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A few topics include:
commercial and tribal fisheries overharvest of suckers/“trash
fish” before they were listed as endangered, water quality
worse at required artificially high levels and WQ good at low
water levels, the flawed count of suckers,
tribal “science,”
fish hatchery that mitigated lack of fish ladders at Klamath
dams, Coho listed as endangered, 2001 water shutoff and
including tractor rallies, speeches, and Klamath Bucket Brigade
bringing thousands of supporters, Rykbost’s nightmare experience
speaking at the Klamath River Fisheries Task Force, waterbank “…waste
of taxpayers’ money when there is no evidence that the program
helps fish,”…
“I
presented data on water quality and fish populations (to the
National Research Council)…that suggested sucker populations
were much higher than the estimates used to get them listed, and
that higher lake levels resulted in poorer, not better, water
quality Six months later, a preliminary report by the (National
Research Council) concluded that the science behind the water
supply cutoff to the Klamath Irrigation Project did not justify
the decision."
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Klamath
Basin Water Issues by Dr. Ken Rykbost, written 2007, shared by
Rykbost with KBC News July 2025
"From
my involvement in the Ultimate Water Needs Study in Oregon in
the 1960s I was well aware of the importance of irrigation to
agriculture in eastern Oregon. When I interviewed for the
position at KES I asked the grower group I met with about the
local outlook for irrigation supplies. I was assured that the
Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Irrigation Project was the most
secure irrigation project in the west. The project, established
in 1905, had enjoyed 81 years of operations with no curtailment
of supplies for agriculture, even during the severe drought era
of the late 1920s and early 1930s, well known as the dust bowl
period.
The Klamath Project included about 210,000 acres of irrigated
agricultural lands served from water stored in Klamath Lake,
Clear Lake, and Gerber Reservoir. Klamath Lake is the largest
lake in Oregon with a surface area of about 67,000 acres at full
pool. It is very shallow with an average depth of 8 feet and a
maximum depth of 50 feet in a few small areas. Before any
modifications to the landscape by settlers in the area, an
additional 65,000 acres of wetlands surrounded the lake. Most of
these were permanently flooded but about 10,000 acres were
seasonal wetlands that dried up as lake levels fell in the
summer.
Clear Lake was a small, shallow, natural lake in Northern
California that discharged into Lost River which flowed in a
horseshoe circuit of about 100 miles, going north into Oregon
then south ending up in Tule Lake about 30 miles as the crow
flies from Clear Lake. Tule Lake was a closed basin with no
surface outlet. At times this lake was nearly 100,000 acres in
extent with a maximum depth of about 30 feet. Any seepage from
Tule Lake flowed south ending up in the Pit River which is a
tributary to the Truckee River, a closed basin ending in Nevada.
Gerber Reservoir dammed up Miller Creek, a small stream that was
a tributary to Lost River.
Outflow from Klamath Lake to the Klamath River took several
routes. At high flow conditions some of the flow went through
the Lost River Slough to the Lost River and ended up in Tule
Lake with no possibility of returning to Klamath River. Some
flowed out of the Klamath River to Lower Klamath Lake, an area
of up to 90,000 acres with about one-half being seasonal
wetlands and the rest being a shallow lake. A portion of this
water flowed back to Klamath River, leaving the upper basin
through the Keno Reef and flowing down the Klamath River to its
mouth at the Pacific Ocean.
As early as the late 1880s, settlers began modifying the
hydrology of the region to accommodate agricultural activities.
Some of the wetlands around Klamath Lake were diked off and
drained. The Lost River Slough was diked off in 1890 to prevent
overflow from Klamath River flooding Tule Lake. A railroad bed
constructed through the Lower Klamath Lake area closed off
access for Klamath River flows into Lower Klamath Lake. A dam
was built at Clear Lake to increase the capacity of the lake and
prevent flooding of Tule Lake. Gerber Reservoir was constructed
to store water and reduce flows in the Lost River. Drains were
constructed to drain Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lake and
convert these areas to agricultural lands. Several independent
irrigation schemes were constructed to divert water to farmland.
Congress passed the Reclamation Act at the turn of the century
to assist in the development of irrigation projects in the
western U.S. to encourage settlement and the Klamath Project was
authorized in 1905.
In 1908, the Roosevelt administration passed legislation to
create wildlife refuges. As the Klamath Basin was a key part of
the waterfowl habitat in the Pacific Flyway, and the region was
a major stop-over for waterfowl migrating from California and
Mexico in the south to Canada in the north, wildlife refuges
were established at Tulelake and in the Lower Klamath Lake area.
