Under the Bureau of Reclamation’s newly proposed 10-year Klamath water management plan, known as a Biological Assessment, the spectacular national wildlife refuges of the Klamath Basin will likely be left high and dry for another ten years. The Bureau’s proposal will lock in a devastating symptom of the area’s manifold water problems: thousands of acres of crucial refuge wetlands in the Klamath will be without water during one of the most critical times of the year–the fall migration of thousands of waterfowl and other birds. Unfortunately, this sad state of affairs reflects the norm in the Klamath Basin, where federal management of scarce water supplies heavily favors irrigation interests at the expense of all other communities in the Basin. This annual refuge dewatering represents a continuation of the Bush administration’s divisive and often disastrous policy of full irrigation deliveries to the Klamath Irrigation Project, regardless of the resulting high risks to other interests in the basin.

The continued sacrifice of our nation’s wildlife refuges in the Klamath does not come without serious consequences. Refuge wetlands support 80% of the migratory waterfowl of the Pacific Flyway, hosting birds traveling from points as distant as the Arctic and Argentina. These wetlands also serve as some of the last remaining breeding grounds for a number of at-risk species, including the American white pelican. The refuge’s large migratory bird populations attract the largest wintering population of threatened bald eagles in the contiguous United States. Moreover, many of these lakeside marshes play a vital role in the recovery of endangered suckers by providing crucial spawning and rearing habitat for adult fish and their young. Without water, the marshes cannot function as natural filters of pollution and sediment, exacerbating the area’s already extreme water quality problems. Chronic dewatering of the Klamath’s marshes disrupts waterfowl migration and breeding, degrades water quality, unfairly deprives birdwatchers, hunters, and recreation/tourism businesses of opportunities for enjoyment and income, and puts the priceless natural heritage of all Americans at risk.

Upper Klamath Lake and Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge Impacts:

• The Bureau of Reclamation has proposed to keep Upper Klamath Lake’s water level below 4139 feet for over two months of each year, and below 4140 feet in elevation for over five months annually. Such an unnaturally low water level eliminates the lake’s bordering marsh habitat–essential to both endangered fish and migratory waterfowl. When the lake falls below 4140 feet, bordering marshes start going dry. Roughly half of the lake’s marshes have no water at 4139.5 feet. Below 4139 feet, all of Upper Klamath Lake’s marshes are completely dry: all 14,000 acres of marshes in the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, as well as the State of Oregon’s Klamath Game Management areas at Squaw Point and Shoalwater Bay, and various marsh restoration projects along the lake. Barring heavy rain and snow, all these marshes will remain chronically dry each year.
• Low lake levels increase the likelihood of algae blooms and related mass die-offs of endangered suckers in the late summer and early fall. Higher water levels can decrease the duration and intensity of such algae blooms (Laenen and LeTourneau 1996; Noges et al, 1997; Welch and Burke 2001; Sheffer 1998), thereby minimizing the likelihood of a recurrence of the devastating adult fish kills observed in 1995, 1996, and 1997.
• Lowered lake levels cut off suckers from essential spawning habitat around the lake. Loss of spawning grounds is one of the principle factors in the decline of the lake’s sucker populations. Lowered levels also cut off access to the cool, clear waters of lakeside springs and creeks, where fish, including some of the largest rainbow trout found anywhere in the world, often take refuge from the lake’s often lethal water quality conditions.
• The lake’s wetland areas provide critical safe havens for young Lost River and shortnosed suckers, which use marshes to escape predators. The dramatic, long-term loss of marsh habitat under the Bureau’s management greatly reduces their chances for survival, and impacts sucker populations far into the future.
• Long-term low lake levels worsen Upper Klamath Lake’s already extreme water quality problems. Leaving the marshes dry eliminates the positive water-filtering function of the lake’s bordering wetlands. In addition, chronically dry marshes may become a source of poor water quality: exposed marsh peat soils can oxidize, releasing nitrogen and phosphorous. When water finally returns to the marshes, these pollutants wash into the lake and increase water quality problems.

Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges Impacts:

• Under the Bureau of Reclamation’s new water plan, there is no separate water delivery allocation to Lower Klamath and Tule Lake refuges.
• U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service documents indicate chronic water shortages are a significant problem, particularly at Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. Chronic lack of water degrades marsh habitat, disrupts waterfowl migration, and reduces the food supply for birds and other wildlife.
• The Upper Klamath Basin supports the largest seasonal concentration of bald eagles in the Lower 48 states, and Tule Lake and Lower Klamath refuges contain much of the key wintering habitat for these eagles (Keister et al., 1987).
• Combating avian botulism–a disease that can kill thousands of birds on the refuge in a single outbreak–requires the ability to alternatively flood or drain different parts of the refuge. Refuge water shortages insure the increased prevalence of botulism by preventing essential water management (Development of Water Supply Production Wells for Lower Klamath NWR, Final EA, USFWS 2001). In 2004, refuge staff estimated they collected roughly 7,000 corpses of waterfowl killed by botulism.