Killing The Klamath River

[Keta]

This will negitively efect salmon fishing for years.

We took the long way home from seeing Bryan, up the NorCal coast and Klamath River. When we hit the Klamath at the mouth of the Trinity River I was shocked to see the river was not it's normal green but dark brown from all of the toxic silt and clay being dumped in to the river with large backhoes and loaders.
I thought " There goes this years salmon and steelhead spawn' but  I never thought the entire food chain was being wiped out and the river bottom covered in toxic clay.  The people responsible need to die in prison.  FYI, I was not opposed to removing the dams but responsibly.


https://www.siskiyou.news/2024/02/19/dam-deception-saving-the-klamath-river/

[MarkT]

Well, beware of what you ask for! They wanted the dams removed to restore the natural flow and they got it. The law of unintended consequences at work!

[Crab Pot]

Never underestimate the incompetence of political appointees to the Department of Fish and Game.

[oc1]

It took a century to screw up the river and it will probably take a century to undo it all. 

If they had dredged all the silt out of the lakes before dewatering and decommissioning them then where would they have put the spoil?  What land would have been sacrificed to contain it?

Over that century, what did hydroelectric power do for the surrounding communities? Will they really be able to bring the salmon runs back?  By the time it's all done, will they consider the loss of hydroelectric power more important than salmon?

Face it, humans are just a horrible species.

[Keta]

It took a century to screw up the river and it will probably take a century to undo it all. 

If they had dredged all the silt out of the lakes before dewatering and decommissioning them then where would they have put the spoil?  What land would have been sacrificed to contain it?

Over that century, what did hydroelectric power do for the surrounding communities? Will they really be able to bring the salmon runs back?  By the time it's all done, will they consider the loss of hydroelectric power more important than salmon?

Face it, humans are just a horrible species.

There are a lot of places in the area to put the clay and silt that would not kill an entire river. The lower 3 dams generated less power than the 4th upper dam they are taking out due to a large  elevation drop but the Upper Klamath Basin very dry, 12" of rain in a "wet" year, and the entire system never generated much power.  The removed dams were not for flood control or irrigation, just power generation.  Only the upper dam had a fish pass, what good is that when the lower 3 did not have them.  The pro removal people say it freed up 400 miles of spawning habitat but at the most 100 miles.... if that are suitable.  Most of the claimed miles are either too warm or mud bottom and right now the water coming out of upper Klamath Lake is over 70°F.  There is good spawning habitat in 3 of the lakes tributaries, most of the Sprague (the major Williamson River tributary) and Wood rivers and some in the Williamson River below Spring Creek. One prime spot for salmon to spawn is 1 mile above where I work.  I was hoping to see spawning salmon in the upper basin next year but not now.

[jurelometer]

It took a century to screw up the river and it will probably take a century to undo it all. 

If they had dredged all the silt out of the lakes before dewatering and decommissioning them then where would they have put the spoil?  What land would have been sacrificed to contain it?

Over that century, what did hydroelectric power do for the surrounding communities? Will they really be able to bring the salmon runs back?  By the time it's all done, will they consider the loss of hydroelectric power more important than salmon?

Face it, humans are just a horrible species.

There are a lot of places in the area to put the clay and silt that would not kill an entire river. The lower 3 dams generated less power than the 4th upper dam they are taking out due to a large  elevation drop but the Upper Klamath Basin very dry, 12" of rain in a "wet" year, and the entire system never generated much power.  The removed dams were not for flood control or irrigation, just power generation.  Only the upper dam had a fish pass, what good is that when the lower 3 did not have them.  The pro removal people say it freed up 400 miles of spawning habitat but at the most 100 miles.... if that are suitable.  Most of the claimed miles are either too warm or mud bottom and right now the water coming out of upper Klamath Lake is over 70°F.  There is good spawning habitat in 3 of the lakes tributaries, most of the Sprague (the major Williamson River tributary) and Wood rivers and some in the Williamson River below Spring Creek. One prime spot for salmon to spawn is 1 mile above where I work.  I was hoping to see spawning salmon in the upper basin next year but not now.

I am kinda with Steve on this.

I think the problem is that the spoils are not just sediment but some nasty stuff as well.  Nobody wants it dumped on their land, but nobody is going to stick up for the seabed, so that is where it ends up.

