update on Klamath/Trinity water situation

[troutless]

Fish win this round:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Judge-OKs-water-releases-to-help-Klamath-salmon-4754645.php

[troutless]

in the judges words:

http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/CourtDecision.WaterReleasestoProtectSalmoninCalifo rniaMoveForward.pdf

[Digger]

Great news for a change!
I wonder why the Tribe really decided 20k af was enough, in lieu of the 60k
was there deal struck?

I hope there is a large return of King's as they estimate.

[Mike O]

Great news for a change!
I wonder why the Tribe really decided 20k af was enough, in lieu of the 60k
was there deal struck?

Westlands pays well?

[Jeff F]

Great news! But just curious.......won't the Klamath-bound fish hit a wall of warm water above Weitchpec? Well, hopefully the river will be colder by mid-Sept.

[Darian]

Good news.... Apparently, the initial estimate of ACF to be released was reduced to 20,000 due to the delay in implementation while the TRO/decision was made.

I, too, was curious about what happens to the fish going above the confluence but, according to the text, it seems that the Salmon arriving now tend to congregate in the lower river for a period before going up-river and under normal weather patterns, the air/water temps are in acceptable ranges by late September when the they do start to migrate.... Cool stuff. :cool:

[goby]

They'll get some water starting tomorrow. The Hoopa have a river ceremony every year and flows go up to about 2700 (from 450). So the Trinity will be pretty much unfishable for a week.

[ycflyfisher]

I’m left feeling this isn’t quite the “victory” that everyone seems to think it is. It could be. Time will tell.

First, I think the notion that Josh Strange and Yurok Fisheries may have sold out to the water apologists is pure paranoia. I can’t see that happening. Josh is one of those individuals that has an extremely “overqualified” educational background for a field biologist coupled with a ton of real world field experience and he could literally write his own ticket and make tons more money working for an agency or in the private sector compared to what he earns working for Yurok Fisheries. I don’t think anything more needs to be said here.

That said, I don’t see any good reason to think that Josh may be wrong in his assertion that 20kaf is enough to disrupt the lifecycle of Ich or other parasitic pathogens and render the likelihood of a fishkill similar to what happened in 2002 down to an acceptable level of risk. Josh is probably the best qualified individual on the planet to make the determination of what is the smallest allocation for refugia flow augmentation that brings the risk down to an acceptable level.

The problem I have is that the refugia flow augmentation is something that has been implemented several times since 2002, most recently in 2012 and in 2003 and 2004 also.

The water apologists never, until this season contested the refugia flows. Last year, like this season the river got an initial refugia augmentation of 30+kaf. I think it’s pretty obvious that they probably wouldn’t have had a problem if Reclamation didn’t decide to change the initial allocation to the more recent 62-109 “whatever it takes” kaf. I do think it’s good that Rec did demonstrate that they were going to bat for the rivers so I’m not seeing that there’s any real agency villains here. The river conditions this year are nothing short of horrific, much worse than 2002 in the August time frame. Also definitely different than what happened leading up to the events of 2002 in terms of Reclamations actions.

I do think this decision by judge O’Neil is potentially precedent setting and I think it’s likely that 20kaf (if it proves to be effective) becomes the new “normal” in terms of refugia flows in the future. As stated, I can’t see a reason to doubt Josh Strange’s conclusion about what is required, but I don’t think you need to be a fisheries professional that works on the Klamath everyday to see that 30+kaf mitigates the risk down to an even lower level.

The water apologists didn’t expect to “win” this case and get all the refugia flows shut down. That isn’t realistic. What they expected they could do is delay the refugia flows that did start on August 15th and would have continued into the last week in Sept, and get that set back to most likely back down to the original allocation. What they did accomplish was the aforementioned delay and potentially gain the establishment of a new “normal” that’s 50+% lower than what was the norm.

It’s hard for me to see this one as a “win” because the water apologists in reality got more than they probably expected to get and the river is more than likely left with less protection in terms of refugia flows than it had.

[ycflyfisher]

Great news! But just curious.......won't the Klamath-bound fish hit a wall of warm water above Weitchpec? Well, hopefully the river will be colder by mid-Sept.

The lower river in general, is where the real concern lies. Once the fish leave the estuary, they don’t get any significant thermal refugia until they get to the mouth of Blue Creek which is ~15 miles up river. After Blue, they’ve got to go another ~10 miles until they get to Pecwan Creek. It’s that ~25 mile death stretch where the majority of the concern lies.

When the fish get stressed because they have to swim for days to get to water conditions where they feel comfortable, they don’t cover as much water in their upstream progression on a ‘per unit time” basis. As a result, you get fish resting more frequently and in large pods in warm water.

