Klamath farmers hope to harvest crops before shutoff
lake elevation of 4,139.2 feet. The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion on May 10, Simmons said, yet the bureau respond- ed days later calling for what the plain- tiffs asked for—a minimum lake level of 4,139.2 feet. Simmons called the lake level “an arbitrary number from the clear blue sky,” adding that the biological opin- ion for endangered suckers calls for a minimum lake level of 4,138 feet, a dif- ference equating to 80,000 acre-feet. Annual average demand by the proj- ect is between 320,000 acre-feet and
400,000 acre-feet, he said. Farmers were counting on more water supplies this year after they suffered from severe cutbacks in water deliveries during recent extreme drought years. In 2022, the bureau granted an initial allocation of 50,000 acre-feet. In 2021, the initial alloca- tion was 33,000 acre-feet. To accommodate for the lower-than- hoped-for water allocation this year, Seus said growers had to cut back on planted acres.
By Christine Souza Even with a more positive water out- look in early 2023, irrigators of the federal Klamath Water Project who are nearing the end of the growing season say they hope to finish harvest before their water supply is cut off in the coming weeks. Siskiyou County farmer Scott Seus of Tulelake-based Seus Farms, which grows a variety of crops including horseradish, onions, mint and grain, said the region’s farmers face water challenges again this season, despite a plentiful water year. “It’s hard to fathom. They tell you there’s not enough water to go around, yet you have 220% of normal precipitation and you should be closer to 300,000 acre- feet or 280,000 (acre-feet) reasonably,” Seus said, referring to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that manages the Klamath Water Project, which relies on water from Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River. “There’s a strong probability that they are going to shut our water off before the end of the season. “With irrigated row crops,” he added, “we need to get to the other side of Sept. 15. It is pretty reasonable right now to think that we’re not going to get there.” For the Klamath Water Project, water from Upper Klamath Lake is dedicat- ed to fish species based on regulatory guidelines put in place by the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. NMFS has authority related to coho salmon, and USFWS has authority related to Lost River suckers and shortnose suck- ers. To manage for the needs of fish, federal agencies extended the interim operations plan to Oct. 31, 2024, after it expired in September 2022. Based on the operations plan and the water supply from Upper Klamath Lake, Klamath Water Users Association Executive Director and Counsel Paul Simmons said
project irrigators should have received 285,000 acre-feet in 2023. However, this spring, the bureau announced an initial supply of 215,000 acre-feet. Influencing the water-supply alloca- tion was a request by the Yurok Tribe and other plaintiffs this spring asking the federal court in San Francisco to order a
See KLAMATH, Page 4
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