It highlights the difficulty of crafting a fair and effective plan to bring species back from the edge of extinction under the terms of the Endangered Species Act, and stands as a reminder that nature's gifts vary from year to year in ways that are bound to clash with an economic system that demands a predictable annual return. Once the amount of promised water exceeds what the basin can provide in a dry year, the economic system is no longer compatible with the ecosystem. In the aftermath of the water ruling, thousands of affected farmers and their neighbors rallied in protest, and a few took the law into their own hands, repeatedly opening the headgates from Upper Klamath Lake into the irrigation canals, demonstrating the depth of feeling about the federal decision. Algae blooms amid the rushes The affected farmers have the bad luck to be clients of the federal government, which must take closer account of endangered species than other agencies. Upstream, owners of an equal 200,000 acres of farmland are drawing their full water allocation from private and local irrigation projects, worsening conditions for the lake's natural inhabitants just as if water were flowing out of the lake onto downstream farmers' fields.
Farmers fume that there are ample populations of suckers.
They point out that some of the worst fish kills have occurred in years when the lake has been high, and that the suckers survived recent droughts in 1992 and 1994 without significant die-offs, even though the lake was drawn down to low levels. Biological research reveals a more complicated picture, driven by an interaction of wind speed, lake depth, and nutrient levels. All you can do is manage to minimize the size of the algae blooms and the chance of fish kills. These phenomena are the product of an ecosystem that no longer functions as it once did. Early Euro-American settlers diked and dried up the wetlands around Upper Klamath Lake and its tributary rivers.