Klamath Irrigation District

 Board Meeting Notes

  August 8, 2002

 

Agenda in Blue

Notes in Black  

Approval of Minutes 7/11/02  

Approval of vouchers and warrants

 

Old Business:  

1.      Fish Screens  

BOR has selected the contractor for the new headgates and fish screen.  Slayton Construction from Slayton , Oregon .  The BOR has furnished 10.4 to 10.8 million up front and has reserved the rest of the 15 million to cover “change orders” which are still being written and will continue to come out of USF&W right up to April 1, 2003 .  There will be a meeting tomorrow, August 9th at the BOR office with BOR, KID, and the contractor.  

Slayton Construction has already asked if we will shut the water off before Oct 15th so they can get started.  The board took another vote and Oct 15th will stay the shut off date.  

The BOR is going all out to keep the neighbors of the A Canal happy.  They have placed noise monitors in all the houses around the construction site and have been broadcasting sounds from construction sites to monitor the sound levels the neighbors will have to live with.  They have been offering moving the people out and putting them up in other housing totally paid for, while the construction is going on.  Many of the home owners have their hands out and not only want to be moved but compensated for their upheaval.  

The new headgates and fish screen have to be operational by April 1, 2003 .  The contract between BOR and Stayton has built in “benchmark timeline” that the contractor must meet during the construction phase.  If they miss a “benchmark”, the BOR will insist on the contractor doing everything possible to not miss the next “benchmark”; including hiring more men, more equipment, and working 30 hours a day.  

Complete construction of the entire bypass and fish inspection system is not expected until June or July of 2003.  But the headgates and fish screen must be done by April 1!  

2.      Adjudication  

KID is looking into changing their water claim to the date of statehood 1858 instead of 1905.  Can’t pick an earlier year even though some of the land ( Lower Klamath Lake area – 68,000 acres) had natural irrigation before any man made irrigation systems were built.  The land had to have beneficial use.  

Keno Irrigation and Algoma Irrigation districts are upset because they’re going to have to hire water attorneys to fight for their water rights.  Algoma needs stored water rights and Keno needs “natural flow” rights, they have no right to “stored” water in UKL.  Keno Irrigation district land sits on a natural flood plane.  

3.      Cell Tech  

Nothing new to report.  

4.      Other  

None

 

New Business:  

1.      2002 operations  

  1. 2002 BO and Operations Plan; water bank; Bill Bettenberg, OEP

Demand Reductions:  

Dave handed out 7/08/02 Draft “Comparison of Water Bank Proposals” put out by Dave Sabo.  Water users are proposing banking (taking off productive farm land) 90,000 AF in critical dry years, less during dry or below dry years.  (No water banking in normal or wet years).  The Klamath Basin Area Office of the BOR’s proposal is:  “Up to 100,000 AF when the water year requires specific amounts of water for ESA and tribal trust requirements; above average and wet water years may not require additional water.”  The Dept of Interior proposal:  100,000 AF in all water years.  (In other words, we have to reduce our water use by 100,000 AF!  Either we reduce our water use or the DOI/BOR will take it.)  

Both the water user’s proposal and the BOR’s include using ground water as a component while the DOI says no ground water.  

Remember, this “Comparison” is not set in concrete (though I’ll bet the DOI’s is).  Solem stated that because the DOI’s attention is now concentrated on fires and other drought areas, Klamath’s priority in house is dropping but will be picked back up.  

OEP – Department of Environmental Policy and Bill Bettenberg:  According to Dave, this governmental environmental agency is scary and a loose cannon.  Bettenberg has been around the basin for months, talking to the tribes.  Supposedly OEP is here to work on the Klamath River relicensing with PacificCorp, but is really working on reestablishing salmon on the Upper Klamath River .  The Klamath River needs a new FERC permit and in order to get the permit, OEP is requiring a fish latter at Iron Gate .  The draft permit needs a NEPA and has to be submitted 2 years ahead of time.  

The board also discussed the Habitat Conservation Plan (Act) or HCP.  It has a section 10 that reads a lot like section 7 of the ESA concerning “accidental take” but it contains a “safe harbor” for individual land owners, not irrigation districts.                                                                  

  1. Supply conditions; river flows

August 1st, the lower river tribes started screaming about the low river flows.  The BOR sent Dave Vogel to the Klamath River from Iron Gate to Happy Camp looking for fall Chinook. According to Dave Solem, he hasn't found any adults. Vogel has underwater video that shows only salmon and steelhead fry/smolts in the river and they are located in the main stem where some of the tributaries dump. The fry are staying in the cooler tributaries water and not in the hotter river flows.


According to Vogel, if BOR were to release another 100 cfs from UKL, the additional hot water would dilute the cool water coming from the tributaries and would kill the fry.

