Salmon fishing in California, Oregon declared a failure

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Thursday declared commercial salmon fishing a failure off Oregon and California this year, based on sharp harvest cutbacks imposed to protect struggling returns to the Klamath River.

The formal declaration under federal fisheries law, the first since 1992 to come before the end of the fishing season, makes it possible for members of Congress from the two states to move forward on seeking up to $80 million in aid that has been stymied for lack of a declaration.

In a conference call from Washington, D.C., Gutierrez told the governors of Oregon and California and members of Congress from both states that fact-finding last month made it clear the direct losses to fishermen, now estimated at $16 million, were real.

The Commerce estimate was based on projections that fishermen will land only 12 percent of the fish they have averaged the last five years, and despite higher prices, the catch will be worth only 16 percent of average, Deputy Secretary David Sampson said from Portland.

The declaration applies from Cape Falcon on the northern Oregon Coast to Point Sur near Monterey, Calif., and corresponds to the boundaries of the region where fishing seasons were reduced this year to protect wild Klamath River chinook.

More than 300 Oregon fishermen already have applied for $1 million in direct aid offered by the state of Oregon, and the Small Business Administration has approved $200,000 in low-interest loans in Oregon and California made possible by an earlier declaration of a fishery resource disaster.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said the declaration now gives salmon fishermen priority for federal aid.

"The salmon industry must be sustained to maintain the vitality of the local economy," he said in a statement.

Gutierrez blamed five years of drought in the Klamath Basin for low water and growing infestations of parasites that are diminishing salmon returns there.

Sampson said from Portland that the administration moved quickly to declare a fishery failure once the magnitude of the problem was clear, and it already has spent $146 million for salmon recovery in Oregon and California.

"For months, we have had clear signs that the federal government's severely restricted season would have widespread impacts on the salmon industry and the local economy," he said in a statement. "I am pleased that our joint efforts between California and Oregon have resulted in a determination that will lead to federal relief for the salmon fishermen and the businesses that depend on a plentiful fishing season."

The Klamath River has been a flashpoint for conflicts between the Bush administration and farmers on one side and fishermen, Indian tribes and conservation groups on the other over allocations of scarce water between farms and fish.

During a drought in 2001, water was shut off to most of the 1,000 farms on the Klamath Reclamation Project straddling the Oregon-California border east of the Cascade Range to protect threatened coho salmon in the Klamath.

The next year, the Bush administration restored full irrigation to the farms, and more than 40,000 adult chinook salmon died in the lower river of gill-rot diseases as they were stranded in warm pools by low water.

The Senate already has approved $10 million in aid, and the office of Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., said lawmakers would build on that once the additional losses suffered by related businesses are determined by the states of Oregon and California.