The balancing act is crucial but the needs of people always have to be given a priority, and in the case where water is limited, but the creation of new water storage is an option to provide more water, that should be the long range plan rather than continued restrictions on existing water.
Report backs more water for Klamath
Greater releases are needed for salmon, council says.
By David Whitney - dwhitney@mcclatchydc.com
Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, November 29, 2007
WASHINGTON – A National Research Council report Wednesday supported more water being released down the Klamath River to protect salmon runs, siding with authors of a 2006study that critics said the Bush administration tried to suppress.
Environmentalists hailed the report as "a major victory."
"The science that fish need water is becoming clearer than some people believe," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
But the research council report also found fault with two recent Klamath River scientific studies, including the one from 2006, saying they examine in detail portions of the complex river system but miss the complete picture of why it's in such crisis.
"Science is being done in bits and pieces," said University of South Carolina geography professor William L. Graf, chairman of the 13-member review committee.
The Klamath, once the third most productive salmon river on the West Coast, in recent dry years has been a battleground over water and the Endangered Species Act, pitting farmers relying on irrigation in the upper basin in Southern Oregon against salmon fishermen enduring economic hardship because of disastrous runs.
