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CapitalPress.com
Friday, August 13, 2021
Drought: ‘I don’t think we can go through this again’
Continued from Page 1
Cody Dodson
For Dodson, 30, the future
of his family’s farm rests
squarely on his shoulders.
He is the stepson of Frank
Prosser, whose father, Jess,
was awarded the original
homestead in 1946 as part of
a lottery for Wold War II vet-
erans. Jess’ name was drawn
number 11 out of the pickle
jar, and his contract with the
government promised him
and his heirs water for life to
farm in the Klamath Project.
Frank Prosser and his
brother, John, have carried on
the legacy, with Dodson join-
ing them in 2009. Together,
they now have close to 1,000
acres.
This year, however, the
family was forced to cut back
due to the lack of water.
It is the first time in 75
years they were unable to
grow any grain — save for a
small amount of barley hay
— and what limited water
they could secure from wells
owned by the Tulelake Irriga-
tion District is going exclu-
sively to their alfalfa fields.
Even that is not enough, he
said.
“I know they look green,
but there’s no more irriga-
tion for them,” Dodson said,
pointing to his fields along
Modoc County Road 100.
John Prosser said irrigators
are paying an additional $50
per acre to pump water from
the district’s wells, along with
$74 per acre for regular oper-
ations and maintenance.
Irrigation canals normally
full of water are instead bone
dry and choked with weeds.
Domestic wells, too, are run-
ning dry without water in the
ditches to recharge aquifers.
“I don’t think we can go
through this again with noth-
ing but TID wells,” Prosser
said. “I don’t know if Cody is
going to be here next year.”
If not for higher hay prices,
Dodson said he would be oper-
ating at a loss. As it stands, he
hopes to break even.
“If we can get the sur-
George Plaven/Capital Press
Erika DuVal moves a wheel line while cutting alfalfa hay in a field near Tulelake, Calif.
Tricia
Hill
Luther
Horsley
face water, then yes, I will
be here,” said Dodson, who
with his wife, Jordan, has
two young sons, ages 4 and
1. “I don’t know if that will
be feasible unless something
changes.”
Ben DuVal
Ben DuVal leaned down
and scooped up a handful of
dry dirt in a field at his Tule-
lake farm. The dust slipped
through his fingers.
Over the last two years,
DuVal and his wife, Erika,
have expanded their opera-
tion, doubling it from 300 to
600 acres of hay, grain and
cattle.
“It was a bad year to do
that,” he said with a nervous
chuckle. “We’ve had to fal-
low fields. Where we can get
water, we’re nowhere near
enough.”
One of those fallow fields
includes a $75,000 irrigation
pivot installed last spring
that, ironically, DuVal said,
Don
Gentry
Ben
DuVal
was intended to boost water
efficiency. Instead, it sits idle
in the distance.
DuVal said several of his
neighbors are helping him
to survive the year, pump-
ing water from their private
wells to irrigate some of his
land. Even then, his yields
will be down, and the family
will have to tap into personal
savings to pay the bills.
“A guy shouldn’t have to
do that, but at the same time
we’re trying to maintain our
business,” he said.
DuVal purchased his
grandfather’s original home-
stead in 2003. He and Erika
started from scratch, work-
ing to build their income to
the point that they can sup-
port their family, including
two teenage daughters.
This year, DuVal said,
anxiety is his constant com-
panion; it follows him like a
dark cloud.
“Everybody just wants
healthy, viable communi-
Ry
Kliewer
ties,”
he
said. “I’m
tired of see-
ing
busi-
n e s s e s
closed, and
I’m tired of
seeing dry
fields.
It
gets to a guy
after a while.”
Tricia Hill
Behind the wheel of her
car, Tricia Hill parked in an
empty field south of Klam-
ath Falls, Ore., where last
year 2,000 people arrived in
trucks and tractors to prepare
for a convoy calling attention
to the Klamath Basin’s long-
standing water woes.
One year later, Hill, of
Walker Farms and Gold Dust
Potato Processors, said it is
harder than ever to remain
optimistic.
“It’s starting to tear at the
fabric of our communities,”
Hill said. “It’s painful, and
the stress that comes along
with it, you can just see it in
people.”
Gold Dust and Walker
Farms produces chipping
and frying potatoes for major
brands such as Frito-Lay. The
farm typically operates on a
five-year plan, looking ahead
to crop rotations needed to
maintain healthy soils.
That all went out the win-
dow with this year’s zero
water allocation from the
Klamath Project, Hill said.
The farm ditched its usual
schedule and focused on
planting potatoes where they
could pump enough ground-
water to produce a full crop
and satisfy their contracts.
“As a farmer, it’s just really
disheartening that, instead of
being able to make choices
that are the best for our land,
we’re having to make choices
because, frankly, we don’t
have any other choice,” Hill
said.
As long as this summer’s
heat doesn’t heavily impact
spud yields, Hill said the farm
will likely be able to meet
its contracts. But the future
weighs heavily on her mind.
Switching crops is not as easy
as it might seem, she said,
given their major investments
in equipment and infrastruc-
ture and years-long relation-
ships with customers.
