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If not for the Project, what
would there be? and Dams, Canals and Water
by Ty Beaver, Herald and News 2/15/08
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H&N file photos by Todd E. Swenson A truck drives along a
tractor pulling a field bulker during the potato harvest
at Woodman Farms in Tulelake in October 2007.
No potatoes, no onions, no mint,
no sugar beets — just a few of the crops that would not
grow in the Klamath Basin were it not for the Bureau of
Reclamation irrigation project.
Most people connected to
agriculture would not have come. Instead of miles of
fields, the region would be covered in range and dry-land
pasture.
“The agricultural community would
never have become like this,” said Ron Hathaway, former
director of the Klamath Basin Research and Extension
Center.
Irrigated agriculture was the
primary contributor to the growth of the region after the
Project was authorized in 1905. The Czech Colonization
Club of Omaha, Neb., moved to the area in 1908,
establishing the town of Malin and farming the lands
around it.
Luther Horsley, president of the
Klamath Water Users Association, said his family moved to
Project lands because of the organization and efficiency
of the system. It was innovative for its time.
“We were envied,” he said.
The towns of Merrill and Tulelake
also boomed after homesteaders moved into the area. Along
with Malin, each developed specific industries derived
from the local agriculture, such as Malin’s cheese factory
and Merrill’s flour mill.
Leonard Will, a World War II veteran
who arrived as a homesteader in 1949, farmed “one step
south” of the Oregon border near Tulelake. He was one of
more than 200 veterans to arrive in a three-year period to
farm in the region.
He started out with potatoes, but soon moved to
raising livestock, pasture, alfalfa and grain. Irrigation
allowed him to provide forage for his
cattle nearly year round.
If it weren’t for the distance of markets, Will
said, farmers would have considered raising
water-dependent crops such as carrots and cabbage.
Irrigation also allowed sugar beets and onions to be grown
in the Basin. “That’s what built up the Basin,” Will said.
Jim Chapman connects irrigation pipe on a newly seeded
alfalfa field at Chapman Ranch in Poe Valley in May
2007.
Dams, canals and water
The Klamath Project has seven dams.
Three storage dams: Clear Lake, Gerber and
Link River are used to store water that might otherwise go
downstream. Four are diversion dams: Lost River,
Anderson-Rose and Malone, all on Lost River, and Miller on
Miller Creek. Diversion dams control or route water, such as
through irrigation canals, without storing water for a later
release.
The Project supplies irrigation water for
about 220,000 acres on about 1,500 farms. Of those irrigable
acres, 182,000 acres were actually irrigated in 2003, with
156,000 acres relying on water from Upper Klamath Lake and
the Klamath River. The remaining acreage receives water from
east side sources, such as Clear Lake. Farms on the project
grow a wide variety of crops, including alfalfa hay, barley,
other hay, oats, potatoes, mint and wheat. The Project
further supports a large livestock business, including
cattle and lesser volumes of sheep and hogs.
The Project has more than 717 miles of
canals, laterals and diversion channels that move irrigation
water from Upper Klamath Lake, the Klamath River, Clear
Lake, Lost River and Tule Lake.
There are two tunnels, the A Canal, which
has an underground section through Klamath Falls, and the
Tule Lake Tunnel. In addition, there are almost 728 miles of
drainage canals.
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