Ich is a parasite with a rather unusual life cycle. It isn’t like fleas on a dog, where a dog gets infested with a half dozen fleas, and a few weeks later it’s a walking colony of 1000s of fleas that exploded exponentially without leaving the dog. Ich needs to attach to a host fish in a few days or it dies. If it attaches, it feeds on the fish for a few days until it’s mature enough to advance to the next stage of it’s lifecycle. At that point it detaches from the host and settles to the bottom where it replicates in abundance and it’s progeny starts the lifecycle all over again. The time required for it to complete a full life cycle decreases as the temperature of the water increases. So if you’ve got warm water, combined with fish that are podded up for extended periods of time, that creates an environment where a greater percentage of Ich can successfully complete it’s lifecycle, more life cycles in the same unit of time, host fish that are being infested at a much more significant rate, and exponentially more ich in the river. High levels of infestation becomes lethal. Ich is always in the river but it takes a combination of poor water conditions and fairly high fish density (abundance) for Ich to become problematic.

Once the fish get above Pecwan Creek, they more frequently encounter tribs in the lower river that are of sufficient enough flow and cold enough where they can de-stress. Once they get above the confluence with the T, the tribs become even more abundant.

That said, I do think there is some amount of legit concern that if in river conditions are horrific enough coupled with high fish abundance, we could still have a fish kill up river of Pecwan Creek. I think it is much less than in the lower river and if it were to happen, it would more than likely be much smaller in magnitude.

[cyama]

Obviously you did not read the decision YC. There are provisions to provide more water if needed and to monitor the fish as they move upstream. Hopefully they all do their jobs...

[Darian]

ycflyfisher,.... I agree with your assessment of the purpose of the Plaintiffs to delay the release and maybe establish a new normal. Also, that this could be a mixed blessing. I'm still wondering if the new normal will be what happens, tho. The decision only related to the TRO which was lifted. Very little of anything else was addressed or decided.

Seems to me that there were several factors involved in establishing the original flows; timing, volume and duration of same. In this instance, the plaintiffs asked only to restrict the flows. The duration of same wasn't addressed in the suit. The delay was a direct result of the time allotted to calendar/conduct the hearing and each days scheduled flows during that delay were lost as a result. So, the plaintiffs did succeed in reducing the flows but that delay doesn't necessarily translate into a reduction of timing, duration and volume of flows in future years.

It was my understanding from reading the text in the suit, that the original duration and volume of flows, were established in observance of the amount of time that returning Salmon tend to remain concentrated in the lower river before migrating. This design, increased the volume and pace of water in relation to the number of fish in the lower river to discourage the attachment of Ich (a very poor swimmer). So, the factors mentioned are/were paramount. Since Salmon will continue to return and remain in the lower river in all future years at the same time and for the same duration, timing, volume and duration of flows will continue to be paramount. Under that line of thought, the timing of and volume of flows should return as the priority for upcoming years (unless the plaintiffs return next year). Just my thoughts....

Even tho the Hoopa's have a checkered history when it comes to protecting their natural resources (think lumber harvest during the 60's), I don't believe the current tribal authorities (Hoopa's or Yurok's) or Mr. Strange would be involved in "selling out" and I'm usually one of the biggest cynics on this BB....

[Jeff F]

Kinda cool monitoring Dreamflows today watching the flows go up and the temps go down station by station along the Trinity. The cold water should be flowing into the Klamath by tonight and out to the ocean sometime tomorrow. Happy fish!

[ycflyfisher]

Obviously you did not read the decision YC. There are provisions to provide more water if needed and to monitor the fish as they move upstream. Hopefully they all do their jobs...

You seem to be under the impression that the emergency release of 5000+cfs is a purely preventative measure that will certainly, 100% stop a fish kill similar to the kill of 2002 if everyone “does their jobs.” That doesn't seem to be a realistic expectation.

From the document:

"A “Fish Pathology/Mortality Criterion” would be used to trigger an emergency fall flow release. Id. at 9-10. This criterion has two prongs. First, the emergency flows would be triggered when a “severe Ich infection” is observed in 5% or greater of the weekly adult fish health monitoring samples collected by resource agencies, with Ich infections confirmed by pathology studies. Id. at 10. Alternatively, emergency flows would be implemented if more than 50 adult salmonids, regardless of cause, are observed dead in a 20-km reach within a 24 hour time period. Id. If either criteria is met, this would trigger diagnostic studies to determine the severity of any Ich infection or the cause of death of any large mortality event, with a “severe,” triggering infection defined as “a minimum of 5% of the sampled fish having 30 or more parasites on one gill arch.” Id. This would trigger augmentation of flows on the lower Klamath designed to double the preexisting flow for seven consecutive days. Id.”

