113 



PACIFIC 



WATERSHED 

 ASSOCIATES 



March 8, 1993 



Honorable Bruce Vento, Chairman 



National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Sub-Committee 



House Natural Resources Committee 



Rayburn Building, Office 2304 



Washington, D.C. 20515 



Dear Mr. Vento, 



It is an honor and a privilege to be able to address the sub- 

 committee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands. I am a 

 consulting fisheries biologist with a specialty in salmon and 

 steelhead restoration. My current project is to develop a 

 restoration action plan for the South Fork Trinity River, as part 

 of the Trinity River Restoration Program. I am a contributing 

 author of the plan which guides the 20 year, $40 million federal 

 program to restore salmon and steelhead to the Klamath River (USFWS 

 1991) . As a member of the Humboldt Chapter of the American 

 Fisheries Society, I served as the principal author of a white 

 paper dealing with stocks of Pacific salmon in northwestern 

 California that are at risk of extinction (Higgins et al. 1992). I 

 will try to provide insight in my testimony as to how the U.S. 

 Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management can prevent loss of 

 salmon and steelhead stocks in northwestern California by embarking 

 on an ambitious watershed restoration program. 



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

 characterized the Klamath River as "severely ecologically 

 stressed." Pools in the lower river have been filled in by 20-30 

 feet of sediment. The loss of cold water layers, which once existed 

 in the depths of pools, now deprives salmon and steelhead of 

 critical refuge areas as river temperatures rise to above 75 degree 

 F in late summer. The estuary of the Klamath River has also been 

 filled in resulting in loss of important rearing habitat for young 

 Chinook salmon. 



All other major river systems in our area, with the exception 

 of the Smith River, have similar problems to those described above. 

 Sedimentation has occurred as a result of extremely unstable 

 geologic conditions and intense rainfall coupled with disturbances 

 related to timber harvest. Road failures during major storm events 

 trigger mass wasting which contributes the bulk of sediment to 

 stream channels. While management of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau 

 of Land Management timber lands has improved in recent years, 

 pressure to "get out the cut" to produce revenue has fragmented the 

 forest in most watersheds and elevated erosion risk. Clear cut 

 logging on private timber land in northwestern California continues 

 on steep, unstable slopes, setting the stage for catastrophic soil 

 loss in the event of another major storm. Active and abandoned 

 logging roads on public and private land total over 10,000 miles in 

 our region alone. 



Ct^morphic Studies- Erosion & SedimenMrion Processes. Wildl.ind Hvdritliitiv* EfOMOn Conlrol 



PO Box 4433- Areata. Cdlitornia- 95521- 707-839-5130 



