Klamath River

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Klamath River
Klamath River in the high desert country of Northern California
Country	United States
States	Oregon, California
Major city	Klamath Falls
Length	263 mi (423 km) [1]
Watershed	15,751 sq mi (40,795 km²) [2]
Discharge at	near mouth (Klamath, CA) [3]
- average	17,010 cu ft/s (481.7 m³/s)
- maximum	378,000 cu ft/s (10,703.8 m³/s)
- minimum	1,340 cu ft/s (37.9 m³/s)
Source	Lake Ewauna
- coordinates	42°11′29″N 121°46′58″W / 42.19139, -121.78278 [4]
- elevation	4,090 ft (1,247 m) [5]
Mouth	Pacific Ocean
- coordinates	41°32′49″N 124°5′0″W / 41.54694, -124.08333 [4]
- elevation	0 ft (0 m)
Major tributaries
- left	Shasta River, Scott River, Salmon River, Trinity River
Klamath River and tributaries

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The Klamath River (Ishkêesh in Karuk), approximately 263 miles (423 km) long, is a major river in southern Oregon and northern California in the United States. It drains an arid farming valley in its upper reaches, passing swiftly through the mountains in its lower reaches before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. It is one of only three rivers that pass through the Cascade Range, (the others being the Columbia River and the Pit River), and one of the longest rivers in California.

Contents 1 Course 2 River modifications 3 Recreation 4 History 5 Natural history 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Course

The 250-mile (400 km)-long Klamath River begins at the outlet of Upper Klamath Lake, which is now controlled by a dam owned by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. For the first mile downstream of the lake, the river is known as the Link River. About 1 mi (1.6 km) below the dam, the river flows into a 20 mi (32 km)-long narrow reservoir behind Keno Dam known as Lake Ewauna.^[6]

From Lake Ewauna, the Klamath River flows generally southwest, passing the now-drained bed of the once-vast Lower Klamath Lake before descending into the southern Cascade Range below Keno, Oregon. Once through the Oregon Cascades, the river continues into northern California, passing through the Klamath Mountains and along the southern side of the Siskiyou Mountains. It enters the Pacific at Klamath in southwestern Del Norte County, approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of Crescent City.

The river's drainage basin above Upper Klamath Lake is fed primarily by the Williamson River and its tributaries, including the Sprague River, which stretch into south central Oregon west of the Cascades. In California, the Klamath receives the Shasta River from the south approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of Yreka, the Scott River from the south in central Siskiyou County, the Salmon River from the east along the border between Siskiyou and Humboldt counties, and the Trinity River from the south at Weitchpec in northern Humboldt County.

Much of the lower course of the river in California is within the Klamath National Forest. The lower course of the river in northern Humboldt passes through the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, the Karuk Tribe and the Yurok Indian Reservation.

An section of 11 miles (18 km) of the river in Oregon south of Klamath Falls to the California-Oregon border, including the Hell's Corner Gorge, has been designated as the Klamath Wild and Scenic River.

[edit] River modifications

Stretching from the high desert in southern Oregon to the redwood forests of northern California, the Klamath River Basin covers a vast and diverse area. It once contained over 350,000 acres (1,400 km²) of marshes, wet meadows and shallow lakes, major runs of salmon and steelhead, and enormous numbers of migratory birds.^[7] Irrigation development drained some eighty percent of the region's wetlands, with resulting loss of natural water storage, water filtering capacity, and overall biomass. For example, the area's once-mighty flocks of migratory bird and fish runs have similarly declined to fractions of their former size. Large areas of Upper Klamath Lake have been lost to agricultural development, while below Klamath Falls, Oregon, most of Lower Klamath Lake and Tule Lake were also drained for agriculture.^[8]

The 230,000 acre (930 km²) federal Klamath Reclamation Project manipulates the water storage of the basin, which can hold about 1,100,000 acre feet (1,360,000,000 m³) of spring runoff in Gerber Reservoir, Clear Lake, and Upper Klamath Lake, along with several smaller reservoirs for use irrigation use.

The upper basin water, along with 2,500,000 acre feet (3,080,000,000 m³) diverted from the Trinity,[1] as well as irrigation projects on the Shasta and Scott river tributaries have all lowered the total river flow supporting out-migrating young salmon in spring and in-migrating adult salmon in the fall ^[9]

In 2005, PacifiCorp applied to the federal government to relicense its four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath for up to 50 years. Environmentalists opposed the relicensing, arguing that they should be removed to reopen the upper Klamath to salmon. No decision on the matter has been made to date.^[10]

Two years of closed-door negotiations between farmers, Indian tribes, fishermen, conservation groups and government agencies have resulted in an unprecedented—and conditional—agreement to work toward a comprehensive settlement of Klamath water usage. The proposal advocates for the removal of four hydroelectric dams now operating along 300 miles (483 km) of the Klamath River in southern Oregon and northern California,as well as resortation projects.^[11]

Significant unresolved conditions of the proposed agreement include:

• Securing nearly a billion dollars in funding over the ten years of implementation
• Pacific Power agreeing on to the proposal
• Funding the cost of dam removal
• Mitigation of environmental challenges of dam removal (silt behind the dams)

[edit] Recreation

Whitewater rafting and kayaking are popular recreational activities along the upper Klamath River below the J.C. Boyle Dam, and also along the lower Klamath River downstream of the town of Happy Camp.