If you look at criteria #2, it's triggered by the discovery of dead fish.

So, the best case scenario for criteria #2 is one day for Tribal fisheries and agency staff to observe a die off that meets the criteria set forth in #2 and prepare brief reports that in essence state: “We’ve got dead fish that satisfy criteria #2.” Add in at least one more day for the diagnostic confirmation. Add in another 2-4 hours or so for O’Neil to issue the order to implement the flows AND for the operators at Lewiston to ramp the flows up enough to make a difference (not to get to 5000+cfs, but enough to make an impact on the prevalent water conditions on the lower river).

It then is going to take~44 hours for a bump in flow of that magnitude from Lewiston to hit the gage @KNK on the lower Klamath. So you're looking at 4 days before those flows impact the conditions on the lower river from the time dead fish that meet criteria #2 are discovered.

How does that relate to 2002? Day 1 was Sept 19th, when it was first observed that there were some dead fish showing up on the banks of the river. Day 2 “some” dead fish became hundreds of dead fish. By Day 3 hundreds became thousands. By Day 7 every adult salmonid in the lower Klamath was dead.

So by the time those flows that you seem to think are purely preventative actually hit the lower river, we could very well be into day 4 of a fish kill event from my perspective. And if you read and think about criteria #1, they could be observing moderate to < what is defined as “severe” levels of infestation in nearly 100% of fish sampled for a week or more before they get a week where 5% of the total weekly sample satisfies the criteria. Add in a few days of pathological studies to confirm that Ich was indeed the cause, a few days for the elevated flows to impact the lower Klamath and from where I sit, criteria #1 doesn’t give us much more of a head start than does criteria #2.

Now if you go back to 2002 and examine prevalent comparative in-river conditions between 2002, and 2013 there are definitely some noted differences some beneficial to 2013 like the tribal boat race bump that happens in odd numbered years, but there’s also some conditions like lower aggregate flow contributions from the tribs compared to 2002. I’m not trying to state definitively that if an additional release is triggered by criteria #1 or #2 is going to lead to another fish kill, but I’m certainly not seeing a good reason to look at the “emergency flows” as purely preventative, as you seem to be doing. For those flows to be implemented, there already has to be signs of serious trouble in the lower river.

[cyama]

Why do have to be so negative YC? Obviously there will be several USFW biologists and consultants on jet boats up and down the Klamath and Trinity this year! The original BOR release was to be over 100kAF. I know you have this information from when you said that should be enough water. So you know there is water to be sent down the river. They are to be monitoring water temps and ich. Not just dead fish. Again hopefully if the temps are too high and ich is discovered they will send down the flushing flows...

I also think it may be best to send down water as it is needed. It is better than not sending enough water or sending down too much water all at once and then running out of water.

I am seriously wondering what your County job is? Are you in charge of sending water down into the central valley from a northern calif county?

[Darian]

cyama,.... Relax. In one post You accuse ycflyfisher of failing to read the decision and then question his motives?? :confused: Regardless of his occupation or who his employer is, the analysis he provided appears reasonable and accurate to me....

What ycflyfisher is providing is his well thought out perspective based on his reading of the text in the decision. IMO, the release(s) involved aren't preventive as they are triggered only after a period of time required for discovery of the potential problem (discovery of a small number dead fish which gets increasingly larger each day). That discovery process involves timing issues that make this case reactive rather than preventive. If relief doesn't arrive until the 4th day, as the analysis indicates, a large fish kill could still occur. I don't believe He's saying it will but there is still the potential for it....

The analysis he provided shows that what's lacking up there is a plan to initiate preventive flows annually, some other preventive action on a specific date. Alternatively, flows could be increased when the arrival of first fish are observed in the lower river, but, that type of plan would surely result in "push back" from water contractors.

[Garfly]

Thank you Darian and YCFF for your studious approach to complicated issues and spending the time to explain your interpretation which is a possible angle to said issues. This helps enlighten some and keeps them from going straight to having an emotional response that is sometimes brought out by the "fear factor".

[ycflyfisher]

Why do have to be so negative YC? Obviously there will be several USFW biologists and consultants on jet boats up and down the Klamath and Trinity this year! The original BOR release was to be over 100kAF. I know you have this information from when you said that should be enough water. So you know there is water to be sent down the river. They are to be monitoring water temps and ich. Not just dead fish. Again hopefully if the temps are too high and ich is discovered they will send down the flushing flows...

