Tuesday, March 26th 2024 was a long and contentious day at the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors (‘BOS’) meeting. This board meeting followed the March 5th, Siskiyou County Health Department advisory warning that people should not enter the Klamath River or drink the water.
Activists favoring dam removal seem to be hypnotically willing to look past any and all unintended adverse impacts that have unfolded and are further unfolding.
Just the day before the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors meeting, an adult beaver was found dead 4-miles below Iron Gate dam, adding to the huge and mounting death toll on native species aquatic and terrestrial animals as a result of the released polluted sediments from the Klamath Dams on January 23, 2024 by Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC).
On February 27, 2024, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) dumped 850,000 fall-run Chinook salmon fry into the Klamath River via its tributary Fall Creek, which is about 10-miles upriver from the Iron Gate Dam. A few days later, CDFW admitted all of those fish died. Many long-time residents on the Klamath River, including river guides believe those little fish all died due to extreme pollution resulting from the eroding clay sediments from the newly exposed lake bottoms of the former Copco and Iron Gate lakes. A study done in 2006 by Gethard Engineering Consultants of Seattle (‘GEC’) stated that the lake bed sediments in Copco and Iron Gate lakes are 78% clay. It’s important to note that clay is the smallest and stickiest of any sediment class making it impossible for aquatic life to exchange oxygen through their gills when a large amount is suspended into the water column such as what is happening on the Klamath river. The sticky clay suspended into the water column sticks to the gills of aquatic life, essentially suffocating them.
The BOS Meeting
Tuesday March 26, 2024 was a day that saw the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors standing strong for the health of the Klamath River as well as the health, safety and welfare of its constituents, especially those living on and around the Klamath River and the now drained lakes.
The online Zoom callers also lined-up to testify both against passing the Draft Resolution for a local emergency, and those in favor of the Resolution.
In addition to the full Board of County Supervisors being present, the board chamber was standing-room only, packed with Siskiyou County citizens.
Present were also representatives from, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (Mike Harris – PIO), Mark Bransom the CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (‘KRRC’) who gave testimony.
Also in attendance were numerous County staff members, including, Angela Davis, Chief Administrative Officer, Rick Dean the Director of the Community Development Department, James Smith the Agricultural Commissioner, Elizabeth Nielsen the Deputy County Administrator, Bryan Schenone the Director of OES, and Natalie Reed, County Counsel.
Emotional testimony was heard from residents who testified as having suffered insult to injury as a result of the unexpected and unintended consequences of Klamath River Renewal Corporation’s (‘KRRC’) dam removal project in addition to KRRC’s apparent lack of consideration, collaboration and transparency, according to testimony from several tearful citizens living on and around the now drained, sediment filled lakes and the Klamath River.
Throughout the proceeding, KRRC’s CEO Mark Bransom never offered an apology to the community for what has transpired, other than saying what has happened was “regrettable.”
Shockingly, Mark Brasom continued to deny that the lake bed sediments are polluted.
However, Bransom’s statement seems to be in total conflict with the detailed report on the lake bed sediment and water study by CDM Smith/Clearwater Sciences from 2009-2011. (See attached)
The CDM Smith report shows varied levels of several toxic heavy metals and other organic toxins, like Dioxin, DDT and PCBs, which are known to be forever chemicals that are bio-accumulative. That report also suggests that via dilution in the waters of the Klamath River and its tributaries, the toxic impacts of some of these many toxins might be mitigated.
The old “dilution is the solution to pollution” was implicated in the CDM Smith/Stillwater Sciences study.
But how well has that worked? Looking at the tens of thousands of dump sites on land and in our rivers and oceans we find that dilution has turned to accumulation and long-term toxic pollution.
And now, the most advanced science informs us that ‘dilution is NOT the solution to pollution‘!
What’s the Real Goal for the Klamath Dam Removal Project? Is Money offsetting science and common sense? More on that here: https://www.siskiyou.
If the actual goal of dam removal is to improve the ecology and hopefully, the salmon habitat and populations in the Klamath River basin, does it make any sense whatsoever to knowingly allow any pollutants that can be mitigated to enter the river system? Of course not!
And that’s exactly why we are now seeing and hearing, what is arguably a total cover-up of the pollutants in the lake bed sediments, which are being allowed to continually poison the Klamath River and all of the lifeforms therein. New policy arguments stemming from science are now condemning “dilution” as a solution for pollution.
