Download or read book Klamath River Basin Issues and Activities written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Klamath River Basin, an area on the California-Oregon border, has become a focal point for local and national discussions on water management and water scarcity. Water and species management issues were brought to the forefront when severe drought in 2001 exacerbated competition for scarce water resources and generated conflict among several interests  farmers, Indian tribes, commercial and sport fishermen, other recreationists, federal wildlife refuge managers, environmental groups, and state, local, and tribal governments. The conflicts over water distribution and allocation are physically and legally complex, reflecting the varied and sometimes competing uses of limited water supplies in the Basin. For management purposes, the Basin is divided at Iron Gate Dam into the Upper and Lower Basins. As is true in many regions in the West, the federal government plays a prominent role in the Klamath Basin's water management. This role stems from three primary activities: (1) the operation and management of the Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Water Project and Central Valley Project (e.g., Trinity River dams); (2) management of federal lands in the Basin, including five national wildlife refuges, several national forests, and public lands; and (3) implementation of federal laws, such as the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Clean Water Act (CWA), and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Conflict was sparked in April of 2001 when the Bureau of Reclamation, which has supplied water to farms in the Upper Basin for nearly 100 years, announced that "no water [would] be available" for farms normally receiving water from the Upper Klamath Lake to avoid jeopardizing the existence of three fish species listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA. While some water was subsequently made available to some farmers from other sources (e.g., wells and other Bureau sources), many farmers faced serious hardships. During Reclamation's operations in September of 2002, warm water temperatures and atypically low flows in the lower Klamath contributed to the death of at least 33,000 adult salmonids. This die-off damaged fish stocks and the tribes, commercial fishermen, and recreational anglers that catch Klamath fish. There have been many studies, Biological Opinions, and operating plans over recent years, all of which have been controversial. The events of 2001 and 2002 prompted renewed efforts to resolve water conflicts in the Klamath Basin. Congress has responded to the controversy in a number of ways, including holding oversight hearings and appropriating funds for activities in the area. This report provides an overview of recent conflict in the Klamath Basin, with an emphasis on activities in the Upper Basin, and summarizes some of the activities taking place to improve water supply reliability and fish survival. This report will be updated as events warrant.
Download or read book Klamath River Basin Issues and Activities written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Draft Eligibility and Suitability Report for the Upper Klamath Wild and Scenic River Study written by and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Klamath River Basin written by Cynthia M. Brougher and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Klamath Project written by Eric A. Stene and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Balancing Water written by and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A book of unusual personality, charm, and force; it should greatly please a wide range of readers, including those sophisticated about conservation and land-use questions, and it should make even the hardest-line ranchers think some new thoughts about their future strategies."--Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia "What a grand collaboration: Kittredge's words and the Blakes' images take us to the soul of the Klamath Country, at once a magnificent, battered, and resolute landscape. This finely-crafted blend of artistry, history, literature, public policy, and ecology tells the full and compelling story of one great western place and its people. In so doing, Balancing Water tells us a great deal about how, if we find the common will to work it right, we can shape the futures of other watersheds across the west."--Charles Wilkinson, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Colorado, and author of Fire on the Plateau and The Eagle Bird "Coexistence has never been a popular principle in the American West, but as this book makes clear it has become indispensable for the survival of both endangered nature and endangered rural community. I was inspired by this brilliant collaboration of writer and photographers. They show a West that is changing for the good. They bring a message of hope that is compelling and timely."--Donald Worster, Hall Professor of American History, Univ of Kansas and author of Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West and Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas
