老夫子传媒

The four-dam teardown brings hope and uncertainty to residents in an area of Southern Oregon and Northern California where drought has made water a source of fierce controversy.

Federal officials announced on Thursday that water will be cut off to farmers in the Klamath Basin for the rest of the irrigation season.

The Klamath Basin has been plagued by drought and a lack of water for years, and issues persist. The effects are far-reaching for tribes, ranchers, farmers, waterfowl advocates, and people who rely on residential wells.

The Bureau of Reclamation announced the second-lowest irrigation supply ever to the Klamath Project along the Oregon-California border on Monday. The agency, tasked with delivering water to farms, indicated that it will likely be unable to fully meet Endangered Species Act requirements for ailing fish populations in the Klamath River Basin this spring and summer.

After an unprecedented shut-off of irrigation water in the Klamath Project, ag producers had to scramble to find water for their crops. While many used groundwater wells to make up at least some of the loss, the limits of that resource became clear.

Homes in rural areas of the Klamath Basin have lost running water as their wells fail. Part of the reason: more farmers and ranchers are pumping water from underground than any other year, because they didn鈥檛 get any irrigation water from a nearby lake.

In the drought-stricken Klamath Basin along the California-Oregon border, water is a precious resource. Who gets that water hinges, in large part, on two types of fish that live only there.

When Rep. Cliff Bentz visited Klamath Falls Thursday, he brought promises of government aid for farmers who won't be getting irrigation water from the federal Klamath Project this season. And he urged irrigators to resist the temptation to take matters into their own hands.

Tensions have been building in Klamath Falls in recent weeks over a drought that is devastating farmland, fish deemed sacred to native tribes, and wildlife. The Klamath Basin, along the Oregon-California border, has a complex history. Drought and fights over water aren鈥檛 new.

A pair of Klamath Project irrigators and their supporters say they intend to break into federal property and open the controls that are preventing water from Upper Klamath Lake from going to farms and ranches.

Peoples Rights Oregon, a local chapter of a group founded by Ammon Bundy, is staffing the site as a 鈥渨ater crisis info center.鈥�

Last week many Klamath irrigators got word that they鈥檇 be receiving no water from the main canal that feeds their farmlands. They鈥檙e angry, and they鈥檙e taking it out on government workers.