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August 12, 2005
Klamath Falls Herald and News
HILL ROAD - Some taps are spitting out only drops of water, and some nothing
at all, in houses along Hill Road near Merrill.
A combination of dry years and increased irrigation
pumping has caused the water table to drop about 3.5 feet in each of the past
three summers, a state worker said.
"It's been kind of stair-stepping down," said Ned Gates, a
hydrogeologist for the Oregon Water Resources Department.
To get water back in some residential wells,
irrigators near Hill Road have stopped pumping for the year.
The wells are part of the mid-Basin pumping group, a cluster of wells
throughout the middle of the Klamath Reclamation Project whose 31 owners
divided $900,000 from the government to pump this year.
"We are not (pumping) in any places where there have been any
impacts," said Jim Carleton, one of the pumpers.
The year 2001 is an important one on the calendar for well water use in the
Klamath Basin. Not only does it mark the year that the federal government shut
off water to the Klamath Reclamation Project for much of the summer, prompting
many irrigators to dig for water, but also it marks the top of the water table
after wet years in the late 1990s.
Although the federal government has filled the canals every summer since, it
is now also paying people to pump. As part of the "water bank" bank
program, the Bureau signs contracts with irrigators to have them either use
well water instead of canal water or to add well water to the canal. The goal
of the bank is to boost flows down the Klamath River for coho salmon.
Hill Road winds through agricultural land and past many irrigation pumps.
"Remember a lot of these wells didn't exist until 2001," Gates said. "That's what all this is in response to."
In late July homes along and near Hill Road have been having wells go
"dry," making cooking, washing and watering a hassle.
"Sometimes you'll be taking a shower and it will just stop," said
Jill Mathis, who lives with her parents on Hill Road near Dehlinger Lane.
On July 31, neighbors on Dehlinger Lane saw their water pretty much stop.
"We (had) about a pencil-width of water coming
out of our tap," said Robin Torgersen.
Thursday, Gates came to check on the well to see if it was dry. He comes from
Bend every other month in the summer to get readings from wells that he has
been monitoring since 2001.
He also looks into well problems such as the Torgensens reported.
Gates dropped 40 feet of cord down their well.
Buzzz.
"Ope ... there's water," he said.
The electric gizmo at the end of the cord had been
submerged, completing a circuit and triggering the alarm at the top of the
well.
Many of the wells Gates checks have water in them, but the pumps aren't deep
enough. The waterless homeowners will either have to have their pump lowered
or wait for the water table to come back up.
The Torgensens are likely to have water again this summer because irrigation
pumps near them have been shut off and the water table is rebounding. Now they
are weighing what to do with their well.
If the water table keeps going down, they said, they will have to have the
pump placed deeper, as they did in 2001. But, they said, the pump is as deep
as they can get it without widening the well.
In the meantime, the Torgensens have a backup plan.
They spent $400 on a 1,000-gallon green plastic water reservoir and are using
it and gravity to put water through their tap.
