Klamath County tractor convoy spans 20-plus miles; Going the distance for ag, H&N 5/31/20
< More than 2,000 people attended the "Shut Down and Fed Up" rally on Del Fatti Lane in Midland Friday afternoon
"Congressman Doug LaMalfa, (R-Richvale) said he and Congressman Walden will be fighting to provide more water for farmers to finish their irrigation season...'This is your water,' LaMalfa told the crowd. 'It doesn’t belong to BOR (Bureau of Reclamation), it doesn’t belong to NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service), it doesn’t belong to Fish and Wildlife. It doesn’t belong to anybody else.' LaMalfa emphasized that the Klamath Project was created over 100 years ago for one purpose and that was for agriculture for those who came and settled in the Basin and were given the opportunity to farm...“We’re going to fight for getting the full allocation back right now...'We’re going to take what is rightfully ours...' "

< "My Name is Orvin Ray Ackley IV. Most people know me as Lucky. Well, these days I don’t feel so lucky."  5/26/2020.  "...I am a third generation Rancher in the Klamath Basin. Here is a little background of my family so that you can understand the full story and why I feel the way I do. My great grand father Orvin Ackley I, was a Kansas farmer who lived through the dust bowl and the Great Depression..."

Reduce Klamath Cormorant population to save the fish, by Debbie Klaja for H&N 5/26/2020. "Has anything been done to reduce the number of fish-eating Cormorants? It seems everyone thinks the problem with no surviving baby sucker fish is the water level..." KBC NOTE: See our Refuge Page articles for more on fish-eating Caspian Terns lured to Tulelake and Lower Klamath refuges on million-dollar, FWS-made islands from eating baby salmon. 

Copco and Iron Gate reservoir levels to remain below normal through June, H&N 5/24/2020

Court denies Yurok Tribe effort to increase downstream Klamath River flows, H&N 5/24/2020.

Klamath water decisions will cause farms to close, by Ben DuVal for H&N 5/24/2020. "The only reason it’s even available (for Klamath River Salmon) is the reservoirs that were built for a single purpose - storing irrigation water for the Klamath farmers. How does a legitimate Biological Opinion include water that naturally would have never even existed?...My farm, like many on the Project, was developed on land that was under 10’ or more of water until that time. Now, we are told that there isn’t even 0.5 acre-foot available for that same acre...(Also) Upper Klamath Lake (UKL) is being held at a higher level than necessary, purportedly to allow sucker populations in UKL to access spawning habitat. Unfortunately, for the past 20 years, agency-imposed higher and higher UKL levels have contributed to a whopping 0% survivability....Does it seem rational to continue to ruin the economic base of the Klamath Basin in order to save zero fish?"

VIDEO - Six minutes: Calif. U.S. Congressman Devin Nunes water update on Central Valley irrigation. President Trump on  "...water being poured out into the Pacific..." Trump signed an executive order for water to be released to the farmers two years ago, however California Governor Gavin Newsom is blocking California farmers from receiving millions of gallons of water. https://youtu.be/VQSTQG-gYRk

Klamath Dams - Attack Planned and Carried Out? Followed by: Ottawa blocks Chinese takeover of Aecon on security grounds. Commentary by Rudy Hiley, Tulelake, for KBC News 5/21/2020

JESUS: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in..." Matthew 25:35

Klamath water users oppose Yurok Tribe request for flow increases 5/19/2020. "Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) filed its opposition with a federal court to a motion filed the Yurok Tribe and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association that was filed May 13.  The tribe’s motion requests that the court re-open a lawsuit that was put on hold for two years in March, and that the court immediately require increased flows below Iron Gate Dam in the Klamath River.."

5/18/2020 - "54 Million Americans are fighting hunger," according to a Whitehouse Meeting today with President Trump and restaurateurs. All the while the Bureau of Reclamation is sending Klamath Project stored water and that of California's Central Valley to the ocean, denying water to millions of acres of productive farmland.."

Yurok Tribe joins lawsuit seeking temporary restraining order to restore essential water flows for Klamath River salmon, Del Norte Triplicate 5/18/2020. "The Yurok Tribe joined the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and the Institute for Fisheries Resources in pursuit of a temporary restraining order to reinstate water flows on the Klamath River."

Two steers killed by wolves in Fort Klamath, H&N 5/17/2020.

