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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2021
Tensions rise in Oregon, California water battle
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — One of the worst
droughts in memory in a massive agricul-
tural region straddling the California-Or-
egon border could mean steep cuts to irri-
gation water for hundreds of farmers this
summer to sustain endangered fi sh species
critical to local tribes.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which
oversees water allocations in the feder-
ally owned Klamath Project, is expected to
announce this week how the season’s water
will be divvied up after delaying the deci-
sion a month.
For the fi rst time in 20 years, it’s pos-
sible that the 1,400 irrigators who have
farmed for generations on 225,000 acres
of reclaimed farmland will get no water at
all — or so little that farming wouldn’t be
worth it. Several tribes in Oregon and Cal-
ifornia are equally desperate for water to
sustain threatened and endangered species
of fi sh central to their heritage.
A network of six wildlife refuges that
make up the largest wetland complex west
of the Mississippi River also depend on the
project’s water, but will likely go dry this
year.
The competing demands over a vanish-
ing natural resource foreshadow a diffi cult
and tense summer in a region where farmers,
conservationists and tribes have engaged in
years of legal battles over who has greater
rights to an ever-dwindling water supply.
Two of the tribes, the Klamath and Yurok,
hold treaties guaranteeing the protection of
their fi sheries.
The last — and only — time that water
was completely shut down for irriga-
tors, in 2001, some family farms went out
of business and a “bucket brigade” pro-
test attracted 15,000 people who scooped
water from the Klamath River and passed
it, hand over hand, to a parched irrigation
canal. The farmers-vs.-fi sh debate became
a touchstone for Republicans who used the
crisis to take aim at the Endangered Species
Act, with one GOP lawmaker calling the
irrigation shutoff a “poster child” for why
changes were needed.
This season, amid a pandemic and an
ever-deeper partisan divide, some in the
region fear what’s to come.
“I think that the majority of people under-
stand that acts of violence and protest isn’t
going to be productive, but at the same time
people down here are being backed into a
corner,” said Ben DuVal, a farmer and pres-
ident of the Klamath Water Users Associa-
tion. “There’s a lot of farms that need a good
stable year this year — myself included —
and we’re not going to get that this year. I’m
questioning the future.”
The situation in the Klamath Basin was
Gillian Flaccus/AP Photo
Farmer Ben DuVal with his wife, Erika, and their daughters, Hannah and Helena, stand near a
canal for collecting run off water near their property in Tulelake in March 2020.
Jeff Barnard/AP Photo
The Upper Klamath Lake near Klamath Falls in 2001.
set in motion more than a century ago, when
the U.S. government began drawing water
from a network of shallow lakes and marsh-
lands and funneling it into the dry desert
uplands. Homesteads were off ered by lot-
tery to World War II veterans who grew hay,
grain and potatoes and pastured cattle.
The project turned the region into an agri-
cultural powerhouse — some of its potato
farmers supply In ‘N Out burger — but per-
manently altered an intricate water system
that spans hundreds of miles from southern
Oregon to Northern California.
In 1988, two species of sucker fi sh were
listed as endangered under federal law, and
less than a decade later, coho salmon that
spawn downstream from the reclamation
project, in the lower Klamath River, were
listed as threatened.
The water necessary to sustain the coho
salmon downstream comes from Upper
Klamath Lake — the main holding tank for
the farmers’ irrigation system. At the same
time, the sucker fi sh in the same lake need at
least 1 to 2 feet of water covering the gravel
beds that they use as spawning grounds.
In a year of extreme drought, there is
not enough water to go around. Already
this spring, the gravel beds that the sucker
fi sh spawn in are dry and water gauges on
Klamath River tributaries show the fl ow is
the lowest in nearly a century. A decision
late last summer to release water for irri-
gators, plus a hot, dry fall with almost no
rain has compounded an already terrible
situation.
“Given what I know about the hydrol-
ogy, it’s just impossible for them to make
everyone happy,” said Mike Belchik, a
senior fi sheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe
in Northern California. “There’s just not
enough water.”
The Klamath Water Users Association
sent a warning to its membership last week
saying there would be “little to no water
for irrigation from Upper Klamath Lake
this year.” It is holding a public meeting
Wednesday to provide more information.
Meanwhile, sucker fi sh in the Upper
Klamath Lake are hovering near dried-up
gravel beds, fruitlessly waiting for water
levels to rise so they can lay eggs, said Alex
Gonyaw, a senior fi sheries biologist for the
Klamath Tribes.
“You can see them sort of milling around
out in the lake water. They’re desperately
trying to get to this clean, constant lake
water that they need,” he said. “It’s going to
be like 2001. It’s going to be, hopefully not
catastrophic but very, very stressful for peo-
ple and fi sh.”
In 2001, the Bureau of Reclamation cut
off water for 90% of the farms served by
the Klamath Project when a drought cut
water supply by two-thirds. The decision to
do so went all the way to then-Vice Presi-
dent Dick Cheney and marked the fi rst time
farmers lost out to tribes and fi sh.
The water was held in Upper Klam-
ath Lake for endangered sucker fi sh and
allowed to run down the Klamath River for
threatened coho salmon, rather than mov-
ing through the intricate series of canals to
farms before dumping into wildlife refuges.
Some are hoping this year’s crisis will
help all the interested parties hash out a
water-sharing compromise that could save
both the ecology and economy of the Klam-
ath River Basin before it collapses entirely.
“This is the reality of climate change.
This is it. We can’t rely on historical water
supplies anymore. We just can’t,” said Amy
Cordalis, counsel for the Yurok Tribe and
also a tribal member. “It’s no one’s fault.
There’s no bad guy here — but I think we’d
all do well to pray for rain.”
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