71 



A I / (American Fisheries 0( 



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F 



OCIETY 

 HUMBOLDT CHAPTER 



P.O. Box 210. Areata, CA 95S21 



March 1, 1993 



Honorable Gerry E. Studds 



Chairman, Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee 



U.S. House of Representatives 



Room 1334, Loncfworth House Office Building 



Washington D.C. 20515-6230 



Dear Mr. Studds, 



It is an honor and a privilege to address your committee on 

 the status of Pacific salmon stocks in northwestern California and 

 how taking an ecosystem approach to river management might help to 

 restore them. My comments are offered as those of the Humboldt 

 Chapter of the American Fisheries Society for which I served as 

 principal author of Factors Threatening Northern California Stocks 

 With Extinction (Higgins et al. 1992). This work characterized the 

 risk of stock extinctions of Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead 

 and coastal cutthroat trout in rivers from the Russian River north 

 to the Oregon border, including the Klamath and Trinity Rivers and 

 their tributaries. I also rely on my experience as a consulting 

 fisheries biologist in helping to write the Long Range Plan for the 

 Klamath River Basin Fisheries Conservation Area (USFWS 1991) . This 

 plan takes a watershed approach to preserving biodiversity and 

 guides your $40 million, twenty year effort to restore anadromous 

 fisheries to that river (Higgins and Kier 1992) . I will offer 

 comments only on river systems for which I have direct knowledge. 

 The text will be in response questions that I received in 

 preparation for my testimony on March 9, 1993 before your 

 committee. 



1) What is your assessment of the condition of the river systems in 

 the Pacific Northwest under the present management regime? 



In my work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (1991) on 

 the Klamath River, I characterized it as "severely ecologically 

 stressed." The lower river has been filled in by 20-30 feet of 

 sediment, flows have been reduced by dams which decreases the 

 river's ability to flush itself, and river temperatures in late 

 summer exceed 75 degree F. The source of the river in southern 

 Oregon is Upper Klamath Lake which has deteriorated to the point 

 that it has experienced massive fish kills and some of its endemic 

 fish fauna are going extinct. The South Fork of the Trinity River 

 is the largest Wild and Scenic River basin in California without a 

 dam, yet it is in a similar condition to the Klamath. Chronic 

 problems with high sediment delivery keep riparian zones from 

 recovering, inhibit production of invertebrates which reduces 

 available food for juvenile salmonids, and result in unstable 

 spawning gravels. Maximum summer water temperatures in the lower 

 South Fork Trinity in 1991 reached 81 degrees F, which is lethal 

 for salmonids. 



