Hindsight 20/20 – Has The Water Management Policies of the last 20 Years Helped Basin Ag and Fish?

2020 will not be the first year that the Klamath Project has been shut down and Klamath Basin communities left to suffer. In 2001, between a lack of precipitation and the Endangered Species Act, the Project was shut down.

What has changed since then?

Nothing.

Looking back on the last 20 years, the Project remains to be the tap that sends water downstream to salmon species living in the Klamath River – despite whether or not it’s a drought. Upper Klamath Lake levels are kept artificially high as well for the sucker fish that are native to the body of water.

Despite this water-oriented focus on salmon and sucker fish, neither of these species’ numbers have improved. In fact, even with all this water in the lake and the river, they’ve declined.