A portion of the land in the refuges was designated as wetlands
and another portion for agricultural production with part of the
crops grown on these lands to be set aside to feed wildlife.
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The Klamath Reclamation Project was different than many of the
reclamation projects that were designed to store water for
irrigation or reduce flooding potential. The primary objective
of the Klamath Project was to drain wetlands in the Tule Lake
and Lower Klamath Lake areas to provide productive agricultural
land. Clear Lake was dammed to reduce inflow to Tule Lake by
increasing evaporation and seepage losses from a much bigger
impoundment. Diking off the Lost River Slough was done to stop
the overflow from Klamath River to Tule Lake. Constructing
levies with the railroad through the Lower Klamath Lake area was
done to stop overflow from Klamath River to this lake/wetland
area. Drainage of Tule Lake and the Lower Klamath Lake was
implemented by construction of a pumping station and a tunnel
through Sheepy Ridge and pumping stations on the Straits Drain
that facilitated drainage of Tule Lake and the Lower Klamath
Lake area to the Klamath River. Completion of these objectives
eventually resulted in the conversion of the majority of about
150,000 acres of land naturally submerged under Tule Lake or
Lower Klamath Lake to highly productive agricultural lands.
Over the several decades of development transition, the Klamath
Irrigation Project reached a state of equilibrium by about 1960.
Irrigated agriculture in the project comprised about 200,000
acres. Two wildlife refuges included about 25,000 acres of
permanently flooded lands and 21,000 acres of lands leased to
farmers for crop production with some portion of the crops set
aside unharvested to feed wildlife. The agricultural lease lands
included within the refuges were paying bid fees to support the
refuges and the project infrastructure as well as providing
habitat and feed for wildlife in the refuge system.
The majority of wetlands adjacent to Upper Klamath Lake were
diked, drained and converted for agricultural use by 1960. Most
of these lands were used for pasture and grazing for cattle that
spent the summer months on these highly productive pastures and
were fattened for market in California during winter months.
About 10,000 acres of the original wetlands around Upper Klamath
Lake were designated as wildlife refuges. The period from the
1960s to the late 1980s was a period of tranquility for basin
agriculture with adequate irrigation water and no federal
intervention in operations of the Klamath Irrigation Project.
Endangered Suckers
Klamath Lake and other water bodies in the region were home to
at least three species of suckers. Until 1986, a well publicized
sport fishery for Lost River and Short Nosed suckers drew people
from within and outside the basin to participate in a sucker
fishery in the spring as adult fish migrated to spawning sites
in Klamath Lake, the Williamson River and its tributaries, and
the Lost River system. Fishermen used snagging techniques and
were encouraged to eliminate these “trash fish” from the
environment until shortly before the late 1980s. The Klamath
Tribe participated in this fishery until 1986. Studies sponsored
by the Klamath Tribe led to the listing of Short Nosed and Lost
River Suckers as endangered species in 1988. The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service was instructed to develop a recovery plan and
establish critical habitat for the endangered suckers in the
early 1990s. This was the first salvo in a war that continues to
threaten agriculture in the Klamath Basin. I became aware of and
a participant in the early skirmishes in 1993. My involvement
has increased since then and I’m still engaged in the ongoing
situation.
The 200,000 acres of irrigated land in the Klamath Project are
totally dependent or irrigation to achieve a saleable crop.
Within the project, the typical annual precipitation is about 13
inches/year, most of which is recorded between November and
March. Irrigation during the summer months from water stored in
Klamath Lake, Clear Lake, and Gerber Reservoir, provides the
balance of needs during periods of little or no precipitation.
Imposing restrictions for habitat
to sustain populations of
endangered suckers posed severe restrictions on the use of
stored water for irrigation supplies. The U. S. Fish and
Wildlife Service established the “Ecosystem Restoration Office”
(ERO) in Klamath Falls in 1993 to address the sucker issues.
Initially there were 3 employees in this office. Currently there
are about 30 employees in this office and there is no solution
to the sucker problem or any indication one is imminent.
