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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2021
Water crisis dire on Oregon, California border
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — The water crisis along
the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic last week as federal reg-
ulators shut off irrigation water to farmers
from a critical reservoir and said they would
not send extra water to dying salmon down-
stream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges
that harbor millions of migrating birds each
year.
In what is shaping up to be the worst
water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation said it will not release water
this season into the main canal that feeds the
bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation
Project, marking a fi rst for the 114-year-old
irrigation system. The agency announced
last month that hundreds of irrigators would
get dramatically less water than usual, but a
worsening drought picture means water will
be completely shut off instead.
The entire region is in extreme or excep-
tional drought, according to federal monitor-
ing reports, and Klamath County is experi-
encing its driest year in 127 years.
“This year’s drought conditions are
bringing unprecedented hardship to the
communities of the Klamath Basin,” said
Reclamation Deputy Commissioner Camille
Calimlim Touton, calling the decision one
of “historic consequence.” “Reclamation is
dedicated to working with our water users,
tribes and partners to get through this diffi -
cult year and developing long-term solutions
for the basin.”
The canal, a major component of the fed-
erally operated Klamath Reclamation Proj-
ect, funnels Klamath River water from the
Upper Klamath Lake just north of the Ore-
gon-California border to more than 130,000
acres, where generations of ranchers and
farmers have grown hay, alfalfa and pota-
toes and grazed cattle.
Only one irrigation district within the
200,000-acre project will receive any water
from the Klamath River system this growing
season, and it will have a severely limited
supply, the Klamath Water Users Associa-
tion said in a statement. Some other farmers
rely on water from a diff erent river, and they
will also have a limited supply.
“This just couldn’t be worse,” said Ty
Kliewer, president of the Klamath Irrigation
District. “The impacts to our family farms
and these rural communities will be off the
scale.”
At the same time, the agency said it would
not release any so-called “fl ushing fl ows”
from the same dam on the Upper Klamath
Lake to bolster water levels downstream in
the lower Klamath River. The river is key to
the survival of coho salmon, which are listed
as threatened under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act. In better water years the pulses of
Jamie Holt
Dozens of dead juvenile salmon captured by the Yurok Tribe that are presumed to have died
from the deadly pathogen, Ceratonova shasta, in the Klamath River water fl ows.
water help keep the river cool and turbulent
— conditions that help the fragile species.
The fi sh are central to the diet and culture
of the Yurok Tribe, California’s largest fed-
erally recognized tribe.
The tribe said this week that low fl ows
from drought and from previous misman-
agement of the river by the federal agency
was causing a die-off of juvenile salmon
from a bacterial disease that fl ourishes when
water levels are low. Yurok fi sh biologists
who have been testing the baby salmon in
the lower Klamath River are fi nding that
70% of the fi sh are already dead in the traps
used to collect them and 97% are infected by
the bacteria known as C. shasta.
“Right now, the Klamath River is full of
dead and dying fi sh on the Yurok Reserva-
tion,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of
the Yurok Tribe. “This disease will kill most
of the baby salmon in the Klamath, which
will impact fi sh runs for many years to come.
For salmon people, a juvenile fi sh kill is an
absolute worst-case scenario.”
Irrigators, meanwhile, reacted with dis-
belief as the news of a water shut-off in
the canals spread. A newsletter published
by the Klamath Water Users Association,
which represents many of the region’s farm-
ers, blared the headline, “Worst Day in the
History of the Klamath Project.” Farm-
ers reported already seeing dust storms that
obscured vision for 100 yards, and they wor-
ried about their wells running dry.
About 30 protesters showed up Thursday
at the head gates of the main dam to protest
the shut-off and ask the irrigation district to
defy federal orders and divert the water. The
Herald and News reported that they were
with a group called People’s Rights, a far-
right organization founded by anti-govern-
ment activist Ammon Bundy.
Gov. Kate Brown and California Gov.
Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, have
declared drought emergencies in the region,
and the Bureau of Reclamation has set aside
$15 million in immediate aid for irrigators.
Another $10 million will be available for
drought assistance from the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture.
Ben DuVal, president of the Klamath
Water Users Association, urged his members
to remain peaceful and not let the water cri-
sis “be hijacked for other causes.”
The seasonal allocations are the region’s
most dramatic development since irrigation
water was all but cut off to hundreds of farm-
ers in 2001 amid another severe drought —
the fi rst time farmers’ interests took a back-
seat to fi sh and tribes.
The crisis made the rural farming region
hundreds of miles from any major city a
national political fl ashpoint and became a
touchstone for Republicans who used the
crisis to take aim at the Endangered Spe-
cies Act, with one GOP lawmaker calling
the irrigation shutoff a “poster child” for
why changes were needed. A “bucket bri-
gade” protest attracted 15,000 people who
scooped water from the Klamath River and
passed it, hand over hand, to a parched irri-
gation canal.
The situation in the Klamath Basin was
set in motion more than a century ago, when
the U.S. government began draining a net-
work of shallow lakes and marshlands, redi-
recting the natural fl ow of water and con-
structing hundreds of miles of canals and
drainage channels to create farmland. Home-
steads were off ered by lottery to World War
II veterans.
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 and from south-
ern Oregon to Northern California.
In 1988, two species of sucker fi sh were
listed as endangered under federal law. 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 lake need at least
1 to 2 feet of water covering the gravel beds
they use as spawning grounds.
The drought also means farmers this
summer will not fl ush irrigation water into a
network of six national wildlife refuges that
are collectively called the Klamath National
Wildlife Refuge Complex. The refuges,
nicknamed the Everglades of the West, sup-
port up to 80% of the birds that migrate on
the Pacifi c Flyway. The refuges also support
the largest concentrations of wintering bald
eagles in the lower 48 states.
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