‘I just sometimes wonder how we made it’ 

By JOEL ASCHBRENNER

H&N Staff Reporter

October 12, 2010

   “All the guys cooperated really well,” said Don Russell, district manager. “They were real cooperative and took water only when they needed it.”

   This year, the district, which stretches from Dairy to four miles west of Bonanza, received about half of the water it would in a normal year. To cope, water users rotated irrigation, so each had access to water when they needed it most, Russell said.

   Horsefly irrigators also idled nearly 1,000 of the district’s 10,000 acres to conserve water. 

       Some farmers planted grains, which require less water late in the season, instead of hay or alfalfa.

   “The last few years, we’ve been pretty tight, but everyone got some water,” said Eric Mockridge, an alfalfa farmer and member of the Horsefly Irrigation District board of directors.  

   Collecting water

   Most years, Horsefly collects irrigation water that runs off fields in west Langell Valley and stores it in the Lost River behind Harpold Dam, near Bonanza.

   “Anything they lose upstream, we collect and utilize here,” Russell said. “It’s a very unique system.”

   But that water, called return flow, was not available the past two years, because west Langell Valley did not receive any of its usual 42,000 acre-feet of irrigation water from Clear Lake. Water was reserved in the lake to   help protect endangered sucker.

   Russell said Horsefly irrigators are praying for a wet winter so the district, which produces cattle, potatoes, grain hay, and alfalfa, will have access to Clear Lake water next year.

   “We made it,” Russell said about this growing season. “I just sometimes wonder how we made it.”  

Side Bar

Irrigation district cooperation 

Landowners lease to potato farmers   

   Some Klamath Basin potato farmers moved their operations east, where groundwater could provide some irrigation assurance this year.

   Landowners in the Horsefly Irrigation District, near Dairy and Bonanza, leased hundreds of acres to potato growers, who usually farm further west on the Klamath Project, said district manager Don Russell.  

   The Horsefly Irrigation District has more access to groundwater than those on the Klamath Reclamation Project. Horsefly irrigators have been installing groundwater pumps since 1992, when a drought hit the district, said Eric Mockridge, alfalfa farmer and member of the Horsefly Irrigation District board of directors.

   “They were scared early on that there would not be enough water on the west side,” Russell said about the potato farmers.

   Horsefly and Langell irrigation districts use water from Clear Lake, Gerber Reservoir and wells, and are not part of the Klamath Project, which receives water from Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River.