Download or read book River of Renewal written by Stephen Most and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Most tells these stories in the voices of the protagonists, who give the basin's complex history an illuminating immediacy that infuses the entire book. It is a mark of his achievement that he has been able to make these historical, cultural, and environmental pieces into a comprehensive whole.River of Renewalis the best source available for those wishing to think clearly about this cumulative tragedy, as well as a first-rate model for regional land use anywhere in the American West." -Orion Magazine A land of mountains, forests, wetlands, lakes, and rivers, the Klamath Basin spans the Oregon-California state line. Farms and ranches, logging towns, and back-to-the-land communities are scattered over this 10-million-acre bioregion. There are Indian reservations at the headwaters, at the estuary, and across the major tributary of the Klamath River. In this place that has witnessed, ever since the Gold Rush, a succession of wars and resource conflicts, myths of the West loom large, amplifying differences among its inhabitants. At the core of the contemporary controversy is overallocation of the waters of the Klamath Basin. This dispute has pitted farmers and ranchers against those whose cultures and livelihoods depend upon fishing and others who would forestall the extinction of wild salmon. Yet it has also revealed the unity of the Klamath Basin, the interdependence of economic recovery with ecological restoration, and the urgency for all the communities within the Basin to find common ground. Stephen Mostis a playwright and documentary storyteller. He has contributed to numerous documentary films, including Emmy Award winnersWonders of Nature and Promisesand the Academy Award-nominatedBerkeley in the Sixties. His playsMedicine Show, Watershed, andA Free Countrydramatize events in Pacific Northwest history. To listen to an interview with Stephen Most entitled "Fished Out: Draining the Seas of Their Bounty," please visit: http://www.aworldofpossibilities.com/
Download or read book Klamath and Trinity River Basins written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and the Environment and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Upper Klamath Basin and Wood River Wetland Resource s Management Plan RMP Klamath Falls Resource Area written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Klamath River Flood Control Project written by and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Klamath Basin Water Issues written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Subcommittee on Water and Power and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Central Valley Project Improvement Act written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Resources. Subcommittee on Water and Power and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A River Never the Same written by Lawrence W. Powers and published by . This book was released on 1999-12-01 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The use and control of water has defined life in the Klamath River Basin since human beings first arrived here thousands of years ago - that is the subject of this book. In a collection of articles, the authors explore various aspects of the Klamath Basin's water resources, such as the geology and geography of the region and how that has shaped the availability of water, the native wildlife and programs for its conservation, and the history of human settlement of the are from ancient times to the present. They pay special attention to the political, legal and economic forces that have shaped water project developments such as irrigation and hydroelectric power. Taken together, this collection gives a comprehensive historical overview of water use in the Klamath Basin." (Book jacket).
Download or read book Final Biological Assessment written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Groundwater Simulation and Management Models for the Upper Klamath Basin Oregon and California written by Marshall W. Gannett and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The upper Klamath Basin encompasses about 8,000 square miles, extending from the Cascade Range east to the Basin and Range geologic province in south-central Oregon and northern California. The geography of the basin is dominated by forested volcanic uplands separated by broad interior basins. Most of the interior basins once held broad shallow lakes and extensive wetlands, but most of these areas have been drained or otherwise modified and are now cultivated. Major parts of the interior basins are managed as wildlife refuges, primarily for migratory waterfowl. The permeable volcanic bedrock of the upper Klamath Basin hosts a substantial regional groundwater system that provides much of the flow to major streams and lakes that, in turn, provide water for wildlife habitat and are the principal source of irrigation water for the basin's agricultural economy. Increased allocation of surface water for endangered species in the past decade has resulted in increased groundwater pumping and growing interest in the use of groundwater for irrigation. The potential effects of increased groundwater pumping on groundwater levels and discharge to springs and streams has caused concern among groundwater users, wildlife and Tribal interests, and State and Federal resource managers. To provide information on the potential impacts of increased groundwater development and to aid in the development of a groundwater management strategy, the U.S. Geological Survey, in collaboration with the Oregon Water Resources Department and the Bureau of Reclamation, has developed a groundwater model that can simulate