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A28 u.s. news
Dialuna 17 Mei 2021

Water crisis ‘couldn’t be worse’ on Oregon-California border

(AP) — The water crisis and California Gov. Gavin
along the California-Or- Newsom, both Democrats,
egon border went from have declared drought emer-
dire to catastrophic this gencies in the region, and
week as federal regulators the Bureau of Reclamation
shut off irrigation water has set aside $15 million in
to farmers from a criti- immediate aid for irrigators.
cal reservoir and said they Another $10 million will be
would not send extra wa- available for drought assis-
ter to dying salmon down- tance from the U.S. Depart-
stream or to a half-dozen ment of Agriculture.
wildlife refuges that har- Ben DuVal, president of the
bor millions of migrating Klamath Water Users Associ-
birds each year. ation, urged his members to
remain peaceful and not let
In what is shaping up to be the water crisis “be hijacked
the worst water crisis in gen- for other causes.”
erations, the U.S. Bureau of The seasonal allocations are
Reclamation said it will not the region’s most dramatic
release water this season into development since irrigation
the main canal that feeds the water was all but cut off to
bulk of the massive Klamath tribe. ter published by the Klam- hundreds of farmers in 2001
Reclamation Project, mark- have a severely limited sup- amid another severe drought
ply, the Klamath Water Users The tribe said this week that ath Water Users Association,
ing a first for the 114-year-old low flows from drought and which represents many of — the first time farmers’ in-
irrigation system. The agency Association said in a state- the region’s farmers, blared terests took a backseat to fish
ment. Some other farmers from previous mismanage-
announced last month that the headline, “Worst Day in and tribes.
hundreds of irrigators would rely on water from a different ment of the river by the fed- the History of the Klamath The crisis made the rural
river, and they will also have eral agency was causing a die-
get dramatically less water off of juvenile salmon from Project.” Farmers reported farming region hundreds of
than usual, but a worsening a limited supply. couldn’t be a bacterial disease that flour- already seeing dust storms miles from any major city a
just
“This
drought picture means water ishes when water levels are that obscured vision for 100 national political flashpoint
will be completely shut off worse,” said Klamath Irri- and became a touchstone for
gation District president Ty low. Yurok fish biologists who yards (91 meters), and they
instead. Republicans who used the
The entire region is in Kliewer. “The impacts to our have been testing the baby worried about their wells crisis to take aim at the En-
family farms and these rural salmon in the lower Klamath running dry.
extreme or exceptional dangered Species Act, with
drought, according to fed- communities will be off the River are finding that 70% of About 30 protesters showed one GOP lawmaker calling
the fish are already dead in up Thursday at the head gates
scale.”
eral monitoring reports, and the irrigation shutoff a “post-
Oregon’s Klamath County is At the same time, the agency the traps used to collect them of the main dam to protest er child” for why changes
said it would not release any and 97% are infected by the the shut-off and ask the irri-
experiencing its driest year in gation district to defy federal were needed. A “bucket bri-
127 years. so-called “flushing flows” bacteria known as C. shasta. gade” protest attracted 15,000
from the same dam on the “Right now, the Klamath orders and divert the water.
“This year’s drought condi- River is full of dead and dy- The Herald and News re- people who scooped water
tions are bringing unprec- Upper Klamath Lake to bol- ported that they were with a from the Klamath River and
ster water levels downstream ing fish on the Yurok Reser-
edented hardship to the com- passed it, hand over hand, to
munities of the Klamath Ba- in the lower Klamath River. vation,” said Frankie Myers, group called People’s Rights, a parched irrigation canal.
organization
far-right
vice chairman of the Yurok a
The river is key to the surviv-
sin,” said Reclamation Dep- The situation in the Klamath
uty Commissioner Camille al of coho salmon, which are Tribe. “This disease will kill founded by anti-government Basin was set in motion more
listed as threatened under the most of the baby salmon in activist Ammon Bundy.
Calimlim Touton, calling Endangered Species Act. In the Klamath, which will im- Roughly 30 people affiliated than a century ago, when
the decision one of “historic better water years the pulses pact fish runs for many years with People’s Rights Oregon the U.S. government began
consequence.” “Reclamation of water help keep the river to come. For salmon people, gathered at Klamath Irriga- draining a network of shal-
is dedicated to working with cool and turbulent — con- a juvenile fish kill is an abso- tion District headquarters low lakes and marshlands, re-
our water users, tribes and ditions that help the fragile lute worst-case scenario.” in Klamath Falls, Ore., on directing the natural flow of
partners to get through this species. The fish are central Irrigators, meanwhile, re- Thursday. (Alex Schwartz/ water and constructing hun-
difficult year and developing to the diet and culture of acted with disbelief as the The Herald And News via dreds of miles of canals and
long-term solutions for the drainage channels to create
basin.” the Yurok Tribe, California’s news of a water shut-off in AP) farmland. Homesteads were
largest federally recognized the canals spread. A newslet-
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
The canal, a major compo- offered by lottery to World
nent of the federally operated War II veterans.
Klamath Reclamation Proj- In this 2015 photo, a tractor
ect, funnels Klamath River works a parcel of farmland
water from the Upper Klam- in the Klamath Basin near
ath Lake just north of the Klamath Falls, Ore. (Dave
Oregon-California border Martinez/The Herald And
to more than 130,000 acres News via AP, File)
(52,600 hectares), where The project turned the region
generations of ranchers and into an agricultural power-
farmers have grown hay, al- house — some of its potato
falfa and potatoes and grazed farmers supply In ’N Out
cattle. burger — but permanently
This March 2020 photo altered an intricate water sys-
shows the Iron Gate Dam, tem that spans hundreds of
powerhouse and spillway on miles and from southern Or-
the lower Klamath River near egon to Northern California.
Hornbrook, Calif. (AP Pho- In 1988, two species of sucker
to/Gillian Flaccus, File) fish were listed as endangered
Only one irrigation district under federal law. Less than
within the 200,000-acre a decade later, coho salmon
(80,940-hectare) project will that spawn downstream from
receive any water from the the reclamation project, in
Klamath River system this the lower Klamath River,
growing season, and it will were listed as threatened.