Lawsuit will seek return of water pumped to Rogue Basin

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- Environmentalists warned the federal government on Thursday they are going to court to restore water to salmon in the Klamath Basin that is now pumped over the Cascade Range to irrigate valuable pear orchards in the Rogue Valley.

The move represents an escalation in the legal battles over sharing water between fish and farms in the Klamath River Basin, with environmentalists sympathetic to Indian tribes and fishing downstream making a new demand for water controlled by farming in the upper basin.

"Our goal is to restore a fishery to the Klamath River, restore the health of the aquatic ecosystem of the Klamath-Trinity river basin, and have that be a part of normal life for people who live downstream," said Tim McKay, director of the Northcoast Environmental Center in Arcata, Calif.

The center joined with the Oregon Natural Resources Council in filing a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, demanding that it consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service over environmental impacts of the Rogue Basin Project on endangered suckers and threatened coho salmon.

Built in the 1950s, the Rogue Basin Project pumps about 30,000 acre feet of water a year, enough for about 300,000 people, from creeks that run into Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River across the Cascade Range into reservoirs for irrigation serving pear orchards and other crops around Medford.

Among them are the orchards of Bear Creek Corp., one of the region's leading employers and producer of Royal Riviera pears shipped around the world in gift baskets sold by mail-order pioneer Harry and David.

"The water is absolutely critical to pear orchards," said Ron Meyer, a pear grower and president of the Talent Irrigation District, which gets the bulk of the diverted water. "Even though pear growing is not the bulk of the acreage in agriculture here ... it produces more value than all the rest of agriculture put together."

Though restoring the water to the Klamath River would reduce pressure on Klamath farmers to share irrigation water with fish, Dan Keppen of the Klamath Water Users Association said farmers opposed the idea.

"Every new litigation is going further to divide camps and keep us from sitting down and tackling the problem," said Keppen.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation regional office in Boise, Idaho, did not immediately return a telephone call for comment on the litigation. Typically, the federal government does not comment on pending lawsuits.

Jim McCarthy of the Oregon Natural Resources Council said the bureau began consultations required by the Endangered Species Act two years ago with Fish and Wildlife, but talks broke down and the bureau has yet to finish a biological assessment of the situation.

The water battles in the Klamath Basin reached a peak in 2001, when federal marshals were called in to guard irrigation headgates closed to conserve water for endangered Lost River and shortnosed suckers in Upper Klamath Lake and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River.

Last fall, after the government restored full irrigation to the Klamath Reclamation Project, 33,000 salmon died in the lower reaches of the Klamath River. The California Department of Fish and Game blamed the fish kill in part on low and warm water left after upstream irrigation.

The Rogue Basin Project takes a third of the water from Jenny Creek, which flows through the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument into the Klamath River at Iron Gate Dam. It also taps water from Fourmile Creek, which flows through the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge into Upper Klamath Lake.

About 24,000 acre feet of water from Jenny Creek is diverted into Hyatt and Howard Prairie lakes, which are the sites of popular resorts, campgrounds and sport fishing. It then flows through the Green Springs Power Plant before going into Emigrant Lake outside Ashland, a popular destination for camping and water sports.

About 6,000 acre feet of water is diverted from Fourmile Creek into Fish Lake, another boating and fishing resort, which serves as a reservoir for irrigation in the Rogue Valley.

Here is some more on the Rogue Basin water shut off:

Diversions to Rogue targeted []

Lower Table Rock rises above a pear orchard in Central Point last March. Environmentalists warned the federal government on Thursday they are going to court to restore water to salmon in the Klamath Basin that is now pumped over the Cascade Range to irrigate orchards such as this one in the Rogue Valley.

Activists threaten to sue for more study of water transfer

By DYLAN DARLING

Two environmental organizations plan to sue the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in hopes of forcing the agency to analyze whether endangered fish in the Klamath River might be harmed by diversion of water to the Rogue River basin.

The Oregon Natural Resources Council, based in Portland, and the Northcoast Environmental Center, in Arcata, Calif., on Tuesday filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue to the Bureau of Reclamation's Lower Columbia Office in Portland, saying the Bureau has failed to consult with fishery agencies on how the diversion might affect endangered species.

The notice does not make any specific recommendations about how water should be managed, said Wendell Wood, Southern Oregon field representative for the ONRC.

Instead, the notice claims Reclamation should ask the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to examine the issue.

"We are not saying how much water should be released when and where. We are saying the Bureau needs to listen to what NMFS and Fish and Wildlife have to say," Wood said.