Mark Bransom, the CEO of the ‘Klamath River Renewal Corporation’ (an oxymoron?) continues to argue there are no toxins in the estimated 15-million cubic yards of sediments now remaining in the lake beds of Copco and Iron Gate Lakes. Yet, the scientists that compiled the CDM Smith Study suggest that the numerous toxins they found in the lake bed sediments might be mitigated to some extent or another (based on theory) via dilution in the Klamath River. Who’s right? The scientists, or Mark Bransom, with the big salary?
Then there is also the sales pitch by Resource Environment Services (Dave Coffman) a contractor of KRRC and Mark Bransom that, according to them, by spreading seeds on the polluted sediments via helicopters and tossing seeds by hand, that the 15-million cubic yards of remaining clay sediments (78% Clay according the Gethard Engineering Consulting, Seattle) will be somehow magically stabilized against floods that can scour the canyons where the lake bed sediments remain, putting some or all of those polluted sediments into the waters of the Klamath River.
Expert testimony offered by Siskiyou County’s Agricultural Commissioner, James Smith, indicated that the aerial and hand seeding of the remaining lakebed sediment banks would probably not stabilize the sediments or mitigate the hazardous dust from those sediments, which are considered by the EPA as hazardous to human health.
Let’s not forget that the drawdown plan that KRRC had shared with county officials would take place over the course of a couple months, but instead they did the drawdown in a matter of a few days releasing 5-million cubic yards of polluted sediments into the Klamath River. This ‘off-plan’ action effectively killed billions of aquatic life-forms in the Klamath River, including native organisms and fish, and is still adversely impacting terrestrial fauna as well.
Understanding the natural sediments and particles that make up sediments is critical
Clay is the smallest sedimentary particle in size (microscopic). The next largest in ascending order by size are, silt, sand and then gravel being the largest. Some pro-dam removal scientists like to argue that some of the clay particles attach themselves to some of the heavy metals and organic toxins, thus helping to minimize the toxic effects of these toxins entering the River. However that argument has another insidious side when the same clay particles with their associated toxins become airborne dust!
As we saw in the aftermath of the Condit Dam removal project, dust storms plagued citizens living on and around the area of the former dam removal site.
Just by itself Silicosis is a serious heath hazard as recognized by the American Heart and Lung Association.
Now add to that an even smaller particle, clay, that has a toxin attached going into the lungs of your family and your pets. The impact of this kind of dust (clay+toxin) will also adversely impact livestock and wildlife.
The Klamath River is now arguably the “River of Death,” due to the magnitude and scale of the death of aquatic lifeforms as never seen in any river on the west coast of the United States before!\
In the end, the vote was 4 in favor and 1 against, and the crowd in chambers let out a cheer!
The Resolution proclaiming a local emergency was passed requesting that California Governor Gavin Newsom proclaim a State of Emergency for impacts resulting from Lower Klamath Dam removal.
The only solution to address the 15-million cubic yards of polluted lakebed sediments remaining is to have as much of them removed as is possible, before the summer winds start driving the toxic clay dust into the air.
Cheap, quick, and dirty appears to be the mantra of those that have been put in charge of dam removal.
Coming to a dam site near you?
Cross-posted at Siskiyou News.
CDM_2011_0119_Screening-Level-Evaluation-of-Contaminants-in-Sediments
View Comments (34)
This situation is sad and infuriating ! Plain and simple, hold these "officials" accountable for ecoside ! If this was an "unofficial' person or group they would be arrested and smeared all over the " Lamestream " media, but not the "officials". They have killed a river, wiped out lakes and all the inhabitants there of . These animals had no voice, or choice in the matter.
Agree, Som ting fishi(love that name).
Where is PETA, Sierra Club or the Humane Society?
There is nothing humane about this! Conservancy means nothing to these eco-terrorists disguised as preservationists on the state payroll.
Where is the Federal Fish and Wildlife law enforcement stand on this? Are they agreeable to this horrid operation?
https://www.fws.gov/program/office-of-law-enforcement
I find this act reprehensible. This state needs to be held accountable.
During the Vietnam war our military infamously said "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." Now California, its eco fascists and Governor Newsom are telling us "We have to destroy the river in order to save it."
You need to get a copy of B G Butkett's Stolen Valor, THAT was not the quote but Peter Arnett's take on it. The Town of Ben Tre was over run during TET and it was a terrible fight. The VC/NVA had taken control of the ARVN's artillery and turned it on the town. When all was done Arnett went to interview Maj. Chester L. Brown about what had taken place, Maj. Brown lamented that some of the town was destroyed while they were defending it. Arnett rephrased it and you have your Anti-War Quote. The KGB funded and organized the World Peace Conference while funding and ordering Ho to conquer the South, how's that for a trick? and the American Anti-War movement was of their finest achievements.