I also think it may be best to send down water as it is needed. It is better than not sending enough water or sending down too much water all at once and then running out of water.

I am seriously wondering what your County job is? Are you in charge of sending water down into the central valley from a northern calif county?


Cyama,
This is the last of your posts I’ll be responding to. As Darian points out, you’re arguing for the simple sake of doing so and attempting to villainize me for no good reason other than to trainwreck a thread that’s very important for those of us following this issue. I have no respect at all for you in that regard. You’ve added nothing relevant to this thread. The only reason I’m responding to you is that there may be some individuals who may be following along who may have been somewhat confused, whom you’ve just totally confused with your gross misinterpretations about what O’Neil’s ruling actually says and the importance of this ruling for this year and going forward.

For starters, NO Norcal county employee has any control over or is given a viable channel to provide any input regard the release schedules of Norcal reservoirs , whether those schedules pertain to ag releases or release schedules pertaining to flood control.. That’s all handled by the DWR and Reclamation with the staff of appropriate corresponding agencies (DFW, NMFS, etc) who have the requisite expertise to provide valuable input or guidance in that process.

As previously stated, no past criteria matter. There’s only two criterion that actually matter now.

Again, straight from the court ruling:
A “Fish Pathology/Mortality Criterion” would be used to trigger an emergency fall flow release. Id. at 9-10. This criterion has two prongs. First, the emergency flows would be triggered when a “severe Ich infection” is observed in 5% or greater of the weekly adult fish health monitoring samples collected by resource agencies, with Ich infections confirmed by pathology studies. Id. at 10. Alternatively, emergency flows would be implemented if more than 50 adult salmonids, regardless of cause, are observed dead in a 20-km reach within a 24 hour time period. Id. If either criteria is met, this would trigger diagnostic studies to determine the severity of any Ich infection or the cause of death of any large mortality event, with a “severe,” triggering infection defined as “a minimum of 5% of the sampled fish having 30 or more parasites on one gill arch.” Id. This would trigger augmentation of flows on the lower Klamath designed to double the preexisting flow for seven consecutive days. Id.”

There is NO criterion #3 or #4 that potentially ADDS a single teacup of water past the allocated 20kaf to the Trinity flows. That’s it. There’s two criterion and two criterion only. There is NO MORE WATER over and above the allocated 20kaf (unless criteria #1 or #2 is met) to be sent down the river. None. There is no gray area open to interpretation here in this ruling. It doesn’t matter if they increase monitoring, nor does it matter if the mighty Cyama thinks we should get additional incremental allocations and it also doesn’t matter if I and the rest of the free world actually agrees with you that we should. There is no more water to be had unless one of the two criteria are met. Once that 20kaf is gone, it’s gone and we’ll return to the base 450cfs until Oct 1 when the base flow will drop to the fall base flows.

As previously stated criteria #2 hinges on the certain discovery of dead fish that need to be confirmed to have died from Ich. Not just a few dead fish, but specifically 50 or more dead fish within a 24 hour period on a finite length of river. In other words for criteria #2 to trigger the release of additional flows, fish are already dying in the lower river. Day 1 is discovery. Day 2 is confirmation (and it’s optimistic not negative as you imply to only allow for one day here). Day 2 and 3 involve the ramping of the flows and the time required for those flows to impact the lower river.


Notice the Tribal boat bump starts @Lewiston at 8am on the 25th:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/jspplot/jspPlotServlet.jsp?sensor_no=9300&end=08%2F26%2F2013+00%3A01&geom=medium&interval=1&cookies=CDEC02

Notice that those flows don’t start impacting the lower Klamath until 7am on the 27th: 47 hours later:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/jspplot/jspPlotServlet.jsp?sensor_no=11332&end=08%2F28%2F2013+00%3A01&geom=medium&interval=2&cookies=cdec01

The Klamath River isn’t a garden hose as you seem to think it is.

Criteria #1 involves monitoring and the monitoring trigger is also very specifically spelled out. 5% or more of the weekly samples must be infected to the specified “severe” level. It isn’t 30 parasites on the entire fish, or 30 parasites in the gills, but very specifically 30 or more parasites on a single gill arch. One gill arch. Anything less doesn’t matter towards tripping the criteria. If 100% of the samples collected for the week are all exhibiting moderate levels of infestation that doesn’t add a simple teacup to the allocated 20kaf. If on day 6 and 7 of the week results in 10+% of the fish exhibiting “severe” infestation, that also does nothing unless the prior 5 days infestation rates are high enough not to pull the aggregate weekly average down so that even though the criteria was exceeded for 2 days, it does not satisfy the criteria of 5% or more for the week. Guess What? Mike Belchik and company have to continue to collect samples for another entire week in which Ich potentially rages out of control before they’re writing reports to Judge O’Neil that state the criteria has been met. And at that point then you’ve still got a minimum of one more day for pathological confirmation and two more days for the elevated flows to impact the lower river.

