Long Range Plan For The Klamath River Basin Conservation Area Fishery Restoration Program Prepared by the Klamath River Basin Fisheries Task Force with assistance from William M. Kier Associates January 1991 Cover: Mouth of the Klamath River at Requa, California LONG RANGE PLAN FOR THE KLAMATH RIVER BASIN CONSERVATION AREA FISHERY RESTORATION PROGRAM PREPARED BY THE KLAMATH RIVER BASIN FISHERIES TASK FORCE WITH ASSISTANCE FROM William M. Kier Associates January 1991 KLAMATH RIVER BASIN FISHERIES TASK FORCE 1991 MEMBERSHIP MEMBER REPRESENTING Nathaniel Bingham Commercial Salmon Fishing Industry Don DeVol Del Norte County Mitch Farro Humboldt County E.G. Fullerton National Marine Fisheries Service Leaf Hillman Karuk Tribe Barbara Holder U.S. Department of Agriculture Walter Lara, Jr. Yurok Tribe Melvyn W. Odemar California Department of Fish and Game Michael Orcutt Hoopa Indian Tribe William F. Shake - Chair U.S. Department of the Interior Dr. H. D. Sumner In-River Sport Fishing Community George Thackeray Siskiyou County Arnold Whitridge Trinity County Keith Wilkinson Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE KLAMATH RIVER FISHERY RESOURCE OFFICE Ron Iverson, Ph.D. Project Leader Doug Alcorn Senior Scientist Tricia Whitehouse Interpretive Specialist Lila Coburn Cooperative Agreements Specialist Harleigh Calame Clerk WILLIAM M. KIER ASSOCIATES William M. Kier Project Director Sub-contractors Sari Sommarstrom, Ph.D. Resource Planner Patrick Higgins Fisheries Scientist Scott Downie Stream Restoration Specialist Andrew Kier Fisheries Habitat Specialist Philip A. Meyer Resource Economist Terrance Brown Tribal Resource Specialist For copies of this plan or for additional information, contact: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Klamath River Fishery Resource Office P.O. Box 1006 Yreka, California 96097 Phone: (916) 842-5763 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE KLAMATH ACT Public Law 99-552, the "Klamath Act," was adopted by the Congress on October 27, 1986 for the purpose of authorizing a 20-year-long Federal-State cooperative Klamath River Basin Conservation Area Restoration Program for the rebuilding of the river's fish resources. Congress observed correctly that "floods, the construction and operation of dams, diversions and hydroelectric projects, past mining, timber harvest practices, and roadbuilding have all contributed to sedimentation, reduced flows, and degraded water quality which has significantly reduced the anadromous fish habitat in the Klamath-Trinity River system." The Act creates a 14-member Klamath River Basin Fisheries Task Force and directs the U.S. Secretary of Interior to cooperate with the Task Force in the creation and implementation of a "Klamath River Basin Conservation Area Fishery Restoration Program." The Task Force members are appointed by, and represent, the Governors of California and Oregon; the U.S. Secretaries of Interior, Commerce and Agriculture; the California counties of Del Norte, Humboldt, Siskiyou and Trinity; Hoopa Valley, Karuk and Yurok Indian tribal fishers; anglers and commercial fishermen. The Act also creates an 11-member Klamath Fishery Management Council to "establish a comprehensive long-term plan and policy ... for the management of the in- river and ocean harvesting that affects or may affect Klamath and Trinity River basin anadromous fish populations." The Council is comprised of essentially the same interests as the Task Force, except for those four Basin counties which hold seats only on the Task Force. CALIFORNIA'S NEW ANADROMOUS FISHERIES PROGRAM Like Congress, the California Legislature has recently expressed its concern over the continued decline of the state's native salmon, steelhead and other anadromous fish resources. In a 1988 urgency act, Senate Bill 2261, the Legislature directed the Department of Fish and Game to draw up basin-by-basin plans for the conservation and restoration of the state's remaining anadromous fish. The long-range plan presented here is intended to fulfill the planning requirements, for the Klamath River Basin, of the new statewide anadromous fisheries program. ANADROMOUS FISH OF THE KLAMATH RIVER BASIN ARE VALUABLE The Klamath Act declares that the Basin's streams "provide fishery resources necessary for Indian subsistence and ceremonial purposes, ocean commercial harvest, recreational fishing, and the economic health of many local communities." The proof of this statement is the substantial reliance on Klamath River fish and fishing by the Hoopa Valley, Karuk and Yurok Indian tribes, commercial salmon fishermen from both California and Oregon, and the visitors and fishermen-serving businesses throughout the vast Klamath region. A financial analysis of the prospective Restoration Program was performed