Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
Upholding rural Americans' rights to grow food,
own property, and caretake our wildlife and natural resources.
Our Klamath Basin
Water Crisis
Upholding rural Americans' rights to grow food,
own property, and caretake our wildlife and natural resources.
|
Chronicles: WATER AND
DROUGHT
Winter
determines future irrigation seasons
By SARA HOTTMAN, Herald and News
9/5/10
This year’s water drama will end with the irrigation
season, Oct. 15.
But
that marks the beginning of a more foreboding
period: winter, the season that will carry the most
influence over next year’s water deliveries.
Stakeholders in Klamath Reclamation Project water
are hoping for a wet winter, the only way to prevent
another drought.
“We
hope we have a real good winter, but we can’t count
on it,” said Bob Gasser, who co-owns Basin
Fertilizer and Chemical Co. in Merrill. “We hope the
agencies do the right thing and fill the lake this
year, but we can’t count on the agencies either.
“You can be sure everybody is looking for fields for
next year, just in case this happens again.”
The
drought will officially end Dec. 31. The government
agencies that control who gets water will start
preparing for the next growing season at the
beginning of January, said Kyle Gorman, a regional
director for the Oregon Water Resources Department.
Drought conditions were the seed of producers’
issues this year, but the persistent problems stem
from late water allotments from the Bureau of
Reclamation. Growers didn’t know until May where
water would go, which forced last-minute decisions
that in many cases led to leasing fields unfit for
food crops, so they had soil and pest problems that
will likely result in lower yields.
When weather is the deciding factor, Gorman said,
there’s little the agencies can do to prevent the
same issue next year.
“November and December can be so variable, trying to
predict the water year
at
that time is too unreliable,” Gorman said. “There’s
not a lot we can do (to prepare for next year) at
this point. It’s really dependent on the weather
that we have throughout the winter.
“By
January, we’ll have a good feel for what kind of
water year we’re going to have. At that point, we
can start meeting with folks, talking about water
allocations.”
The
Basin depends on snow pack in the winter — it melts
and fills bodies of water — to supply water for
spring.
“If
you have a strong winter … it fills the soil profile
with water, then it takes less water to fill that
soil profile up during the summer,” said Willie
Riggs, director of the Oregon State University
extension office in Klamath Falls.
The
state will watch its water monitoring systems —
sites that measure precipitation, snow pack in the
mountains, flows
in
streams — and form predictions based on the National
Resources Conservation Service model. Both state and
federal agencies use the service’s precipitation and
weather predictions.
Gorman emphasized that the more surface water and
groundwater users conserve now, the more they’ll
start with next year.
“We
still need to be very conscious and mindful of water
use, because any water that is not used … is water
that can be used for next year,” he said.
Alfalfa and grains are already being harvested, and
the last crops of the season, potatoes and onions,
are just weeks from that point, which means there’s
less of a demand for water.
“We need to bring that water table
back up, get some storage in the aquifer and storage
in lakes,” Gorman said. “We need some recovery this
winter.”
Shopping in Tulelake
Help for farmers? ‘California
doesn’t have any money’
By
JOEL ASCHBRENNER, Herald and News 9/5/10
H&N photo by Andrew Mariman Tony
Giacomelli, owner of Jock’s Super
Market in Tulelake, stands in
front of his store Tuesday. The market, like
other businesses, has been
negatively impacted by the drought in
the Klamath Basin.
TULELAKE — For Tony Giacomelli, this year’s drought
could be tougher than one nine years ago that saw
water shut off to irrigators throughout the Basin.
The
impact of the 2001 drought on the Giacomelli, owner
of Jock’s Super Market in Tulelake, and other
Tulelake-area residents was mitigated by state aid,
he said, which helped keep people employed and
shopping at area businesses, like his.
“That’s not going to happen this year,” he said.
“California doesn’t have any money.”
While this year’s drought has been tough for the
grocer, it won’t be devastating, he said. He
estimates profits are down 10 percent at the
supermarket he has owned since 1986. To make up for
the loss, Giacomelli cut one job through attrition
and works seven days a week most weeks.