The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) had operated the Klamath Project
with a staff of engineers. All of a sudden they needed some
biologists to deal with the sucker issues. The budget for the
local BOR office increased by ten-fold in a period of a few
years to deal with sucker issues. The problem didn’t go away and
soon there was an office established for the U.S. Geological
Survey Research Division to study suckers. They started with a
staff of three people in 2000 and rented office and storage
space from the KES. By 2005, they were renting our two-story
house and our garage apartment building at KES for about
$1500/month to accommodate a staff of about 30 employees during
summer months, and had about 8 boats and as many vehicles stored
on the grounds at KES. In mid 2005, the USGS team moved to a
more spacious complex with rental costs soaring to over
$6,000/month. As I write this in 2007, none of these agencies
have been downsized, none of their budgets have been reduced,
and there is no indication that the suckers are better off than
they were before a small fortune in taxpayer funds had been
thrown at the problem. In fact, there is no incentive for
federal agencies to solve this or other similar problems because
these kinds of issues are full-employment opportunities for
federal agency employees. All three of these agencies have
brought in a new crop of employees in early 2007. Many of the
new employees are recent college graduates with no experience in
the field.
Listing of the Short Nosed and Lost River Suckers as endangered
was based on population estimates provided by biologists hired
by the Klamath Tribes. Their decline was the result of over
harvest of the adult spawning population by sport fisherman and
tribal members and the elimination of access to traditional
spawning habitat by construction of a dam on the Sprague River
and lack of maintenance of the fish ladder at this dam. The
species live up to 30 years and when they spawn very large
numbers of eggs are laid. In 1993, the Klamath Water Users
biologist consultant produced a recommendation for removal of
the dam that denied access to 90 percent of the traditional
spawning sites on the Sprague River and other ideas to enhance
spawning sites. None of these reasonable recommendations have
been implemented to date.
Drought conditions in 1991, 1992, and 1994 resulted in drawing
down Klamath Lake to very low levels to meet needs for
irrigation. Data collected later indicated very good sucker
spawning success in 1991 and quite good sucker spawning success
in both 1992 and 1994 when Klamath Lake was drawn down to its
lowest levels since the Link River Dam was constructed in 1922.
New Klamath Lake management plans developed by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service ERO established requirements to maintain higher
elevations in Klamath Lake. Following construction of the Link
River Dam at the outlet to Klamath Lake in 1922, lake elevation
could range from full pool at 4143.3 feet above sea level to
4136.6 feet above sea level. Under these limits, Klamath Lake
had a storage capacity of nearly 500,000 acre-feet (enough water
to flood 500,000 acres to a depth of one foot).
Imposing restrictions on minimum lake elevation was promoted as
being necessary for spawning success, habitat for young suckers,
and for improvements in water quality to limit stress on all
ages of fish. Plans were developed to maintain lake level 1.5 to
3.0 feet above the minimum achievable. In effect, this
eliminated access for irrigation supplies by up to about 200,000
acre feet. At the time of these restrictions, very little
information was available to justify the limitations imposed.
Preliminary surveys indicated many of the fish were older and
young fish were not being recruited into the population in many
recent years.
Klamath Lake is an old lake by geologic standards and was in a
highly enriched or eutrophic condition at the time the first
white explorers visited the region in the 1800s. John C. Fremont
explored the region in 1843 and 1844 and submitted a report to
the U.S. Congress stating that the water in the lake was
“putrid” and not suitable for his horses to drink. Massive algae
blooms in summer months turn the lake into something resembling
pea soup. While the species of algae involved has apparently
changed in the past 60 years, the lake water quality was much
degraded before agriculture arrived on the scene in the late
1800s.
Following listing of the suckers as endangered in 1988, major
events in the 1990s set the stage for an economic disaster for
agriculture in 2001. A serious drought period began in 1990.
Klamath Lake levels declined to well below normal in 1991 and
1992 and to a record low level in 1994 to provide irrigation to
Klamath Project farms. In contrast, the period from 1995 through
1998 experienced nearly record precipitation and abnormally high
inflows to Klamath Lake. In late summer, extensive die-offs of
endangered suckers occurred in 1995, 1996, and 1997. As in
several previous recorded events of sucker die-offs, Klamath
Lake levels were relatively high in each of these years. There
are no recorded die-offs in any years when Klamath Lake level
was relatively low during August and September. Several hundred
sucker carcasses were recovered and examined in 1995 but several
thousand carcasses were examined in both 1996 and 1997. In
addition 10s of thousands of small fish were probably eaten by
large populations of pelicans, cormorants, eagles, and other
birds.
