Posted on July 22, 2024
[Thursday], the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience program announced that it is recommending $18 million in funding for a Yurok Tribe-led project to restore critically important segments of multiple upper Klamath River tributaries following the removal of four dams.
“This collaborative project seeks to complement and significantly expand upon ongoing work to rebuild Klamath salmon stocks post dam removal,” said Frankie Myers, the Vice Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “We have always said that large-scale restoration needs to accompany dam removal to bring our fish runs back from the brink. We sincerely thank NOAA for proposing this pivotal investment in the Klamath Basin.”
If funded, the four-year project will create approximately 150 acres of prime fish and wildlife habitat in up to five heavily altered cold-water tributaries between Jenny Creek in California and Spencer Creek in Oregon. The Klamath tributaries slated for restoration once sustained substantial salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey populations prior to the dams. Special attention will be paid to Shovel Creek because it historically supported the largest quantity of these culturally and ecologically invaluable fish species.
The Yurok Tribe’s Fisheries Department will work closely with project partners to plan and design the project, which will be comprised of the following components: fish passage improvements, floodplain reconnection, side channel construction and the creation of a more diverse stream environment. The project will also make the streams more resilient to prolonged drought resulting from climate change.
Over the last century, human activities, such as cattle ranching and logging, severely degraded the tributaries that flowed into the 64-mile-long stretch of the Klamath between the Iron Gate and Link River Dams. During the same period, the dams prevented salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey from reaching key spawning and rearing streams in the upper Klamath Basin.
Largely attributed to the dams and habitat loss, the Klamath’s spring and fall Chinook salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey runs have declined by more than 90 percent since the installation of Copco No. 1 in the early 1900s. The Klamath is the third largest salmon-bearing river on the West Coast.
“Through dam removal, wise water management, and holistic habitat restoration, we are confident that fish runs will recover,” said Yurok Fisheries Department Director Barry McCovey Jr. “This project is about healing the Klamath River ecosystem, but it will also help to strengthen existing relationships and build new collaborations throughout the basin.”
The Yurok Fisheries Department will collaborate with Upper Klamath Basin tribes and two conservation organizations in the design and implementation aspects of the project. The primary partners include Yurok Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Modoc Nation, Shasta Indian Nation, Klamath Tribes of Oregon, Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group and Trout Unlimited. The Yurok Tribe would like to acknowledge and express appreciation for the opportunity to work on the ancestral lands of the Shasta Indian Nation, Modoc Nation and Klamath Tribes of Oregon.
This project is separate from the stream restoration work that the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the entity in charge of removal, is overseeing in conjunction with dam removal.
Over the last 30 years, the Yurok Fisheries Department has successfully restored lengthy stretches of the Klamath River, the Trinity River, the Sacramento River and several smaller streams throughout the region. The department incorporates a highly effective blend of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the best available Western science into all its projects.
The Fisheries Department competed with entities from across the U.S. for the recommendation from NOAA’s Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience program. The federal program is supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.
With nearly 100 employees, the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department is comprised of the following six major programs: Harvest Management Program (engages in all aspects of fishery harvest management and monitors the Yurok fishery); Lower Klamath Program (conducts research, monitoring, and restoration of fisheries resources in the Lower Klamath River Sub-basin); Trinity River Program (conducts research, monitoring, and restoration of Trinity River fishery resources); Klamath River Program (conducts research and monitoring throughout the watershed with a focus on informing water management and policy); Technical Services Program (provides data collection and analyses, designs and implements large scale restoration projects throughout the region); Water Policy Program (provides analyses and information to Tribal leadership regarding all aspects of Klamath Basin water policy and water management issues).
The Yurok Fisheries Department employs more biologists than any other agency in California aside from the state department of fish and wildlife.
