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Our Refuges Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges Klamath Basin Wildlife Galleries
Articles, editorials, letters and facts Water for the refuges: Spring diversions to the refuge are helping to attract wildlife, posted to KBC H&N, posted to KBC 7/10/12. KBC EDITOR: As we understand it, the refuges have lowest water priority. Historically this farmland was not without water; it was a huge navigable lake. So when our government allows our farms to have their deeded water, all the runoff goes into the refuges, then into the Klamath river. We pump our water out of the basin, diverting it uphill through a man-made tunnel into refuges then into the Klamath River, all at Klamath Project irrigators' expense, where it historically could not be diverted. Our NMFS biological opinion presently does not allow the lake to fill. When it reaches a certain level the BO mandates the water to go down the river, or in the case this year, directly from the lake into the refuges. This has created a shortage for the farmers, so money is being paid to farmers to fallow land, pump groundwater, or irrigate like crazy early so at certain dates they use no more water and get paid for not irrigating later in the year. When water goes directly to refuges that runoff does not go to the farms. Last winter, since our power rate has increased more than 2000%, farmers could not afford to pump the water as much as before, and normally Fish and Wildlife is not willing to pay for this water, from a historic close basin, to be pumped to benefit fish and wildlife. HERE for Klamath Basin Refuge Page and related articles. (Klamath Basin) Farmland lease bids hit new record, H&N 4/26/12.
ESA partially to blame for bird kill at refuges, Debbie Kliewer, H&N letter 4/7/12.
Water requested for refuges, 26 groups sign letter to Secretary Salazar to bring more water to wildlife refuges, Siskiyou Daily 3/30/12. “USFWS does not pay to pump the water through the mountain. Tulelake irrigators pay the entire cost, hundreds of thousands of dollars in power bills... if farms receive water, the (Tule Lake) refuge receives water...Buying-out water rights will dewater fields. Dewatering fields means that neighboring fields must use more water to irrigate. As we learned from the water shutoff in 2001, when fields and ditches go dry, our aquifer’s water level drops significantly...(KWUA director) Addington, whose group supports the Klamath settlement agreements that are part of the proposal to remove four dams on the river, said if those agreements were implemented their provisions would alleviate this problem." KBC editor: If the KBRA were in effect, according to KWAPA/Klamath Water and Power Agency director Holly Cannon, "What you're giving up is water to get affordable power...20-25%." When ask what the power rate will be, or if it will be lower than tariff rate, Cannon said, "We can't guarantee it." So Addington is partly correct because the KBRA does buy out water rights and downsize agriculture. However, when ag water is put into wetlands, it evaporates twice the water as used by intermittent sprinkling of crops, so it will not produce more water. Since tribes and environmental groups sued to multiply our power rate over 2000% and won, farmers are no longer able to afford power to pump water out of our closed basin as often into LK, water that historically never left the Tulelake basin. The blackmail of the KBRA was, if farm leaders sign onto the dam removal deal, those tribes and environmental groups (voting KBRA members) would agree to allow farmers an affordable power rate, and the feds would pay some of the costs to pump the water out of the closed basin into Lower Klamath refuge and Klamath River.
Leave it alone, H&N
letter by Henry Christiansen, past Tulelake refuge manager 9/8/04,
regarding Rep Earl Blumenauer's persistence in trying to eliminate
refuge farming, "...it
would take 162,800 acre-feet more water to flood the farm area than it
takes to farm it. At present, that amount of water isn't available and
there isn't anything indicating it will ever be available." Ron Cole, Klamath Basin Refuge Manager, alerts Audubon groups that there is not enough water on refuges because farmers can't afford the power bills to pump it into the refuges and river on Feb. 10, posted 3/29/12 "To make matters worse, these commercially leased agricultural fields regularly receive water even in years when the refuge’s wetlands are, in stark contrast, left totally dry." KBC EDITOR: Check out these KBC photos below from fall 2010. Photo to left is dry dead fields. Center photo is farm leaseland on left and Tule Lake wildlife refuge on right. Photo on right is full Tule Lake.
KWUA newsletter regarding Buying out Irrigators 5/11/04 by director Dan Keppen, when environmental groups and USFWS promoted it before. ===================================================================== Geothermal energy plant planned for Klamath wildlife refuge, SBO, posted to KBC 3/29/12. "Take, for example, the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge. The complex has been perpetually short on water in recent years and a jump in power costs in 2004 has made pumping water to replenish wetlands prohibitively expensive....(Manager Ron Cole) estimates that in 2001 it cost 33 cents to pump an acre-foot of water onto the refuge. The cost to do the same to day is $9.20. 26 Organizations Sound Alarm on Klamath Water, Obama Administration Urged Not to Allow National Wildlife Refuges to Go Dry, Center for Biological Diversity Press Release, posted to KBC 3/29/12. 10,000 dead birds at refuges (from cholera), H&N, posted to KBC 3/29/12 Energy site work could begin later this year, Geothermal facility on refuge considered, H&N, posted to KBC 3/1/12. "Depending on volumes produced by the geothermal wells, Cole said the refuge complex could meet all or part of those power needs and provide water to parched wetlands."
