U.S. Water News Online
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The federal government has begun taking applications for $4 million in payments to Klamath Reclamation Project farmers who let their fields go dry and sell groundwater to provide higher springtime flows for salmon in the Klamath River.
The payments are being made from a water bank started this year by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to meet its obligations to fish under the Endangered Species Act.
The agency is hoping it will not have to repeat the 2001 irrigation shutoff that brought upheaval to the basin.
The 55,000 acre feet of water purchased from farmers within the project will likely be used to augment springtime flows down the Klamath River, where coho salmon are listed as a threatened species, said Dave Sabo, Klamath area manager for the bureau.
The bureau hopes to save about 30,000 acre feet of water by paying farmers not to irrigate up to 12,000 acres of land throughout the irrigation project that covers 235,000 acres straddling the Oregon-California border. It also hopes to buy about 25,000 acre feet of water from private wells.
About 700 people turned out at the Klamath County Fairgrounds in Klamath Falls to hear about the water bank and pick up applications, but many remain uneasy about the future, said Dan Keppen, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association.
With expectations of drought looming, there is no assurance that the water bank will make it possible for farmers who choose to continue farming to get their crops through the summer to harvest, Keppen said.
However, ``We are confident the Bush administration is trying to do everything it can to make sure farmers get their water as well as meeting these environmental needs,'' he said.
Dave Solem, general manager of the Klamath Irrigation District, said there is still no long-term plan for operating the project that is acceptable to irrigators, who believe the water demands for fish are not supported scientifically.
Keppen added that farmers were working to get other government agencies to augment the $187.50 an acre the bureau is offering to idle land so people will have a greater incentive to take part.
With drought looming over the region, farmer Dick Carlton just finished drilling a 530-foot-deep well to assure he has water to finish his potato crop, but was considering selling some to the government.
``We can put water into the system, others can farm, water can go down-river for fish and so forth,'' said Carlton. ``Everybody wins.''
Carlton noted he was not sure the money the bureau is offering to forego irrigation on some fields will be enough to cover expenses, such as taxes, lease payments and equipment payments, without farming.
The water bank was proposed by the Bush administration as part of a 10-year plan for managing endangered suckers in Upper Klamath Lake and threatened coho in the Klamath River.
When the basin fell into drought in 2001, the bureau shut off water to most of the 1,400 farms of the irrigation project to assure water for protected fish. Farmers and their supporters reacted by forcing open irrigation headgates until federal marshals were brought in to guard them.
Last year, the bureau restored full irrigation to the farmers, but 33,000 salmon died in the lower Klamath River. The California Department of Fish and Game blamed the deaths on low river flows due to irrigation.
The bureau will take applications for idling farmland through this week, and applications to provide well water for two weeks after that, said Sabo.
The bureau will choose lands that use a lot of water, such as sandy soils, to produce low-value crops, such as pasture and alfalfa, Sabo said.
Next year, the bureau must generate 75,000 acre feet for fish and in 2005 the goal is 100,000 acre feet.
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