Water

The Klamath Basin is under constant stress related to water quantity and quality issues, highlighted by recent irrigation water shutoffs and downstream fish kills. As a result, agricultural needs are often pitted against fisheries needs. Most published recovery plans for the Klamath Basin call for increased instream flows, decreased stream diversions, and improvements in water quality.

Hydrologic models call for an increase of 30,000 acre feet of water to flow into Upper Klamath Lake each year.  The goal of many restoration groups is to provide voluntary, incentive-based opportunities for agricultural landowners to provide water for instream flow. They recognize that productive and sustainable agriculture is a core value of the Klamath Basin and ecological needs can only be met while simultaneously supporting and balancing agricultural water needs. 

• Why Water?

  In the Klamath Basin, the 2013 Natural Resource Conservation Service Conservation Implementation Strategy identified insufficient water, i.e. inefficient use of irrigation water, as the primary resource concern. Within the state of Oregon, Klamath County had the highest amount of instream water leased in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) during the Federal Fiscal Year 2014.  The results of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality “report card”, show that water quality within the southern portion of the Klamath Basin located in the state of Oregon was consistently “poor”.  Five surveyed sites scored as poor though the trend is improving for three of the sites while the other two sites show no significant trend.  Sites with a poor water quality designation also score poorly for nitrogen and phosphorus, as well as parameters such as biochemical oxygen demand and dissolved oxygen.
  

• Water Transfers and Conservation

  Water transfers are designed to address the over-commitment of water resources by incentivizing a transfer of rights that provides more water instream.  There are options for instream leasing and and water conservation programs available through Federal and State agencies. As an example, the Oregon Water Resources Departments Allocation of Conserved Water Program allows a water user who conserves water to use a portion of that conserved water on additional lands, lease or sell the water, or dedicate the water to instream use. Use of this program is voluntary and provides benefits to both water right holders and instream values.  

  These conservation measures provide additional water deliveries that can benefit endangered sucker species, redband and bull trout, and salmon populations within the watershed.  Conservation measures and water transfers contribute to the needs of both the upper and lower basin by providing additional water to benefit fish populations and the fishing economy of the mainstem Klamath River, as well as providing additional water to benefit downstream irrigators.  

• Water Conservation Plans

  NRCS- Klamath Basin Adaptive Management Plan 
  

• Lake Levels and Streamflow

  Links to USGS gages and other real time monitoring stations

  Lake Levels- Upper Klamath Lake and Trinity Lake

  Streamflow- Oregon and California

  KBMP Map of Monitoring Locations 

• Funding Opportunities

  Natural Resources Conservation Service - Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservations Securities Program, Wetland Reserve Program, and Agricultural Water Enhancement Program

  Oregon Water Resources Department - Allocation of Conserved Water Program, Water Conservation, Reuse, and Storage Feasibility Studies

  Bureau of Reclamation - WaterSMART Grants