There are simply fewer people shopping this year, he
said. Many farm workers who usually live nearby
moved elsewhere in search of work. That has a direct
effect on local businesses.
“There’s less money to go around,” he said. “That’s
all there is to it.”
The
drought was no surprise, he said. A dry winter led
area irrigators to prepare for a summer water
shortage. This was not the case in 2001, when
irrigators who had owned water rights for decades
were shocked when, for the first time, they did not
have water for their fields.
“It
wasn’t a shock this time,” the Tulelake native said.
“You could pretty much see it coming. The farmers
were aware of the possibility that the water could
be shut off a lot more than in 2001.”
Still, there is uncertainty around Tulelake, Giacomelli said, and it all stems from water. Irrigators don’t know how late they will have water. Farm workers don’t know how long they’ll have jobs. Owners of area potato-packing sheds don’t know if they’ll have potatoes to pack in the winter.
And Giacomelli doesn’t know how many
more of his customers will have to leave the
Tulelake area to find work elsewhere.
“There used to be a certainty of water, but
that’s gone away in the last 10 years,” he said.
“That affects people.”
The one certainty that remains, Giacomelli said, is
Jock’s, which has been in his family since 1956,
will stay in Tulelake.
“We’ve been here a long time, and
we’re not going anywhere,” he said.
Extension center
crops move to Merrill
WILLIE RIGGS, director, Klamath Basin Research
and Extension Center
That uncertainty led KBREC to plant a portion of its experimental crops in privately owned fields throughout the area, director Willie Riggs said. This year, the experiment station planted about 20 acres of experimental crops in fields near Merrill, Dairy and north of Lower Klamath Lake, Riggs said.Riggs said the research center could not risk planting all crops at the experiment station and running out of water. Most of the crop experiments are multi-year trials, which require the same amount of water each year. “We have to keep those factors consistent,” he said.Riggs said outsourcing land for the crop experiment plots creates extra work and expenses because employees have to drive and haul farming equipment all over the Basin. The costs add up, he said, especially when the experiment station saw its budget cut by nearly 19 percent this year.
‘The farmers have
done a pretty good job managing what was
available’
By ELON GLUCKLICH
DAVE SOLEM, outgoing
manager, Klamath Irrigation District
Klamath Basin farmers, cattle ranchers,
county leaders and government officials all
had one thing in common this year: They kept
a closer eye than ever on the changing level
of Upper Klamath Lake.
But few can say they’ve watched the lake
level with as much interest — and agony — as
Dave Solem.
The outgoing manager of the Klamath
Irrigation District watched in April as the
growing season began without a drop of water
for irrigators. Days turned to weeks, and a
full month passed before he could tell
district irrigators the water was coming.
And while water flow has remained
steady for many within his district, Solem’s
final year at KID presented challenges he
never thought he would have to deal with.
“We’ve never really gone through a season
with half a supply like this. It’s kind of
our worst nightmare,” he said.
Conservative water use by district
irrigators has Solem thinking the district
might make it to October before shutting
supplies off this year. In May, he said he
feared having to shut off in mid-September.
His final days with KID were spent in
conference calls with the Bureau of
Reclamation, tracking the water level of
Upper Klamath Lake, regulating water
releases for farmers, listening to
grievances, and trying to squeeze the most
he could out of a finite resource.
“We had to manage things much more
stringently than we have in the past,” he
said
All and all, he feels he’s done a pretty
good job. Crop losses were not as bad as
he feared.
“If you have grain, it’s pretty much done. The potato crop is getting closer and closer to being finished,” he said. “The farmers have done a pretty good job managing what was available.”
He realizes not everyone feels that way.
Farmers in the Langell Valley suffered
through a poor season, while some irrigation
districts received no water until summer, he
said. Acres of farmland sit yellow and idle.
Countless growers worked more to earn less
this year, the worst water season on record
since 2001.
