9 



and approaches to watershed management and evaluation are 

 available. It is time for us to begin to use them as a society. 



The window of opportunity to reverse the decades-long trend in 

 declining water resources and salmon populations is closing. The 

 decline can only be reversed by substantive change in our actions 

 and in the conceptual framework used to define those actions. 

 Rivers are, in many ways, the lifeblood of human society. Their 

 status is indicative of the health of the surrounding landscape in 

 the same way that blood samples provide important insight about 

 the health of humans. Our future depends on our ability to create 

 positive long-lasting solutions. 



An initiative that combines watershed planning perspectives 

 with watershed restoration provides the central organizing princi- 

 ples that are fundamental to long-term success in these efforts. 

 Thank you. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Karr can be found at the end of 

 the hearing.] 



Mr. Studds. Thank you very much, sir. Next, Mr. Patrick Hig- 

 gins, Consulting Fisheries Biologist from — is it Areata? 



Mr. HiGGiNS. Yes. 



Mr. Studds. California. How do you like that? Welcome. 



STATEMENT OF PATRICK HIGGINS, CONSULTING FISHERIES 

 BIOLOGIST, ARCATA, CALIFORNIA 



Mr. HiGGiNS. Thank you. Chairman Studds and members of the 

 panel. I am honored to be here. I am here on behalf of the Hum- 

 boldt Chapter of the American Fisheries Society, and I helped to 

 author a paper "Stocks at Risk in Northwestern California" that 

 chronicles the decline toward extinction of Pacific salmonids in our 

 area, and I will draw on that region for my specific case studies 

 here in my testimony. 



In my work for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and writing the 

 Klamath River Restoration Plan which governs a 20 year, $40 mil- 

 lion Federal effort to restore the fish. I characterized the river as 

 severely ecologically stressed. I am afraid that characterization fits 

 every major river system with the exception of the Smith River in 

 northern California. The sediment in the Lower Klamath River is 

 deposited to a depth of 20 to 30 feet. In the Eel River, it is 60 feet 

 in depth. All the major holes are filled in. That means there is no 

 cold water layers on the bottom for refuge areas for downstream 

 migrating juveniles or for adult salmon as they come in early in 

 fall. And it is a result of geologic instability and intensive logging 

 and road building and subsequent failure of those roads primarily 

 in flooding events. 



The estuaries are filled in. These are critical habitats for juvenile 

 Chinook salmon, and there are also habitats for marine fish larvae, 

 and the impact of estuaries being filled on the productivity of 

 marine resources is completely unstudied. 



Tributaries to these rivers which were once narrow and tree- 

 lined cold, healthy ecosystems are now wide and open because they 

 have harbored debris flows from upstream cumulative impacts. 

 And with the warmer water temperatures that come into these 

 tributaries, we get temperatures of 75 degrees in the Klamath in 



