Group looks at impact of climate change 

Plan revolves around energy, water conservation 

By SARA HOTTMAN

H&N Staff Reporter

November 4, 2010

.      Roger Hamilton is a rancher in the Langell Valley area.

   This year a water shortage forced him to use irrigation water from underground aquifers rather than surface water.

   Carbon dating shows the aquifer water’s origins were glaciers that melted long ago, creating a store of water that extends deep into the earth, said Hamilton, senior policy analyst for the Climate Leadership Initiative.

   But in 30 years, the snowpack that melts to replenish those ancient aquifers will diminish, Hamilton said, making water a scarce resource in the Klamath Basin.

   While the prediction three decades out seems far off, Hamilton and his colleagues who presented the data during a meeting at the Oregon Institute of Technology last week said it could be mitigated with action now.  

   “The bad news is there are impacts. The good news is we’re doing it to ourselves,” Hamilton said.

   The Climate Leadership Initiative group met in the spring with 96 locals from different sectors, including agriculture, to brainstorm ways to preserve climate and natural resources in the Klamath Basin.

   They didn’t come up with any solutions to implement   immediately, but the group said the effort was more to get wheels turning so parties like farmers and ranchers that depend on natural resources can gradually implement climate-friendly practices.

   In the Klamath Basin

   Climate data collected by the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy show that temperatures in the Klamath Basin will increase nearly 4 degrees by around 2040. Summers will be drier and winters will be wetter, but higher temperatures mean   winter snows will become winter rains, diminishing snowpack by 60 percent in the region.

   “Precipitation may not change much, but because of the temperatures, more will evaporate. There will be less snowpack, so less water,” said Brian Barr, an aquatic ecologist at the GEOS Institute. GEOS Institute is an Ashland based nonprofit climate change think tank.

   Farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin count on snow and cool temperatures during the winter. Accumulated snow in the mountains gradually melts in the spring and summer, providing constant replenishment to the bodies of water below. Snowpack is already 10 to 15 percent lower than it was from 1960 to 1990, Barr said.

   Losing that natural storage could be devastating to agriculture, tribes, refuges, and other groups that depend on surface and groundwater being replenished each year.  

   What farmers can do

   Mitigating climate change revolves mostly around energy and water conservation — low flow irrigation, irrigation sensors that track how much moisture a field needs, solar panels for power.

   Businesses like EcoSolar install solar panels that power well pumps, reducing electricity use in favor of a renewable resource — sunlight.  

   Balin Farms used government incentives to install four solar panels, which cost about $200,000. On the Klamath Water Users Association Farm Tour in September, Eric Andrews with EcoSolar said the solar panels would pay for themselves in three years of savings in electricity costs.

   “Power costs for irrigators are out of control right now,” Greg Addington, director of KWUA, said on the tour. (Solar panels) are symbolic of a lot of other things. (Producers are) not going to sit around and wait to see what policy does. They’re being proactive.”