Klamath wells deep in trouble

KLAMATH FALLS After the U.S. government turned drought to disaster by cutting off their irrigation water in 2001, Klamath Basin farmers drilled more than 100 new wells as insurance against going dry again.

The Bush administration has put them to new use. It's paying farmers to irrigate crops with billions of gallons of water from the wells, leaving lake and river water for protected fish.

But now the underground reservoir that feeds the wells is shrinking -- the water table is down 20 feet in places -- and some wells show signs of failing. Few farmers or agency officials think the record pumping can or should last. Yet they say it's the only way they have to keep crops going when government biologists say fish need water that would otherwise flow to their fields.

"It's not a solution," said Jim Carleton, a Merrill farmer who joined neighbors to sink a $105,000 well last year after his farm endured bankruptcy when canals went dry in 2001. "It's a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound."

Although President Bush assembled a Cabinet-level task force on Klamath issues, farmers in the federal Klamath Project still fear a repeat of three years ago when they lost most irrigation water to protected fish. Some suspect the dependence on federally subsidized well water could set the basin up for another crisis.

Don Rajnus, a farmer near Malin who serves on Oregon's Ground Water Advisory Committee, said neighbors have had wells falter and are contemplating lawsuits claiming their water rights are being usurped.

"I know there's a limit to how much you can pump, and I think we're going to find it this year," he said. "The water belongs to the people, not to whoever wants to buy and sell it."

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to pay at least $1.6 million for more well water this summer to meet demands of federal biologists who insist on certain flows in the Klamath River for threatened coho salmon. The flows may not stay high enough if farms in the reclamation project on the California-Oregon border take their full irrigation allotment.

So the government last year began paying farms to use well water instead. That has put persistent pressure on a largely undefined subterranean supply while dry conditions starve it of new inflow.

Scientists say groundwater levels have fallen as much as 20 feet since pumping accelerated three years ago.

"We're seeing the result of the pumping stress," said Ken Lite, a hydrogeologist with the Oregon Water Resources Department. "We're changing from using one source of water to another, and there's going to be a price to pay for that."

Recovery time lost

Previously, farmers used wells occasionally to get through drought years before switching back to water from surface canals. That gave the underground reservoir time to recover.

Drought alone appears to lower water levels about a foot a year, Lite said. With the new Klamath pumping, they have fallen more than five feet a year, especially in the southern end of the basin.

Levels may equalize at a lower point if pumping pressure stabilizes, he said. But the water demand for fish will increase by another third next year.

"The question is, how much of a decline are people willing to accept?" Lite said.

Farmers say banks will no longer lend them money to start their crops unless they have wells as a backup water source.

"It's risk management," said Gary Wright, who ranches just inside California. "The guys with wells are pretty secure. No well water? It gets risky."

The Oregon Water Resources Department has issued permits for about 130 new Klamath wells since 2001, with applications for another 10 to 15 still pending, said Barry Norris, manager of the Technical Services Division. Some of them can yield nearly 10 million gallons a day.

Oregon law says wells may be authorized only "within the capacity of available sources" and requires that "reasonably stable ground water levels be determined and maintained." The state Water Resources Commission rejected a 2002 petition from environmental groups for a moratorium on new wells in Klamath.

Norris said officials still do not know enough about water beneath the Klamath Basin to deny new wells. A state study in 2001 found, however, that wells cannot replace canal water even in one small Klamath district without lasting declines in the underground supply.

Wells drain the underground reservoir relatively fast because dense volcanic ground beneath the basin does not store large volumes of water, said state hydrogeologist Michael Zwart.

"We realize that relying year-in, year-out, on groundwater pumping down there is not sustainable," said Paul Cleary, director of the Water Resources Department.

If wells fail as the water table drops, it's typically up to the owners to drill their wells deeper.

But watchdog groups say the state is negligent in allowing new wells when there may not be enough groundwater to go around.

"It's like writing a series of huge checks," said Steve Pedery of WaterWatch of Oregon, "when you don't know how much money you have in your account."