What is happening now with the silt is what they expected to happen.  The options were studied, and  manual sediment removal was  considered, and I would wager cost was a factor.  The project as is is expensive, around half a billion $USD, split between the govt. and PacifiCorp (dam owner).

The chosen process means a tradeoff, where the first couple of years are going to be worse than now as the silt and sediments flush through the system. After that, gradual improvement to an eventual stable, closer to original state.  That is, IF they got it right.

Did they get it right?  Dunno.  Probably not 100%.  This is the first large scale dam removal project ever attempted.  But I don't think that we can characterize this as just yanking a bunch of dams without preparation.  And the dams were coming out one way or the other, as PacifiCorp was not going to invest in them any more.

There are stakeholders that were not happy with the dam removals (mostly farmers) and very happy with dam removals (local tribes and environmentalists), so you can find press coverage out there that is skewed to your particular preferences.

On suitable salmon and lamprey habitat, the scientists expect that the flushing action from removing all of the dams will greatly increase the total spawning habitat, as the river will look much different once "healed". Whether they are right, or Lee is right, we will start to find out in about 7 or 8 years.

A more neutral press report:
https://apnews.com/article/klamath-dam-california-removal-restoration-473a570024584c2e02837434e05693da

An overview of the studies with links to the individual studies form the USGS:

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/california-water-science-center/science/klamath-dam-removal-studies

-J

[Gfish]

Wow. We all "be Damed" with this one.
My favorite place on the river was below Iron Gate.

[Keta]

The article I linked is from a pro dam source but I personally saw the river this week. Here is very little industrial pollution in the basin and most of the agricultural land is cattle pasture but we have naturally occuring arsenic and Upper Klamath Lake bottom is 100' plus deep bird droppings and decomposing algae.  No telling what is in the treated efluant coming out of Klamath Falls, the only "city" on the river and a bit over 28,000 people, but I am sure there is bad things people flush. It will be the clay and naturally occuring nitrates and phosphates, from years of dying algae,  that is being dumped into the river that is the problem. The clay will not flush like silt and will cover gravel beds for years if not forever.   The clay and silt is being dumped into the river with heavy equipment and the river is running dark brown 100 miles down river from the lowest dam, and most likely out into the ocean. People have been fined for putting millions of times less silt into salmon streams. Why are these criminals given a pass?

It would be simple but expensive to haul it out in trucks for proper disposal.

I do not know about the former  reservoir bottoms below the Keno Dam but upper basin "muck" makes a excellent soil amendment but too "hot"  to put much directly on plants.

[thorhammer]

It took a century to screw up the river and it will probably take a century to undo it all. 

If they had dredged all the silt out of the lakes before dewatering and decommissioning them then where would they have put the spoil?  What land would have been sacrificed to contain it?

Over that century, what did hydroelectric power do for the surrounding communities? Will they really be able to bring the salmon runs back?  By the time it's all done, will they consider the loss of hydroelectric power more important than salmon?

Face it, humans are just a horrible species.

Humans are the worst thing ever to happen to the planet. Thannos was spot on.

[Keta]

Wow. We all "be Damed" with this one.
My favorite place on the river was below Iron Gate.

We drove up to Irongate Dam  from Hornbook and the river is disgusting.  I really hoped to see salmon and steelhead in the upper basin before I pass on but it looks like that won't happen.  I wish I was driving the jeep, we would have continued up river past all 4 former dam sites.  Topsey Grade is a 4x4 only "road", steep, rough and narrow along a deep canyon.

[Gfish]

I used to notice the abnormal color on the lower river, fishing Winter Steelhead in the late 70's, occasionally seeing little clumps of algae. Prolly formed in the reservoirs. Then in the late 80's I saw that Upper Klamath Lake was kinda eutrophicated in the Summer and Fall. Lotsa farm/ranch runoff, I guess.
Cheap electricity, plentiful irrigation opportunities, "OH BOY PROFIT"!

