Levees breached to restore Klamath wetlands

Here's an article in the Oregonian about breaching levees to create more wetlands to help endangered sucker fish in the Klamath Basin - a rare example of levees or dams coming down for conservation reasons. Nice use of still photos and video within the story (including the explosives going off).

Central Valley salmon largely absent from fall run

I first heard about the small number of returning salmon to the Sacramento and other rivers in early September, yet there was still hope for increasing returns as we went deeper into fall. Now it seems, from this excellent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the dearth of salmon is throughout northern California's rivers and extends into Oregon.

Why? Insufficient krill, low water flows, juvenile salmon deaths in years past are all possibilities, and it seems many of the problems on the Klamath River are spreading to other river systems that formerly had strong runs of fall salmon.

Our next documentary is on the myriad problems with the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. For more info contact info(at)veriscope.com.

Feds find Klamath irrigation still hard on fish

The opening paragraph from this AP report says it all:

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said Tuesday that operating the federal irrigation project in the upper Klamath Basin is likely to continue causing problems for fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Northcoast Journal story on sustainability in the Upper Klamath Basin

A lot of the stories in this blog focus on the problems and possible solutions in the Lower Klamath basin. This is a good article about farmers in the Upper Basin and their efforts to sustain their land for the long term. The water starts there. If a solution for the troubles of the Klamath Basin is ever to be found, the farmers of the Upper Basin will need to play an integral role.

Two of the farmers profiled in this article, Steve Kandra and Jeanne Anderson, are also characters in Battle for the Klamath.