Officials Cut Off Flow of Water to Farmers

Water stopped spilling into one of the main irrigation canals in the thirsty Klamath Basin shortly before dawn Thursday when federal authorities closed the headgates, saying they had no more water to give farmers.

The Department of the Interior had been releasing water from Upper Klamath Lake for nearly a month to help salvage crops and soothe tempers in the basin, where the needs of farmers and wildlife have collided during this year’s severe drought.

Irrigation supplies were shut off in the spring to maintain water levels for three fish species in the lake and Klamath River, causing conflict that has flared throughout the summer. There have been protests, temporary takeovers of the canal headgates and lots of media attention.

Thursday’s cutoff, which was expected, went peacefully, although a few hecklers shouted insults at federal guards standing sentinel at the gates behind a chain-link fence. By afternoon protesters were setting up a pipe to siphon water from the lake into the canal, but it was largely a symbolic effort because the makeshift pipeline could never fill the large irrigation ditch.

Over the past several weeks, the Interior Department has released 76,000 acre-feet of water--enough to lower the upper lake 1 foot. Any further drawdown would jeopardize two species of sucker fish that live in the lake and are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, officials said.

“We’ve pretty much exhausted the supply that was available,” said Jeffrey S. McCracken of the Bureau of Reclamation. He does not expect any further water releases this season.

The temporary delivery did not extend to all farms in the high desert basin, which spans the California-Oregon border. But those it reached greened up.

“A lot of pastures got saved because the water came, which was really good,” said Tulelake farmer Mike Byrne. There was not enough water to produce a good harvest, but enough to keep many fields of perennial crops such as alfalfa from withering to nothing. “It kept ‘em alive for another year,” he said.

Tensions remain high in the region. Estimates of crop and associated losses have exceeded $100 million. Protesters who have camped at the headgates vowed to stay. And there was no shortage of anti-government rhetoric as they milled about, outnumbered by news reporters and television cameramen. Still, they persuaded one of their members not to storm the gates.

“We’ve proven we can do it in a peaceful way and I think it will [continue to] be peaceful,” said Joe Bair, one of the leaders of the group, which include non-farmers and farmers. Noting the size of the media turnout, he said, “I think we’ve had tremendous success.”

All sides agree that the issue is not going away by itself. Negotiations have been ordered by a judge in one of two lawsuits filed over the water distribution. Yet there is hardly a consensus on what to do.

Bair said local control of the water supply is the answer. Bob Hunter, staff attorney with the environmental group Water Watch of Oregon, said irrigation demand clearly has to be cut. “There’s not enough to go around.”

That could be accomplished, Hunter said, in various ways. Federal agencies could stop leasing acreage in some of the basin’s wildlife refuges to farmers, growers could sell water rights, or they could let land lie fallow in exchange for government payments.

McCracken of the Bureau of Reclamation said it may be necessary to spread the burden of maintaining fish-friendly water levels to other water providers in the region so that basin farmers aren’t so severely affected. He also said the agency may try to involve water users in earlier stages of discussion about flows necessary to meet the Endangered Species Act.

Debra Crisp, executive director of the Tulelake Growers’ Assn., said that the government’s science is flawed and that the fish do not need as much water as they’re getting. “I think it’s unnecessary to turn off the water,” she said.

Crisp hopes the Bush administration will reexamine the biological reports used to determine the appropriate flows.