A Canal head gates opened

DD Bixby
H&N's Staff Writer
April 8, 2008

   The irrigation season gushed open Monday as Klamath Irrigation District
officials opened the A Canal head gates.

   At 85 cubic feet per second, the middle two of the six gates at the Link
River Dam opened about 3-inches to begin the two week process of filling the
district's canal system, said Dave Solem, KID manager.

   Solem said the demand at the beginning of the season hasn't been very
high compared to other years and the opening was about a week later than
usual.

   Some crops, such as onions and new seedings of alfalfa, will be some of
the first demanding water, but Solem said he's hoping other irrigators will
stagger orders so there's not a huge rush at the end of the month.

Completing the process

   KID is aiming to complete the filling process - which begins with the
9-mile A-Canal and moves out to the root-like system of smaller canals and
diversions channels - by April 22.

   Irrigation in the Klamath Project will last until around the middle of
October.

   Solem and three other employees remotely monitor the head gates from the
KID office in order to react to any hiccups in the system. Basically,
someone is on call around the clock.

   After construction and placement of the elaborate $14 million fish screen
and bypass system in late 2002, the actual head gates sit several hundred
feet down river of the original head gates built in early 1900s. The newer
system is highly computerized and complicated, Solem says, but works well.

   At present, fish that get through the screen at the top of the system are
going into a canal and are dumped out below the Link River Dam. Later, as
smaller fish come through, the diversion will be set to pump the fish into
the Fish Evaluation Station at the same site.

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