There are three main claims on the water of the Klamath River. Farmers, Indian tribes, and commercial fishermen all depend on it for their livelihoods. And that leads to a big problem: all together they need more water than the Klamath provides in all but the wettest years.
The Klamath water flow begins in a series of mountain lakes and marshes, most of them in Oregon. They drain into the Klamath River, which flows south into California, and ends up at the Pacific Ocean. In 1907 the Bureau of Reclamation created the Klamath irrigation project, pumping water from the Klamath basin into an irrigation system that now keeps alive more than 200,000 acres of otherwise dry soil.
If there’s a focal point in the conflict over water in the Klamath, it would be the Iron Gate Dam. Above the dam, farmers are struggling to keep alive a century-old way of life. Below the dam, Native American fishermen are struggling to keep their heritage alive — a heritage based on fish which have all but disappeared.
Professor Richard Ambrose, director of the Environmental Science and Engineering Program at UCLA, says the U.S. government made promises years ago to both the farmers and the Indians, but both of those promises can’t be met.
“The promises to the farmers were that they would have water and that they could farm in that area”, says Dr. Ambrose. “And the promise to the Indians was that they would be able to fish for salmon. And so implicit in that is the fact that they would have enough water coming in the river to support the salmon populations.” Professor Ambrose says it’s clear now that the use of the water by the farmers is limiting the water that’s available for the salmon. But that wasn’t so clear in the past.
Last year the irrigation water for the farmers in the Klamath basin was shut off, because of concerns that two endangered species of fish might be killed off. The effect on the farmers was devastating, and they fear it could happen again. This summer, however, the farmers are getting their irrigation water.
An earlier version of this story first aired June 27, 2002.
- Your Vote: Oversold River, California Connected
- “Oregon Water Saga Illuminates [Karl] Rove’s Methods With Agencies,” Wall Street Journal via the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, a party to the dispute
- Klamath Basin Interim Report, National Academy of Sciences
- Klamath Basin Farmers and Ranchers
- UCLA Environmental Science and Engineering Program