In the early 1990s, studies were initiated to monitor suckers by
capturing and tagging adult spawners at springs on the east side
of the lake where spawning was known to occur and in the
Williamson River below the Sprague River Dam at Chiloquin. By
1996, several thousand adult suckers had been tagged and
released back to the river or lake. Of over 5,000 sucker
carcasses examined during the 1995-1997 die-offs, only 13 tags
were recovered. Less than one percent of the fish examined had
been tagged and less than one percent of the tagged fish were
recovered. This was strong circumstantial evidence that the
population of adult suckers in Klamath Lake far exceeded the
estimate of about 10,000 suckers in the lake that was used as
the basis for listing. Data collected from the examination of
carcasses also provided important information on spawning
success in relation to lake levels.
The carcasses examined were evaluated to estimate the year the
fish were spawned and came into the population. The highest
percentage were determined to have been spawned in 1991 and had
survived through the drought years of 1992 and 1994 when low
lake levels occurred in late summer. Fish spawned in 1992 and
1994 were also found in significant numbers. This seemed to
refute the contention by fisheries experts that relatively high
lake levels were necessary for successful spawning and survival
of young suckers.
Federal funding to the Klamath Tribe was used to establish an
extensive Klamath Lake water quality monitoring study in 1990.
Nine sampling sites established throughout Klamath Lake were
monitored on a twice monthly schedule from about April through
October and nearly monthly during late fall and winter. Data
gathered included pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen,
and phosphorus concentration, and chlorophyll content (an
indirect measurement of algae presence). The objective of the
study was to document water quality issues, determine how
quality might be affected by hydrologic conditions related to
precipitation in the upper basin, and determine how lake
management might be improved to provide better water quality and
hence better conditions for endangered suckers.
Consultants hired by the Klamath Tribe to conduct the water
quality study published a draft report to the Bureau of
Reclamation (which funded the study) in 1999. The report,
authored by Kahn and Walker, included about 30 pages of text and
over 150 pages of appendices that
included data from all water
quality sampling dates at the nine sampling sites for the
duration of the study from 1990 through 1998. The important
water quality data was not summarized and there was no
discussion of the critical data in the text of the report.
Although I and others reviewed and submitted comments on the
report, the authors never revised the draft report or submitted
a final report.
Contrary to the proposal to maintain high Klamath Lake
elevations to insure better water quality for fish, the data
provided in the appendices of the report supported the opposite
conclusion. Water quality problems are directly related to algae
blooms and subsequent death of algae. The dominant algae in the
lake thrive for several weeks and produce oxygen during the day
which is beneficial for fish. When algae blooms die, the algae
settle to the lake bottom where bacteria decay the algae and
consume oxygen in the process. This can lead to low oxygen
content of water in the lake but also to high pH and an increase
in ammonia nitrogen concentration, which is toxic to fish at
levels of 0.5 parts per million or less. In my review of the
Kahn and Walker report I summarized the data provided in the
appendix by month and year and provided my analysis to the BOR.
The data clearly showed that water quality as measured by oxygen
content, pH, and ammonia nitrogen content was far better in
1991, 1992, and 1994 during relatively low lake elevations, than
in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998 when the lake was maintained at
artificially high levels. Specifically, the concentration of
ammonia nitrogen was maintained at the detection level (0.02
parts per million) in 1991, 1992, and 1994, but exceeded the
toxic level of 0.50 parts per million in 1996-1998 during late
summer months.
The thrust of the Kahn/Walker report was a recommendation to
remove agriculture from diked and drained properties adjacent to
Klamath Lake and return them to wetland status which was
postulated as a cleansing buffer that would eliminate the
adverse effects of fertilizers used on agricultural properties
that were contributing nutrients to the lake and enhancing the
algae blooms. One fallacy of this proposal was the fact that
soils on these properties were rich in nutrients. Fertilizers
were not used on these properties which were mainly used as
pastures. Another myth was that phosphorus from cattle manure
was flowing to the lake and enhancing algae blooms. The cattle
grazing on these lands were a net sink for phosphorus obtained
from the grasses they consumed and deposits of phosphorus as
manure are tightly bound by soil particles and organic matter
and are not readily leached in run-off water. More importantly,
naturally occurring phosphorus in the lake sediments and in the
groundwater that fed streams flowing into Klamath Lake had
sufficient phosphorus to support algae blooms with no additional
contributions from agricultural activities.
In spite of scientific evidence to the contrary, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service adopted the notion that maintaining Klamath
Lake at artificially high lake elevations was beneficial for
endangered suckers and was necessary for their protection. Lake
level management plans were implemented to meet that objective.
