The Klamath River flows 253 miles
from Southern Oregon to the California coast, draining a basin of
more than 15,000 square miles. The watershed and its fisheries
have been the subject of negotiation since the 1860s negotiations
that have intensified and continue to this day.
The river has provided irrigation to ag lands since the late 19th
century. Agricultural development drained vast areas of
wetlands on the periphery of Upper Klamath Lake and in
upstream watersheds. Some of this drained acreage has been
restored and is now managed primarily for wetland benefits.
The watershed is divided geographically into two basins, upper
and lower, divided by Iron Gate Dam, the lower most dam on the
river. The Upper Basin is dry, with annual precipitation of about
13 inches at the river’s origin near Klamath Falls, Ore.
Downstream, the climate grows wetter.
Native Americans have a significant presence in the Klamath
Basin. Four major tribes have been influential in water
negotiations: the Klamath Tribes, the Karuk Tribe, the Hoopa
Valley Tribe and the Yurok Tribe.
Four PacifiCorps dams — the J.C. Boyle, Copco No. 1 and No. 2,
and Iron Gate — are scheduled to be removed as part of a
controversial effort that advocates have said will restore the
health of the river, fish and communities along the river,
including several in the Upper Klamath Basin. Dam removal is
something that has drawn heated discussion for and against for
decades, highlighted in 2001 when decisions to not release
water to Klamath Basin irrigators resulted in protests and
demonstrations that drew national attention.
The fish need the water, the farmers and ranchers need the
water, and the fish win. Because coho salmon are on the
Endangered Species List in the region, and the Scott and Shasta
Rivers are important to their survival. The State of California
put emergency rules in place governing groundwater around those
rivers, and the people in agriculture take exception. We hear
the environmental side of the issue in this interview. Craig
Tucker, Natural Resources Policy Advocate for the Karuk Tribe,
lays out the importance of the water for the fish …
A Trump era decision has further imperiled endangered fish
species in the Trinity River, and commercial fishermen and
local tribes are demanding the federal government take action.
This week, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s
Associations and its sister organization Institute for
Fisheries Research sent the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation a 60-day
notice of their intention to sue the federal agency for
violating the Endangered Species Act. The amount of water the
bureau is diverting from the Trinity River to the Central
Valley Project has decimated the river’s salmon populations
…
After decades of negotiation, the largest dam-removal project
in U.S. history is expected to begin in California’s far north
next year. The first of four aging dams on the Klamath River,
the 250-mile waterway that originates in southern Oregon’s
towering Cascades and empties along the rugged Northern
California coast, is on track to come down in fall 2023. Two
others nearby and one across the state line will follow.
… The native flora and fauna in the region are bound to
prosper as algae-infested reservoirs at the dams are emptied,
the flow of the river quickens and cools, and river passage
swings wide open.
Fire danger is on the rise in California, as warm, dry and
windy weather heralds a potentially long and difficult season.
For several consecutive years, increasingly extreme,
climate-change fueled wildfires have devastated parts of the
state. The area of greatest concern late this week is in
Northern California, where strong northerly winds will combine
with dry vegetation in the Sacramento Valley…. The risk of
fast-spreading blazes may ease this weekend, but officials have
expressed serious concerns about the months ahead as the
entirety of California contends with a historically severe
drought that has turned many areas into a tinderbox.
The final hurdle is in sight and expected to be overcome, in
the decades-long fight to remove four dams from the Klamath
River and hopefully allow restoration of the river’s Chinook
salmon population which was once the third-largest in the
country, but in recent years has plummeted by as much as
ninety-eight percent. The four dams were built between 1903 and
1967 as part of PacifiCorp’s Klamath Hydroelectric Project and
are now obsolete. Removing them will provide native migratory
fish, like Chinook salmon, access to larger spawning grounds.
It will also help restore the natural flow of the river,
providing innumerable benefits to the entire ecosystem.
A lawsuit over the U.S. government’s refusal to release water
for a Yurok Tribe water ceremony during drought conditions in
2020 will proceed without a local irrigation district, which a
federal judge in California found Monday sought to litigate
issues beyond the scope of that case. In his ruling, U.S.
District Judge William H. Orrick said the Klamath Irrigation
District’s intervention bid …
A California federal judge has declined to lift an injunction
on two Northern California county ordinances that require
strict permits for the transport of water, saying that while
the local laws were enacted to quash illegal cannabis farms,
they’ve caused harm to a group of Hmong farmers. In a decision
handed down Friday, Chief U. S. District Judge Kimberly J.
Mueller found that although Siskiyou County had modified the
ordinances, they were still likely to cut off water to a
community of Hmong farmers within the county’s borders.
