Klamath River

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Klamath River
Map of the course of the river

Map of the course of the river

Data
Water code US :  266887
location California , Oregon (USA)
River system Klamath River
origin Lake Ewauna at Klamath Falls
42 ° 11 ′ 29 ″  N , 121 ° 46 ′ 58 ″  W
Source height 1247  m
muzzle Pacific Ocean Coordinates: 41 ° 32 ′ 49 ″  N , 124 ° 5 ′ 0 ″  W 41 ° 32 ′ 49 ″  N , 124 ° 5 ′ 0 ″  W
Mouth height 0  m
Height difference 1247 m
Bottom slope 2.9 ‰
length 423 km
Catchment area 40,795 km²
Drain MQ
 482 m³ / s
Left tributaries Shasta River , Scott River , Salmon River , Trinity River
Reservoirs flowed through Iron Gate Reservoir , Copco Lake
Small towns Klamath Falls
Communities Klamath River , Happy Camp , Klamath
National Wild and Scenic River
The Klamath River in Northern California in the evening

The Klamath River in Northern California in the evening

The Klamath River not far from its mountain origin

The Klamath River not far from its mountain origin

The river is also popular with water sports enthusiasts

The river is also popular with water sports enthusiasts

The river mouth into the Pacific

The river mouth into the Pacific

The Klamath River is a 423 kilometer long river located in southern Oregon and northern California in the United States . It rises in the natural space of the Basin and Range region in the rain shadow of the Cascade Range . The Klamath River then breaks through the cascade chain in a deep gorge in a south-westerly direction and flows through the Klamath Mountains on the Pacific coast .

River course

The Klamath River begins at the outflow of Upper Klamath Lake at Klamath Falls in Klamath County , Oregon . However, the United States Geological Survey defines the start of the Klamath River as the small Lake Ewauna , because the almost two-kilometer-long runoff from Upper Klamath Lake to Lake Ewauna is run as the Link River . The catchment area of ​​the Upper Klamath Lake lies in the semi-desert highlands on the edge of the Great Basin . Geologically, the region is a rift valley in the Basin and Range Province that was formed around six million years ago when the earth's crust expanded. The Upper Klamath Lake is the last remnant of the Pleistocene lake Lake Modoc , which had a maximum extent of 2850 km² in the Ice Age . Its catchment area consists of a large portion of the Basin and Range region that extends across the border into California. Originally, this area was criss-crossed by shallow watercourses, fens and sedges despite the low rainfall . Most of the marshland has been drained since then and is now used intensively for agriculture.

The southern part of the cascade chain is a high plateau of volcanic origin from which individual, younger volcanic cones rise. The Klamath River has dug its bed in a ravine through the relatively soft, volcanic rock. In this gorge it reaches California and Siskiyou County and flows through Copco Lake - named after the California-Oregon Power Company , which dammed the reservoir to generate electricity - and the subsequent Iron Gate Reservoir , another reservoir. Coming from Mount Shasta , the Shasta River flows into a dry high valley in the Klamath, which immediately after the confluence turns west and flows through the valleys of the Klamath and Siskiyou Mountains .

In Humboldt County is the southernmost section with the tributary Trinity River . Here the river turns again to the northwest, just reaching Del Norte County , where it divides Redwood National Park in half and flows into the Pacific. The river itself is not part of the national park, but both banks.

The Klamath River flows through the home of the Karok with the main town Happy Camp. The Indian reservations of the Hoopa and the Yurok are located on the lower reaches of the counties of Humboldt and Del Norte.

history

The name of the river comes from the Indian word Klamet , which roughly means speed. It stands for the comparatively easy path through the river valley, which was often chosen to cross the cascade chain. Archaeological finds prove that the valley was settled over 7000 years ago. The Klamath River and its fish stocks are considered sacred by the indigenous peoples living in the area.

The first white man to come to the Klamath River in 1828 was the trapper and fur trader Jedediah Smith . He moved with 20 trappers and around 300 mules from California, Mexico to the fur trading bases of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Columbia River . As part of the California gold rush in 1848 gold was found on the Trinity River and the prospectors followed the river to the Klamath and this to the Pacific Ocean. In 1849, small amounts of gold were found on Gold Bluff Beach near the estuary, but they were quickly exploited. The penetration of the white prospectors into the areas of the Indians led to conflicts and persecution, especially of the Yurok. In 1850 a small military post was set up at the estuary.

The hardly populated region on the river lived from agriculture and forestry for the following decades, until the high recreational value of the landscape led to an upturn in tourism in the second half of the 20th century.

In the 1960s the construction of a dam was proposed only about twenty kilometers above the mouth of the Klamath River in the Pacific. The building should be called Ah Pah Dam . The resulting reservoir should serve as the water supply for southern California . The idea was never realized.

The Klamath River is an important habitat for silver salmon , king salmon and rainbow trout . However, their habitat is severely restricted by the dams in the Klamath Valley. The silver salmon ( Oncorhynchus kisutch ) belong to the list of endangered species of the US Endangered Species Act. In 1963, the largest tributary, the Trinity River, was all but removed. Since then, 90 percent of the water has been directed into the Sacramento Valley . Only 4 cubic meters per second of the Trinity flow into the Klamath River.

use

In a 930 square kilometer region below Upper Klamath Lake, the river is used for irrigation and is partially diverted to nearby Tule Lake and Clear Lake Reservoir to store water . The Bureau of Reclamation made to the project, the original semi-desert versatile agricultural usable.

In 2005, the power supply company PacifiCorp applied to the federal government for a new license to build dams in the Klamath Valley. In order to preserve the upper reaches of the river as a habitat for salmon , environmentalists spoke out against the construction project. The indigenous people living in the area, nature conservationists and fishermen, however, advocated demolition measures. The world's largest dam removal is now to take place on the Klamath River: Four dams will be demolished by 2020 so that threatened Coho and Chinook salmon (silver and king salmon) can swim more than 400 kilometers into the mountain streams to spawn. The struggle between authorities and environmentalists, between the Indians who live from fishing and farmers who need water for fields and cattle, lasted ten years. Now everyone has signed a one-off contract: Nature should be used in such a way that the fish in the Klamath River and the people on its banks can live in harmony.

The section between Klamath Falls in Oregon and just below the Iron Gate Reservoir in California with just over 45 kilometers is designated as a National Wild and Scenic River , almost the entire length of the Klamath is also a Recreational River and is an excellent area for canoeing in the quieter sections and for rafting and kayaking in white water .

Web links

Commons : Klamath River  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klamath River ( October 22, 2007 memento on the Internet Archive ), The Columbia Gazetteer of North America
  2. ↑ USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service: Klamath Basin Adaptive Management Plan , 2004
  3. ^ Klamath River in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
  4. ^ Link River in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
  5. ^ Klamath River In: Artur C. Benke, Colbert E. Cushing: Rivers of North America . Elsevier, 2005, ISBN 0-12-088253-1 , pages 563-568
  6. ↑ Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner, revised edition, Penguin USA, (1993), ISBN 0-14-017824-4
  7. ^ Klamath Project ( Memento from March 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk BR2, California tearing down barrages for salmon . Latitude. Fish instead of electricity. April 2, 2010, archived from the original on April 2, 2010 ; accessed on January 4, 2015 .