An interesting aside concerns the official in charge of the ERO
office which made that determination. Steve Lewis, head of the
ERO office, was Commandant of the local Yacht Club, owner of a
sailboat, and active in the society that sailed on Klamath Lake.
When Klamath Lake elevations fell much below 4140.0 feet above
sea level large portions of the lake are too shallow for large
sailboats. When this relationship became public knowledge, Mr.
Lewis resigned from the Yacht Club, but the conflict of interest
became widely known and a major bone of contention over the
management of local resources.
In 1998, the other shoe dropped! Coho salmon in the Klamath
River became listed as a threatened species, requiring
protection and management practices to ensure their survival and
make every effort to enhance habitat toward that goal. The
endangered species act does not allow Federal agencies direct
control of private property to achieve objectives of plans to
protect species included under Federal guidelines, but because
the Klamath Project has a direct link to the Federal Government,
the project was deemed to have an obligation to help resolve
issues that affect Coho salmon. Water diverted for irrigation
outside the Klamath Project is not affected.
Dams built on the Klamath River between the early 1900s and 1961
did not include fish ladders to allow access to the upper basin
by migrating fish. To mitigate the elimination of fish access to
habitat above the site, a fish hatchery was established at Iron
Gate Dam, constructed near the Oregon/California border in 1960.
There is no hard data to support the premise that salmon were a
historically important species in the upper Klamath Basin, but
there is anecdotal evidence that some salmon passed through
Klamath Lake to spawning sites on its tributaries. This opened
the door for the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service to
participate in the development of plans for management of the
Klamath Irrigation Project to provide minimum flows at Iron Gate
Dam deemed sufficient to support Coho salmon in Klamath River
from Iron Gate Dam to the mouth of the Klamath River, 160 miles
away.
To make a long story short, all of this came to a head in 2001.
Low water supply in the upper Klamath Watershed was a minor
factor. One day before the end of the Clinton administration on
January 19, 2001, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the
National Marine Fisheries Service announced that the plans for
operation of the Klamath Irrigation Project as proposed by the
BOR would create jeopardy for endangered suckers and threatened
salmon and that higher minimum lake levels and river flows would
be required to avoid jeopardy and protect the species. Given the
anticipated inflows into Klamath Lake, required river flows and
minimum lake levels would require all inflows and irrigation
supplies could not be release without creating jeopardy to
endangered or threatened species. This was confirmed on April 6,
2001 when the BOR officially announced that no water from
Klamath Lake or Klamath River would be delivered to the Klamath
Project in 2001 to meet the federally mandated requirements for
support of listed salmon and suckers.
The BOR and ERO offices are located across Washburn Way from the
northernmost field at the Klamath Experiment Station. Shortly
after the April 6 announcement of the project shutdown a rally
was held at the BOR office. Over 100 tractors drove to the KES
and parked in the field across the street from the office.
Several hundred people came to the rally. Several people gave
speeches and pleaded with the agencies to release water from a
full lake so farmers could carry on their livelihood. It was the
first step in a series of well planned media events that
eventually drew media from all over the U.S. and even Europe to
learn about the shutdown of the Klamath Project. A few weeks
later thousands of people gathered in Klamath Falls for the
Bucket Brigade. In this event buckets of water were filled from
Lake Euwana at Memorial Park at the south end of Main Street and
passed from hand to hand over more than a mile to be dumped into
the A-canal, the main diversion channel for irrigation from
Klamath Lake. Congressman Greg Walden, one of six U.S.
representatives from Oregon, dumped the first ceremonial bucket
of water into the canal. Speeches were made before and after the
hundreds of buckets were passed along the lined street. Floats,
4-H club members, riders on horses, and thousands of spectators
moved up Main Street to the A-canal and then on to the Klamath
Union High School football stadium where more speeches were
made. The event started in the early morning and concluded in
late afternoon.
In late May, a group of farm families and other supporters
established a camp at the site of Head Gates for the A-canal at
the south end of Klamath Lake. Tents were set up and dozens of
people spent full time there while others came and went as their
schedules allowed. In June several attempts to open the head
gate and get water flowing to farms were stopped by Federal
officials. A team of Federal Marshalls was eventually brought in
to provide 24-hour guard service to keep the Head Gates closed.
Local law enforcement officials kept their distance and did
everything possible to discourage confrontations between
supporters of agricultural interests and federal officials. A
third major media event was held on the 4th
of July. Over 100 mounted riders rode from Memorial Park about 2
miles over a trail along the Klamath River through an
undeveloped area and down on the Head Gates protected by the
Federal Marshalls. Many carried American Flags and some of them
were upside down. More speeches were made and hundreds of
spectators flooded the Head Gate campsite. This was the last
major event orchestrated by supporters of the farm community.