And you’re literally hoping that one of the two criteria “triggers” so we can get some more water in the river? Respectfully what you should be doing is what the rest of us are doing: Hoping that Josh Strange is indeed correct and that 20kaf is enough to eliminate any potential problems. Because if criteria #1 or #2 is triggered, the river is already exhibiting problems, and not just signs of problems as you seem to be misinterpreting. If either criteria is met, the chances of a happy ending to this mess is very slim from my perspective.

Here’s a link that discusses the conditions, the manifestation of Ich and the cause of the 2002 fish kill for anyone interested:

http://www.yuroktribe.org/departments/fisheries/documents/FINAL2002FISHKILLREPORTYTFP.pdf

[cyama]

There is a criterion 3 Read page 12 of the decision. Flushing flows are what is the difference. All of your assumptions are based on what happened in 2002. Tight lines!!

[ycflyfisher]

There is a criterion 3 Read page 12 of the decision. Flushing flows are what is the difference. All of your assumptions are based on what happened in 2002. Tight lines!!

Here's page 12 in it's entirety. No Criteria #3, no discussion of flushing flows:

"3. NEPA
Federal Defendants appear to concede that the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., applies to the flow augmentation plan.5 In early August 2013, the Bureau of Reclamation issued an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) purporting to evaluate the impacts of the augmentation. Doc. 25-3. The EA gives little attention to the potential environmental impacts of reduced water supplies to water users in the Sacramento San Joaquin Basin, declaring instead that it is “not possible to meaningfully evaluate how a potential slightly lower Trinity River storage in 2014 may exacerbate system-wide supply conditions in the future.” This is at least arguably not in conformity with previous rulings in related cases. See Consol. Salmonid Cases, 688 F. Supp. 2d 1013, 1033-34 (E.D. Cal. 2010) (requiring Reclamation to evaluate the environmental impacts of reduced water deliveries).
Nevertheless, even in the presence of likely success on the merits of a NEPA claim, it is not appropriate to issue injunctive relief where doing so would cause more environmental harm than it would prevent. Save Our Ecosystems v. Clark, 747 F.2d 1240, 1250 (9th Cir. 1984); Am. Motorcyclist Ass'n v. Watt, 714 F.2d 962, 966 (9th Cir. 1983) (holding public interest does not favor granting an injunction where “government action allegedly in violation of NEPA might actually jeopardize natural resources”); Alpine Lakes Prot. Soc'y v. Schlapfer, 518 F.2d 1089, 1090 (9th Cir. 1975) (denying injunctive relief in NEPA case where more harm could occur to forest from disease if injunction was granted); see also Consol. Delta Smelt Cases, 717 F. Supp. 2d 1021, 1058 (E.D. Cal. 2010) (reviewing relevant caselaw)."

Footnoted:
"The Hoopa Valley Tribe also appears to acknowledge NEPA at least applies to the flow augmentation program, instead asserting, like Federal Defendants, that Reclamation satisfied NEPA by issuing the EA. Doc. 50 at 19. PCFFA, however, asserts that NEPA does not even apply to the planned 2013 flow augmentation, arguing that because the planned flows fall within historic parameters, the flows do not constitute a “major federal action,” citing Upper Snake River Chapter of Trout Unlimited v. Hodel, 921 F.2d 232, 234-35 (9th Cir. 1990).
PCFFA also asserts that Plaintiffs do not have standing to pursue a NEPA claim because they do not allege injury within the zone of interest protected by NEPA, which is to protect the environment, not private economic interests. PCFFA questions whether Plaintiffs have demonstrated an interest in protecting some of the species that live in the Klamath Basin and that Plaintiffs’ claim may be harmed by the flow augmentation, but PCFFA ignores that Plaintiffs have a demonstrated interest in the environmental impacts that might result from reduced water deliveries to their service area. See, e.g., Doc. 20 (William Bordeau discussing impacts of groundwater overdraft). "

[cyama]

Oops that was page 14 line 14. Okay this is the line I take as a third alternative. If the flows are expected to above 23c for three consecutive days emergency flows can be released. So this gives the consultants and biologists some lee way. Note "expected" .
So if you just look at some 50-100 different influences on this criterion you can release flows. My point mostly is that there are several different factors that can happen and you may not be looking at all of them. Who knows it could rain for twenty days in September and October.