"California Dam Lets Water Shared by Farms Flow to Salmon"

"GRANTS PASS, Ore. — With water scarce in Northern California’s Klamath Basin, a federal agency is again releasing water into the Klamath River to prevent a repeat of the 2002 fish kill that left tens of thousands of adult salmon dead.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said releases started Friday from Lewiston Dam on the Trinity River, the Klamath’s primary tributary, and would continue into late September. Similar releases were done the last three years. They come from water that is shared with farms in the Central Valley.

'In this fourth year of severe drought, the conditions in the river call for us to take extraordinary measures to reduce the potential for a large-scale fish die-off,' Mid-Pacific Regional Director David Murillo said in a statement. 'This decision was made after discussions with federal and state fish regulatory agencies and serious consideration of the impacts on all affected parties.'"

Jeff Barnard reports for the Associated Press August 22, 2015.