[edit] History

The name of the river comes from a Native American word klamet meaning "swiftness". It provided a significant route for passing through the Cascades. Archeological evidence in the valley suggests it has been inhabited for at least 7,000 years. The river and its fish are considered sacred by resident Native American tribes, which include the Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk tribes, as well a confederation of the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin people known as the Klamath Tribes. The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum in Berkeley, California contains a collection of carvings from some of the tribes in this region.

In the 1960s, a project was proposed that would erect a dam 12 miles (19 km) from the mouth of the river, creating a reservoir which would be used to divert water for consumption in Southern California. The dam was known as the Ah Pah Dam. It was never built.

[edit] Natural history

The river is considered a prime habitat for Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, steelhead trout, and rainbow trout. Once the third-largest producer of salmon on the West Coast, only a fraction of the river's historic runs remain since the construction of six dams, built between 1908 and 1962. Coho salmon in the Klamath River are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. In 1963 the largest tributary to the Klamath, the Trinity River, was virtually removed from the Klamath drainage with the completion of the Lewiston and Trinity dams, diverting 90 percent of the Trinity's flow to the Sacramento Valley. Only 150 cubic feet (4.2 m³) per second was left to flow to the Klamath. In 1991, a minimum Trinty flow of 340,000 acre feet was established, a minimum annual flow of about 470 cfs.[2]

The possible removal of the dams has been a controversial issue in the region in recent years. Despite intense lobbying by local Native American tribes, conservationists, and fishermen, the 2004 renewal application by PacifiCorp for another 50-year federal operating licence for the dams did not include any provisions for allowing salmon to return to more than 300 miles (483 km) of former habitat above the dams. In January 2007, however, the federal government ruled that PacifiCorp must equip four dams with fish ladders, a modification which would cost potentially more than $300 million. PacifiCorp has offered $300 million to upgrade the JC Boyle fish ladder and proposed trucking fish around the Copco #1 and Iron Gate dams, after having had been denied a licence to build a power generator in Utah. "The fact that the Klamath project is an emissions-free, renewable resource will make it more valuable to our customers in the future and reduce our overall carbon footprint," PacifiCorp President Fehrman said in a statement.^[12]

A separate controversy surrounds the use of water in the Upper Klamath Basin for irrigated agriculture, which was temporarily halted in 2001 to protect endangered salmon and lake fish during a severe drought. The federal government, under Interior Secretary Gale Norton, reversed this decision in 2002, and provided full water deliveries to irrigators as the drought continued despite the fact that Klamath area tribes have treaty rights that predate the settlement of the farmers. Norton argued for a "free market" approach by allowing farmers to sell the water to the Native Americans downstream.

According to biologists from the state of California and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,^[13] the atypical low flow in the river along with high fish return numbers and high water temperatures allowed for a gill rot disease to kill at least 33,000 salmon in September 2002, which died before they could reproduce. The kill was downstream of the Trinity inflow, and the salmon of the Trinity were impacted to a greater degree than the Klamath as the Trinity run was at its peak. The report does mention that the official fish kill estimate of 34,056 is probably quite low and could be only half of the actual loss.

Klamath flows as measured at the river gauge in Keno show a low flow of 800 cubic feet (22.7 m³) per second in September 1908 (before irrigation began). During the 2002 fish kill, flows of 475 cubic feet (13.5 m³) per second were recorded. During September of the 2001 irrigation shut off, an average of 688 cubic feet (19.5 m³) per second was recorded.^[14]

[edit] See also

• List of California rivers
• List of Oregon rivers
• List of National Wild and Scenic Rivers

[edit] References

[edit] External links

The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

• US Department of Agriculture site on the Klamath River basin.
• Klamath Wild and Scenic River
• State of California hydrological monitoring of the Klamath and tributaries.
• US Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species in the Klamath Basin
• Friends of the River advocation of dam removal
• Hearst Museum site on Klamath Valley carvings
• NASA Earth Observatory: drought and irrigation shut off in the Klamath Basin
• Mid Klamath Watershed Council watershed restoration
• Klamath Waters Digital Library
• Battle for the Klamath A documentary about the Klamath water crisis
• "U.S. Orders Modification of Klamath River Dams" by Blaine Harden, Washington Post.com, January 31, 2007
• "The Klamath dams by the numbers" by Erin Halcomb, High Country News, April 3, 2007
• Oregon Wild advocates for basin-wide Klamath River restoration