Stakeholder negotiations will
continue next week in
Sacramento, California on the Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement (KBRA), stated Steve
Kandra, past president of the Klamath Water
Users Association (KWUA) at this morning's
weekly public meeting of the Klamath County
Commissioners.
Additional amendments to the
KBRA concerning timelines and other small
issues will be discussed, but no major
changes to the KBRA are anticipated. Kandra
also announced that the new draft 12 "will
soon be released to the public."
Kandra and other members of
the Upper Klamath Basin farming and ranching
community answered questions posed by the
commissioners about the negotiations and
other issues facing the on and off-project
irrigators.
Klamath River dam removal,
the Agreement in Principle between
PacifiCorp and the states of Oregon and
California, Oregon Senate Bill 76, sediment
behind the dams, and additional water
storage was also discussed at the meeting
this morning.
Dave Solem, manager of the
Klamath Irrigation District updated the
commissioners about off-stream water storage
language contained in the draft KBRA and
stated that the Bureau of Reclamation will
release its Appraisal Level Study of the
Long Lake proposal sometime in June. Then
the Bureau will undertake a feasibility
study that will cover National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA), other environmental and
monetary requirements. "Long Lake is not a
silver bullet," stated Solem. "It will
require 3 to 4 years to fill, and with this
year's water supply, there is no excess
water."
Karl Scronce, president of
the newly formed Upper Klamath Basin Water
Users Association (UKBWUA) was asked by
Commissioner Cheryl Hukill about any
benefits the off-project irrigators will
receive from the KBRA. Scronce stated that
his group "didn't feel they were rightly
represented at the Sacramento meetings."
Matt Walter, one of the board
members of UKBWUA, updated the
commissioners on the power rate litigation
between Off-Project irrigators and
PacifiCorp. "PacifiCorp has deep pockets,
and this will go on for years. I'm worried
about my kids. Will they be able to ranch?
When you add up all the expenses for
ranching in the upper basin and then add in
tariff power rates, it just doesn't pencil
out," Walter said.
The Upper Klamath Basin Water
Users Association was formed to enable it to
join the Klamath Water and Power Agency.
Becky Hyde addressed the
commissioners about ongoing talks with the
Klamath Tribes and
pointed out that, because of the Oregon
State Water Right Adjudication, there will
be junior water rights in the upper basin
that must be retired.
Commissioner John Elliott
asked KWUA President Luther Horsley if he
thought Link River dam releases -- over and
above the requirements to meet the needs of
releases at Iron Gate dam for the biological
opinion on the Klamath River coho -- are
'wasteful.' Horsley agreed that they are.
Horsley also stated that if
the KBRA were in affect today, "we'd know
right were where we'd be right now."
Kandra ended by talking about
the draft KBRA, saying, "It's easy to
criticize a plan when they don't have their
own plan. Most critics are only interested
in their own small part of the puzzle. We
knew we'd have to compromise on some issues.
Tribal Trust, a guaranteed block of water,
power rates, individual water rights, and
biological opinion requirements only make up
a portion of the KBRA. We sat down and
said, 'How are we going to deal with
this?'"
"Whether or not the dams come
out, there will be fish passage. There will
be salmon at Keno," stated Kandra.
"Driving this is the
Adjudication." said Kandra. "There is too
much exposure and risk. There are folks out
there who will go to zero water rights
without the KBRA."
