Talk:Klamath River/Archive 1

Cascades

Regarding the comment about the few rivers that punch through the Cascades, remember that the Pit River in California flows north of Mount Lassen.

I made the change. Also, I think the San Joaquin may be longer than the Klamath, so I changed the wording there too. FuQuaoar 04:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

River Natural History

I deleted "Subsequently VP Cheney was shown to have instigated the change in policy" because however the policy was changed does not matter in a natural history discussion and this is a political sidetrack to what is happening in the river. Also, according to [[1]] the House of Representative hearings that are subsequent to the Washington Post accusation throw doubt on the deleted language anyway.Holden1234 17:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

River modifications

Recently a proposal for removal of the lower four dams was put forth and a reference to that proposal is in this section. I changed the reference noted to that proposal to the document posted by the proposing parties. I also added four significant hurdles language.Holden1234 (talk) 11:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I changed the paragraph(s) discussing the impact of upper basin irrigation on stream flows, adding the impact of Trinity, Shasta, and Scott tributaries. The flow of the Klamath past Keno is only 1/8 the flow at the mouth of the river and therefore the river drainage should be treated holistically.

"and a vast commercial and recreational salmon fishing fleet stretching from northern Oregon to central California" is a little slanted, the upper basin agriculture is more diverse than just "various types of hay"Holden1234 (talk) 12:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The flow of the Klamath at Keno is more like 1/50 of the flow at its mouth, just clarifying. Shannon^{talk SIGN!} 03:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

River salmon population

I revised the fish kill language to show that the Calif DFW report on the fish kill indicated at least three factors that contributed to the fish kill, not solely the Klamath low flow. If it were just low flow, the several lower flow years should have resulted in several other fish kills.Holden1234 11:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Under the History section it is stated...

"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..."

Would it be Ok to add a table of the estimated Salmon population for the river, say current and past at century or half-century marks? I think it would be an appropriate item of information for this article.

If it was from a reliable source, and not freewheeling speculation, it would be a fine addition, I think. —EncMstr 04:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Since only the Columbia and the Sacramento systems are larger river systems on the Pacific coast of the lower 48, it seems that it is a pretty safe assumption that they are the only two with larger historical fish runs.Holden1234 10:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

In good years, the Klamath sees runs of about 35,000-100,000 fall chinook. Current Salmon status info is available at www.pcouncil.org under their "SAFE Documents". I wonder if the third largest run reference includes BC rivers like the Frasier or the other Northern BC rivers which also have big runs of salmon.--Smartone100 06:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Controversy

There seems to be little mention of the dispute over water rights here, even though there seems to be a significant controversy over environmental concerns versus the rights and livelihood of farmers. See eg. [2] (for the farmers' side). Maybe there should be more about the nature of the dispute. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.118.247 (talk) 15:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There should be, but citing the website of one of the parties involved in the controversy would be a violation of our rule regarding reliable sources. So if you can find newspaper articles about this, those would be fine. And feel free to start a new section; if someone disagrees, they can move the information elsewhere in the article. (P.S. Framing the debate as environmental concerns versus the rights and livelihood of farmers could be seen as a violation of our policy regarding "point of view"; phrasing it something like "dispute between environmentalists and farmers", for example, would be much more neutral.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Bits of the whole story are at this article, Klamath Falls, Oregon, Klamath Tribes, Klamath Basin, Klamath Reclamation Project, Upper Klamath Lake, and probably a couple other places. I'd suggest starting an article titled Klamath Basin water rights dispute. It's been on my to-do list forever, but it would be good to gather all the information in one place. Katr67 17:21, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

See also: Warren Buffett and Winningreen LLC. Katr67 17:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

So many tags

I happened to pull up this page just now and was immediately struck with three big boxes warning about the need to improve references and that the page has an inappropriate tone and is POV. I read through the article to see what the problem was and it seems just fine to me. It seems well referenced and appropriately toned. I can't tell which parts are supposed to be POV. Something about irrigation and fish? Everything that hints at being controversial looks referenced. Are these big warning boxes really needed? If nothing else could the problematic parts be individually tagged? Someone like me, who would like to fix such problems, can't even figure out what needs to be fixed. Pfly (talk) 23:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Adding content soon...

