Oregon Public Broadcasting

Environmentalists and fishing groups sued the state of California Thursday over its plans for two tributaries of the Klamath River.

The lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco state court and it involves California’s law governing endangered species. But Northwest fishing advocates say Oregon fish are at stake.

At issue is a California Department of Fish and Game plan that would permit the incidental killing of threatened coho, in the Scott and Shasta rivers, by agricultural operators.

Glen Spain with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations says those coho swim through Oregon waters.

Glen Spain: “The Scott and Shasta are two of the most productive tributaries of the Klamath, and if fish are allowed to go down much further in those, it will cause people to lose jobs and their opportunities to fish in the ocean, for salmon, as far north as central and northern Oregon.”

The California Fish and Game Environmental Impact Report for the Scott and Shasta Rivers contends that recovery activities will offset any incidental fish kills that are permitted in the watersheds.