Irrigators hope to avoid allocation cutbacks

Sunday April 10, 2005

Klamath Falls Herald and News

By DYLAN DARLING

	Travis Marcott, with Klamath Irrigation District, cleans out an irrigation canal near Henley Road Friday afternoon. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials have called for a 15 percent reduction of water consumption this growing season by irrigators in and near the Klamath Reclamation Project.

Irrigators had little to say Friday following a meeting with officials at the Klamath Reclamation Project to discuss what promises to be one of the driest years on record in the Klamath Basin.

"It's the continued mantra of 'We need to tighten up boys,' " said Steve Kandra, president of the Klamath Water Users Association.

Friday's meeting came a day after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued a request for irrigators in the Klamath Project to reduce their demand for water by 15 percent.

Most of the 25 farmers and irrigation district managers coming out of Friday's meeting were tight-lipped about what was discussed.

"It was a somber meeting this morning," said David Sabo, manager of the 240,000-acre Klamath Project.

Kandra said irrigators will want to help each other get through the growing season in order to avoid more drastic steps to allocate scarce water supplies.

Many irrigators have already taken steps to conserve water, he added, including installation of new irrigation systems, planting different crops and adjusting watering schedules.

The Bureau of Reclamation last month instituted a drought management plan that cuts off irrigators with the lowest-priority claim to water.

Kandra said irrigators don't want to see the Bureau take the next step, which would mean cutting off water to more people.

An operations plan issued Thursday for the Klamath Project categorizes the 2005 year as "dry," reflecting the fact that water supplies are expected to be about 17 percent less than average. That prompted Reclamation officials to ask for the 15 percent reduction in demand by irrigators.

"I'm looking at 15 percent throughout the whole Basin," Sabo said. "The Project alone can't shoulder the load."

Each and every farmer or rancher doesn't need to reduce demand by exactly 15 percent, but the Bureau is asking them to conserve as much as they can. That goes for irrigators within the Project as well as those beside the Sprague and Wood rivers, he said.

Water forecasts indicate Upper Klamath Lake will receive less inflow this summer than it did in 2001, when the federal government shut down most of the Klamath Project at the beginning of the season.

In 2002, the government made full deliveries to the Project and cut flows down the river. That decision was followed by a fish kill that left about 34,000 salmon dead on the banks of the lower Klamath River in September. Environmental groups, fishermen and downstream tribes contend the low flows killed the fish, while Project irrigators say not enough cool water from the Trinity river and an untimely fish run caused the die-off.

The debate continues.

While irrigators are talking about ways to conserve water, downstream interests are saying farmers are still getting too much water.

The 2005 operations plan allocates 299,000 acre-feet of water to the Klamath Project. In an average year the project gets 360,000 acre-feet.

Flows in the Klamath River this summer will fall to about half those allocated in an average water year.

A $7.6 million water bank, comprising water created through land idling and the use of wells in the Upper Basin, will help boost river flows to protect threatened coho salmon.

But flows will still be dangerously low for fish, said Glen Spain, northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.

"Once again the lower river will be starved for water, jeopardizing salmon fisheries and damaging many lower river and coastal communities who depend on salmon for their livelihoods," Spain said in a press release.

Reclamation officials will keep a close eye on water levels in Upper Klamath Lake as the summer progresses. Of particular concern is getting through June and July, when temperatures are up and irrigation is at its peak.

Because of endangered sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake, the federal government requires that its water level be maintained at certain levels.

In late June the last two years, inflow into the lake has dropped off more than expected. In June 2003, the drop off was so sharp that Bureau officials came close to cutting off water to the Klamath Project for five days.

The water level in the lake will help Reclamation officials evaluate the effectiveness of irrigators' conservation efforts.

"It's the only thing I got," Sabo said.

If the lake level is getting too close to minimum lake levels set for suckers, then some curtailments of water around the Project could be necessary, Sabo said. It's that development that farmers hope to avoid.

"That's a big hammer hanging there and they don't want us to do that," Sabo said.

On the Net: www.usbr.gov/mp/kbao

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