Solem can only speak from his own
perspective. And he said he knows countless
irrigators are hurting as the summer winds
to a close. But he also knows without the
highest level of cooperation between
agencies and farmers he’s ever seen, a bad
year might have been much worse.
“In my opinion, it wasn’t as bad as I
thought it was going to be,” he said. “I’m
appreciative of that.”
Cooperation key to getting
federal aid
SUE FRY, manager, Bureau of Reclamation,
Klamath Basin Area Office
Without cooperation from water districts,
farmers, lawmakers and agencies like the
Bureau of Reclamation, a bad water year may
have been much worse.
Few can appreciate that more than Sue Fry.
The manager of the Bureau of Reclamation’s
Klamath Basin Area Office, Fry has spent
countless hours in a conference room in the
Bureau’s Klamath Falls office, talking with
irrigators about keeping close tabs on water
use.
Fry said communication was key to managing
resources amid the region’s worst water
shortage since 2001.
“Because of the relationships we’ve built,
it made the water year more successful,” Fry
said. “Without that, it would have been a
much different year.”
Fry focused heavily on devising resource
management strategies in the region. Whether
that meant wells to compensate for lake
shortages or idling land, Fry said she often
had to deal with landowners reluctant to
change old habits.
“I think early on we recognized there was
going to be a drought,” she said. “All year
there was low inflow to the Upper Klamath
Lake, historically low.”
As early as January, Bureau officials
noticed low inflows from the Williamson
River, which feeds into the Upper Klamath
Lake. That early awareness helped them
devise alternatives and maximize the few
resources available.
But, Fry said, a similar shortage in 2011
would be more crippling to farmers.
“It’s not something we want
to go though again next year,” she said.
DONNIE BOYD, owner, Floyd A. Boyd Co.,
Merrill
“Surprisingly, we’re better off than I
thought we would be,” said Donnie Boyd, sole
owner of a three-generation implement
dealership.
Boyd said his remaining employees at Floyd
A. Boyd Co. are working full-time hours
again.
But there’s still a lot of uncertainty out
there, Boyd said.
He still hasn’t been able to hire back
workers he laid off in the last few months,
and business continues to be slow at the
company’s Merrill operation.
Boyd said growers and ranchers still don’t
feel secure enough to plan too far ahead,
and the provision of an additional 35,000
acre-feet of water to the Klamath
Reclamation Project did little to ease
concerns.
“I think that was a slap in the farmer’s
face,” he said. “Stop playing games with
us.”
Heat on west side of
mountains helps potato plants
despite late planting
By JILL AHO
H&N photo by Jill Aho
Donnie Heaton checks his potato
fields west of Klamath
Falls near Medford. Temperatures
west of the mountains are warmer
than in the
Klamath Basin and are helping his
crops, he says.
As far as Donnie Heaton knows, it’s
been 30 years since anyone from the
Klamath Basin tried to grow potatoes
on the western side of the Cascades.
Until now.
Limited irrigation deliveries from
Upper Klamath Lake to Heaton’s usual
Merrill-area fields drove him out of
the Klamath Reclamation Project to
rented fields with access to stable
sources of water, mainly wells. It
also prompted him to act on a desire
that had been surfacing off and on:
Could he successfully grow a potato
crop in the Medford area?
He sublet a 100-acre field behind
the Boise Cascade mill. To one side
an alfalfa field flourishes. On
another, bright orange squash peek
out from beneath dark green
cascading leaves.
It’s hotter over here, Heaton says,
but the potato plants look good.
Klamath Basin crops should be this
big this close to harvest, but a
cold, wet spring stunted their
growth.
“If we can get through this year and
get our bills paid, we’ll be happy,”
Heaton says. “It’s been a tough year
growing-wise. I’m really hoping for
a good, long fall.”
Despite getting the Medford-side
plants in the ground two weeks later
than planned, the hot temperatures
have helped them catch up and they
came up faster than the ones he
planted near Bonanza, he says.
“They’re still outgrowing anything
at home,” he says.
