Posted on 07/01/2003 5:34:57 PM PDT by bicycle thug
At the end of a tumultuous week in the Klamath Reclamation Project, irrigation managers from the federal government and water users are focusing on what to do now.
The week's events included a dramatic drop of inflows into Upper Klamath Lake and the announced shutdown of the project, a decision reversed within hours. The events focused attention on water use and the status of springs upstream of Upper Klamath Lake, which is the main reservoir for the project.
"There is a whole list of things that could be hurting inflows, and ground water is one of them," he said, Jim Bryant, Bureau operations manager.
Also on the list are diversions above the lake.
Ed Bartell, president of the Sprague River water users association, said irrigators above the lake are doing what they can to
conserve water, but he said it's easy for people to think that there might be excess usage.
He said if there were illegal diversions or excessive usage, the Oregon Water Resources Department watermaster would find out about it and shut them down.
"The reason that hasn't happened is because people haven't shown illegal usage," he said.
The Sprague, the Williamson and the Wood rivers are the three main rivers above Upper Klamath Lake from which water is diverted.
Del Sparks, the department's watermaster for the Klamath Basin, spent Thursday and Friday checking gauges on irrigation diversions and looking at streamflows above Upper Klamath Lake.
He said hasn't found any illegal diversions or people using water they are not entitled to. Of the fifteen diversions he looked at so far, three are dry, two are flowing at their maximum rates and the rest are flowing below their entitled amounts.
Kyle Gorman, the Water Resources Department's south-central regional manager, said there are about 350 irrigation diversions above the lake, with the largest being the Modoc Irrigation District's canal, which has a flow of 60 cubic feet per second, or about 120 acre-feet per day on full draw.
Though the department has only preliminary data from fifteen diversions, Gorman said it looks as if they aren't taking more than they are supposed to. Groundwater springs that feed streams, and, in turn, Upper Klamath Lake, appear to be low, however.
"We definitely have measurements that show that the aquifer is down," he said. "And it's due to several years of low precipitation and low snowpack."
As of today, the National Resources Conservation Service reported precipitation in the Basin to be at 86 percent of normal, but most of the snow and rain came during a wet spell in April and early May.
Though the snowpack improved in April, Sparks said, the snow and precipitation came too late. He said any snow that comes after February doesn't help.
"The ground can only absorb so much, so fast, and the rest comes off the surface," he said.
Sparks said he would be out in the field, checking diversions and stream above the lake, again Monday and Wednesday of next week. Wednesday he will be joined by Gorman.
Bryant said groundwater plays big part in the inflows into Upper Klamath Lake.
But not much is known about how the aquifers work because of the wide variety of rock and soil types in the Basin.
"Our problem here is that the geology of the Basin is fractured so bad," he said.
Currently, the U.S. Geological Service and the water resources department are studying the aquifers in the Basin, trying to determine what water flows to where and at what rate.
Bryant said that depending on what type of rock it is trickling through, water can take up to several years to get from the surface down into the aquifer.
"So if there was a drought two years ago, we could be experiencing it now," he said.
Because of the uncertainty of what has caused the drop in lake inflows, Bryant said, he doesn't know whether the inflows will rebound this summer.
All the Bureau can do now is to ask for irrigators both above and below the lake to be conservative with water and hope for the weather to cooperate.
"A little rainfall at this time of year can change everything," Bryant said.
Bryant said the lake loses three feet of water level to evaporation each year, mostly in the five-month period from May to September.
Friday Klamath Basin Area Office officials met with Basin water users for the fifth time this week. Throughout the week the meetings - including the one in which Bureau officials announced they were going to shut down the project for at least five days - had been by conference call.
This time, many water users came to the Bureau's office to talk face to face, while others called in to the meeting.
In the meeting the conversation about how to get through July continued.
To be in compliance with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's biological opinion, which sets lake level requirements for Upper Klamath Lake for endangered suckers, the lake is going to need to be at an elevation of 4,140.7 feet above sea level on July 31.
Dave Solem, manager of the Klamath Irrigation District, said it looks as if diversions from the lake will need to be cut by about a quarter, but the cuts could be more or less, depending on whether there are any changes in inflow or weather, so water users need to be careful with their usage.
"All we can do is ask people to use the minimum amount necessary to have a crop," he said.
While the Bureau and the water users probably won't be meeting daily as they did last week, they still will be in close contact and meeting every couple of days, said Dave Sabo, Klamath Project manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The Bureau will be keeping close tabs on the lake levels.
"We are going to monitor it real closely and keep everyone up to speed," he said.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
Mother nature is so tricky sometimes and it just upsets EVERYBODY!!!
Had a camping trip this weekend with one of the biologists who is researching the sucker fish in the Klamath. Refused to talk with him about the issue & wanted to see him fall into the fire.
Mike Thompson and eastern polititions should not be allowed past the continental devide!
I know. I KNOW!!! . . . don't even start . . . .
U.S..F.W. ever consider that the lake level best for the suckerfissh was the lake level for millions of years before MAN RAISED IT six or seven feet???
"The ground can only absorb so much, so fast, and the rest comes off the surface," he said.
Some hydrologic scientist help me out here: If a new snow falls on top of a snowpack how does that increase runoff amounts? Snow only melts so fast. It seems to me that the snowpack would just last longer into the dry season.
How can it "not help". If there is a problem with water runoff maybe they need more or bigger dams.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
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