Yurok try to restore river to save salmon
Tribe uses fire-ravaged trees to re-create habitat for fish in Trinity County
HYAMPOM, Trinity County — The giant Douglas fir hit the water with a great splash just as a powerful gust of wind from the Chinook helicopter rotors blew across the river, forcing Aaron Martin and his fellow workers to hold their helmets and turn their backs against the gust.
“That’s exactly where we want it,” yelled Martin, a habitat restoration biologist for the Yurok Indian tribe, holding up two thumbs as the chopper released the 150-foot-tall tree from its cable and thwap-thwapped away to pick up more timber.
The charred trunk, weighing as much as 25,000 pounds, was one of 300 fire-damaged trees that the tribe and its partners strategically placed in the South Fork of the Trinity River this past week in an attempt to alter the current, scour out accumulated sediment and restore long-lost salmon habitat in the river.
The 92-mile South Fork is the longest undammed stream in California and a primary tributary of the Klamath River, which used to froth yearly with spring-run chinook, a staple of the Yurok diet for thousands of years until European settlers arrived in North America, logged the forests and built dams that nearly wiped them out.
The project, on this wild and scenic stretch of the Trinity, is outside the Yurok reserva-
tion, which stretches 44 miles from the mouth of the Klamath, but the two rivers converge at the edge of Yurok land and together support the largest salmon run in California outside of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta system.
“We’re trying to help restore balance to the river,” Martin said of the plan, developed over the past three years with help from the Watershed and Research Training Center in Hayfork (Trinity County), the U.S. Forest Service and local land owners. “We’re adding a natural element and letting nature take its course.”
The wood placement project, which is being paid for using about $800,000 in grants, is not only the largest river restoration ever undertaken by the Yuroks, but also an important part of their effort to bring back a culture and heritage that was largely taken away over the past two centuries.
Spring-run chinook, “Nuemee ney-puy” in the Yurok language, are so named because they head up the Klamath in the spring — between late March and early June — to complete their three-year life span by breeding in cold tributaries, preferably high in the mountains. The species, also known as king salmon, live in the river throughout the summer, storing up fat, and are highly prized for their rich flavor.
More than 12,000 spring-run chinook once migrated annually up the South Fork of the Trinity, where it wasn’t unheard of for people to reel in 200 fish from a single pond. Then, in 1964, a catastrophic storm and flood caused mud slides on the surrounding hills and filled the river with vast quantities of sediment.
The dirt was loose because loggers had clear-cut the surrounding forests in the 1950s and early 1960s, leaving nothing to hold the steep ridges next to the river in place. Silt poured into the river, choking off the salmon spawning grounds and filling up the cold pools salmon need to survive. Fishery biologists said water diversions and pollution from illegal marijuana farms have made the situation worse.
Last summer, only 12 chinook were seen in the river, and the year before only 15 fish were counted by surveyors. The spring salmon run as a whole is less than 1 percent of its former size. The wild coho and steelhead runs are not doing any better.
“We’re at the brink of extinction for this species, so it’s critically important that we do something,” said D.J. Bandrowski, project engineer for the Yurok. “The tribe relies on the spring chinook to help feed their families. This is widely important for the tribe and its people.”
Engineers and biologists used thousands of aerial photographs to map the river. Bandrowski said a degraded 5-mile stretch was chosen for the restoration project. A computer model was used to figure out where woody debris would do the most good.
Columbia Helicopters used one of their aptly named Chinooks to carry the logs to the project site and lower them by cable into place.
The idea, Bandrowski said, is to position the logs so that they divert water, spread out the sediment, create gravel bars, wetlands on the banks and deep cold-water ponds where juvenile fish can shelter during the hot summer months and fatten up on bugs.
“What we’re building is a complex architecture, an arrangement of individual wood pieces that are interlocking together (and) will evolve over time,” Bandrowski said, pointing out one crisscrossing log pile wedged between rock outcroppings that he dubbed “Downtown.”
The ambitious project is one of many in the area spearheaded by the Yurok people who, as much as any other American Indian tribe, have dedicated themselves over the past decade to the restoration of their ancestral homeland, including the wildlife that once thrived along the Klamath River basin. They are key players in the planned removal of four dams on the Klamath.
The Yurok are the largest tribe in the state, with 5,600 members living in and around the reservation, which encompasses 57,000 acres. They have a small casino with only a few dozen slot machines, a hotel and restaurant, but opioid addiction has plagued the tribe, which sued 20 drug companies this year for pushing on the tribe their habit-forming wares and causing a national epidemic.
At one time, there were more than 50 Yurok villages covering about 500,000 acres and 50 miles of coastline. The tribe members, who called themselves Oohl, or Indian people, were renowned for fishing, canoe making, basket weaving, story telling and dancing.
The Yurok were first visited by the Spanish in the 1500s and later by American fur traders and trappers, including Jedediah Smith, who raved about the abundant wildlife along the 250-mile-long Klamath River. In 1850, gold miners moved in, bringing with them disease and violence. The Yurok population declined by 75 percent, and the remaining Indians were forcibly relocated to a reservation in 1855.
Besides efforts to restore their traditional dances, preserve their historic regalia and revive their language, the tribe has recently accelerated a campaign to revitalize the natural landscape, introduce fire and protect the wildlife on their ancestral lands, including a proposal to reintroduce the California condor.
It is the fish, however, that tribal biologists say are key, not just for the Yurok, but also for the Karuk and Hoopa Valley tribes, which hold traditional fishing rights on the Klamath. The three tribes have long been part of the fish-versus-farms battle that has raged as reduced rain and snow has cut the amount of water available for spawning fish.
The steady degradation of the watershed and fish is why the Yurok started a salmon restoration project 10 years ago on the main stem of the Trinity and expanded it this past week into this remote, scenic stretch of river.
“Spring chinook are a valuable species and highly prized by all the tribes, including the Yurok,” Martin said. “This is a very natural way that we can try to help. It’s a start, a step.”