It’s official – the Klamath Basin is in a drought.
On their March 9th agenda, the Klamath County Board of Commissioners had “Drought Declaration” as one of their items. With little snow this winter and moving into spring with little moisture, it’s obvious the Klamath Basin is in a drought. But protocol is protocol and the Commissioners’ drought declaration will hopefully get the ball rolling for help in Klamath County.
What does this mean for Klamath Basin farmers and ranchers? Nothing short of a disaster. As it is right now, there’s not enough water to satisfy the BiOps for Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River. The Project’s water has been drastically cut and there’s no indication of when we’ll receive it. Add a new administration including newly appointed Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, nobody has any idea of how things will shake out.
Conditions are looking worse than they did last year. To make the drought of 2021 even more challenging, in 2020 more water was sent downriver for the salmon BiOp than came into Upper Klamath Lake. Yet Klamath Basin agriculture will bear the brunt of most of the blame though failed policies of the last 20-plus years have done nothing to help salmon or sucker fish. One-sided propaganda posing as news will spread misinformation and cry about the evils of Klamath ag while turning a blind-eye to 20 years of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Also ignored are the realities of Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath Irrigation Project. While Project irrigators are accused of using too much water, they actually use less than what historically evaporated off of Upper Klamath Lake, Lower Klamath Lake and Tule Lake before the Project was created. And sending 400,000 acre feet down river during a drought year? Naturally and historically it would have never happened. Klamath reef and Keno reef would have been too high for water from Upper Klamath Lake to flow to the ocean. It’s only able to do it today because of the Klamath Project and its facilities.
We all have our part to play to help the salmon and sucker fish, but the ESA’s one-species approach to management is failing the fish, farms and birds. As salmon and sucker fish numbers continue to decline, drying up our farms and refuges is not a viable solution. And since it’s a drought, it’s all the more important to find those solutions – and quickly.