I am soon (in a few minutes, likely) going to add a lot of content to this article; it can be seen here. I am actually not going to remove a lot of stuff that is already here in the article; it will just seem to disappear into the vast amount of content I am adding. It will still be there, don't anyone worry. Shannon^{talk SIGN!} 03:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Done; the original version is here. Shannon^{talk SIGN!} 04:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Cuts through the Cascades?

In working on making the Columbia River page ready for FA nomination the idea that only a few, perhaps three rivers "cut through" the Cascades has come up as wanting clarification (see talk page thread here: Talk:Columbia River#Removed text). It used to be that three Wikipedia pages said there were four rivers that cut through the Cascades--the Columbia, Fraser River, Pit River and the Klamath River. Skookum1 argued against the Fraser River being included since the Cascades end south of the Fraser. For a long time there were just three rivers said to cut through. Now the Klamath River page says it is "one of only a few" and that the others are the Columbia, Pit, Umpqua River, and Rogue River (Oregon). I don't think any of these pages provides a source for these sort of statements. In the past when the topic came up people argued by logic and looking at maps. But logic and maps only go so far. The Pit and Klamath at least seem logical to me. The Umpqua and Rogue don't as much--if they cut through the Cascades than doesn't the Skagit River also? Maybe the Willamette River too? In any case logic only gets you so far. In trying to get the Columbia River up to FA quality I wanted to source the claim but have been unable to find a source that says what rivers "cut through" (or breach, pass through, whatever) the Cascades. It is not hard to find sources that say the Klamath, Umpqua, and Rogue rivers originate in the Cascades though. To resolve this minor and nitpicky point I'm posting this question here: Can anyone find a good source to back up these kind of statements? Thanks. Pfly (talk) 20:49, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, on the Rogue River (Oregon) page it mentions that the river and the Umpqua, I think, cut through the Cascades also. In trying to put all this rampant information together I got mixed up in writing it. So the full list is the Fraser, Skagit, Columbia, Umpqua, Rogue, Pit, and Klamath rivers. For sure, there is the Fraser, Columbia, and Klamath. Then again, this mentions only the Columbia and Klamath, and this mentions the Klamath, Pit and Columbia. I'm not sure, however, if the Pit River actually goes through the Cascades, being so far inland as it is... Shannon^{talk SIGN!} 23:26, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

And the Cascades do not end south of the Fraser; they continue far into BC except under the name Canadian Cascades. It depends on if you want to refer to the Cascade Range as the part of the mountains called the Cascade Range or the full extent of the natural mountains. Shannon^{talk SIGN!} 23:27, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I gotta run, but a quick note--Skookum will correct you about the Cascades and the Fraser, watch out! Your Canadian Cascades link (redir to North Cascades) says as much: The Fraser River and the adjoining lowland on its south bank form the northern and northwestern boundary of the range. The Cascade Volcanoes continue north of the Fraser. I think this definition of the Cascades is pretty well backed up in various sources, although some here and there use a broader definition. Anyway, must go, later! Pfly (talk) 01:48, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain that both the Rogue and the Umpqua do not go through the Cascades, they just drain the western side of them. LittleMountain5 02:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, sorry, I misblamed Rogue River (Oregon); the page that gives the faulty info is Umpqua River - yet I read that wrong also; it says "one of three rivers in Oregon that start in or east of the Cascade Range and reach the Pacific Ocean". Yet that is quite confusing as well. What about the Coquille River, the other smaller streams and rivers going into the ocean? Anyway, let's not stray too far from the main topic; I did not yet find any references to how many rivers pass through the Cascades. Shannon^talk _contribs ^sign!_:) 03:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to find some in the next couple days. As for the Coquille and others, they all start in the eastern Coast Range and flow west. LittleMountain5 16:48, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I reworded the statement on the Columbia River page to say the Columbia is the only river that "completely breaches" the Cascades, and that all other rivers that flow through the range also originate in or very near the mountains--unlike the Columbia which flows about 1,000 miles before even reaching the Cascades. Or words to that effect. It would still be nice to fix up the other pages so they are in agreement about the issue, but no need for the Columbia River's hopefully upcoming FA nom. Pfly (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Another way to handle this in the case of the shorter rivers would be to avoid making the claim that River X is one of only N rivers that flow through the Cascades. Duck the question, in other words. Finetooth (talk) 19:46, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

