Irrigators in the Langell Valley,
mostly ranchers and hay farmers, say they are
familiar with water crises.
Deliveries were curtailed on July 7 in 2009 — just halfway through the April to October irrigation season.
Water fell short before that
in 2005 near the end of the irrigation
season.
Property owner Jim Camozzi
said a series of late-season freezes and
then dry weather has resulted in
smaller-than-average yields for his Langell
Valley grass fields.
On a good year, his fields,
located on the east side of the valley and
served by Clear Lake irrigation water,
produce about 1,000 bales of grass hay used
mostly for horses and cattle kept on the
property. In an average year, when water
levels are adequate and weather cooperative,
the fields produce about 600 bales.
Camozzi said this year, he’ll
have 300 bales. And that’s OK, he said.
“If you’re happy, and you got
your health, you have a good year,” he said.
That’s because nothing
compares, Camozzi said, to 2010. In that
year, under drought conditions, Clear Lake
just met its minimum level of 4,520.6 feet
above sea level.
Under federally-mandated U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service biological
opinions, a minimum lake level is required
to support the short-nose sucker, an
endangered fish.
Camozzi said he was only able
to keep farming with a windmill-powered
pump, which draws water from a well on the
property.
Land idling
There is relief available for
some landowners in the valley.
Klamath Water and Power
Agency contracted to idle 695 acres of
irrigated land in the valley.
By idling their land —
choosing not to irrigate, and effectively
choosing not to use the land for farming —
landowners are reimbursed by KWAPA and water
is conserved for other irrigators, extending
the season’s supply of water.
But then the politics of
water come into play, said Horsefly
Irrigation District manager Don Russell. In
a region where water usage and biological
opinions are hot-button phrases, Russell
believes many of his district’s members
would rather not accept KWAPA assistance.
They consider it welfare, he
said, in place of water that allows farmers
and ranchers to work.
“The water is going
downstream. And we’re in the understanding
that we were given a right in the early part
of the (20th) century,” Russell said. “We’re
not anti-fish, we’re not anti-doing the
right thing. But how much can the American
people take?”
More losses
Earl Wiersma, a ranch owner
near Bonanza, said his pastureland in the
Horsefly Irrigation District isn’t reliant
on Clear Lake water.
But for those on the east
side of the valley, another year of short
water deliveries could mean more losses.
The 2010 drought was
“disastrous” for farmers on the east side,
Wiersma said. Many of the alfalfa and grass
fields that were decimated began to recover
in 2011, when the valley received full water
deliveries through the end of the irrigation
season.
But “you can’t recoup your
losses in one year,” he said.
For those who can’t
supplement their water deliveries with
wells, shutting off water deliveries means
another year that the water retained by the
soil — what Wiersma calls the water bank —
lags behind demand from forage crops like
grass and alfalfa.
In some winters, snowfall can
be relied on to build up the soil’s water
supply.
“And we haven’t had some real
good winters to do that either,” Wiersma
said.