The Dire Situation in the Klamath Basin

Floor Speech

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Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand up here with my friend and colleague, Representative Cliff Bentz of Oregon, as we both go over in detail the dire situation currently happening in the Klamath Basin in the area bordering northern California and southern Oregon here, upper Klamath Lake.

So this has been an ongoing problem over several decades, really. In March of this year, the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees the water in the Klamath Project promised that the growers there in the basin would receive 130,000 acre feet of water. This on the heels of 2020 with a similar situation where the Bureau promised water to the growers in the amount of 140,000 acre feet.

Now, this is of a total of a true water right of 390,000 acre feet that is promised in the basin for the project. These are already big cuts to what the original project intent was, with 390,000 acre feet, and the amount that these folks have endured in cuts in recent years.

So when they made that initial March allocation, the Bureau followed up in April, cutting that figure another 70 percent. Remember, 390,000 acre feet cut to 130,000. In April, they cut, additionally, 70 percent more down to 33,000 acre feet. So that is 8 percent of the water the irrigators would have been promised initially.

Last week, another cut was made, now down to just 3,000 acre feet. An acre foot, for those scoring at home, is about 326,000 gallons, or the amount of water it takes to cover 1 acre with a foot of water.

At that point, the 3,000-acre delivery, the Bureau has decided, is not worth the effort to deliver into the district into the canals, et cetera.

So basically what this means, in 2021, no water would flow to the Klamath Project, this is for the first time since 1907, the headgates of the A Canal would remain closed.

From June 1907 to May 2021, some amount of water has always flowed into the Klamath project. From the upper lake here to the A canal. I will show you more pictures later, Madam Speaker, on how the A canal works to feed much of the district.

This area, of course, is populated by Tribes, descendants of pioneers, frontiersmen, and veterans of World War I and World War II who quite literally won a lottery to homestead in the footprint of Lake Modoc.

The water hasn't always been enough, and a mountain of unpleasantries have been shared over the allocation of this resource, but there has always been water at least.

So, I would like to start the conversation on the Klamath going back to the fundamental water rights. The first private ditch in the basin was dug in 1868, and the few irrigation projects that were there at the time were quite small. In 1882, the first bit of land within the current project was irrigated. Authorized by Congress in 1905, it is the second oldest project in the West. There are several hundred miles of main canals, lateral canals, and drainage ditches, and 200,000 acres of irrigated farmland across 1,400 farms. Excuse me, 27,000 irrigable land in the lower Klamath, and to the Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

Today, it is over $200,000 worth of value in alfalfa, hay, wheat, and potatoes, including the ones you would get at In-N-Out Burger french fries as well as pasture.

In 1917, the rock sill between Upper Klamath Lake and the Link River was lowered allowing more flows to agriculture areas and downstream basins.

In 1921, the Link River Dam was completed allowing water to be retained during spring peaks and increasing the total amount of water in the lake.

After nearly 50 years of construction, the final piece of the project was completed in 1964 with the Iron Gate Dam along the Klamath River, one of four dams that are providing hydroelectric power and are currently in peril, too, due to a fish passage issue.

In total, the project allows for nearly 600,000 acre-feet of water to be stored.

So the Bureau of Reclamation has been making an incorrect claim for quite a while to the Klamath project water. They have been involved, of course, since Congress authorized the project in 1905. Every year, the farmers in the basin spend about $30 million to maintain this project, paying the government for that.

The Bureau has acted and operated the project and the head works of the irrigation systems. In 1970 and 1973, Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, and the Endangered Species Act, both well-intended. This legislation effectively requires, according to interpretation, the bureau to prioritize the environment over the well-being and economic security of humans. That is not the original intent of Congress. This is what courts have ruled over the years.

So the fish involved in the current issues are several species. The Lost River sucker fish and the shortnose sucker only exist in the Upper Klamath Lake. From 1984 to 1986, the sucker population began a steep decline heading to their listing as endangered in 1988.

The biological opinions which heavily influence water decisions and allocations coming out of the Upper Klamath Lake are the results of Interior attorneys--longtime career attorneys--here in Washington, D.C. So the recent biological opinions put out in the end of the Trump administration were partly responsible for setting the record straight and helping last year to get a little bit more water to the farmers, as we had to rescue that situation in May in order to have their allocation kept at 140,000.