In the notice, the organizations describe what they see as the Bureau's failure to consult under the Endangered Species Act regarding the impacts of Rogue Project water diversions, which are used to irrigate pear orchards and other crops near Medford, on threatened and endangered fish species, such as coho salmon in both the Rogue and Klamath rivers, and Lost River and shortnose suckers in the Klamath Basin.

The Bureau's regional office in Boise, Idaho, would not comment on the possible litigation. Anytime there is a pending a legal action the Bureau will decline to make a statement, said Diana Cross, public affairs officer for the Boise office.

"That's why there is a legal process and there are courts," she said.

The Rogue Reclamation Project is tied to the Klamath Basin because nearly 30,000 acre-feet of water is diverted each year from Fourmile creek, which flows from Fourmile reservoir into Upper Klamath Lake, and Jenny Creek, which is fed by flows from Hyatt and Howard Prairie reservoirs. The reservoirs are located about 35 miles west of Klamath Falls.

About 6,200 acre-feet of water which would flow into Upper Klamath Lake is diverted over to the Rogue Basin by the Cascade Canal, which runs into Fish Lake. Almost 24,200 acre-feet of water is diverted from Jenny Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River above Iron Gate Reservoir.

The Bureau has completed a biological assessment, and received the related biological opinions from the fishery agencies for operation of the Klamath Reclamation Project.

But, Wood said, the Bureau needs to produce a biological assessment for the impacts of the Rogue Project.

Wood said the conservation groups are threatening to sue because they have grown impatient with the Bureau.

The response of Klamath irrigators to the latest potential lawsuit by the ONRC is also impatience, but with the conservation group, not the Bureau.

Bob Gasser, co-owner of Basin Fertilizer and Chemicals in Merrill, said the ONRC is spending too much time in the courtroom and not enough time out in the field helping with conservation projects.

"All they are doing is spending money on lawyers and not on the ground," Gasser said. "More studies are not going to get more suckers."

While Dan Keppen of the Klamath Water Users Association said the Klamath agricultural community has used litigation in attempts to get what it wants, it has only done so as a last resort.

"Sometimes that is your last line of defense," Keppen said.

But with the ONRC, it's about a lawsuit a month, Keppen said. He said all the litigation and lawyers brought in by the ONRC and the NEC cause divisions among the people who need to be working together.

"With each new hostile action taken, these groups demonstrate their inability to arrive at meaningful solutions," he said.

While in the Klamath Basin every drop of water matters to irrigators and farmers, they don't want to take water away from their counterparts in the Rogue Basin who have tapped Fourmile and Jenny creeks for decades.

"You are going to have a hard time having a farmer go against another farmer when we probably won't see any of that water anyway," Gasser said.

Most of the diverted water would enter the Klamath River below where irrigators take their water if it was allowed to follow its natural flow.

Reporter Dylan Darling covers natural resources. He can be reached at 885-4471, (800) 275-0982, or by e-mail at ddarling@heraldandnews.com. http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2003/0131/local/stories/02local.htm

January 31, 2003 Suit stalks water diversion

Two groups want the Bureau of Reclamation to stop sending Klamath water to Rogue Basin growers

By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune

Two environmental groups intend to sue the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to stop the historic diversion of water from the upper Klamath Basin drainage to pear growers and others in the upper Rogue Basin.

If successful, the lawsuit would cut some 30,000 acre feet of winter water stored in Hyatt, Howard Prairie and Fish Lake reservoirs for spring and summer distribution by the Talent, Medford and Rogue River irrigation districts.

Shutting off the water would be devastating to orchardists, farmers and others dependent on irrigation water, said a spokesman for the Talent Irrigation District, which receives the lion's share of the diverted water.

The Oregon Natural Resources Council, or ONRC, and the Northcoast Environmental Center, or NEC, on Thursday filed a 60-day notice to sue, charging the bureau with failure to consult with other federal agencies as required under the federal Endangered Species Act regarding the impacts of the diversions on threatened and endangered fish species.

The bureau began consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service in March and April 2001 but didn't complete the process and a draft biological assessment as required, the plaintiffs said.

The bureau's Klamath Falls office did not return a call for comment from the Mail Tribune. Federal agencies rarely comment on pending lawsuits. According to the plaintiffs, the diversions harm threatened coho salmon in Bear Creek and other Rogue River drainages as well as coho salmon and the endangered shortnose and Lost River sucker fish in the upper Klamath River drainage.

