80-100% of the trees in forest stands which had only been thinned ended up dying in the wildfire, compared to 5% mortality where trees had previously been thinned and burned.

Environmental groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a decision that spraying of pesticides into the nation's waters should no longer be regulated by the Clean Water Act.

Tearing out Pacificorp's dams on the Klamath River would be thriftier than keeping the hydropower project running for the next 30 years, ...according to a study prepared by the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

• Klamath Summit Delayed to Allow Parties to Negotiate

Hundreds of people turned out Thursday night [in Eureka] in a passionate display before federal regulators to tell them that the dams on the Klamath River should be torn down.

Klamath Tribes members strongly urged a federal panel Tuesday [in Klamath Falls] to restore Klamath River salmon runs. They wore T-shirts proclaiming "Bring the salmon home," and carried balloons and signs with the same message... "Please return those fish so we can be the people the creator intended us to be."

Federal legislation has designated more than a quarter of a million acres as wilderness in Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino and Napa Counties and designated 21 miles of the Black Butte River in Mendocino County as a wild and scenic river.

The California Department of Fish and Game is collecting comments in preparation for two "incidental take permits" which would allow for a certain number of coho casualties while water is diverted from Klamath River tributaries for irrigation.

The Karuk Tribe filed a report with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that outlines the economic benefits of dam removal for Siskiyou County:

• Preliminary Economic Assessment of Dam Removal: The Klamath River

A federal appeals court blocked two old-growth timber sales in southwestern Oregon after finding the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) illegally downgraded protections for the red tree vole to make them possible.

• Court Halts 2 Old-Growth Timber Sales

Regina Chichizola, executive director of the Klamath Riverkeeper, and members of a coalition of Indian Tribes, commercial fishing groups, and recreational fishermen converged in Sacramento on October 25 to urge the State Water Resources Board to clean up the Klamath.

A Klamath River tribe asked state water quality regulators on Wednesday to set limits on the toxic algae that blooms every summer in the river's reservoirs.

Also on the Klamath:

• State Says Klamath Smothered in Sediment
• Governors Call For Klamath Summit
• Klamath Dam Reports Conflict

"From an ecological perspective, it is better to harvest living trees from an intact forest than to remove dead trees from an intensely burned site," [University of Washington forest resources professor Jerry F. Franklin, an old-growth expert].

River News, River Views and River Stories from our National Wild & Scenic Eel River. Articles include:

• Stopping Global Warming and Saving the Eel River
• Citizens Monitoring the Eel
• Impressions of the Eel River
• The Van Duzen Water Plan
• Letter from SCWA to Santa Rosa
• Photo Tour of the Eastern Rim of the Eel Headwaters
  and much more...

By breeding fish over and over in hatcheries, "we've essentially created a fish version of white lab mice," said Michael Blouin, an associate professor of zoology at Oregon State. "They are well adapted to life in the hatchery but do not perpetuate themselves in a wild environment as successfully as native-born fish."

Each of the diverse groups that relies on the Klamath has its own solutions. The farmers say the federal government should do a better job of managing water... The Indian tribes say the farmers should use less water. The environmentalists say the dams should be torn out. The dams' owner says that won't do any good. The fishermen want to ramp up hatchery production...

Just after federal regulators proposed only minor changes for a Klamath River hydroelectric project, the California Coastal Conservancy filed a report that suggests it would be safe and relatively inexpensive to take down the four dams altogether.

Members of the Modoc Point Irrigation District voted to remove the structure, which blocks passage of endangered Lost River and short-nosed suckers up the Sprague River... BIA officials who studied the dam considered upgrading fish ladders to help endangered fish species. However, they decided removing the dam was the most efficient plan.

Despite what some experts consider an iron clad case for the removal of PacifiCorp's Klamath dams, today the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a draft environmental impact statement that recommends only modest changes to current dam operations.

Reversing the Bush Administration's efforts to undo protections for roadless national forests, federal Judge Elizabeth LaPorte ruled that the original 2001 Roadless Rule was illegally abandoned by officials appointed by Bush. The court ordered the Bush rule withdrawn and the 2001 rule reinstated.

Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its proposal to significantly reduce the amount of protected habitat for marbled murrelets in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California. The new proposal would protect only 221,692 acres, an almost 95% reduction from the current 3.9 million acres originally protected for this shy, robin-sized seabird.

The Bush administration has declared itself immune from whistleblower protections for federal workers under the Clean Water Act... federal workers will have little protection from official retaliation for reporting water pollution enforcement breakdowns, manipulations of science or cleanup failures.

Today we have a massive, incredibly expensive, military-style forest firefighting regime with no-bid contractors, air and ground attack components, private mercenaries and a centralized command structure which views local and traditional knowledge and concerns as public relations issues to be managed, not honored.

A record bloom of toxic algae in Klamath River reservoirs prompted health warnings from state and federal officials. Concentrations of the algae are so great that even breathing vapors caused by water skiing could cause illness, officials said, and swallowing even a few ounces of lake water could bring effects as severe as organ failure.

The Bush administration has illegally denied the public a chance to comment before approving the logging of woodlands damaged by fires or infestations, a federal appeals court ruled.

The Klamath National Forest is pushing forward with the Knob logging sale, which would destroy nearly 600 acres of ancient forest that provides critical habitat for... Northern spotted owl, Northern goshawk, fishers, martens, wild orchids, and rare salamanders. Logging would also dramatically increase the fire risk to the surrounding forest.

HR 4200 not only completely waives the National Environmental Policy Act and leaves roadless areas, old-growth forests, and other special areas unprotected, it also ignores important scientific research, threatens endangered species habitat, and could actually increase the risk of wildfire.

Portland, OR - For the past several years, Klamath Basin Tribes have appealed to PacifiCorp to remove their Klamath River dams. ... Now under new management, the company is starting to listen.

Several Indian tribes from the Oregon-California border marched through Portland Wednesday to call for the demolition of four dams along the Klamath River. ...contrary to the outcome of many such marches, they got more than the usual brush-off from authorities.

Also: Klamath Tribes and Supporters Want Klamath Dams Removed

Tim McKay, the executive director of the Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC) for virtually its entire 35-year existence, died at Stone Lagoon of an apparently massive heart attack on Sunday, July 30, while he was engaged in one of his favorite activities: birding.

New issue of ECONEWS.
Articles include:

• State Coho Protection Sticks
• Roadless Sell-Out Begins
• Levees Under Stress
• Supreme Court Waffles On Wetlands

Our leaders must stop defending Pacifi-Corp, a company that kills our fish and sends its profits outside the region. Instead, local politicians should be fighting for fisheries restoration and the economic benefits restoration brings. It is time for local elected officials to lead the charge to remove the dams to benefit our economy and our standard of living.

Biologists are seeing few young Chinook salmon on the Klamath River and its tributaries this year, and already some of them are falling sick, possibly with diseases that have killed hundreds of thousands of fish in recent years.

Five environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday, challenging its decision not to extend Endangered Species Act protection to a pair of north state amphibians.

In May the Mendocino County Grand Jury released an unrealistic, naive and rather dumb analysis of inland Mendocino County's water situation.

Humboldt Baykeeper and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) filed suit in federal court today. They are asking the court to order Simpson Timber Company and Preston Properties to clean up toxic contamination at the old Simpson Plywood mill, currently the site of Flea Mart by the Bay, on Del Norte Street in Eureka.

North Coast Water Network
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