* Deadline June 10 - Klamath Project Drought Response Agency continues helping farmers, 5/15/20

Klamath Irrigation District and Shasta View Irrigation District vs Bureau of Reclamation, Judge Clark decision, filed May 15, 2020.

Klamath Irrigation District vs Oregon Water Resources Department, filed May 14, 2020.

Irrational Klamath water management a formula for failure commentary by Tulelake farmer Ben DuVal for the Capital Press May 14, 2020. "While it looks like the Klamath Project will only get as little as 55,000 acre-feet in a year that irrigation demand would be approximately 400,000 acre-feet, we are going to send a minimum 152,000 acre-feet of stored water from Upper Klamath Lake down the Klamath River. That’s 152,000 acre-feet, or more, of water that never, under any circumstances, would have been provided by nature. The only reason it’s even available is the reservoirs that were built for a single purpose — storing irrigation water for the Klamath farmers."

How high can a salmon jump? by Judge Bob Kaster, Siskiyou Daily News 5/13/2020.  "It seems that everyone is on the bandwagon to yank out four dams along the Klamath River which have existed for decades and which do what they were designed to do, including flood control and clean hydroelectric power generation. Everyone is on the bandwagon, that is, except for the majority of those of us who actually live here in the California and Oregon counties where the dams are located; and except for many of us who are actually paying for it, i.e., the PacifiCorp electric utility ratepayers...."

Water crisis looming on Klamath Project, by Lyle Ahrens, KOBI KOTI TV 5/13/2020. KID Manager Gene Souza: “Based on the information that I have from Reclamation, we could be seeing a cutoff for Klamath Irrigation District as soon as June 15th...Hundreds of millions of dollars in workers, in restaurants, in equipment, transportation, fuel, everything that keeps this basin going is at risk right now...”

Klamath Project Drought Response Agency is accepting applications for 2020 programs due May 15

California workers’ comp benefits expand, CFBF 5/13/2020. "Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order last week requiring that "any COVID-19-related illness of an employee shall be presumed to arise out of and in the course of the employment for purposes of awarding workers' compensation benefits..."

A disaster on our hands, H&N, 5/8/2020. "The Klamath Project ...is now facing a possible water shutoff by or before July. The water allocation of 140,000 acre feet for the Project announced (by Reclamation) in April will likely drop to...an unofficial estimate of 55,000 acre feet left for the remainder of the irrigation season...For comparison, 350,000 acre feet is a full allocation for the Project... 'This is a significant reduction from the 140,000 acre feet we were told in April,” Souza said in an email on Friday. “Farmers have planted crops, hired workers, and have made plans based upon the 140,000 acre feet … and the rug is currently being pulled out from underneath them.' "
KBC NOTE: Yesterday, May 8th, approximately 100 farmers and ranchers gathered to be told that the Bureau will probably shut off their water in June, contrary to what they promised in April. Also the Bureau is sending massive amounts of water down the Klamath River contrary to a court order: "The BOR is hereby ordered to cease releasing stored water from UKL reservoir..." 
   The Bureau's interim report concludes, "the cumulative impacts (to help fish) are likely to be minor, as sucker recovery, coho enhancement, and changes to the biological resources would require a much longer time frame to be implemented and their effects are speculative beyond the period of analysis.”

Klamath in Peril - Three Decades as a Klamath Project Irrigator: Observations Heading into a Grim Irrigation Season, by Klamath Irrigation District President Ty Kleiwer, farmer and rancher 5/13/2020  "...We are on a pathway to doom and it appears this year brings another disaster, likely with worse consequences than what we faced in 2001, the first and only time until now that the Klamath Irrigation Project was shut down for the perceived benefit of fish protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA)...this federal water project...was developed solely to provide stored water for irrigation of local farm and ranch lands...this largely government-caused “drought” has the same roots of cause as the 2001 crisis: a scientifically unjustified, narrow focus on lake levels and downstream flow releases to avoid jeopardizing ESA-listed fish. While our local farming community will once again carry the burden of these devastating federal directives, the imperiled fish populations show no positive response to these actions...Many farmers in the basin are descendants of World War I and World War II veterans who won homesteads in the basin, or are descendants of Czechoslovakian immigrants who fled wartime unrest in Europe to find security and prosperity in the Klamath Project..."

On 75th anniversary, Bly remains connected to tragic WWII event - Japanese balloon bomb, Bend Bulletin, 5/5/2020. "...a tragic incident that caused the only American casualties of World War II on continental U.S. soil..."