On a cool day in late April, a small crowd gathers around a
truck-mounted water tank at Lakeside Farms, on the southeastern
shore of Upper Klamath Lake…. All eyes are focused on the
tank’s outlet, where U.S. Fish and Wildlife Science fish
biologist Jane Spangler stands poised with a net. Her
colleague, science coordinator Christie Nichols, opens the
valve. Water gushes out; within seconds, a stream of tiny fish
pours into the net…. Nichols and Spangler are here to stock
the pond with over 1,000 young C’waam and Koptu — Lost River
and shortnose suckers, two endangered species that inhabit
Upper Klamath Lake and that are at the heart of the area’s
water conflicts. It’s the first time that hatchery-raised
suckers have been released on private land.
A federal judge struck down a second attempt by a Northern
California county to dismiss a case against them for water
sanctions that would leave the local Asian community without
water. … In the original complaint, plaintiff Der
Lee compared living in Shasta Vista to his days hiding out in
the Laos jungles — just now without water. Others explained
that they only bathe once a week, are dehydrated and have had
their food sources — crops and livestock — die from the lack of
water access. As a result, many resorted to filling jugs with
water in streams and local parks.
[A crowd has gathered] to stock the pond with over 1,000 young
C’waam and Koptu—Lost River and shortnose suckers, two
endangered species that inhabit Upper Klamath Lake and that are
at the heart of the area’s water conflicts. … The pond
is part of an innovative restoration project at Lakeside Farms,
which is just north of Klamath Falls. … Altogether, it’s a
hopeful demonstration of cooperation in a region that has seen
bitter fights between tribes, farmers, and wildlife advocates
over who gets water.
For the 20th year in a row, people from tribal communities
along the Klamath River are preparing to run the more than 300
mile length of the river, tracing the route of the salmon that
are struggling to survive. … A new 13-minute documentary
called “Bring the Salmon Home” by filmmaker Shane Anderson
highlights the Klamath Salmon Run, which is set to begin at
7:30 a.m. Thursday. The Salmon Run was started after a historic
fish kill in 2002 decimated the Klamath River’s salmon.
Two species of endangered sucker fish could face extinction
this year because the federal government let farmers take
irrigation water from Upper Klamath Lake instead of leaving
enough water in the lake for the fish born this year to
survive, the Klamath Tribes claim. … Last year, the fight
over the region’s water risked a standoff between extremist
farmers who threatened to take control of the irrigation system
the government had shut off in an effort to prevent the
extinction of two species of endangered sucker fish sacred to
the Klamath Tribes: the c’waam, or Lost River sucker and koptu,
or shortnose sucker.
California water regulators hosted a public forum on Wednesday
to collect comments about re-adopting drought emergency
regulations for Siskiyou County’s Scott and Shasta River
watersheds. … In response [to current drought conditions],
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife
is requesting the re-adoption of a 12-month drought
emergency regulation to protect salmon, steelhead and
other native fish.
The ongoing drought conditions only continues to make matters
worse for Klamath irrigators and farmers. The Klamath
Irrigation District says the canals it operates and maintains,
haven’t seen water in over 18 months. Executive Director Gene
Souza, says that on March 1st it opened the valve for the A
Canal, a primary diversion point for Upper Klamath Lake. That
allowed water to go into the system very slowly.
Congressman Jared Huffman introduced a new bill this week that
aims to give land back to the Yurok Tribe. HR7581, known as the
Yurok Lands Act, would expand the Yurok reservation boundaries
and give the tribe more than 1,229 additional acres of U.S.
Forest Service land. … By reclaiming land, the Tribe
hopes to help keep local forests and salmon populations
healthy.
The Klamath Basin provides a cautionary tale for Oregon about
the need to plan more intentionally and sustainably with its
shrinking water supply. Though the state and its watersheds
aren’t newcomers to drought, research suggests that climate
change is magnifying the impacts of the region’s natural wet
and dry cycles…. Oregon’s next governor will inherit a
state whose ecosystems, economy and communities are enduring
their driest period in 1,200 years.
Northern California farmers use pumped river water during
freezing spring nights to coat the growing grapes with a
protective layer of ice, and without this protection there
could be significant losses to crops. That water, however,
comes from the homes of the hook-mouthed coho salmon and
the threatened steelhead trout. Once plentiful, the coho salmon
is now a protected species under threat (via NOAA Fisheries).
Salmon-Safe seeks to protect important species in California
and beyond, while still supporting the many brewery and winery
industries that need water to thrive.
The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced this year’s
restoration flow schedule for the Trinity River. … Due to
lack of precipitation and snowpack in the Trinity Mountains
this winter, the flow schedule for 2022 is scaled to a
critically dry water year. Critically dry is one of five water
year types used by the Trinity River Restoration Program to
determine how much reservoir water will be released in support
of the program’s goals to improve habitat for anadromous
fish—fish that migrate to fresh water from salt water to
spawn—like salmon and steelhead.