Interior Secretary Announces more than $20 Million for Wetlands Grants for Migratory Birds, 9/14/11. More than $9 Million for Wildlife Refuge Acquisitions April 22 public comment due on refuge draft plan Refuge employee (Dave Mauser) honored, biologist earns national award for wetlands program, H&N 3/18/11.“I think this award was not for perseverance but for the work I and a lot of others have done with the Walking Wetlands program,” he said, referring to the crop rotation program. In some years, the Walking Wetlands program has added upward of 10,000 acres of wetlands and spurred expansion of organic farming." HERE for more on refuges, and FWS intentions of land and water rights acquisitions. PUBLIC NOTICE - Tulelake National Wildlife Refuge Cooperative Farming, February 2011. KBC Note: 979 acres of private land will become seasonal wetlands, and growers will be provided land to farm in the wildlife refuge. Our federal government pays farmers to use efficient sprinklers, yet they want 979 acres of private land to have standing water much of the year. Pacific Region Selects New Assistant Regional Director for Refuges, FWS 2/9/11
Oregon and California Wildlife
Refuges: appropriation for ag or
fish and wildlife early 1900's.
Page 1, &
Page 2 3/2/11 - Conserving the Future: Wildlife Refuges and the Next Generation, Draft Vision, 2011. Covers land acquisitions, farming, acquiring water rights, managing land outside the refuge, climate change, ... Draft Vision information page. Draft Recommendations. PRESS RELEASE: Salazar draft vision for future of refuges 2/24/11, "Spanning more than 150 million acres of land and water..."
Letter from Bureau of Reclamation Susan Fry to Ron Cole, Fish and Wildlife Tulelake Refuge Manager, regarding FWS takeover of leaseland management, posted 7/23/10. "Ron, I understand you held a meeting with Lease Land growers on July 14th and announced that FWS had “fired the Bureau” and would be taking over the lease land program. Since I have not heard from you regarding the lease land program since April/May, I am surprised to hear of this announcement..." Klamath Basin Refuge management public comment by June 28 Suckers being moved from (Tulelake) refuge to (Klamath) lake, H&N 5/13/10. "...We think most, if not all, of these (fish) originated in Upper Klamath Lake, so we’re just putting them back where they came from...”
Klamath Basin Refuges public meetings:
Klamath Falls May 13
Agreement guarantees refuges water, H&N 10/16/09. "(Cole)
defends the Endangered Species Act and the involved National
Environment Protection Act, which are often seen as
obstacles....“They allow citizens the right to work for
solutions, not to stop achieving solutions.” ! Walking Wetland Controversy, and Bureau of Reclamation blackmail issues, by KBC reporter July 19, 2009 Farming For Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, 2009. "This grant will sponsor an informational trip by some of the participating farmers and other agricultural stakeholders in the Skagit Delta to Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge in the Klamath Basin region of Northern California." Refuges receive stimulus money, H&N 5/19/09. "The stimulus money will be used to create a block of 1,300 acres that will be flooded for two years this fall. In 2010, the land will be returned to crops for three to five years." (Klamath Basin) Walking Wetlands, Iowa Public Television, posted to KBC 5/19/09. Tulelake refuge manager Ron Cole, and Tule Lake farmers Marshall Staunton and Rob Crawford, tell about the Walking Wetland program. From farms to wetlands; Walking Wetlands program benefits farmers, refuges and wildlife, H&N 11/20/08 From Farms to Wetlands, A partnership with agriculture, Herald and News 11/20/08 From farms to wetlands; Transforming tracts of farmland to wetland, Herald and News 11/20/08 Klamath Marsh event planned, H&N 6/9/08. "It originally had 16,400 acres but was expanded to 40,646 acres following purchases in 1990 and 1998. Of that acreage, 37,023 acres, or more than 90 percent, is in wetlands." (KBC NOTE: The Marsh was taken out of agriculture, decimating the cattle industry in the Upper Basin. It evaporates 2ce the water as irrigated ag, while the federal promise was, this federal acquisition would provide more irrigation water for the rest of the irrigators, somehow...Farmers and ranchers, who grew up with hand-shake contracts, fall for this line every time, to their demise. More than 100,000 acres in the Upper Basin have been converted from private ag land to federal standing-water swamps.) Wetlands-crop rotation paying off, H&N 6/5/08 Doing fowl deeds to fields, followed by Farms’ support of birds studied, H&N 4/24/08 Counting Birds, Annual Christmas count finds more than 100 different species, followed by Winter Wings, H&N 12/22/07 | |||||||||||||||||||||
