Despite the evaluation of a third year
of drought and assessing natural
conditions which would have pre-empted
water flowing out of Upper Klamath Lake
during dry periods such as we are
currently experiencing, a great deal of
water is being unnecessarily and
unnaturally evacuated from the Klamath
Basin into the Klamath River canyon
below Keno.
Prior to the development of the Klamath
Project, he natural Keno reef would have
backed up any water coming out of Link
River (highly unlikely given the current
conditions) allowing no less than
188,000 acre-feet of water to evaporate
from the Klamath River system in the
Lower Klamath Lake removing this water
from any available supply for down river
use. Less than 20,000 acre feet of this
water is anticipated to return to the
area in 2022 where 188,000 acre-feet
would have naturally evaporated from.
The natural lakes of Lower Klamath,
Tule, TIngley, Spring, and the Lost
River Slough covering over 188,000 acres
would have evaporated no less than 3
acre feet of water per acre across the
entire surface area. The fact that no
less than 564,000 acre feet of water
evaporated from these wetlands is
ignored by hydrologists in their
modeling of natural conditions. Water
that would not have been available to
the Klamath River canyon below Keno. Less
than 14% of the 564,000 acre feet of
water which naturally would have
evaporated annually from these 188,000
acres will be returned in 2022.
Under natural conditions these water
bodies would evaporate signifigant
amounts of water in July and August
which in turn would naturally create
localized weather events including
thunderstorms and rain showers providing
moisture in the area of the 2021 Bootleg
fire and created cooler air temperatures
around the basin...thus cooler water
temperatures...thus later algae blooms.
So far this season, there has not been
enough evaporation to recreate these
naturally occurring weather patterns and
water temperatures in the remaining
water bodies are increasing resulting in
earlier toxic algae blooms.
Between 1 March and 30 September, no
less than 407,400 acre feet will be
released to the Klamath River canyon
below Keno (well over 100% of average.
Given natural conditions, the amount
would be closer to 75,000 acre feet
under natural conditions if we compare
2022 with 1931) when inflows to Upper
Klamath Lake are measured at under 25%
for most of the past 3 years.
