of the agreement.”

Bergeron, as one-time master of the State Grange, was a player in the Klamath Bucket Brigade of 2001 and, according to himself, instrumental in bending Gale Norton’s ear, which in turn led to a study which led to the water for farmers — turned off to protect fish — getting turned back on. And the rest is fishtory.

Oh, but wait, there’s more: The farmers, who sued the feds over the decision to take water from them to protect endangered fish, are still hashing their case out: Earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals kicked it over to the Oregon Supreme Court for a looksee. Here’s a rundown.