This river certainly does cut through the Cascades, take a look at this map. The river flowing across the map is the Sprague River, one of two major headwater affluents of the Klamath. The distance from the High Cascades to the Sprague River headwaters is at least 50 or 60 miles. That might sound small compared to the Columbia's 1000 miles but consider that the Cascades in this area are also only about 60 to 80 miles wide. Also, the Columbia runs parallel to the Cascades massif (Canadian Cascades, the range that extends north from the Washington-BC border) for most of its length upstream of the Columbia River Gorge, and the river at Columbia Lake is separated from the coastal mountains by no more than 50 miles or so. Are you guys saying that the upper Klamath basin, which is mostly flat (even part of the Basin and Range province) is part of the Cascades? I'd doubt that. The Klamath River certainly cuts through the Cascades and there's no doubt about it. Shannon^talk _contribs 06:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

So far I've found three, maybe four rivers that cut through the Cascades: obviously the Columbia River, the Klamath River, the Pit River (it begins just south of Goose Lake, definitely on the eastern side of the Cascades), and possibly the Fraser River, depending on where the Cascades are said to end. Looking at the picture, the Pit River actually starts farther east than the Sprague River. All the others (Rogue, Umpqua, etc.) start in or west of the Cascades, but don't actually cut through them. I still haven't found a reference, but there must be one somewhere. LittleMountain5 17:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you could cite a map if we can't find any references for it? Just a thought. LittleMountain5 17:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I generally agree, especially with the Columbia and Fraser Rivers, which both start in the Rocky Mountain Trench. I've been kind of mixed up on how everybody says the Pit River cuts through the Cascades, though. The Cascades extend south to the Klamath Mountains, which continue generally into the California Coast Ranges, but go nowhere near the Pit River. The only evidence I know that suggests the Pit cuts through the Cascades would be that Mount Shasta is part of the Cascades. Do the Cascades extend eastwards to the Pit River? Thanks if you could clarify. Shannon^talk _contribs 23:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Then again, Peakbagger seems to suggest that the Cascades seem to go farther inland, to around the Shasta Lake area, and cites the 'Northwest US Coast Ranges' as those containing the Klamath Mountains. That would indicate that the Klamath cuts through only the Klamath Mountains, not the Cascades, which according to Peakbagger, it rises near. I have doubt on the accuracy of the website, though, so have to do more research. Shannon^talk _contribs 00:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think Lassen Peak is included in the Cascade Range, and the Pit River flows between Mount Shasta and Lassen Peak. Here's a map with all the major Cascade volcanoes. After ec: Well, the Klamath River flows well north of Mount Shasta, which is definitely in the Cascade Range. As for Lassen Peak, the Wikipedia article says multiple times with sources that it is part of the Cascades, therefor the Pit River must flow through them. Thanks, LittleMountain5 00:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

In fact thanks for fixing a problem that long has been with me: I always thought that the Cascades touch the ocean, but they don't. So the Klamath Mountains are not part of the Cascades. I'll go fix that right now in the article. (Is it windy, it seems like my house's roof is going to blow off.) Shannon^talk _contribs 02:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding GAN

Jsayre, little note – as I was the main writer of this article – I'll probably be participating in the GAN, though I'm sure it'll be a while before it starts... Shannon⁺º^! 02:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I already knew that, no doubt about it! --Jsayre64 (talk) 13:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh haha how could I forget to use that? Just looking at the first page of history wouldn't suggest it though. Shannon⁺º^! 17:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd love to see more coverage of the Klamath Basin water rights dispute aka the Salmon controversy (I've always thought it merited a separate article), see Klamath Tribes#Water rights dispute for more cited info. I know, I know {{sofixit}}. I can't promise I'll do the necessary research, but you can always hope... Valfontis (talk) 20:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT (just kidding). I beat you to this, although there may be more to add. Jsayre64 (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth has said that there are some problems in this article to address. Shannon, do you have any ideas? Jsayre64 (talk) 19:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmph, I'd hazard a guess that those problems are mostly in the natural history section, which I didn't edit. I'll take a look at those right now. I worked on this page a while back without seriously considering putting it up to GA or FA, so I agree, it might need some work. Shannon⁺º^! 17:48, 17 July 2011 (UTC)