Klamath Falls Herald and News
Wednesday
May 11, 2005
By DYLAN DARLING
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Rain fell every day for two
weeks in the Klamath Basin, but it's still a "dry" year in the
estimation of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
"We are not going to be out of a drought just because it's rained,"
said Dave Sabo, manager of the Klamath Reclamation Project.
Spring rains flow rapidly
downstream, while a deep winter snowpack releases water through the spring and
summer. And the recent rains have actually eaten into this winter's meager
snowpack.
The water from the recent rains is quickly on its way out of the Basin. Water
from Iron Gate Dam is rushing down the river in a volume 3.5 times greater
than at the same time last year.
Last year on May 10, flow from the dam was 1,253 cubic feet per second.
Tuesday, the flow was 4,560 cubic feet per second.
The Bureau can't store more in the upper part of the Basin.
Upper Klamath Lake is nearly full. Above the lake, the Bureau has an extra
25,000 acre-feet of water stored on Agency Lake Ranch, which it owns, and
Barnes Ranch, on which it has a contract to flood, Sabo said.
Even though the inflow to the lake is expected to fall off quickly, the Bureau
will continue to let water run downstream at a high rate.
That's to protect chinook salmon from getting stranded along the river, fisheries officials said. That management regime is required by the biological opinion that governs the way the river is managed for the fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.
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"We actually overuse the
water," Sabo said.
The young chinook salmon are swimming toward the Pacific Ocean, said Irma
Lagomarsino, field office supervisor for the National Marine Fisheries Service
in Arcata.
"We are certainly happy there are spill conditions," she said.
"There is more habitat."
Federal and state scientists
hope the high flows will reduce disease among fish such as the 6 million
fingerlings it's releasing this month from its hatchery at Iron Gate.
Last year, a parasite called Ceratomyxa shasta, or C shasta for short, which
almost always causes death by infection in salmon, was found in more than half
of 269 salmon sampled in mid-June. In late April the parasite showed up in a
third of the 79 young salmon sampled in a 35-mile stretch of the river
starting just after it passed under I-5.
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"We are hoping that the
increased flows will knock that disease rate down again," said Mike Long,
field supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Arcata office.
While the scientists wait to see how the salmon react, federal officials in
the Basin wait to see how the rain will affect forecasts for inflow this
summer. The forecasts are what determine the label put on the Upper Klamath
Lake and Klamath River. That, in turn, affects how water is managed for
irrigation and other purposes.
That label is still
"dry," said Sabo, whose agency makes the call.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service said April 1 that Upper Klamath
Lake would get 42 percent of its average inflow over the summer. After April
ended with four days of rain, the May 1 forecast went up to 47 percent.
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Since the start of May, 1.59
inches of rain was recorded at Kingsley Field's weather station.
Jolyne Lea, forecaster for the Conservation Service, said she will crunch the
numbers Monday for a mid-month forecast. The rain should change things.
"I think it is going to improve the forecast, but it is hard to say when
the exact effect is going to be," she said.
She said her forecasts account for rainstorms, especially in the spring
months. And, rainfall has taken a bit out of snowpack at higher elevations in
the mountains around the Basin.
"It looks like it is melting the snow," Lea said.
As of Tuesday, the snowpack was at 38 percent of average for this time of
year.
National Weather Service forecasts call for drier days. Temperatures are
expected to reach the 70s and there is little chance of rain the rest of the
week.
During summer in the Basin, inflow into the lake comes from the melting
snowpack and occasional thunderstorms.
The longer the lake level is up, the better things are all around, said Curt
Mullis, manager of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Klamath Falls office.
So, although the recent spring rain has been good, it would have been better
as winter snow.
"What we would really like to see in this country is a good snowpack that
provides water long after it warms up," Mullis said.