REPORT: WATER DIVERSIONS LED TO KILL WARNINGS GO UNHEEDED; COHO PERISH.Byline: Bill Becher Special to the Daily News Water diversions to farmers in Oregon and Northern California ordered by federal authorities were the primary cause of a massive fish kill in the Klamath River in Northern California, a recent report by the California Department of Fish and Game concluded. More than 33,000 adult salmon, including federally protected coho coho or silver salmon Species (Oncorhynchus kisutch) of salmon prized for food and sport that ranges from the Bering Sea to Japan and the Salinas River of Monterey Bay, Cal. It weighs about 10 lbs (4. , died last October before they could spawn. DFG DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council) DFG Department of Fish and Game DFG District Factor Group DFG Data Flow Graph DFG Difference Frequency Generation DFG Diode Function Generator DFG Dog Faced Gremlin biologists said the combination of the number of fish in the river, low flows and high temperatures caused the die-off when the fish became too concentrated and susceptible to disease. In the case of the Klamath, flows are regulated by upstream reservoirs operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on the Klamath and Trinity rivers. Bob Davis, an official with the bureau, said his department has reviewed the DFG study but will have no comment until they receive a study on the fish kill being conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Flows dropped last fall when the BOR BOR Borough BOR Board Of Regents BOR Bureau Of Reclamation BOR Bill of Rights BOR Biology Of Reproduction (journal) BOR Borealis BOR Board Of Review BOR Beats of Rage (video game) sent water to croplands in the Klamath Project and diverted water from the Trinity River to farmers in California's Central Valley. The DFG said it warned federal officials before the die-off that flows were inadequate to support the fish. When the salmon started to die, the DFG requested temporary increases in the flows, and the BOR provided additional water. ``The Bureau increased the flows and the problem went away,'' said Mark Stopher, a DFG habitat-conservation program manager. ``To some people, that might be a clue. You add water and the fish stop dying. ``We take no comfort in the fact we were right,'' Stopher said. ``It would have been better had we been wrong.'' Federal officials in the past have denied any clear cause-and-effect relationship between the kill and the river flows, noting the river had fallen lower in some drought years when no die-off took place. However, a whistleblower whis·tle·blow·er or whis·tle-blow·er or whistle blower n. One who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority: "The Pentagon's most famous whistleblower is . . disclosure, filed by National Marine Fisheries Service The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is a United States federal agency. A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Commerce, NMFS is responsible for the stewardship and management of the nation's living marine fisheries biologist Michael Kelly with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel U.S. Office of Special Counsel may mean:
NMFS National Mortality Followback Survey NMFS Network Multimedia File System NMFS Nested Mount File System team in April 2002 was altered at the behest of BOR officials. The alterations lowered the minimal in-stream flow levels below what the NMFS fisheries scientists believed necessary for the survival of coho salmon Coho salmon oncorhynchuskisutch. in the Klamath River, according to Kelly. Coho salmon are classified as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act The federal Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) (16 U.S.C.A. §§ 1531 et seq.) was enacted to protect animal and plant species from extinction by preserving the ecosystems in which they survive and by providing programs for their conservation. . According to Kelly's disclosure, the changes were undertaken without any of the required biological analyses and were directly contrary to the legal duty to use ``the best available science.'' The California DFG report warns more damaging fish kills are likely under the current federal plan. ``There is a distinct potential for future fish kills considering that pathogens are always present, temperatures are normally at levels that can cause disease and, under the 2002 BO (biological opinion) flow prescription, a moderate-sized run of salmon and steelhead can generate high enough fish densities in the lower Klamath River to result in a major fish kill.'' |
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