Rich McIntyre and the Barnes Ranch proposal
September 18, 2003, by KBC

 GO HERE FOR AUDIO of part of McIntyre's speech on an Upper Basin tour. (McIntyre claims how much water will be stored, how much $, and what sort of water quality to expect)

Here for more on storage.

(go HERE for free download of Real Player--look carefully for totally free download).

"Asked how they would control the warm water, and what the temperature of this hot water sump would be, McIntyre states, "I think that's one of the questions that needs to be looked at..."

Ed Bartell asks, "What does this do to the vegetation?  Vegetation dies, it will effect the phosphate level, can we use the storage?"

McIntyre, "We agree."

Dave Hillemeyer, Yurok tribe attorney, "We still have stream flows, so it's not a silver bullet in dry years."

Question for BOR: "Will the properties be flooded above the ranch?"

BOR Christine Karas, "I can't answer that question"

Also Paul Little, the Meadows Irrigation director stated that when the BOR fills the Agency Ranch for water storage, it flows onto his private ranch after it flows onto the Barnes property... his ranch would have to be filled with water
prior to the Barnes Ranch being maximized for water storage.  This means that the Barnes Ranch may not be useful without the purchase of another (his) ranch. "I have stood on the levee when water has run over from Barnes property." 

Karas stated that "something could be engineered to protect those properties."

The group did not seemed convinced that this "water storage" proposition, like all the the previous promises of 'more water for ag', would be indeed a good idea. Stressed fish, fatally warm water and phosphorus levels for fish, possibly unusable storage, and more wetlands to suck up the water available for agriculture and downstream uses."

These were some of the quotes and discussions regarding the Barnes Property acquisition on an Upper Basin tour in July. Evaporation from flooded ag lands is approximately 3 AcreFeet/acre.  We have lost thousands of AF/water in the upper basin alone from the acquisition of over 92,000 acres of ag land converted to wetlands.(for more about acquisitions, go HERE and see question #1.)  This has increased the phosphorus level so high that most of the upper basin wetland water is illegal to put back into Klamath Lake.  Standing water evaporates. According to Klamath Tribal member, there are no coots anymore on much of this converted land because of the lack of feed from agriculture, and horrendous water quality. go HERE for full report on Upper Basin tour.

Ed Bartell, landowner, told how is was only recently that flow meters were installed. "These's been a dramatic decrease in flow. Where is the water going to come from?" He explained how, with 100,000 acres taken out of ag land, that is over 100,000 AF water being lost to the lake. You need to monitor the water...there is no available data. Ag is not depleting the flow.

John Elliott, Klamath County Commissioner, states the following about Mr. McIntyre and his proposal, "Mr. McIntyre is passionate about his project and I admire that.  We all need to be involved in investigating and supporting projects that conserve water and hold it as high as feasible in the Klamath Watershed.  However, some projects will be more effective in achieving those goals than others.  While the storage numbers he quotes may be as much as 50,000 acre feet, he doesn't mention that the net increase in storage is actually 18,000 to 38,000 acre feet.  This is because the Bureau of Reclamation is already storing 12,000 acre feet on the adjoining 7,400 acre Agency Lake Ranch.  The high end of the estimation is based upon the dikes being raised and water being pumped onto both ranches.  Apparently, the higher estimates can't be achieved without the dikes because flooding both the Agency Lake Ranch and the Barnes Ranch to obtain that amount of water storage will result in (guess what?) flooding of the adjoining ranches!"

Commissioner Elliott voted against the Barnes Ranch acquisition.

The following conveys the concern of our Congressional representatives:

.....................

The following shows the decline in Upper Basin flows in the past 55 years, primarily from converting ag lands to wetlands.

Part of Dr. Ken Rykbost's POWERPOINT PRESENTATION

Williamson River Flows at Modoc Point Road, Dr. Rykbost audio *Williamson River accounts for about 46 % of inflow to UKL according to several studies *Williamson River watershed yield per inch of precipitation at Klamath Falls or Crater Lake has declined significantly over the past 50 years *Changes in the upper Williamson, Sycan, and Sprague Rivers seem apparent

Lets face it, if the 200' deep Long Lake storage is acquired, ALC has a lot to lose.  If the Barnes Ranch deal goes through, the neighboring properties, and the ag community (with 3'/acre evaporation) has a very lot to lose.

Go HERE for more info and articles regarding Barnes Property and Long Lake proposals.