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ENVIRONMENT REPORT - Chinook Salmon Deaths
By Cynthia Kirk
Broadcast: October 25, 2002
This is the VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT
REPORT.
American officials say at least twenty-thousand
chinook salmon and other fish have died recently in the Klamath River
in Northern California. Scientists are not sure what caused the die-off.
But environmental groups say the Bush administration's plan to redirect
the flow of the river to provide water for crops may have caused water
levels to drop too low.
The Klamath River starts at Upper Klamath Lake
in southern Oregon and flows into Northern California. Then the river
flows west into the Pacific Ocean. Water management of the Klamath River
has been a major dispute between farmers on one side and fishermen,
environmental groups and several Native American tribes on the other
side.
Six months ago, the Bush administration approved
a plan to provide large amounts of water to farmers near the Klamath
River for irrigation. Farmers depend on water from the upper Klamath
Lake to irrigate more than eighty-thousand hectares of land. Administration
officials said the plan would satisfy farmers and honor environmental
laws. But opponents of the plan said it would severely harm the river
and its fish.
Several fishing groups and others have taken
legal action against the federal government. They said the Bush administration
gave too much water to farmers for irrigation at the risk of thousands
of salmon. Some of the salmon, such as coho, are protected under the
Endangered Species Act. However, chinook salmon do not have federal
protection. Chinook were the main victims of the recent fish kill.
Scientists disagree about what caused the fish
to die. Tests showed that most of the fish died of lack of oxygen due
to infections that damaged their gills. Scientists say the organisms
that caused the infection are common in the river. But rarely have the
organisms led to so many deaths.
Some scientists say warm and dry weather last
month and low water flows in the Klamath River could be major reasons
for the deaths. They say the river is too low for fish to move upstream
to mate. They say the fish are dying of disease because they are crowded
into small areas of water.
Biologists have called for more water to be
released into the river for at least six months. But so far, federal
officials have agreed only to two weeks of additional water flows.
This VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT REPORT
was written by Cynthia Kirk.
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