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Biologist disputes report blasting water deliveries
by Kehn Gibson, The Tri-County Courier, 4/30/03

A report issued by a California fisheries agency in January contains fatal flaws in its conclusion that low instream flows in the lower Klamath River led to the deaths of more than 33,000 salmon last fall, a fisheries biologist said Monday.

David Vogel said the flaws contained in the report are of such a degree as to call into question the motives of the agency involved, California’s Department of Fish and Game. Vogel added the errors were substantial enough to dismiss the report in its entirety.

"It is clearly a conclusion-driven document," Vogel said of the 63-page report issued by Fish and Game. "Fish and Game was determined to show that low instream flows killed those fish, and they went out and  proved it."

Vogel, who spent 14 years working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, said there were numerous errors contained in the report. Particularly egregious was Fish and Game’s misreading — and misreporting — of a river temperature gauge located in the vicinity of the fish die-off at river mile six, called the Terwer Gauge.

Fish and Game erroneously charted river temperatures from the Terwer Gauge four days before they actually occurred, Vogel said. The mistake resulted in peak high temperatures of the river being shown occurring on Sept. 16, two days before fish began dying.

According to the true reading of the Terwer Gauge, Vogel said, the peak high temperature occurred Sept. 20, the day after reports of salmon dying reached Fish and Game’s office in Eureka.

"If you plot the temperatures correctly, you see that the timing of the fish die off coincides with the peak temperatures," Vogel said. "The report doesn’t say that."

In fact, Fish and Game’s report says the opposite.

"Therefore, water temperatures in and of themselves, were not the factor causing the 2002 fish kill," the report states.

Mark Stopher, a habitat conservation program manager for Fish and Game and the designated point man for the agency’s report, said he did not know how the Terwer gauge came to be misreported.

After noting that the title of the report contained the word "preliminary," Stopher was asked how the mistake happened.

"I don’t know the answer to that," Stopher said. "If we did do that it’s another reason to wait for a final report."

Vogel appeared to be stymied by Stopher’s response.

"Fish and Game still has that report on the front page of their website, and they immediately handed out copies to the media," Vogel said Monday. "The way Fish and Game did it was so conclusionary, it suggested a certain finality to it."

A lesser point, but one worth considering, Vogel said, was Fish and Game’s use of the phrase "fish kill" in the report.

In an earlier incident in the summer of 2002 more than 3,000 spring run Chinook salmon died in Butte Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River.

Although spring run Chinook are listed as a threatened species, Fish and Game cited the cause of the salmon demise as "natural conditions," Vogel said, and reported the incident as a fish "die off."

The report on the Klamath incident was immediately called a "fish kill," and less than 20 of the more than 30,000 dead fish were the threatened Coho salmon.

Most of the dead fish were fall run Chinook salmon that were destined for the Trinity River, a major tributary that joins the Klamath River 40 miles from its mouth, approximately 24 miles upstream of the fish die off.

Historically, the Trinity River contributed 25 percent of the Klamath River, and is much colder water than that coming from the shallow lakes and marshes of the upper Klamath Basin, yet the Fish and Game report does not even mention the lack of Trinity River water.

"It’s not clear to us that Trinity water would have helped," Stopher said.

Further, Vogel said, Fish and Game relied on average monthly air temperatures to conclude it their report that "...no evidence that unusually high temperatures in 2002 were a factor in the fish kill."

"Monthly averages would be appropriate if you were looking at a corresponding model," Vogel said. "When you are investigating a specific incident, like a fish die off, you would examine very discreet data. If you were looking at a model, say, of a 1,000-year period, maybe then monthly averages would be appropriate."

Stopher said Fish and Game now has access to data "we didn’t have before," and wished aloud that a working relationship could be developed with Vogel.

"If Mr. Vogel produces a technical report, the sooner the better from my perspective," Stopher said. "We haven’t done a good job at developing a dialogue."

Stopher’s response gave Vogel hope, the biologist said.

"Science on the lower Klamath has turned into environmental advocacy statements lately, and that’s divisive," Vogel said. "Science should be a step towards solution."

 

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Page Updated: Saturday February 25, 2012 05:22 AM  Pacific


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