GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Based on a bountiful snowpack and a National
Academy of
Sciences review that threw doubt on the need to reserve water
for fish, the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation said Wednesday it expects to make full irrigation
deliveries to Klamath
Basin farmers this year.
The announcement came in a document known as a biological assessment
of operations
of the Klamath Reclamation Project irrigation system for the next
10 years. It is the first
step in the process of weighing the needs of fish protected by
the Endangered Species
Act against irrigation water controlled by the federal government.
"This presents an innovative and environmentally responsible
approach to the
competing water needs in the Klamath Basin," said Reclamation
Commissioner John
Keys in a prepared statement.
"Reclamation is committed to a collaborative approach
in the Klamath Basin to meet the
requirements of the ESA, our contracts with water users, and our
tribal trust
responsibilities."
The document must be reviewed by biologists for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service for
impacts on endangered Lost River suckers and shortnosed suckers
in Upper Klamath
Lake, the Klamath Project's primary reservoir. The National Marine
Fisheries Service
will go over the plan to see how it affects threatened coho salmon
in the Klamath River,
the lake's natural outlet.
The agencies are supposed to issue their biological opinions
in time for irrigation season
to begin April 1.
Faced with a drought last year, Fish and Wildlife and NMFS
set minimum water levels
for the fish that left little for the Klamath Project, resulting
in sharply reduced irrigation
deliveries. That set off a tense confrontation between farmers
and the federal
government.
A review of the action by the National Academy of Sciences
later questioned the
scientific justification of the minimum water levels set for fish.
Based on that review, the bureau set lower minimum water levels
this time for
endangered suckers in Upper Klamath Lake as well as threatened
coho salmon in the
Klamath River.
In providing water to farmers, the bureau said it could not
be the only entity in the
Klamath Basin required to provide for endangered fish, when the
water problems were
widespread.
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