Water Diversions
Although it was highly altered as a result of the Gold Rush and white settlement, the Scott River watershed retained healthy populations of Spring and Fall Chinook Salmon, Coho Salmon, Steelhead Trout, and Pacific Lamprey through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1970s, however, unregulated groundwater pumping, a switch to more water intensive crops, poor forest and road management upslope and the lack of enforcement of the laws pertaining to surface water diversions have progressively dewatered the Scott River and many tributaries and loaded the River with fine sediment filling deep pools where salmon hold and burying spawning gravel beneath find sand.
The impact of progressive dewatering and sedimentation has been dramatic. Spring Chinook were extirpated in the 1970s; only a few strays are occasionally seen these days. Coho have been on the ropes since the 1980s; currently only one year in three sees adult Coho returning to the Scott River in sufficient numbers to maintain genetic diversity. In most years, fewer than 200 adult Coho now return to the Scott River to spawn.
Fall Chinook Salmon have also declined with the dewatering of the River and key spawning tributaries. The double whammy of poor ocean conditions and loss of wet habitat has decimated Fall Chinook. Now, even in years of average precipitation, Fall Chinook returning to Scott River to spawn are delayed near the River’s mouth due to low flows. Download the DFG Report. In dry years, flows are so low that Scott River Fall Chinook are often unable to reach prime spawning areas in Shakleford Creek and throughout the Scott Valley.
Over the past 25 years an estimated $30 million has been spent in the Scott River Basin to restore salmon and watershed health. Yet, salmon, stream flows and water quality have continued to decline. Restoration funds have often been used to benefit landowners at the expense of fish or for projects that sound good but do not address the key factors limiting salmon production and survival in this river basin.
As Aldo Leopold pointed out in the Sand County Almanac, if the task is restoration then the first action must be to stop doing harm. In the Scott River Basin – as in most places on Earth – human societies have yet to learn that lesson. Government funded restoration has too often become political pork used to mask or at best partially mitigate the ongoing damage that humans are doing to the land and the waters. Until we stop doing harm by dewatering Scott River and tributaries, salmon and watershed restoration will not occur and we will continue to lose significant portions of our heritage including the magnificent salmon.
Visit our KlamBlog for entries and PowerPoint presentations from KlamBlog which focus on dewatering and other management practices which are progressively degrading and destroying the Scott River. You can also learn about conditions on Scott River and throughout the Klamath River Basin on the Klamath Riverkeeper website or at the Klamath Basin Tribal Water Quality Work Group.
KFA is working alone and with partners to challenge and reverse the dewatering of Scott River and to end upslope forest management practices which warm the water and deliver excessive fine sediment to tributaries and the River. These are the key impediments to restoration which must be removed in order for Scott River salmon to survive and recover and for the Scott River to once again be a healthy and properly functioning stream.