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Dry times return to Basin
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| A farmer works a field on Township Road this morning. As temperatures warm and demand for irrigation water rises, federal water managers are carefully managing water in Upper Klamath Lake. |
Published May 22, 2003
Upper Klamath Lake managed for maximum water levels
By DYLAN DARLING
H&N Staff Writer
With the arrival of abundant sunshine and warmer temperatures, the rush of water into Upper Klamath Lake is starting to ease.
As a result, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will regulate how much water flows out of the lake in order to keep it as full as possible.
Getting the maximum storage benefit from Upper Klamath Lake requires balancing the outflows at Link River Dam with the inflows of water into the lake, said Jim Bryant, Bureau operations manager.
He said the spring runoff is on the cusp of leveling off.
The lake should top off by the end of this week, if the weather stays clear.
"We are going to push (the lake) up a little higher here in the next few days and try to get it as high as we can," he said.
Since the beginning of April the Bureau has been keeping the level of the lake just a few inches below full, said Dave Sabo, manager of the Bureau's Klamath Basin Area Office.
"We have been running day to day on this balancing act," he said.
The lake's surface elevation was measured Wednesday at 4,143.17 feet above sea level. At elevation 4,143.3, the lake is considered full.
Flows from Link River Dam are about 1,000 cubic feet per second this week.
"The system is almost in balance right now," Bryant said.
The release of water for Link River Dam plays a key role in maintaining flows in the lower Klamath River, below Iron Gate Dam in Siskiyou County.
Flows at Iron Gate are at about 1,800 cfs this week, and should remain at that level through next week, Bryant said. He said Upper Klamath Lake usually reaches its peak elevation about this time of year.
"It's pretty normal, considering we had a dry spring early on," he said. Before a wet April arrived, Bureau officials were unsure the lake would fill at all, and were prepared to curtail releases to the Klamath River sooner.
"We thought we would be doing this a lot earlier," Bryant said. "A little bit of rain can make all the difference in the world."
A full lake is good news for Klamath Reclamation Project irrigators and downstream interests.
"More storage equals more water," Bryant said.
The Bureau is working with the National Marine Fisheries Service to figure out how water conserved in a so-called water bank should be used throughout the summer.
General guidelines were set forth by NMFS in its 2002 biological opinion for protecting threatened coho salmon.
Using the guidelines of the opinion, the Bureau categorized this year as a "dry" one.
Following the wet April, the year type could change, Bryant said.
Such a change would come in early June, after the Natural Resources Conservation Service announces its June 1 streamflow forecasts. Depending on what the forecast says, the year could go from "dry" to "below average," meaning different flow requirements for the Klamath River.
Jon Lea, a hydrologist with the service, said the weather in April changed earlier forecasts, which had been grim.
"They all have definitely improved since what they were on April 1," he said.
In April, using the strict prediction requirements of the Bureau, the service predicted that inflow into Upper Klamath Lake would be 238,000 acre-feet from April to September, or 46 percent of average.
In the service's mid-May forecast, it called for 200,000 acre-feet of inflow for Upper Klamath Lake from May through September, or 59 percent of average.
Reporter Dylan Darling covers natural resources. He can be reached at 885-4471, (800) 275-0982, or by e-mail at ddarling@heraldandnews.com.
Upper Klamath Lake managed for maximum water levels
By DYLAN DARLING
H&N Staff Writer
With the arrival of abundant sunshine and warmer temperatures, the rush of water into Upper Klamath Lake is starting to ease.
As a result, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will regulate how much water flows out of the lake in order to keep it as full as possible.
Getting the maximum storage benefit from Upper Klamath Lake requires balancing the outflows at Link River Dam with the inflows of water into the lake, said Jim Bryant, Bureau operations manager.
He said the spring runoff is on the cusp of leveling off.
The lake should top off by the end of this week, if the weather stays clear.
"We are going to push (the lake) up a little higher here in the next few days and try to get it as high as we can," he said.
Since the beginning of April the Bureau has been keeping the level of the lake just a few inches below full, said Dave Sabo, manager of the Bureau's Klamath Basin Area Office.
"We have been running day to day on this balancing act," he said.
The lake's surface elevation was measured Wednesday at 4,143.17 feet above sea level. At elevation 4,143.3, the lake is considered full.
Flows from Link River Dam are about 1,000 cubic feet per second this week.
"The system is almost in balance right now," Bryant said.
The release of water for Link River Dam plays a key role in maintaining flows in the lower Klamath River, below Iron Gate Dam in Siskiyou County.
Flows at Iron Gate are at about 1,800 cfs this week, and should remain at that level through next week, Bryant said. He said Upper Klamath Lake usually reaches its peak elevation about this time of year.
"It's pretty normal, considering we had a dry spring early on," he said. Before a wet April arrived, Bureau officials were unsure the lake would fill at all, and were prepared to curtail releases to the Klamath River sooner.
"We thought we would be doing this a lot earlier," Bryant said. "A little bit of rain can make all the difference in the world."
A full lake is good news for Klamath Reclamation Project irrigators and downstream interests.
"More storage equals more water," Bryant said.
The Bureau is working with the National Marine Fisheries Service to figure out how water conserved in a so-called water bank should be used throughout the summer.
General guidelines were set forth by NMFS in its 2002 biological opinion for protecting threatened coho salmon.
Using the guidelines of the opinion, the Bureau categorized this year as a "dry" one.
Following the wet April, the year type could change, Bryant said.
Such a change would come in early June, after the Natural Resources Conservation Service announces its June 1 streamflow forecasts. Depending on what the forecast says, the year could go from "dry" to "below average," meaning different flow requirements for the Klamath River.
Jon Lea, a hydrologist with the service, said the weather in April changed earlier forecasts, which had been grim.
"They all have definitely improved since what they were on April 1," he said.
In April, using the strict prediction requirements of the Bureau, the service predicted that inflow into Upper Klamath Lake would be 238,000 acre-feet from April to September, or 46 percent of average.
In the service's mid-May forecast, it called for 200,000 acre-feet of inflow for Upper Klamath Lake from May through September, or 59 percent of average.
Reporter Dylan Darling covers natural resources. He can be reached at 885-4471, (800) 275-0982, or by e-mail at ddarling@heraldandnews.com.
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| California agency asks for more Klamath water |
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