California's influence

Fewer controls apply in California, where the Tulelake Irrigation District installed large emergency wells with state grant money in 2001. Water levels soon began falling in a well that fed the nearby Oregon town of Malin.

John Anderson, who farms in Oregon and California, said the output of a well that irrigates crops near his home has fallen since then, and his harvest there has dropped by a third.

Oregon is working with the U.S. Geological Survey and California authorities to track wells as part of an intensive study of Klamath's groundwater. Preliminary findings are expected later this year.

"We want to learn how the basin responds to this kind of pumping stress," said Noel Eaves, an engineering geologist with the California Department of Water Resources.

Federal officials paying for the well water are concerned, said Dave Sabo, who manages the Klamath Project for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. They have adjusted the program so wet weather offsets the need for well water. They are also pursuing options such as storing water on land around Upper Klamath Lake north of Klamath Falls, but those depend on funding.

They also expect to renew negotiations toward reduced water demands for fish by 2006, he said. Discounted power rates Klamath farmers now enjoy are set to expire the same year, which may make well pumping cost-prohibitive.

"It's not going to last this way," Sabo said. "All we're trying to do now is get through until we can come up with some long-term solutions."

Many farmers see the well pumping as unnecessary, because they argue fish do not need the extra water that otherwise would have gone to irrigation. But federal biologists, tribes and fishermen differ. Because the mandate arose under the Endangered Species Act, farmers have little choice but to comply.

"We had to come up with something," said Dale Fleming, who was paid more than $65,000 for pumping water from his wells last summer, federal records show. "If we have to dig it out of the ground, that's what we have to do."

Checks become a crutch

Government water checks have helped farmers pay off some wells they drilled in desperation at a cost of $50,000 or more when canals went dry in 2001. But in the process, federal records show, the government is paying for irrigation at farms that already grow subsidized crops.

Emergency wells some Oregon irrigation districts drilled with grant money from the state have since earned them federal payments for the water. An ad for at least one local farm for sale lists federal water bank payments among its selling points.

While Klamath farmers want freedom from government mandates, the well payments make them more reliant on the government, said Charles Kerr, who received $59,000 to pump well water onto his crops last year, records show.

"All of a sudden you get dependent on this new source of income," he said. "I can sell my water and irrigate every acre anyway."

The wells have become paramount because other attempts to procure extra water as part of a Klamath "water bank" have fallen short. In one trial promoted by the White House, federal Reclamation officials paid landowners above Upper Klamath Lake nearly $2 million over two years to not divert water onto cattle pastures. The idea was that more water would reach the lake and irrigation canals.

But the government did not get all it paid for, in part because it paid landowners to not irrigate marsh that was waterlogged to begin with, the U.S. Geological Survey later found.

Farmers were skeptical of another approach where Reclamation officials paid $2.7 million last year to idle cropland. The idea was to reduce water use. But savings were elusive because adjacent farms may have compensated for the dry ground by using more water. Also, any savings mainly came too late in the year to serve fish.

An analysis by irrigation experts from California Polytechnic State University concluded the government cannot be sure it got the water it paid for.

"On the surface, it's a really good idea," Sabo said. "But when you do it, it may not turn out as you expect. It didn't turn out as I expected."

Two Democratic California congressmen have asked the U.S. General Accounting Office to investigate water bank spending. The U.S. Geological Survey will also analyze the program.

The lure of federal dollars has encouraged other offers. Farmers in the Klamath Drainage District have applied to the state to create a 18,661-acre reservoir on a former lake bed where they now farm south of Klamath Falls.

To the north, an irrigation district wants to drill large wells and pour the water into Upper Klamath Lake for use by farmers -- if the government pays. WaterWatch has protested both proposals, arguing Klamath water is already vastly overtapped.

"There's a lot of people here who just want to make money," Sabo said. "We've got to sort through that to see what works."

Michael Milstein: 503-294-7689; michaelmilstein@news.oregonian.com

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