Extreme drought is tearing apart communities in a massive river basin that spans the Oregon-California state line.
I farm organically outside Fresno, part of one of the world’s richest and most productive agricultural oases, providing, of course, that we have water.Water draining off the fields flowed into national wildlife refuges that continue to provide respite each year for tens of thousands of birds. Within the altered ecosystem, the refuges comprise a picturesque wetland oasis nicknamed the Everglades of the West that teems with white pelicans, grebes, herons, bald eagles, blackbirds and terns.
This year, amid exceptional drought, there was not enough water to ensure those levels and supply irrigators. Even with the irrigation shutoff, the lake’s water has fallen below the mandated levels — so low that some suckerfish were unable to reproduce, said Alex Gonyaw, senior fish biologist for the Klamath Tribes.In the Klamath basin, some farmers hope to head off potential violence by repopulating fish that are part of a decades-old water and wildlife conflict.
The Karuk Tribe last month declared a state of emergency, citing climate change and the worst hydrologic conditions in the Klamath River Basin in modern history. Karuk tribal citizen Aaron Troy Hockaday Sr. used to fish for salmon at a local waterfall with a traditional dip net. But he says he hasn’t caught a fish in the river since the mid-1990s.
Taps could go dry for Needles’ 5,000 residents, who each drink as much as two gallons of water daily to cope with 120-degree temperatures. Hundreds of miles to the northeast, near the river’s source, some of the farmers who are seeing their lives upended by the same drought now say a guarantee of less water — but some water — each year would be better than the parched fields they have now. And there is concern that any problems in the river basin — even ones caused by a drought beyond their control — are blamed on a way of life they also inherited.
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