We drove up to Irongate Dam  from Hornbook and the river is disgusting.  I really hoped to see salmon and steelhead in the upper basin before I pass on but it looks like that won't happen.  I wish I was driving the jeep, we would have continued up river past all 4 former dam sites.  Topsey Grade is a 4x4 only "road", steep, rough and narrow along a deep canyon.
[/quote]

[Maxed Out]

 Dam removal comes with a high price when it comes to ecosystems. 2011-2014, 2 dams were removed on the Elwha river on the Olympic peninsula here in Washington. Both dams had 100 years of sediment and 10 years later, the only salmon are hatchery origin, because the silt clogged the lower spawning beds, and the wild salmon have still not come close to any kind of recovery. The Elwha was world class river in early 1900's, with salmon that regularly reached 80-100+ pounds. The pipe dream was removing the dams would bring those huge salmon back, but in reality, those brutes were all but extinct, and the supposed old time spawning beds above the removed dams that produced those monster salmon will take hundreds of years or more to be spawning habitat once again, but the huge salmon will never return, only man made hatchery origin, and hatcheries are famous for using brother and sister to make hatchlings, which isn't how mother nature intended. Trailer trash is what they end up with. No DNA diversity is the nail in the coffin

 Very sad to hear they're now trying this same scenario on the Klamath. Guess we never learn from our mistakes

[Gfish]

I worked in a Private non-profit hatchery North of the Klamath R., a tributary to the Smith R. Occasionally a stray from another river system would show-up. But yeah, we spawned 5 females to one male, not great for diversity. Yet another aspect is gathering wild fish from the main stem of a system and breeding them all together, thus eliminating the special genetics from strains unique to specific tributaries all up through the system.

[jurelometer]

The article I linked is from a pro dam source but I personally saw the river this week. Here is very little industrial pollution in the basin and most of the agricultural land is cattle pasture but we have naturally occuring arsenic and Upper Klamath Lake bottom is 100' plus deep bird droppings and decomposing algae.  No telling what is in the treated efluant coming out of Klamath Falls, the only "city" on the river and a bit over 28,000 people, but I am sure there is bad things people flush. It will be the clay and naturally occuring nitrates and phosphates, from years of dying algae,  that is being dumped into the river that is the problem. The clay will not flush like silt and will cover gravel beds for years if not forever.  The clay and silt is being dumped into the river with heavy equipment and the river is running dark brown 100 miles down river from the lowest dam, and most likely out into the ocean. People have been fined for putting millions of times less silt into salmon streams. Why are these criminals given a pass?

It would be simple but expensive to haul it out in trucks for proper disposal.

I do not know about the former  reservoir bottoms below the Keno Dam but upper basin "muck" makes a excellent soil amendment but too "hot"  to put much directly on plants.

I just read some more, and you are right that toxicity of the silt was not the issue.  It was just the sheer volume of the stuff.  If they try to truck it out, in addition to the cost, it would take much longer to remove the stuff, resulting in many more years of silt in the river.  They are betting on it being better to get it all over with quickly. 

I would also find it sickening to watch them bulldoze silt into the Klamath.  Hopefully, this was the best (or least worse) option.

-J

[Keta]

The Klamath is a upside down river.  Most rivers start in the mountains and flow into the ocean at flatter ground. The Klamath starts in farmland and marsh and hits the ocean in mountains.  Klamath and Agency lakes are large but shallow petri dishes for algae. Wood River and Spring Creek  come out of the base of the mountains and flows 100% through pasture land.  It is seepage from Crater Lake and high in minerals but christol clear.  The Williamson starts in a large ranch surrounded by mountains and goes into Upper Klamath Marsh picking up a tea color from tanic acid.  Spring Creek increases the flow by 8-10 times and clears the water some.  The Sprague starts in the mountains and flows through farm and ranch land for miles then enters the Williamson, clearing it more.  Wood River flows into Agency Lake where it picks up muck and algae, the Williamson does the same into Upper Klamath Lake.  Agency Lake feeds Klamath Lake and the outflow is Link River.  Link River is short and flows into Lake Euwana, the headwaters of the Klamath. The only city on the Klamath is Klamath Falls and it is not large. The river picks up some AG run off and treated sewage above the Keno Dam but from there there are only very small towns and native villages.

The lower 4 dams should have never been built, especially the lower 3, (in California) without fish passes.  The Keno and Link River dams were built on top of natural lava dams.