Heaton is optimistic that his
harvest from this Medford-area
field, which has never had potatoes
planted in it, will be satisfying.
“All we can do is screw it up
between now and then,” he says.
“Everything looks really good.”
On the rest of the 100-acre field,
Heaton grew red wheat. His original
plan of trucking the harvest up to
Portland for processing didn’t work
out because grain elevators weren’t
taking red wheat, he says. His wheat
harvest was of good quality, but he
had trouble getting an even
irrigation on the field.
“Where we were able to get a full
irrigation on it, it did good,” he
said.
Heaton’s center pivot irrigation
system malfunctioned due to the soil
type, he says. One truss wrapped
around another, breaking a section
of the overhead sprinkler.
Heaton expects to
shell out $15,000 to replace the
broken part.
Side Bar
480 sacks of potatoes
Three weeks ago, a yield sample of
Donnie Heaton's 30-acre experiment
in the Medford area indicated he
could expect 480 sacks of potatoes
per acre.
A sack is 100 pounds,
and his Klamath Basin fields produce
more than 500 sacks per acre on
average, he says. The plants are
expected to gain five to 10 sacks a
day.
Each plant is
producing plenty of spuds. A
Norkotah plant normally yields 11 to
13 potatoes per hill, he says. The
Medford Norkotahs are producing
between 20 and 24 potatoes each.
Last week, Heaton planned to roll
down the potato plants, essentially
killing the tops. Then he'll wait
two to three weeks to start digging
them up and get a really good handle
on how well his experiment has gone.
"You never really know until you put
the blade in the dirt," Heaton said.
Quick Fact: Center pivot
irrigation is made up of an overhead
sprinkler system that pivots on a
central axis, making a wide circle
through the field to spread water
evenly. Sensors are supposed to
stop the system if it becomes
misaligned or the wheels get stuck.
Late in
the season, temperatures can
make or break potato harvest
By SARA HOTTMAN
H&N photos by
Andrew Mariman
John Walker, a Merrill-area
farmer, checks
his potato plants. Walker
worries cold temperatures will
delay his harvest.
Of the many
aspects of farming out of John
Walker’s control, the most
detrimental is the most
imminent: cold weather.
It threatened his potatoes when
they were first planted and now
has the potential to ruin his
entire crop at the cusp of
harvest.
“For people who live in Klamath
Falls, (a cold day) is just
another day,” said Walker, who
co-owns Merrill-based Walker
Brothers Farms and Gold Dust
Potato Processors. “For us guys
trying to get a crop out, it’s
not like that.
“I’m absolutely scared to death
of the weather … Nobody knows
what’s going to happen. The crop
is way behind.”
Walker estimates he is 10 to 14
days behind in the harvesting
process. Delays in irrigation
water delivery forced him to
plant late in the growing season
and in unfamiliar ground — 900
acres in the Poe and Yonna
valleys and off Swan Lake Road.
John
Walker bought a new harvester
that sorts potatoes from
rocks to accommodate new,
untried fields.
Not only is the soil there
rockier, which made planting so
difficult the operation bought a
new harvester that separates
rocks from potatoes, but the
fields are farther north, which
means the temperatures are on
average 5 degrees colder than in
Klamath Falls, where recent lows
have dipped to into the low 30s.
In the last few weeks before harvest, potatoes need warm, dry weather.
Cold weather can freeze them
while they’re still in the
ground. After the harvester
pulls them up and they’re in the
shed, they’ll gradually defrost
and rot, Walker said.
Walker grows chipping potatoes
that go to Frito Lay, In-N-Out
Burger, and companies in the
Philippines, Malaysia, and South
Korea.
“If I can’t fulfill contracts,
they’ll shit can me and I’ll
never have contracts again,”
Walker said. “If you can’t sell
the product, you can’t pay the
bank back, you go broke, you’re
done.”
Walker has already incurred
extra expenses this year. He
moved his crops 25 miles away
from the 6,500 acres his family
has around Malin and Newell
because of the water shortage.
