Our Klamath Basin
Water Crisis
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A full lake is good for fish and
farmers
Coordination
by federal agencies helps to keep water level up
By JOEL
ASCHBRENNER, Herald and News 3/29/12
Improved
coordination among federal agencies and local
irrigators has allowed the Bureau of Reclamation to
retain more water in the lake, said Jason Phillips,
manager of the BOR’s Klamath Basin area office.
“There’s no way
that would have happened 10 years ago,” he said last
week.
Retaining water
in the lake, which is Basin irrigators’ primary
source of water, has been particularly critical this
year because inflows have been well below average.
Inflows were the lowest on record for the month of
December and the sixth lowest on record for January,
Phillips said.
It’s likely all
irrigators on the Klamath Reclamation Project will
receive water at the beginning of the growing
season, but it’s unknown if there will be enough
water for full
irrigation deliveries throughout the season,
Phillips said.
Competing
demands for Upper Klamath Lake water can stretch the
resource to its limit in dry years. Certain amounts
of water must be held in lake for endangered sucker
and sent downriver for endangered coho salmon;
irrigators receive what water is left. In 2010,
there was insufficient water and thousands of acres
of farmland were
left dry.
To avoid a
similar situation this year, there has been an
“unprecedented amount of coordination” among federal
agencies, said Irma Lagomarsino, Northern California
supervisor of the National Marine Fisheries
Service’s southwest region.
Reclamation
officials worked with PacifiCorp, which operates
Link River Dam, and the Marine Fisheries Service
almost daily to ensure no more water than necessary
was sent
downstream, Phillips said. Due to reduced outflows,
Upper Klamath Lake has about 170,000 acre feet of
water more than at the same time in 2010, he said.
A new biological
opinion, the standard that dictates how water in the
Klamath River is managed for species, has helped
officials fill the lake. That opinion, issued in
2010, reduces the amount of water that must be sent
downriver
in the winter, saving more water for fish and
irrigators come spring, Lagomarsino said.
Phillips agreed the new biological opinion has been key to filling the lake during a dry year.
“It makes a lot
of sense,” he said of the biological opinion,
“because a full lake in the spring is good for
farmers, suckers and coho.”
Agreement
helped build bridge between agencies
The Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement, a controversial water settlement
that has been divisive for some, has helped build
bridges between agencies that manage water for
irrigators and fish, officials say.
Bureau of
Reclamation officials say they have been able to fill
Upper Klamath Lake this year because of increased
coordination with other federal agencies, a result of
relationships built while developing the KBRA, said
Kevin Moore, spokesman for the Bureau’s Klamath Basin
area office.
“Due to the KBRA
negotiations, the amount of communication has increased
greatly,” he said. “There has been a lot of trust
developed through that process.”
Pablo Arroyave, who
managed the Bureau’s Klamath Basin area office before
being promoted to deputy director of the Bureau’s
Mid-Pacific Region in 2008, spoke to Basin irrigators at
an annual water users meeting last week. It was
unimaginable, he said, for irrigators and federal water
officials to work this harmoniously 10, or even five,
years ago.
Irma Lagomarsino,
Northern California supervisor of the National Marine
Fisheries Service’s southwest region, said there has
been a “cultural shift” in how irrigation officials and
water agencies work together since the groups worked
together to negotiate the KBRA.
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Page Updated: Friday March 30, 2012 01:14 AM Pacific
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