So when the Lost River sucker was listed, two Klamath scholars actually noted that no one seems to anticipate that the listing of the sucker fish might have serious impacts on the operation of Klamath Project, which the impacts economically to people are required as originally part of the Endangered Species Act. That has all seemed to have gone out the window.

Coho salmon is the other population of fish native to the Klamath basin and adjacent rivers and rivers all up and down the West Coast. Salmon populations have followed a general trend of decline that is seen all across the Pacific Coast.

With all these populations, they are not just in the Klamath River, so year after year, extra water flows down the Klamath River have been used to deal with what is known as the C. shasta virus.

Now, there is a lot of debate whether these flows are actually effective or not. There are counter opinions that keeping the river wet and all these flushes actually help propagate the virus instead of drying it out and making the virus dry out basically on the vine.

Then there is a similar debate with the sucker fish in the lake that a high level of water in the lake will cause them to be more subject to predators in the lake where the lower level, since they are bottom feeder fish and it is less conducive for the atmosphere for the predators of those fish.

So it is seemingly going in opposite directions. But we also have counter purposes for the Federal agencies that are regulating right now, Fish and Game, Fish and Wildlife, that are trying to preserve the deep lake for the sucker and at the same time they want to have the flows go down the river to take care of the C. shasta virus for the salmon--you can't do both--as well as have any water available for agriculture, for the communities, and for the refuges for the wildlife.

So the irrigators despite their receiving no water, the Bureau still plans to send 375,000 acre-feet downstream for salmon.

Now, let's get to what the water rights look like. In 1975, shortly after NEPA and the Endangered Species Act went into effect, the Oregon Water Resources Department began the process of detailing and adjudicating the water rights of irrigators. Under Oregon law Chapter 539, it lays out the process of determining water rights before 1909, when the water rights code in Oregon was initiated, and a large part of this is on the Oregon side of the lake.

This process culminated in the 2013 Findings of Fact and Order of Determination, which were then amended in 2014. Oregon water laws uphold the rights of the irrigators and distributes water based on the seniority of the claim.

So what are the ramifications for failing to deliver the water?

Now, there is still work to be done in reaffirming these property rights, which at the time seemed to be ironclad, but everything is fudgeable these days. So securing the property and water rights of the basin will still continue to be a battle.

While we continue that fight, we must highlight the dire straits of the basin today without water. The canals, the ditches, and the irrigation districts are drying up. This will cause permanent damage to the ditches and the irrigation system there. Basically it is kind of like a wooden boat. They need to be gotten wet, each irrigation system. Also, the groundwater recharges provide for the people and the nearby neighbors with their domestic wells.

Every year the project goes dry or loses water the costs of returning to standard operations will increase. As I mentioned with the canals coming apart, the first water that needs to go in them is actually absorbed by the canals to get them back into shape.

So when I mention the 3,000 acre-feet that are cut down to and the Bureau decided that is not even worth delivering, at least that could be positively used, to some extent, for those systems, as well as I mentioned the groundwater damage without the recharge.

So, most of the basin has to plan and plant, based on what the Bureau tells them in April will be their allocation. For example, one grower there, a fellow named Scotty Fenters, notes that the panic set in when the Bureau revised down their allocation last year in May 2020. He had already bought seed, already paid the rent, and already put the fertilizer in fields.

Can you imagine, you have something halfway done and committed, and they say, No, you are not going to have the inputs anymore to finish?

So in total, about $75 million had been spent planning and preparing.

Now, last year again in 2020 after the Bureau initially reduced their allocation, the basin community rallied. There was a convoy of tractors and trucks that stretched 30 miles to say, You have to keep your word, Federal Government.

So, indeed, it was an impressive turnout.

So we come back to the water rights being upheld.

Last year, Klamath irrigation took the Bureau of Reclamation to court over its decision to increase downstream flows for salmon in the Klamath River. The State ultimately agreed with KID stating that the Bureau had the right to store water in the Upper Klamath Lake, but it does not own that water. It only has the right to move the water on behalf of the growers and the intent of the project. They do not have the right to take the water for salmon or suckers--salmon in the rivers and suckers in the lake.

Madam Speaker, may I ask how much time remains.

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Mr. LaMALFA. Now, there is still much ground we need to cover here tonight, but I think I have set the table for what we are looking at and the devastation.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz) for his presentation.

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Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I appreciate us being able to team up on this dire situation up in our common area like that.

Let me just touch on this part here. Going into the wildlife refuge aspect and the areas there in the basin that have sustained much wildlife and waterfowl over the years, this is 2020, when deliveries were already inadequate.