as part of this long-range plan. The analysis, which appears as an appendix to the plan, was based on values recently developed by the State of California's Advisory Committee on Salmon and Steelhead. Those same values provided the economic basis of the State's new SB-2261 fisheries program. Both the financial analysis and the earlier Advisory Committee economic study point up one characteristic of fishery restoration efforts that is especially important to rural areas of underemployment like northwestern California and southern Oregon: fishing brings new money into such areas and that money remains in the region, moving from fishermen to small businesses to their workers, longer than for most resource- based activities. Even modest improvements to fish populations during the early stages of the Klamath Restoration Program will bring significant benefits to the very communities for which Congress expressed its concern. THIS PLAN AND THE ONE BEFORE IT The U.S. Department of Interior completed a "Klamath River Basin Fisheries Resource Plan" in 1985. It was that plan that Congress had before it when it discussed the proposal that became the Klamath Act. The 1985 plan covered the entire California portion of the Klamath River watershed, including its main tributary, the Trinity River. Recognizing that the Trinity River Fish and Wildlife Management Program was well- launched, Congress deleted Trinity restoration from the proposed Klamath Task Force's duties. When it was organized in July, 1987, the Klamath Task Force recognized the need to update the information presented in the 1985 plan and, considering the deletion of the Trinity, to review the earlier plan's restoration approach. This long-range plan is the result of that review. HOW THIS PLAN WAS DEVELOPED Public involvement was emphasized in the development of this plan. The Task Force held public "scoping" meetings in Eureka and Yreka, California, and Klamath Falls, Oregon attended by more than 200 interested citizens who came forward to share some 700 suggestions, expressions of concern, need and so forth. Copies of a draft plan were mailed in June, 1990 to 100 State, Federal, and local government agencies and public interest groups for their review and comment. Copies of the draft were placed, as well, in 30 libraries and other public places in California and Oregon, and public meetings to review the draft were held in a half-dozen communities throughout the Basin in late summer, 1990. Other anadromous fishery restoration programs in Canada, Washington, Oregon and elsewhere in California were reviewed in a search for good models of science, management and public participation. With the help of an inventory of fishery and stream restoration projects undertaken in the Klamath Basin in recent decades prepared by the Task Force's team of technical advisors, the planning team made field inspections of nearly 400 instream work sites involving fishways, barrier removals, bank stabilization, log and boulder weirs, spawning channels, and fish rearing facilities. Throughout the planning process emphasis was given to writing, discussing and refining clear statements of the Task Force's goals, objectives, and policies for the Restoration Program. The goals are presented in the plan's opening chapter; the objectives, policies and, in some instances, project priorities, are presented at the end of each principal chapter discussion (for example, Chapter 3, Habitat Restoration); and, finally, all are gathered into a "step-down" structure in which they may be maintained, amended and easily updated. The step-down structure is found at the end of the concluding chapter. THE DIRECTIONS THIS PLAN TAKES This long-range plan for the Klamath Restoration Program not only updates the 1985 plan, it virtually replaces it by redirecting its principal thrusts. Overall, this plan: Emphasizes the need for both fish habitat protection and fish habitat restoration from a total watershed, not simply an in stream, perspective. Recognizes that instream structural treatments (which are a major feature of the 1985 plan) improve fish habitat in specific, necessarily limited ways, and that they are not a cure-all for the underlying causes of fish habitat degradation. Recognizes that the success of the Restoration Program will depend largely on the ability to the Task Force to secure the support and good will of the Basin's landowners and water users. Stresses the importance of education and public information in promoting public understanding of, and sustained support for, the Restoration Program. Calls for ongoing assessments of stream habitat and fish populations necessary to gauge the Program's effectiveness and to make timely adjustments in its investment priorities. Argues that each distinct population group of