The tribes started screaming the minute the BOR dropped the flow rate to the "dry" year flow that is required in the NMFS Coho 2002-2012 Biological Opinion. They were hoping to find and collect bunches of dead fish, haul them to Klamath and dump them on the lawn at the Klamath office of the BOR.  

Solem says the Bryant and Sabo of the BOR are telling KID that the supply conditions look good for full deliveries to end of season.  BOR thinks they may end up with UKL level higher then BO requirements going into fall.  BOR may release extra water down the river around September 1st.  

Farmers are asking about fall planting of alfalfa and Bryant says we’re going to make it.  

Because of the smoke, grain is not ripening as per normal.  

  1. NPDES permit; costs

KID has their NPDES permit to apply acrolein to the ditches and laterals.  Oregon State DEQ wants to visit and inspect during an application and KID is arranging this inspection and will have to pay for it.  

KID found a lab in Moscow , Idaho to test for 2.6 parts per billion.  All samples sent to the lab have come back negative.  

d.  O&M bill  

Waiting for vote in the senate since the bill passed out of committee.  Lots of discussion on how to disperse the money to irrigators/land owners if the bill passes.  Does KID pay the landowner, or the person who actually paid the O&M?  If the landowner is paid, will he pass the payment on to the person who actually paid?  

      e.  Canal seeps  

Catching up – some pretty good ones on the A canal especially near Kiger Stadium.  KID employees have found very old tile pipes near some of the seeps.  Consensus is that these tile pipes were put in to control seeps right after the project was built or around 1917.  They’ve found another tile pipe on Onyx Place and down Hope Street .  

Dave believes that many of the seeps are sealing themselves but is still looking at the possibility of having to use benenite on the really bad ones this winter.  They’ve found on supplier in Fossil, Oregon .   

2.      Lawsuit/legal  

  1. Takings

Judge still hasn’t ruled.  

  1. PCFFA II

We filed an appeal – case is now moot.  KWUA has decided to drop the case.  

  1. ONRC 60 day notice

Nothing to report but lawsuit could still be filed.  

Side note:  ONRC sued Klamath Basin Drainage District 2 or 3 years ago about the pollution being dumped into the Klamath River from the Straits Drain.   

Dave Solem and Bill Ganong met with DOJ attorney and the attorney from the Klamath Forest Alliance and ONRC along with KBDD’s attorney in Medford .  

They want KBDD to get a NPDES permit because they say it’s a “point source” and the ONRC wants KBDD to build and maintain a “treatment marsh” for the water to flow through so all the so called pollution will be removed before the water gets put back into the river.  ONRC calls this a “pilot program” and the Federal lawyer just laughed.  ONRC is trying to blackmail – do what we want or we’ll take you to court.  The Fed lawyer said, “Fine, see you in court.”  Dave said Wendell Wood was shocked.  Everyone knows that the water flowing from the Straits Drain is 40% cleaner then the Klamath River .  

3.      Equipment:  truck tractor,  forklift, boom truck  

The lowboy truck has got a bad motor – board OK’d $20,000 to find a newer truck.  

KID is hoping to include a boom truck in the BOR contract for fish screen O&M.  

4.      Well agreements  

Several more irrigation districts have asked KID for sponsorship and to act as a pass-through – Klamath Hills, Poe Valley , Ady, and McPherson ( Warren Lands contract).  

5.      Agency Ranch/Barnes property  

Dave Solem, Dave Sabo, Dan Keppen, Tim O’Conner, Dave Chaska, and Bill Ganong toured the Barnes property which is located right next to the Agency Lake Ranch.  The Barnes Ranch is 7,121 acres and has the possibility of storing 40,000 AF of water.  The dikes protecting the ranch are in sad repair and would need to be fixed and raised to 4 feet for water storage, pumping water in and out.  Dikes need fixing anyway, because if they fail, and high lake water covers the land, the state of Oregon can claim the land as “lake.”

The Barnes family would sell but would rather trade for pasture land in another area of the Klamath Project.  Seems the family doesn’t need the money, just land to graze their cattle in the summertime.  

The American Lands Conservancy and the Rangeland Trust are also interested in the Barnes Ranch.  Appraised value is $4.8 Million.  

BOR is now saying that Agency Lake Ranch water storage is not going to work out, the dikes are failing here too.  They need to be raised and armored.  

During this tour, the group also checked out the Upper Marsh NWR and found that parts of it are already dry.  All the tributaries that feed it except the Williamson River are also dry.  The SW side is wetter then normal as is the Kitridge Ranch.  They found lots of grasshoppers.  Kirk was completely dry and where they have tried to turn pasture to marsh and tule, it is drying up also.  

6.      Farm Bill/EQIP  

This is where I left the meeting  

7.      Curry County  

8.      Foreclosures  

9.      A-Canal Tunnel letter; gate bid  

10.  Exclusions  

11.  Other

 

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