Klamath River

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Klamath River in the high desert country of Northern California

Klamath River and tributaries

The Klamath River, approximately 250 mi (400 km) long, is a major river of the Pacific coast in southern Oregon and northern California in the United States. It drains an arid farming valley in its upper reaches, passing swiftly through the mountains in its lower reaches before emptying into the ocean. It is one of only three rivers that pass through the Cascade Range (the others being the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington, and the Pit River in California), and one of the longest rivers in California.

1 Description
2 History
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Description

It issues from the southern end of Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon just above the town of Klamath Falls. It flows roughly southwestward into northern California, passing through the Klamath Mountains and along the southern side of the Siskiyou Mountains. It enters the Pacific at Klamath in Southwestern Del Norte County, approximately 20 mi (32 km) SSE of Crescent City.

The watershed of the river above Upper Klamath Lake is fed primarily by the Williamson River and its tributaries, including the Sprague River, which stretch into south central Oregon west of the Cascades. In California, it receives the Shasta River from the south approximately 10 mi (16 km) south of Yreka, the Scott River from the south in central Siskiyou County, and the Salmon River from the east along the border between Siskiyou and Humboldt counties, and the Trinity River from the south at Weitchpec in northern Humboldt County.

Below Klamath Falls, the water of the river, along with that of the nearby Lost River, is extensively diverted for irrigation within the 230,000 acre (930 km²) federal Klamath Reclamation Project. Much of the lower course of the river in California is within the Klamath National Forest. The lower course of the river in northern Humboldt passes through the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, the Karuk Tribe and the Yurok Indian Reservation.

[edit] History

The name of the river comes from a Native American word klamet meaning "swiftness". It provided a significant passage for the nearby Native American tribes to pass through the Cascades. Archeological evidence in the valley suggests it has been inhabited for at least 7,000 years. The river and its fish are considered sacred by resident Native American tribes, which include the Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk tribes, as well a confederation of the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin people known as The Klamath Tribes. The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum in Berkeley, California contains a collection of carvings from some of the tribes in this region.

An 11-mile section of the river in Oregon south of Klamath Falls to the California-Oregon border, including the Hell's Corner Gorge, has been designated as the Klamath Wild and Scenic River.

The river is considered a prime habitat for king salmon AKA Chinook salmon, Coho salmon AKA silver salmon, steelhead trout, and rainbow trout. Once the third-largest producer of salmon on the West Coast, the river has produced only a fraction of its historic runs since the construction of six dams built between 1908 and 1962. The possible removal of the dams has been a controversial issue in the region in recent years. Despite intense lobbying by local Native American tribes, conservationists, and fishermen, the 2004 renewal application by PacifiCorp for another 50-year federal operating licence for the dams did not include any provisions for allowing salmon to return to over 300 miles of former habitat above the dams.

A separate controversy on the river surrounds the removal of water from Upper Klamath Lake for irrigated agriculture, which was temporarily halted in 2001 to protect endangered salmon and lake fish during a record-breaking drought. The federal government, under Interior Secretary Gale Norton, reversed this decision in 2002, and provided full water deliveries to irrigators as the drought continued. This is despite the fact that Klamath area tribes have treaty rights that predate the settlement of the farmers. Norton argued for a "free market" approach by allowing farmers to sell the water to the Native Americans downstream. According to biologists from the state of California and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the resulting low flows in the river sparked a massive kill of over 68,000 salmon in September 2002, who died before they could reproduce.

In the 1960s, a project was proposed that would erect a dam twelve miles from the mouth of the river, creating a reservoir which would be used to divert water for consumption in Southern California. The dam was known as the Ah Pah Dam.