Lower Klamath Lake Working Group
I'm a paragraph. Click here to edit and add your own text. Is easy! Just click on "Edit Text" or double-click on me and you can add your own content and change fonts. I'm a great place for you to tell your story and let your customers know a little more about you. If you want to delete me, just click on me and then press the Delete key.
Map of the Lower Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge
The Challenges of Lower Klamath
The Lower Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge (LKNWR) was the first refuge established for the protection of migratory waterfowl. Critical to both the Pacific Flyway and to threatened and endangered fish such as the Lost River and shortnose suckers, this cornerstone of the nation’s refuge system lacks a consistent and reliable water supply and has been largely dry for more than a decade.
In the early 1900s, the construction of a railroad embankment and the excavation of the Keno Reef in the Klamath River fundamentally altered the area’s hydrology. Water that used to enter the lake and its wetlands was diverted, creating suitable agricultural land, but resulted in a reduction of water storage and degraded wetland habitat.
The Klamath Reclamation Project, a 100+ year-old water management project in the Basin, must be part of the solution.
The loss of wetlands is contributing to a broad decline in wildlife species, habitat conditions, and water quality throughout the Klamath Basin. Additionally, significant reductions in the amount of water annually available for agriculture in the Klamath Project has caused a decline in water deliveries to LKNWR. This has also resulted in a variety of devastating economic losses for the basin’s community.
To address this, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge staff, conservation groups, and entities representing farmers and ranchers have come together to find innovative solutions to agricultural and refuge water needs. Water recycling and reuse, water transfers, and rotational land management, have all helped provide water to LKNWR.
The removal of four dams on the Klamath River will alter the area’s hydrology yet again. With the impending return of salmon, tribal, state, and federal stakeholders are working to find innovative solutions to meet the habitat and life cycle needs of salmon and other fish species in the region. As drought becomes more prevalent, more resilient solutions are needed. Partners are working together to find a better way to restore ecosystem functions and balance human and wildlife needs where the land’s ability to retain and transmit water has been compromised.
Working Group Partners
Making this concept a reality requires funding and the coordinated effort of the multiple agencies that implement restoration activities in the Klamath Basin. It also requires close collaboration among local, state, federal, tribal, and private partners in addressing policy and pragmatic barriers to implementation. The LKLWG is a collaborative table with the following partners:
Natural Resource Conservation Service
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Klamath Water Users Association
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Oregon Water Resources Department
Southside Suburban Sanitation District
KDD Landowners
This group typically meets on the second Monday of every month from 1:00 - 3:00 pm PST. All stakeholders are welcome.
Lower Klamath Lake and its wetlands that make up the LKLNWR were a key part of the natural floodplain of the Klamath River. Restoring and reconnecting the area’s floodplain and wetland function will likely help improve water quality, increase water availability, reestablish ecologically important habitat, increase resilience to climate change, and support a sustainable approach to water management in the Klamath Basin.
A plan to restore the historical floodplain function and hydrologic connection between the Klamath River and LKLNWR is being developed through the collaborative effort of the Lower Klamath Lake Working Group (LKLWG).
The plan would:
-
Reconnect the Klamath River and its floodplain by modifying the Ady Canal to reconnect the Klamath River and LKLNWR. This would allow water to flow and provide fish access to perennial wetlands for the first time since railroad construction.
-
Extend the North Canal across the Stateline Highway to the P Canal. This would also allow water to flow through the Refuge’s wetlands.
-
Protect KDD landowners from risk of having threatened or endangered species on their property. A plan would be developed to provide assurances for KDD landowners for incidental take of endangered or threatened species that could result from floodplain reconnection.
-
Establish a voluntary incentive program for KDD landowners to establish rotational and permanent perennial wetlands for waterbird habitat and soil health.
-
Provide a sustainable water supply for agriculture for private lands in the Lower Klamath Lake area that would maintain local economies and continue to provide energy for migratory birds at one of the major stopping grounds of the Pacific Flyway.
Natural Solutions to Meet Complex Challenges
What Can We Achieve Together?
The plan’s goal is to reconnect and restore wetlands in a way that creates multiple, interconnected benefits for all partners. The proposed actions would:
-
Improve habitat quantity and quality for a variety of bird and fish species
-
Improve water quality
-
Restore the natural ability of the landscape to capture, store, and transmit water
-
Improve agricultural delivery systems to meet multiple goals
-
Sustain local agricultural economies, community vitality, and culturally significant resources and values
-
Improve resilience to drought and climate change
-
Provide participating landowners with regulatory assurances
UP FIRST: ADY CANAL RECONNECTION PROJECT
While several of the five key pieces of work are anticipated to be completed simultaneously, the first and farthest along is the Ady Canal Reconnection Project. $1.8 million dollars from USFWS has been awarded to KDD with partnership and oversight provided by the Lower Klamath Lake Working Group, to study the feasibility of this project, begin conceptual design under different scenarios, and identify a path to implementation.
The first phase of work will include collecting data on baseline conditions of the Ady Canal and LKLNWR, engaging stakeholders in the project process, and beginning preliminary engineering and design.
FAQs
1. How will these projects impact local landowners?
Local landowners will largely not be impacted by these projects. Restoring the natural hydrology of the floodplain by reconnecting the Klamath River to the LKLNWR will require directing water as a means of flood control. This means the potential need for levees, dikes, or other control systems to ensure the water’s path.
KDD landowners may choose to participate in converting their property to temporary or permanent wetlands. By doing so, landowners will help reinforce the floodplain reconnection, potentially raising shallow groundwater, and help create habitat for birds and/or fish. This project will include incentives for landowners who choose to do this conversion. This could include fish screening for those who are not creating fish-friendly habitats, or a habitat conservation plan (HCP) to protect landowners from liability should a threatened or endangered species end up on their property as a result of this project.
2. How will suckers and salmon be impacted by the working group’s projects?
This project will help create desirable habitat for suckers with the potential to support a redundant sucker population for the Basin. This project considers the needs and goals of the USFWS Sucker Recovery Team. With the dam removal unlocking potential for the likely return of salmonids to the region, this project will support suitable spawning habitat, forage opportunity, and likely contribute to better cold water refugia when water is able to flow through the Refuge, comingle with shallow groundwater, and flow back to the Klamath River.
3. How will birds be impacted by the working group’s projects?
The projects are anticipated to increase the quantity and quality of habitat for migratory waterfowl, water birds, and birds of prey. This will increase by restoring the hydrologic wetland functions at LKLNWR and creating new temporary and/or permanent wetlands on private lands.
4. How will this impact groundwater?
We plan to study the connection between surface water and groundwater in the project area. It is theorized that by creating hydrologic reconnection using the footprint of the historic floodplain, this project will help better connect surface and groundwater, raise shallow groundwater, and reduce the need for irrigation.
5. How will these projects improve resilience to drought and other predicted effects of climate change?
Wetlands help to mitigate drought impacts by acting like sponges - they store water and then release it to maintain river flows long after precipitation ceases for the year. They also help store water during large storm events that could otherwise create flood conditions.
6. Where will the water for these projects come from?
Some water from the Klamath River would be diverted into the Ady Canal, sent to the LKLNWR, and pumped back into the Klamath River via the Klamath Straits to continue downstream. There would be a need to initially fill the LKLNWR wetlands and Ady Canal, but the anticipated annual water flows would experience minimal loss as it is cycled through the refuge before being discharged back to the river.
7. Who do I contact for more information?
Willamette Partnership is providing facilitation for the Lower Klamath Lake Working Group. Contact Jackie Brenner, brenner@willamettepartnership.org for more information.