“We’re still burning tires off
of pickups
,” he said. “It’s ongoing. Once
you get committed to a field,
you have 10 employees going
north every day, seven days a
week.”
The new land has potassium
deficiencies that had to be
offset with fertilizer.
Walker hopes to start harvesting
around Sept. 15, though the cold
could force him to wait until
Sept. 20, he said.
“We’ve all seen
it snow in late September. We’ve
seen it rain for three days. We
get an inch of rain, that puts
me back another week,” Walker
said. “This is very scary for
everybody.”
WESTON
WALKER, field manager and
international sales agent, Gold
Dust Potato Processors and
Walker Brothers Farms
‘NOW I’M MENTALLY PREPARING FOR
THE BATTLE’
Weston Walker came from a farm
family — his parents, Bill and
Jan, are two owners of Gold Dust
Potato Processors and Walker
Brothers. He attended Oregon
State University to learn
agricultural business and crop
soil science.
But his schooling didn’t prepare
him for a year like this one,
where a water shortage forced
the Walker Brothers operation to
different fields with tough soil
and uncooperative weather.
“But you can’t let the tough
times get
you down,” Weston Walker said.
“You’ve got to gather and keep
on going. “This isn’t a job,
it’s life.” Frosty nights were
his primary concern when the
potatoes were first planted, but
now rocky soil is weighing on
him. “When we planted, it was a
fight,” he said. “We had to stop
and straighten shanks.” Rocks in
the soil damage potatoes when
they tumble together as the
harvester
pulls them out of the ground.
The farm recently bought a
$100,000 high-tech harvester
that pulls the potatoes out of
the ground with suction. Since
rocks are heavier than potatoes,
they drop out of the suction and
back to the ground so only the
potatoes remain.
“Now I’m mentally
preparing for the battle,” he
said. “We’re going into the
fourth quarter, when we get to
see what’s underground.”
JASON CHAPMAN, cattle rancher,
Poe Valley
‘The groundwater
needs time to replenish. We will
not be able to idle land (again)
like we did this year’
The Klamath Basin cattle
rancher has endured this year’s
water shortage without losses,
able to graze his 600 calves and
cattle like any other year.
But he knows not everyone in
the cattle business escaped
damage.
The sheer quantity of land
being idled this year meant less
land was available for grazing.
Just below his Poe Valley ranch,
acres of grassland sit yellow
and dry, idled due to shortage
of irrigation water.
Chapman said he learned to be
more conservative with his water
use after irrigation water was
shut off in 2001. The lessons
learned nine years ago are still
with him, and he takes every
precaution to ensure water isn’t
wasted.
“Every year since 2001, we’ve
done more and more efficiency
work on the ranch to improve
water use,” he said.
In April, Chapman said, he was
expecting a water shutoff around
mid-September, a full month
ahead of the normal shutoff
date. Now he believes the
resources are in place to come
close to a full year.
“As long as everybody’s still
using the water wisely, we
should be able to stretch out
the water supply at least to the
first of October,” he said.
Chapman has concerns about
the level of groundwater and
what impact a shortage would
have on it if the drought
continues into next year.
“The groundwater needs time
to replenish,” he said. “We will
not be able to idle land like we
did this year” if resources are
again scarce in 2011.
Programs help
Basin farmers, ranchers
By Ty Beaver
HOLLIE CANNON, executive
director,
Klamath Water and Power
Agency
Hollie Cannon said the 2010
irrigation season didn’t turn
out as badly as predicted in
April and May.
The executive director of the
Klamath Water and Power Agency
said irrigators took proactive
steps to avoid catastrophe this
year, from adjusting what they
grew to taking part in programs,
such as groundwater pumping and
land idling.
“This year has been
dramatically different than it
would have been in 2001,” Cannon
said.
But, he added, there are
still a number of challenges
facing agriculture in the
Klamath Basin.
Some irrigators, such as
those growing potatoes, are
facing a lessthan-optimal crop
due to a number of factors,
including poor soil and cold
weather.
Those who signed up for government funding to help p |