Merrill taps still dry  

By TY BEAVER

H&N Staff Reporter

July 2, 2010

     A drop in groundwater levels in southern Klamath County was not unexpected, and needs to be monitored, state and local water officials say.

   Heavy groundwater pumping in the area, brought on by a water shortage for Klamath Basin irrigators, lowered the aquifer between 5 and 15 feet in some places.

   That caused the city of Merrill to lose access to its domestic water supply, cutting off     running water to about 400 households until Saturday.

   The city is working to lower its wellhead from 70 feet beneath the ground to 110 feet after learning the water level dropped.

   While property owners with shallow wellheads or wells could be impacted, officials said, regular monitoring of water levels in wells should prevent anybody from going without.

   “There’s still a lot of water down there,” said Hollie Cannon, executive director of Klamath Water and Power Agency.  

   Other water issues

   The Merrill situation was not the first report of water levels dropping in wells.

   Greg Addington, executive director of Klamath Water Users Association, said weeks ago that groundwater pumping was impacting some domestic wells in the southern end of the county.

   About 95,400 acre-feet of water was expected to be pulled from groundwater pumps on the Klamath Reclamation Project as part of a groundwater pumping program, Cannon said.

   The Oregon Water Resources Department has 200 supplemental irrigation wells listed in the county, many of them near the California-Oregon border.

   Doug Woodcock of the state water agency said the drop in the aquifer is comparable to the drop seen during the 2001 Klamath Basin water crisis. That year, the aquifer saw water levels drop   between 20 and 30 feet.

   He expected the aquifer to go down farther as ground water pumping continues.

   But, he added, it shouldn’t go below a depth to which wells couldn’t adjust.

   Merrill’s well is 1,000 feet deep and should be able to obtain water once a pipe is extended.

   “There’s more than 900 feet of water in those bore holes,” Woodcock said.

   Cannon said that the current level of groundwater pumping isn’t sustainable for the long term.

   He said implementation of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement is critical because it would allow for development of a sustainable ground water pumping plan.