Some people continued to remain at the Head Gate camp site until
the tragedy of September 11. That took the plight of the Klamath
Basin Irrigators off the news and everyone went home to think
about the greater issue for the American people.
When the irrigation supply was cut off, we at the KES were in
the same boat as most of the farmers and ranchers. We had no
well to substitute for lake water irrigation supplies. We were
able to rent 8 acres of land 25 miles from the station that had
a good well to carry on a minimum research program for grain and
potato projects but our programs were severely curtailed and I
had more time to get involved in the issues. I had already
reviewed the main report used to justify high lake levels. This
was clearly a case of Junk Science if there ever was one. I had
also reviewed a report prepared by a consultant hired by the
tribes in the Lower Klamath River that was being used by the
Marine National Fisheries Service as the basis for demands for
high flows from the upper basin to support salmon interests.
This report, prepared by Dr. Thomas Hardy, called for flows
greater than the upper basin could provide in some years, even
if no water was provided for irrigation, and flows that were
clearly higher than those realized historically before any
changes to the region by man.
I developed a presentation that reviewed all available data on
river flows for several major tributaries and several locations
in the Klamath River for all years that records were available.
I also evaluated the likely effect that the flow requirements
established in the documents that took water away from the
Klamath Project in 2001 would mean for the future. The rough
estimate suggested that meeting flow requirements for the river
would result in no water for irrigation in one year in three,
less than full needs for irrigation in one in three, and a full
supply for irrigation in only one year in three. I presented
this information at the University of California Research
Station Field Day in August and at several meetings of local
farmers and ranchers with U.S. House of Representatives members
and/or their aides from California and Oregon in four separate
meetings.
In September I was asked to make my presentation to the Klamath
County Board of Commissioners in a public forum with coverage on
a local television station. I organized a panel of four local
leaders in agriculture to address additional aspects of the
crisis following my one-hour presentation. The two hour
presentation was aired several times on our local channel. One
of our county commissioners requested that the presentation be
made to a meeting of the Klamath River Salmon Task Force, a
group dominated by tribal, Federal agency, and radical
environmental interests that was dedicated to salmon recovery
with no sympathy for agriculture. I made that presentation even
though I felt like David in the Lion’s Den. A few of my friends
attended and would have presented me with a medal had they had
one. Flack from that meeting and criticism of me personally was
sent to the OSU President with copies to the Oregon Governor and
our Federal Representatives by tribes and environmentalists.
While these groups made every effort to kill the messenger, not
one of the facts presented in my material has been refuted in
the six years since the presentation.
There was a great concern that denying irrigation to over 1,400
farm families in the Klamath Basin might lead to violence.
Indeed there were individuals who were so incensed by the
actions of the federal government that a very minor event could
have triggered a fatal incident. In mid July, the FBI sent two
agents to Klamath Falls to investigate the situation and develop
some additional information. Because I was active in providing
an analysis of the situation at various venues, they contacted
me at home on a Sunday evening and asked if I would meet them at
a local restaurant for coffee and a chat. I agreed and took
copies of some of the relevant information I had developed. I
found it very interesting that the FBI agents sent to Klamath
Falls were a black female from Seattle, Washington and an Asian
male from southern California. These individuals would not be
inconspicuous in the community!
By mid-July, there was widespread criticism of the dire
straights of agriculture while the river flows were at
historical highs and Klamath Lake was at higher than historical
levels. Powers at Washington, DC were beginning to realize that
a disaster had hit the farmers in the Klamath Basin while there
was an abundance of water for fish. The FBI team was asked to
determine whether a late release of water to the irrigation
project would benefit agriculture and to some extent placate the
agricultural community and reduce the economic disaster that had
resulted from the decision by the previous administration. I
gave them my best estimates that a release of some irrigation
water at this stage would benefit hay crops and pastures and the
wildlife refuges that support hundreds of species of wildlife. I
later learned that they were reporting directly to the U.S.
Secretary of the Interior who made a decision in late July to
release 70,000 acre feet of Klamath Lake water to meet needs of
the Wildlife Refuges and a limited number of agricultural
interests.
