Return flows from irrigated agriculture also support two major wildlife refuges.
Klamath Project irrigation is an extremely efficient user of water, noted for reuse of diverted water several times over. To our knowledge, all engineering studies completed on the Project confirm this efficiency. Klamath Project irrigators have historically been proactive advocates of all water-related resource values. In that same drought year, project irrigators made voluntary reductions in water use to increase the supply for other users. In more recent years, however, the livelihood of project water users and their communities appears threatened, and federal-local relationships have deteriorated.