‘Things have to change’: Big decision looms as Klamath Basin ranchers, tribes battle over water and salmon
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Arron Troy Hockaday leaned over the highway railing to peer into the water below, where the Scott River empties into the Klamath near the Oregon border.
Beneath the bridge, dozens of threatened coho salmon rested on their journey back from the Pacific. It was the end of October, and they were waiting for rain to drive them to calmer creeks and streams where they could spawn, then die.
“There should be thousands of salmon in here right now,” said Hockaday, a Karuk Tribal Council member and a fifth generation traditional fisherman.
“I tell my kids every time I stop by here and look at these fish to take a picture. They ask me why, and I say, ‘This might be the last time you see them.’”
About 40 miles upriver, through the mountains of Klamath National Forest, lies the flat of the Scott Valley. Jim Morris’ pickup truck bumped past cattle grazing on bright green alfalfa stubble to a dry field covered in tumbleweeds.
“I’m a little embarrassed by this one,” he said, nodding at the weeds.
He had cut back on irrigating the field last year under state emergency drought measures that restricted water for farms, aimed at keeping water in the river to protect salmon. He thought it would grow back, but it didn’t.
“I’m still working on cleaning up the messes that I made through that process. If we have to cut back on water, we will. But this is the price we pay,” he said.
Morris is still totaling up the costs of the state’s emergency regulations, but estimates that he fallowed 15% to 20% of his land when hay prices were good — cutting into his sales.
“Ag is not like having an 8-to-5 job,” he added, “You need to make money when you can, because the next year, you won’t.”
Hockaday’s and Morris’ deep-rooted ties to the water are at the core of a battle that has roiled California’s far north over the Scott River and its neighbor, the Shasta, for years. These Klamath River tributaries provide vital habitat for struggling salmon and steelhead, and critical irrigation supplies for Siskiyou County farmers.
Now the State Water Resources Control Board is poised to decide on Tuesday whether to extend emergency drought measures, which could restrict ground and surface water for farms for another year if flows in the rivers dip below minimum thresholds. State officials say those measures are likely to kick in next year.
The water board also is investigating the possibility of permanent requirements to keep more water in the rivers, after the Karuk Tribe and the fishing industry petitioned the state for stronger protections. That decision, however, could take years.
At the heart of the debate is a fundamental question underlying all of California’s water wars, old and new, north and south: Who must sacrifice when water demand outpaces supply, and nature shows the strain?
Tribes in the lower Klamath Basin, wildlife agencies and the fishing industry are all fighting for flows to support the rivers, their fish and the cultures and businesses that depend on them. At the same time, farmers and ranchers in the Scott and Shasta Valleys are vying for the water that supplies the cattle and crops that drive the Siskiyou County economy.
“Things are going to have to change,” said Erik Ekdahl, deputy director of the water board’s division of water rights. “(There’s) recognition that the status quo isn’t going to work. But what is the new approach? We need everyone’s voice at the table to figure that out.”
California’s last salmon strongholds
The fight is coming to a boil as another battle cools: Four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River are being torn down across the California-Oregon state line, upstream of where the Scott and the Shasta rivers flow into its mainstem. Dam removal is expected to unlock hundreds of miles of habitat in the basin and bring back flows that can better wash away fish parasites and other disease.
Yet it’s not a cure-all for the Klamath and its tributaries.
“Dam removal should help the Scott and Shasta, but the Scott and Shasta are key pieces to make dam removal a success,” Jeff Abrams, a biologist with the Klamath branch of NOAA Fisheries, said at a meeting with state regulators.
The Scott River is one of the last remaining strongholds for coho salmon in California; the Shasta has produced more than a fifth of the basin’s wild-spawning fall-run chinook salmon over the last five years.
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