A few days after meeting with the FBI agents I received a call
on a Sunday from one of the agents. Things were tense at the
Head Gates and they wondered if I would meet them there and be
on hand to act as a moderator if things got out of hand. I knew
many of the folks at the Head Gates and could have served as a
moderating influence to some extent if necessary. It was a false
alarm, nothing happened, and after 2 hours I went home. In late
July, the federal government did release about 70,000 acre feet
of lake water to help the refuges and a few agricultural
interests. Shirley and I were invited to a dinner at the Steak
Country Restaurant in Klamath Falls as guests of the FBI agents
before they left town. I had no further contact with either of
the agents and this was my only contact with FBI personnel
during my career.
Although the farm and ranch community suffered a severe
financial setback from the water curtailment in 2001, some
people actually made windfall profits by selling water from
wells to their neighbors or the wildlife refuges. This created
some hostility between those who had wells and others who had no
relief from the situation. Everything came to a screeching halt
on September 11, 2001 when the terrorist attack on the U.S. took
the Klamath Crisis off the front page. The Head Gate camp
closed, Federal Marshalls left the area, and affected farmers
and ranchers turned their attention to the future. My
involvement in the issues didn’t end there however.
Administrators at Oregon State University and the University of
California decided that a review of the affects of the water
cutoff on agriculture should be assessed from the standpoint of
economics, social, and physical effects on individuals, the
region, and the environment. As I had been involved in reviewing
the science behind the policy decisions leading to the cutoff, I
was asked to write a chapter of the report on the hydrology of
the upper Klamath Basin to review the physical aspects of water
supply, the history of the Irrigation Project, and water supply
and water quality issues that led to the crisis. About 30 OSU
and University of California research and extension faculty
members worked on the report that eventually became a 300 page
document.
The Klamath Assessment involved people from several disciplines
including fish biologists, economists, agronomists, legal policy
experts, wildlife biologists, and sociologists. Preliminary
drafts were rigorously reviewed by other team members. I had
many communications with OSU faculty in the Fish and Wildlife
Department on reviews of each other’s chapters. Differences of
opinion on interpretation of available science on relevant data
were frequent and we debated our differing opinions vigorously.
Many people in the local community were very upset with the
final product, particularly in terms of the assessment of
economic effects that masked the devastating effects on
individual farmers and ranchers and looked at the broad effect
on a region that included much more than project lands. The
release of a draft report to the public and state and federal
agencies for review resulted in severe criticism of my writings
on water quality issues. I eventually decided to eliminate this
material from my chapter and focus on the hydrology of the upper
basin, a subject based on well documented studies and with
little basis for disputing the material in my chapter. The main
basis for the criticism of my material was again the fact that I
was not qualified to participate in this material because I was
considered an agronomist with no expertise in hydrology. In fact
my academic training was stronger in the fields of hydrology and
water quality than they were in agronomy, but my work experience
had focused on potato production issues for three decades.
I also became involved in the battle in another venue. A
National Academy of Science National Research Council committee
was appointed at the request of the Department of Interior to
review the circumstances of the irrigation cutoff of 2001. I
submitted several documents to the committee including my review
comments on water quality reports and the Dr. Hardy flow study.
The committee held a meeting in Sacramento, California on
November 6, 2001 to take testimony from all interested parties.
The Klamath Water Users were allocated one position on two panel
discussions related to suckers and salmon. Five people on each
panel were allocated 10 minutes to articulate a position on the
subject. I was asked by the Klamath Water Users Association to
represent their interests on the sucker panel. Other
participants on this panel included a tribal consultant, a
biologist on the Fish and Wildlife Service staff, and two
representatives of radical environmental organizations. I
presented data on water quality and fish populations developed
during the fish die-offs in Klamath Lake that suggested sucker
populations were much higher than the estimates used to get them
listed, and that higher lake levels resulted in poorer, not
better, water quality. Six months later, a preliminary report by
the committee concluded that the science behind the water supply
cutoff to the Klamath Irrigation Project did not justify the
decision. I felt completely vindicated for my interpretations of
the science behind the controversy and received many
communications thanking me for my participation in the process.
