Our Klamath Basin
Water Crisis
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Need for (Klamath) land idling unknown
by JOEL
ASCHBRENNER, Herald and News 4/5/12
About
260 Klamath Reclamation Project irrigators have
applied for a land idling program, but it’s still
unknown if a water shortage will be severe enough to
warrant land idling.
The
deadline passed last week to apply for the Klamath
Water and Power Agency’s 2012 Land Idling Program,
which pays irrigators to leave fields dry and
therefore spare water for other producers.
KWAPA
will have a better idea of how much, if any, land
will need to be idled next week, when an engineer’s
report projecting how much irrigation water will be
available late in the growing season is complete,
said KWAPA executive
director Hollie Cannon.
Bureau
of Reclamation officials have said all Project
irrigators will receive water at the beginning of
the season, but it’s unknown if there will be enough
water to continue full water deliveries through the
end of the growing season.
Despite
a recent increase in precipitation and rising Upper
Klamath Lake levels, irrigators’ allotment of water
likely will be limited due to water requirements for
endangered sucker and coho salmon, Cannon said.
“We
have 100 percent of normal snowpack, a full lake and
92 percent of year-to-date precipitation,” he said.
“It seems ridiculous that we’re even talking about a
(water) cutoff at all.”
KWAPA
could implement a split-season land idling program,
which would pay producers to stop taking irrigation
water from July on, Cannon said.
It’s
possible groundwater could make up for any shortage
in surface water and make land idling unnecessary he
added.
Side Bar
Water report
Snowpack in the Klamath Basin Wednesday was 102
percent of average for that date. This week marked
the first time snowpack has been above average all
season.
Outflows from Upper Klamath Lake, a primary source
of irrigation water, have increased in the past
week, but lake levels continue to rise. Outflows at
Link River Dam were measured at 1,390 cubic feet-per
second Wednesday.
The
elevation of Upper Klamath Lake Tuesday was 4,143.14
feet, up from 4,140.54 feet on the same date in 2010
(a drought year) and 4,143.05 in 2011 (a full-water
year).
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