The 2020 rally did attract
the attention of former Inte-
rior Secretary David Bern-
hardt, who traveled to the
basin to talk with farmers.
But Hill said more is needed
for a long-term, sustainable
solution.
“We can do better than
this,” she said.
Luther Horsley
Water in the canals isn’t
only for plants and livestock.
The Klamath Project was
designed so canals would
recharge shallow domestic
wells for the many house-
holds within its boundaries.
Luther Horsley, who raises
cattle with his wife, Candy,
said his domestic well ran dry
in July.
“I can attest that it’s chal-
lenging to live without water
in your house,” Horsley said.
“You can’t wash clothes. You
can’t do dishes.”
The normal static levels for
many of the region’s wells are
just 18-25 feet below ground
level, Horsely said.
“Now that level has
dropped another 30 feet,” he
said. “So a lot of these wells
are just not in the water.”
Horsley is a member of
the Klamath Project Drought
Response Agency, the local
body allocating $30 million in
drought aid from the Bureau
of Reclamation and USDA
that was earmarked for farm-
ers unable to irrigate in 2021.
The agency has also
designed a domestic well
mitigation program, he said,
though it is yet to be funded.
Funding would pay for drill-
ing deeper wells, or setting
pumps deeper in existing
wells, Horsley said.
For now, he keeps contain-
ers in the back of his pickup
truck that he fills in Klamath
Falls to provide potable water
to his home. He also owns a
water tender that he’s used for
fire protection at his ranch. He
hooks it up to a camp trailer to
take showers.
“God only knows how long
it’s going to take the aquifer to
recharge,” he said. “It really
makes you appreciate running
water in your house.”
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S253414-1
Panic began to set in for
ranchers Ry Kliewer and his
brother, Ty, back in January.
At the time, the Klamath
Basin was already below nor-
mal for annual precipitation
and snowpack, at 69% and
87%, respectively. As months
went by and drought condi-
tions deepened, Kliewer said
they could see the writing on
the wall.
”When you get to March
and you’re even further
behind, you know it’s going
to be a bad situation,” he said.
Ry Kliewer grows primar-
ily certified organic hay and
grain on 520 acres near Klam-
ath Falls, while Ty raises
purebred cattle for breeding
stock. The brothers also run
an on-farm brewery, Sky-
line Brewing Co., which they
opened in 2018.
While the brewery’s
income is “pennies” com-
pared to farming, Kliewer
said it does provide a lit-
tle more cash during painful
drought years.
Kliewer said about 200
of his acres have received no
water in 2021. Like DuVal, he
was able to minimally irrigate
the rest of his land thanks to
the generosity of neighbors.
“Before this year,” Kliewer
said, “I’ve never really sat
down and thought about not
(farming) again next year.
There are a lot of days where
I question whether I made a
good lifestyle choice or not.”
Kliewer said they will do
what they need to do to sur-
vive. But if 2022 is more of
the same, he worries it will
make this year seem like a
cakewalk by comparison.
“I’m too stubborn to quit,”
he said. “Still, it makes you
think.”
Don Gentry
Don Gentry is chairman of
the Klamath Tribes. He wears
a beaded necklace around his
neck with a spear tip carved
from deer bone — similar to
those used by his ancestors
to catch sucker fish that once
returned in abundance each
year up the tributaries that
feed Upper Klamath Lake.
As a teenager, Gentry
remembers catching the fish
for tribal elders, and hearing
stories of how they sustained
families after harsh winters in
the basin.
“I basically absorbed
what should be important to
our people,” he said. “I had
this affirmation as a tribal
member. I had a place and
purpose.”
In 1988, two species of
suckers, known as C’waam
and Koptu, were protected
under the federal Endangered
Species Act. In response to
dramatic population declines,
the tribes had cut off their own
fishing for the species two
years earlier, Gentry said.
According to research led
by the tribes, changing condi-
tions in Upper Klamath Lake
have made it so that juvenile
suckers can no longer survive
past August. Lower water lev-
els in the lake have cut off
access to important rearing
habitat and left the fish more
susceptible to predators.
Diking and draining wet-
lands to convert into farm-
land has also contributed to
higher levels of phosphorous
in the lake, which contributes
to major algae blooms during
the summer. Once the algae
decomposes, it saps dissolved
oxygen in the lake, mak-
ing conditions harsh for the
young fish.
“We don’t have younger
fish coming back in and con-
tributing to the spawning pop-
ulation,” Gentry said. If not
for the long-lived adults, he
said the species would already
be lost.
At least one population of
C’waam has plummeted to
just a few thousand surviving
individuals, said Alex Gon-
yaw, senior fish biologist for
the tribes.
At the Klamath Tribes
Research Station near Chil-
oquin, Ore., Gonyaw leads
a program where juve-
nile C’waam and Koptu are
raised in captivity for four
years to ensure their survival
before being released back
into Upper Klamath Lake. He
plans to release about 500 fish
for the first time next spring.
However, this is meant
to be only a stopgap until
lake conditions for the fish
improve. That means restor-
ing habitat, increasing lake
levels and improving agricul-
tural practices, Gentry said.
“We’re facing the very
extinction of these hardy,
strong fish,” he said. “There’s
too many people after too lit-
tle water.”