Chronicles: WATER AND DROUGHT

‘It’s a tough situation. There’s not enough water to go around’   

   Dave Mauser, wildlife biologist for the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges complex, is watching the Lower Klamath refuge dry up, but there’s little he can do to get water for the nearly one million wetland birds that are beginning to migrate there.

   “I’ve sent in a request to the Bureau of Reclamation for water delivery this fall to Lower Klamath. I’m not real optimistic,” he said. “But you have to ask.”

   Fall birds will migrate until the beginning of November. With no water, the birds will have to go someplace else.

   “California has lost over 90 percent of its historic wetlands. We’re running out of places for birds to go,” Mauser said.

   The refuges are last in line for water from Upper Klamath Lake. Endangered species and tribal trust obligations come first, then farmers, and then what’s left over goes to the refuges. This year, Basin farmers only received about 40 percent of the water they needed, so the refuges have gone without.

   Mauser said in July that by late summer, the refuges will be “a pretty dry place.”

   “We have about half that water from July at this point,” Mauser said.

   The Tule Lake refuge, which houses protected species such as American bald eagles, is full, Mauser said, but the other refuges are partially filled or dry.

   The refuge is using what little water is available from wells, “but that’s like an eyedropper of water,” he said.

   “We’re also projecting that the marshes on Upper Klamath will be dry. Water is coming out of the marshes with the falling lake levels. It’s a tough situation. There’s not enough water to go around.”

‘Borrowers have struggled all year’   

 

MITCH STOKES, relationship manager, Northwest Farm Credit Services

    Mitch Stokes says many irrigators he works with will make it through this year’s water shortage.

   Many have wells that can cover some of their irrigation needs, and they’ve taken other measures, from leasing ground with wells to growing on land that has surface water access.

   “People could get real creative where they grew their crops,” said the relationship manager at Northwest Farm Credit Services.

   Commodity prices also are helping.

   Stokes said the cattle market is the best it’s been in years, and grain and potatoes are expected to bring good prices as well.

   It’s still a rough year, though.

   Grain crops are generally worth less than row crops such as potatoes and garlic. Stokes said many farmers are growing far more grain than they usually would or aren’t growing row crops at all.

   Potatoes may be valuable this year but prices from last year’s crop were low, hitting growers in the pocketbook. This year’s crop has to yield large potatoes to take advantage of good prices and so far, estimates have individual potatoes at below normal sizes due to weather and soil conditions.

   “It’s a tough year out there and borrowers have struggled all year long to fulfill commitments and continue farming,” Stokes said.

ROBERT RICE, owner, Rice Feed & Supply, Dairy

     DAIRY — At the beginning of the planting season, business was precariously slow at Rice Feed & Supply Store in Dairy.

   Now, nearing the final harvests, nothing has changed, said Robert Rice, the store’s owner.

   Since he is his only employee, Rice tried to cut back early in the summer by using fewer overhead lights and cutting off the lights on the soda machine.

   “We’re still managing, just going one day at a time,” Rice said. “You don’t buy anything and you hope you sell what you’ve got.”

   Normally the store sells thousands of pounds of grain seed to farmers, but with surface water curtailed or cut off, farmers either idled their land or rented it to potato farmers, causing Rice’s business to fall 60 percent from a year ago.

   Fall farming may hold some promise for the seed store, which also has a dryland crop business.

   But otherwise, Rice said, business would pick up when there’s moisture.

   Since Sept. 1, the Basin has received 7.17 inches of rain, about 60 percent of normal.

   “When is it going to snow? When is it going to rain?” Rice said. “We have less and less water every day. We’re just hoping for a big snow. We need lots of water.”