In spite of the fact that the National Academy of Sciences is
considered the highest authority in the land on science issues,
the debate did not end there. Future Biological Opinions on lake
level and river flows proposed restrictions on irrigation supply
causing concern for agricultural interests. In June 2003, the
potential for violation of an end of month lake level minimum
elevation by 1 to 1.5 inches resulted in calls to irrigation
district managers on June 25 suggesting that project canals
would be shut down that afternoon until after the first of July
to ensure that June 30 lake elevation minimums would not be
violated. Many phone calls to Washington, DC and state
representatives resulted in a retraction of the decision later
that day and no stoppage of irrigation supplies during the
season. However, the possibility of this action
still exists today. For the
past four years the Federal Government has been paying farmers
to idle fields or to pump well water to substitute for surface
water from the lake so there will be more
water to send down the river
to support salmon. In my last year of managing the KES I
enrolled the 20 acre pasture and another field of 10 acres in
this “water bank”. We were paid $146/acre for not irrigating the
fields. That was about twice as much as we could have earned
from pasture rent. While that sounds like a good deal for the
farmers, it takes land out of production and raises the price
cattlemen have to pay to rent pasture. It is also a waste of
taxpayers’ money when there is no evidence that the program
helps fish.
As I mentioned earlier, the study by Dr. Hardy calls for more
water flowing down the river for salmon than would have occurred
under natural conditions before white men began to change the
landscape by draining lakes and installing dams at various
places. In 2005, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) began a study
to estimate what the natural flows might have been before any
changes to the upper basin’s hydrology. Their results suggest
that Hardy has overestimated flows by a large margin. The
Secretary of Interior has appointed a new committee of the
Academy of Science National Research Council (NRC) to do a peer
review of both Hardy and the BOR reports. This process is
ongoing and the committee has held three public hearings and is
now in the final stages of writing their review. I have
submitted several documents for their consideration, including
my review of the BOR report, which in my opinion also
overestimates how much water flowed out of the upper basin. I
believe the roughly 350,000 acres of lakes and wetlands lost far
more water to evaporation than was estimated by the BOR. At the
end of April a report on a four year study of groundwater in the
upper basin was published by the U.S. Geological Survey and the
Oregon Department of Water Resources. Their estimates of
evapotranspiration from lakes and wetlands are greater than
mine. This report should carry a lot of weight in the NRC review
of Hardy and the BOR flow study.
A preliminary report of the
NRC review is expected in late summer of 2007. After they
undergo a rigorous review process on their draft report, a final
report is expected in mid-2008. It is hoped that their report
will be available in time for use in a new round of Biological
Opinions that will be completed in late 2008.
This is just a brief summary of a very complex situation that
has evolved as Tribes and radical environmental organizations
attempt to eliminate agriculture from the Klamath Basin. They
jointly want to force the removal of four hydroelectric dams on
the Klamath River. They want to restore salmon species back to
the upper basin. They want to recreate a huge network of
wetlands in the upper basin. And they want agriculture gone.
They succeeded in destroying the timber industry in the 1980s
with the Spotted Owl listing. They are making progress toward
their goals for agriculture. Lawsuits and sympathetic courts
have kept a full-court press on the agriculture community for
the last decade. Costs to the irrigation interests for technical
and legal assistance in the war are very high. Farmers and
ranchers are forced to spend too much time in meetings to
preserve and protect their interests. An incredible amount of
time and effort has been spent on the cause but agricultural
interests continue to lose small skirmishes here and there with
ever more regulation and control from the outside. I have been
amazed by the willingness of the farmers and ranchers to stay
engaged in the battles over such a long period. They are
fighting against great odds. I hope I live long enough to see an
end to this conflict, but I’m not optimistic!
The most secure irrigation
project in the west is in dire straights!
Playing a role in the water issues has been challenging but has
brought me a lot of satisfaction as well This is just a brief
summary of a very complex situation that has evolved as Tribes
and radical environmental organizations attempt to eliminate
agriculture from the Klamath Basin."
----------------------------- -------------------------------
Link to
Dr. Rykbost’s brief biography and his Power Point Presentation:
https://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/science/sciencekenrintro.htm
Klamath
Watershed in Perspective
A review of historical hydrology of major features of the
Klamath River Watershed and evaluation of Hardy Iron Gate Flow
requirements. By Dr. K.A. Rykbost, Superintendent, Klamath
Experiment Station, Oregon State University, and R. Todd,
Klamath County Extension Office, Oregon State University.
Report:
Nutrient loading of surface waters in the Upper Klamath Basin:
agricultural and natural sources,
Rykbost and Charlton.
https://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/waterquality/sr1023nutrientloadingRykbost101306.pdf
Commentary by Dr. Kenneth A Rykbost on: Water
War in the Klamath Basin, by
Holly Doremus and A. Dan Tarlock. "I
believe you, as many others, do a disservice to the local
community as well as the scientific community by publishing
one-sided material such as this. It will no doubt serve as
additional fodder in the future by those wishing to obscure
facts and promote an agenda."
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