Williamson levee demolition: The first or the last?

By Phil Hayworth

Pioneer Press

Fort Jones , CA

530-468-5355

pioneerp@sisqtel.net

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Page E7

When the Nature Conservancy blew two miles of levees along the Williamson River delta to smithereens last week, it had some here hoping that it was be the last such explosion - and that it would give way to better relationships between Klamath Basin farmers and environmentalists.

"We're hoping that it marks the tail end of these kinds of levee destruction, not the beginning," said Klamath Water Users Association president Greg Addington.

But it won't be.

That's because in a few months the Conservancy flood the Goose Bay side of the Williamson Delta in an effort to bring back to health populations of sucker fish that once thrived in the area. They won't use explosives for that project, they say.

Between now and then, the Conservancy will test water quality and do other tests to determine the efficacy of last week's demolition. Some observers wondered if the 100-tons of explosives along the levee weren't placed too high. Observers said they saw little water actually flowing into the 1,000-acre section after the explosions. 

But Conservancy spokesperson Mark Stern said the demolition went well, and that it'll take time for nature to wear away at the soft peat soil that makes up that section of levee. He said that wind, waves and other weather will take its course.

The project should put another 17,000 acre-feet of water in the lake, he said, and allow for more water storage for farmers and others to use in the future.

An acre-foot is roughly enough water to cover a football field 1 foot deep. Lake levels will go down about 2 inches, but spread out further, Stern said. "Eventually that will be available for downstream uses," he told some Oregon media.

But Addington is keeping his fingers crossed that the restoration of the Williamson - the details of which took multiple entities a decade to iron out - is the last of the restoration projects.

"I can tell you right now that the farmers in this basin aren't going to like it if more productive farmland is taken out of the system," he said.

(Permission to post from the publisher.)