Water Users Asked to Increase Water Conservation Efforts

Due to a variety of factors that include court mandated higher-than-natural river flows, a dike breach on Upper Klamath Lake, a gauge malfunction on the Klamath River and lower than expected inflows; Klamath Project irrigators are once again being asked conserve even more water.

In a water year that has seen snow-pack reach 140% of average, the already efficient Klamath Project irrigators have been asked by federal agencies to institute additional voluntary measures to save water.

Water use for irrigation in the project to date is likely at or below average thus far in 2006.  Districts must now balance the need for additional conservation measures with the demand for irrigation that comes from having established and vulnerable crops in the field.

2006 marks the fifth consecutive year of a ‘pilot’ water bank and the second year of banking 100,000 acre-feet through land idling and groundwater-pumping.

In a meeting with state officials last month, Klamath County Commissioner Bill Brown voiced the concerns of what many in the Basin are feeling – “This could have been a year we could recharge (the aquifer) and we’re pumping,” he said.