KRRC’s CEO Mark Bransom never offered an apology to the community for what has transpired, other than saying what has happened was “regrettable" but continued to deny that the lake bed sediments are polluted? He sounds like a typical Democrat politician?
Mr. Bransom, KRRC Board Members and KRRC staff along with the Democrat politicians in California and Oregon who pushed for the dam removals all need to be hauled before tribunals and be held accountable for the ecological devastation that they’ve caused?
Instead of managing precious resources, California's corrupt self-righteous leaders allow fires, floods and toxic waste to destroy ecosystems, wildlife, communities and livelihoods. Who benefits?
All the supporters of the dam and river destruction need to chug a lug a few gallons of river water. The real goal of the dam destruction is apparent now. I hope the useful idiots who were roped into supporting this catastrophe have learned a lesson. A public apology would be a start. The real powers behind this need to go to jail.
The left loves to yammer on about environmental crimes. Now we have one of the biggest in history. What are you going to do about it? Crickets.
Will the folks here talking about "ecocide" come back in ten years when the salmon are back to pre-dam numbers and the river flows freely to the sea again?
Dams don't last forever and these ones were spectacularly unnecessary AND damaging. The dams had to go and, yes, temporary turbidity is part of the price of allowing dams to be built in the first place. So the local folks need to have a bit of patience and hopefully the waterway will clear out in a winter or two as nature restores fluvial action.
I can't wait for the salmon runs of the future myself ...
I can’t wait for the bountiful salmon runs of the future either.
Any thoughts on whether Newsom should consider this PRESENT situation as an emergency, or is this just deep North podunks raising a ruckus to pass the time?
IF THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING THIS NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPEND.
TIMMY O,CONNER
BAIR FARMS,AND OTHER F, AND R, PAID JEFF MITCHEL
TO DO THIS TO GET MONEY. I CAUGHT THEM IN FRONT OF
THE GOVAND CITY
OFICIALS.WENT TO JAIL OVER IT.911 SAID I WAS GOING TO SHOOT DOWN AN AIRLINER.5 MONTHS
INJAIL UNDER FALSE
ARREST.PRISON5 YEARS!!??.IN PRROBATION OFFICE
IS THIS THE ONE WE ARE GOING TO SHOOT???CITY COP.
I GOT THE WATER BACK FOR THEM IN
01 WE AINT GOT MUCH TIME AND IT
HIT THE PAPER.
STIR THAT LAKE NOW.
It will take many lifetimes for those salmon runs because of the horrific ecological damage that your evil Democrat masters have wrought upon the Klamath River Basin.
If any river needs to flow freely to the sea, it's the Tuolumne River that was damned with the O'Shaughnessy Dam that flooded the entire Hetch Hetchy valley under the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. For thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from the United States in the 1850s, the valley was inhabited by Native Americans who practiced subsistence hunting-gathering before the dam was completed in 1923. The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles west to San Francisco and its client municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
The Hetch Hetch Project is spectacularly unnecessary AND damaging! The leftists and Marxist Democrats in the San Francisco Bay Area shouldn't mind having the O'Shaughnessy Dam torn down and letting the Hetch Hetchy reservoir waters flow freely to the sea? They'll just need to have patience if they want running water and there's not enough local water supply?
Maybe a hundred years. Gold dredgers will be needed to clean the river.
so just wash it down river and let the ocean deal with it. How Nobel of you to pass the problems off to someone else. Not your problem anymore.
Check this out. We need to raise some legislative hell.
Where are our representatives as they tear out dams in California and Oregon!!? Their argument to save Hoover is less reason than we have! Getting notice on Truth Social!
https://www.thecentersquare.com/arizona/article_b1888d48-ed26-11ee-ae80-b77ce2f07d3a.html
Common sense made this result predictable and more likely than not inevitable. The hubris of the government and corporations assigned to enact the decommissioning of the dams is beyond absurd. Another, unnatural disaster created in the name of restoring the environment. The abandoned slow release plan for the lake waters may have mitigated the severe kill ratio, but not the overall pollution downstream. Classic bureaucratic mismanagement by government at its worst.
I was amazed with how fast the 3 dams were removed from the klamath River. I now figure that the powers to be were very aware of what the herendous outcome would be so they expedited the process on all 3 dams before the problems were witnessed. I guess we won't be seeing too many salmon swimming upstream after all. These eco terrorist organizations should be banished for life
Instead of criticizing ...Maybe they can provide solutions by brainstorming all parties.
I think they should try cleaning the exposed river bottom and some form of dialysis to remove all toxins.