Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal government shut down the water supply from the Upper Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border.
Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal government shut down the water supply from the Upper Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border. CNN's Lucy Kafanov reports.
Oregon farmers were left without water when a drought occurred in May and the government shut down the water supply from the Upper Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border in hopes of protecting a nearly extinct native fish species.
Dam Drought
The Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan was approved in December with the goal of increasing instream flows in the river. Then another drought year happened. Last summer the Wickiup Reservoir dried to just 1% of its capacity, the lowest it has been since it was built in 1949. In an average year the reservoir, which stores Deschutes River water, would be at about 25% of its capacity at the end of irrigation season, with just over 63,000 acre-feet. Last year s shortage illustrated a decade of drought and generous allocations of water rights. This shortage continued this year, and the reservoir is holding just over 60% of what it was last year and less than 40% of what it usually stores in June. This challenge arrives just months after the approval of the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan for the Deschutes, submitted by eight irrigation district that reimagines what the Deschutes will look like.