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Outside Magazine August 2003

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The Water Issue: Fueds
River Impossible (Cont.)

TRIBAL RIGHTS (AND WRONGS)
"MYTH NUMBER ONE is the meth-lab theory," says Mike Belchik, the 38-year-old senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok tribe, as he works on a plate of hash browns. Breakfast in the Klamath Basin means eggs and PowerPoint displays, and in this café in Willow Creek, south of the Klamath's confluence with the Trinity, Belchik is the first of many to flip open his laptop and walk me through the issues. He dismisses the meth labs out of hand—there was no trace of toxins in the water or the dead fish, and only adult fish, the least vulnerable to poisoning, died.

"Myth number two," he continues, "is that they died because it was an unusually large run with high water temperature. Nope." Temperature was normal; so was the run, the eighth-largest in 20 years.

Belchik runs through data sets on river temperatures, 3-D schematics of Klamath canyons, and nauseating photos of dead salmon, with close-up shots of blood-red gills decaying into tangled gray masses. He walked the banks of the Klamath during the worst of it, and he doesn't buy the charge from some Upper Klamath farmers that massive fish kills have long been a natural phenomenon. Yurok elders have examined generations of tribal legend and art without discovering a single reference to huge Klamath die-offs.

The tribes on the river have long argued that the salmon and suckers need more water, and they've been in court for years trying to force the Bureau of Reclamation to increase minimum river flows and lake levels. The arcana of these flow levels have become the very center of this heated dispute, as advocates attack each other's acceptable flow-rate figures with gusto. One federal biologist, Michael Kelly, who was studying stream flows for the National Marine Fisheries Service, filed for whistle-blower protection in 2002, alleging that his flow recommendations had been altered under pressure from Washington. (His request for an investigation was later denied, for lack of evidence.)

With its own Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Reclamation at odds over flows, Interior finally summoned a panel from the National Academy of Sciences, a private advisory body, to referee the claims. In February 2002, the panel rejected the requests for increased flows, saying there was "no substantial scientific evidence" that the fish needed them.

"They just blew it," Belchik fumes. "The science is judged on whether it allows agriculture to happen at status quo levels. It turns the burden of proof on its head."

Like the Hoopa and Karuk, farther upstream, the Yurok once had a complex trading economy built around salmon. Now, with no roads, few telephones, and less electricity, they don't own much except the right to fish. They don't have casinos, and the best timber land was sold off long ago.

The Hoopa aren't faring much better. After breakfast, Belchik and I drive two dozen winding miles to their reservation, which sits at the junction of the Trinity and the Klamath. We ditch our car in front of a new tribal office and jump into a six-wheeled pickup with Barry McCovey Jr., 24, a Yurok-Karuk wearing the baggy jeans and fat grin of a skateboarder.

"We're salmon people," McCovey says, steering the truck along a sinuous road that traces the Klamath canyon. "But no one makes a living from salmon anymore." He's a rare exception: A fisheries technician, he works with Belchik monitoring the river.

Belchik chimes in from the backseat. "It ends up that whole empire up there was built on the backs of people down here," he says. "We get nada. Ditka. Bupkes."

After the kill, the tribes cut back on the number of fish they took. Coho are declining—listed as threatened in 1997—but chinook are slowly recovering. The tribes have a combined quota for chinook, which are also known as king salmon. But since the salmon runs' low point, in the polluted days of the 1970s, fishing hasn't been reliable enough for anyone to invest in a cannery, and tribal fishermen get as little as 60 cents a pound from wholesale buyers. Some prefer to just toss a few kings on ice, drive down to Eureka, California, and sell them by the roadside for $20 apiece.

At river mile 34, we pull over at a broad bend, where standing haystack waves decorate the green river. It's a beautiful spot, but the water is less than ideal. Already naturally rich in nutrients, the Klamath is drained, heated up, and polluted by farming and logging. The resulting algal blooms cause "swimmer's itch," a rash that plagues kayakers and rafters and depresses the recreational economy—yet another renewable resource that could benefit the tribes if only the politics around here were different.

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