Now, it might be hard to see on camera here, but this is a photo of part of the duck kill and the birds that were plucked out of the Tule Lake area here. You can see some of the dots here that indicate dead ducks.

I volunteered one day to go out and help retrieve some of that, to get this problem out of the water there.

They become infested with maggots, and they help spread disease and all that. So this is what this really looks like, the waterfowl that is being devastated up there in 2020, even when it had some water. There were 44,000 acre-feet delivered then. Sixty thousand waterfowl are estimated to have died in 2020. This year, if zero acre-feet are delivered, what is that number going to look like? What is that going to mean for the fly away?

This is one duck we managed to rescue. They had an operation up there to take them back and pluck the live ones that were sick and take them to a nursery and spiff them up and release them once again. That was one small positive. Indeed, part of the bill package that Mr. Bentz and I will be working on, we will have funding for that.

Let's get down to the bottom line here. What do we have that we could be doing this year? This chart indicates the Klamath Project water, what it brings to the table. This is stored water from the 4,143 mark here down to 4,136. This is what mankind can have influence over, and actually, it can be used for a lot of things. I think a lot more of this needs to go back into agriculture and be used for the wildlife refuges as well.

Currently, the lake sits at 4,140. That is 307,000 acre-feet of available water, down to the level where you can't control it anymore. It becomes what they call dead pool.

This is what the suckerfish need here in this zone. This is deemed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the additional 2 feet, 134,000 acre-feet, as the suckerfish number that they want to see.

So if we look at this total number, we still have available, between the current level and the 4,138, 173,000 acre-feet in this lake that could go right now to help keep those canals going, whatever agriculture still could use at this late date in mid-May, and go into the refuges. And it still concedes the 2 feet of surface water, 134,000 acre-feet, to the suckerfish, which is above what is really their right as the Klamath Project is designed and intended and dedicated to agriculture when it was built over 100 years ago.

So, we have 173,000 acre-feet above this arbitrary U.S. Fish and Wildlife number for suckerfish that we could use and put into play.

Will that happen? It is hard telling. It is probably going to take yet more litigation up there to back up what the Oregon courts have already ruled does belong, under the Federal law, to the growers, to the project.

Will we see water going down this A canal here, the initial canal coming out? I don't know.

Do we see it coming through this river dam to get to these end needs? Who knows. Things have gone a different direction under this administration right now.

It is tragic, tragic what is going to be happening to the wildlife I showed you, to agriculture, to the products that we still need.

In the interim, Mr. Bentz mentioned that. We are going to be introducing legislation that has a total package of about $57 million: $40 million will help to fill in what is going to be lost to agriculture and irrigators there; $2.5 million for refuges, which will include the botulism assistance for the disease that is going to be out there for all the dead ducks that are going to happen; $2.5 million for residential wells, as some of them could be going dry if A canal and others are not recharging and replenishing the groundwater supply; $3 million for commercial fishermen; $4 million to repair the inevitable damage that is going to happen to these canals if they don't get wet like my wooden boat analogy; $5 million for food aid through USDA and the BIA, Bureau of Indian Affairs, for Tribes and Tribal governments and their food aid.

Also, at this same time, the Bureau of Reclamation has an expansion and construction of a new headquarters in Klamath Falls that the growers get the bill for in order to get no water this year. We are setting aside, in this legislation, the concept that they need a new building up there to house who knows how many personnel that aren't doing the original goal of the project.

Madam Speaker, $4.3 million is currently obligated. This needs to go back into the relief of what it is going to take to either run the district as it is and direct relief.

Finally, the relief to the farmers themselves is not having to make the payments to the Bureau of Reclamation that they do every year to help pay the bills and keep things going because they are not getting the water.

I am proud to offer that legislation with Mr. Bentz and bring the relief they need. But wouldn't it be something to actually bring them the water that is going to be much more sustaining for the wildlife, for the infrastructure, for the domestic wells, for agriculture, since everybody watching this probably enjoys some of these food products, whether it is the french fries, the horseradish, the mint, the alfalfa that goes for feed for many of the beef products.

There are amazing things that they do up there when you tour that area and talk to these good people who are just trying to do what they have done for generations, what they were promised by the Federal Government, especially our returning veterans after World War I and World War II who were given this promise, especially in lieu, in some cases, of their after-war bonus that they would receive. We need to uphold this promise and quit jerking the chain on the people of the Klamath Basin.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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