the response of the hydrologic system to these new stresses. The groundwater model was developed using the U.S. Geological Survey MODFLOW finite-difference modeling code and calibrated using inverse methods to transient conditions from 1989 through 2004 with quarterly stress periods. Groundwater recharge and agricultural and municipal pumping are specified for each stress period. All major streams and most major tributaries for which a substantial part of the flow comes from groundwater discharge are included in the model. Groundwater discharge to agricultural drains, evapotranspiration from aquifers in areas of shallow groundwater, and groundwater flow to and from adjacent basins also are simulated in key areas. The model has the capability to calculate the effects of pumping and other external stresses on groundwater levels, discharge to streams, and other boundary fluxes, such as discharge to drains. Historical data indicate that the groundwater system in the upper Klamath Basin fluctuates in response to decadal climate cycles, with groundwater levels and spring flows rising and declining in response to wet and dry periods. Data also show that groundwater levels fluctuate seasonally and interannually in response to groundwater pumping. The most prominent response is to the marked increase in groundwater pumping starting in 2001. The calibrated model is able to simulate observed decadal-scale climate-driven fluctuations in the groundwater system as well as observed shorter-term pumping-related fluctuations. Example model simulations show that the timing and location of the effects of groundwater pumping vary markedly depending on the pumping location. Pumping from wells close (within a few miles) to groundwater discharge features, such as springs, drains, and certain streams, can affect those features within weeks or months of the onset of pumping, and the impacts can be essentially fully manifested in several years. Simulations indicate that seasonal variations in pumping rates are buffered by the groundwater system, and peak impacts are closer to mean annual pumping rates than to instantaneous rates. Thus, pumping effects are, to a large degree, spread out over the entire year. When pumping locations are distant (more than several miles) from discharge features, the effects take many years or decades to fully impact those features, and much of the pumped water comes from groundwater storage over a broad geographic area even after two decades. Moreover, because the effects are spread out over a broad area, the impacts to individual features are much smaller than in the case of nearby pumping. Simulations show that the discharge features most affected by pumping in the area of the Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Irrigation Project are agricultural drains, and impacts to other surface-water features are small in comparison. A groundwater management model was developed that uses techniques of constrained optimization along with the groundwater flow model to identify the optimal strategy to meet water user needs while not violating defined constraints on impacts to groundwater levels and streamflows. The coupled groundwater simulation-optimization models were formulated to help identify strategies to meet water demand in the upper Klamath Basin. The models maximize groundwater pumping while simultaneously keeping the detrimental impacts of pumping on groundwater levels and groundwater discharge within prescribed limits. Total groundwater withdrawals were calculated under alternative constraints for drawdown, reductions in groundwater discharge to surface water, and water demand to understand the potential benefits and limitations for groundwater development in the upper Klamath Basin. The simulation-optimization model for the upper Klamath Basin provides an improved understanding of how the groundwater and surface-water system responds to sustained groundwater pumping within the Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Project. Optimization model results demonstrate that a certain amount of supplemental groundwater pumping can occur without exceeding defined limits on drawdown and stream capture. The results of the different applications of the model demonstrate the importance of identifying constraint limits in order to better define the amount and distribution of groundwater withdrawal that is sustainable.
Download or read book The Great Lakes Water Wars written by Peter Annin and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Lakes are the largest collection of fresh surface water on earth, and more than 40 million Americans and Canadians live in their basin. Will we divert water from the Great Lakes, causing them to end up like Central Asia's Aral Sea, which has lost 90 percent of its surface area and 75 percent of its volume since 1960? Or will we come to see that unregulated water withdrawals are ultimately catastrophic? Peter Annin writes a fast-paced account of the people and stories behind these upcoming battles. Destined to be the definitive story for the general public as well as policymakers, The Great Lakes Water Wars is a balanced, comprehensive look behind the scenes at the conflicts and compromises that are the past-and future-of this unique resource.
Download or read book Managing California s Water written by Ellen Hanak and published by Public Policy Instit. of CA. This book was released on 2011 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