"The Klamath-Rogue transfer removes a significant volume of water from the already over-stressed Klamath, negatively impacting river and wetland wildlife resources, "said Tim McKay, executive director of the Arcata, Calif.-based NEC.

"For decades, irrigators on the Klamath Irrigation Project and elsewhere in the Upper Klamath Basin have diverted vast quantities of water for farming, leaving little for the area's spectacular wildlife refuges and once-abundant fisheries," he added. "As a result, the Klamath's ecosystems, fish and wildlife have drastically declined."

Had that water not been diverted last fall, a major salmon kill in the lower Klamath River would probably not have happened, the plaintiffs said.

But Ron Meyer, president of the TID board and a third-generation pear grower, said the water is vital to the agricultural community in the Bear Creek and upper Rogue River watershed.

The bureau and irrigation groups have been working to address issues raised by environmental groups, Meyer said.

"There are some things being done," he said. "But what puzzles me is that most of what we divert is wintertime flows. A major portion of that would go down the streams in flood stage.

"That water is very important to us," Meyer said. "Why is it important to environmentalists, since this is wintertime flows? The summertime is when they need that water for fish."

The reason, said ONRC policy analyst Jim McCarthy, an Ashland resident, is that streams require year-round natural flows to provide healthy habitat for fish.

In addition, deeper pools with streamside vegetation keep water cooler and healthier for fish, he said.

Each summer, the diversion reduces the flow in Jenny Creek by a third to a half, he said.

An average 24,000 acre-feet is stored each winter in the Howard Prairie and Hyatt reservoirs from Jenny Creek on the east side of the Cascade Range. More than half of that stored behind Howard Prairie dam comes from the Rogue drainage.

Another 6,000 acre-feet from the Fourmile reservoir drainage in the Klamath Basin is diverted into Fish Lake, then flows into the north fork of Little Butte Creek to the Medford and Rogue River irrigation districts.

The irrigation-dependent Rogue Valley pear industry, which has been tapping into the Klamath Basin water via gravity-fed canals for more than half a century, is valued at about $14 million and covers about 8,000 acres.

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com *********************************************************** http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127%257E2896%257E1149037,00.html

Friday, January 31, 2003 - 7:20:49 AM MST

Groups threaten suit over Klamath-to-Rogue diversion

By John Driscoll The Times-Standard

Environmental groups warned the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation it will sue over a diversion of water from the Klamath River to the Rogue River.

The Northcoast Environmental Center and the Oregon Natural Resources Council contend the government never examined the effects the diversion has on endangered species, like salmon and suckers.

About 30,000 acre feet of Klamath water is moved to the Rogue River Basin Project each year for irrigation. The water is moved through canals through the Cascade Mountains and into reservoirs, which supply water mainly to pear orchards near Medford, Ore.

While the Reclamation Bureau began to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the project in 2001, the talks were shelved and never restarted.

That's a breach of the federal Endangered Species Act, the environmental groups say, because moving the water out of the Klamath Basin affects coho salmon in the Klamath River, and two species of sucker in Upper Klamath Lake. They plan to sue in 60 days if the consultation isn't restarted.

"Thirty-thousand acre feet of additional water could have made a difference in the Klamath this past September," said Tim McKay, executive director of the Northcoast Environmental Center. "This 30,000 acre feet, diverted before it ever reached the Klamath River, could have provided higher flows for a longer period and improved spawning chances for the decimated salmon population."

On the Klamath in September, 33,000 chinook salmon and several hundred coho salmon were killed by diseases many believe were associated with stress and crowding brought on by low flows. The Reclamation Bureau had allowed full water deliveries to irrigators on the central California-Oregon border during the drought year, and cut flows to the river to less than in last year's worse drought. Flows from the Trinity River -- the main Klamath tributary -- were also low due to a court order.

For a short time, the Bureau released additional water from the Upper Klamath to the river to try to improve conditions on the river. But it refused to consider taking water from Gerber Reservoir or Clear Lake, saying that constituted an out-of-basin transfer, which the diversion to the Rogue River Basin Project is.

The diversion is not overseen by the bureau's Mid-Pacific office, but by the office in Boise, Idaho, said Jeff McCracken, bureau spokesman.

A call to the Idaho office's spokeswoman was not returned. Built in the 1950s, the Rogue River project serves orchards like those of the Bear Creek Corp., one of the region's leading employers. They grow Royal Riviera pears, which are shipped around the world in gift baskets.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=54263

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