$31-million in federal funds planned for forest landscape
restoration include projects in Southern Oregon and Northern
California involving the Rogue Basin, Lakeview and Western
Klamath Mountains. The Biden-Harris Administration and U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service announced the
funding today for 15 projects that “aim to reduce the risk of
severe wildfires, support local economies, create jobs and
enhance forest and watershed health in eight states …
[including] $3 million to the Western Klamath Mountains
Fire and Fire Resiliency Project … [and] $3 million in
the North Yuba River watershed across 356,000 acres.
A Native American tribe in Oregon said Tuesday it is assessing
its legal options after learning the U.S. government plans to
release water from a federally operated reservoir to downstream
farmers along the Oregon-California border amid a historic
drought. Even limited irrigation for the farmers who use
Klamath River water on about 300 square miles of crops puts two
critically endangered fish species in peril of extinction
because the water withdrawals come at the height of spawning
season, The Klamath Tribes said.
Members of the Klamath Tribal community gathered Friday morning
in the parking lot next to the headgates to protest the Bureau
of Reclamation’s decision to release water from the lake in
apparent violation of Endangered Species Act requirements for
the fish the tribe calls C’waam and Koptu (Lost River and
shortnose suckers), and to call for solutions to the basin’s
decades-long water crisis.
Entering a third year of drought, the once-vast Tule Lake, a
vestige of the area’s volcanic past and today a federally
protected wetland, is shriveling up. Its floor is mostly
cracked mud and tumbleweed. By summer, the lake is expected to
run completely dry, a historic first for the region’s signature
landmark and the latest chapter in a broader, escalating water
war.
The Yurok Tribe and Redwood National Park and State Parks will
soon release the first four California condors to take flight
in the heart of the bird’s former range since 1892.
… Comprised of biologists and technicians from the Yurok
Tribe and Redwood National and State Parks, the Northern
California Condor Restoration Program will collaboratively
manage the flock from a newly constructed condor release and
management facility near the Klamath River.
California is chock full of rivers and creeks, yet the state’s network of stream gauges has significant gaps that limit real-time tracking of how much water is flowing downstream, information that is vital for flood protection, forecasting water supplies and knowing what the future might bring.
That network of stream gauges got a big boost Sept. 30 with the signing of SB 19. Authored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), the law requires the state to develop a stream gauge deployment plan, focusing on reactivating existing gauges that have been offline for lack of funding and other reasons. Nearly half of California’s stream gauges are dormant.
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
Headwaters are the source of a
stream or river. They are located at the furthest point from
where the water body empties or merges with
another. Two-thirds of California’s surface water supply
originates in these mountainous and typically forested regions.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
20-minute version of the 2012 documentary The Klamath Basin: A
Restoration for the Ages. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues related to complex water management
disputes in the Klamath River Basin. Narrated by actress Frances
Fisher.
For over a century, the Klamath River Basin along the Oregon and
California border has faced complex water management disputes. As
relayed in this 2012, 60-minute public television documentary
narrated by actress Frances Fisher, the water interests range
from the Tribes near the river, to energy producer PacifiCorp,
farmers, municipalities, commercial fishermen, environmentalists
– all bearing legitimate arguments for how to manage the water.
After years of fighting, a groundbreaking compromise may soon
settle the battles with two epic agreements that hold the promise
of peace and fish for the watershed. View an excerpt from the
documentary here.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterfowl, and extends from Alaska and Canada, through
California, to Mexico and South America. Each year, birds follow
ancestral patterns as they travel the flyway on their annual
north-south migration. Along the way, they need stopover sites
such as wetlands with suitable habitat and food supplies. In
California, 90 percent of historic wetlands have been lost.
On the Klamath River, the Upper Klamath Basin’s aquatic
ecosystems are naturally very productive due to its
phosphorus-rich geology.
However, this high productivity makes the Basin’s lakes
vulnerable to water quality problems.
Nutrient loads in the Upper Klamath Basin are a primary driver of
water quality problems along the length of the Klamath River,
including algal blooms in the Klamath Hydroelectric Project
reservoirs. Municipal and industrial discharges of wastewater in
the Klamath Falls area add to the nutrient load.
The Klamath Basin’s Chinook salmon and coho salmon serve a vital
role in the watershed.
Together, they are key to the region’s water management, habitat
restoration and fishing.
However, years of declining population have led to federally
mandated salmon restoration plans—plans that complicate the
diversion of Klamath water for agriculture and other uses.
This issue of Western Water examines the challenges facing state,
federal and tribal officials and other stakeholders as they work
to manage terminal lakes. It includes background information on
the formation of these lakes, and overviews of the water quality,
habitat and political issues surrounding these distinctive bodies
of water. Much of the information in this article originated at
the September 2004 StateManagement Issues at Terminal Water
Bodies/Closed Basins conference.
The story of the Klamath River is the story of two basins.
In the upper basin, farming has long been the way of life. Even
before passage of the 1902 Reclamation Act, settlers had begun
the arduous process of reclaiming vast tracts of wetlands and
transforming them into rich farmland.
