Opinion ID: 6500752
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Water Scarcity

Text: The fundamental wildlife management problem in the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Refuges is water scarcity. The Service wrote in the EIS/CCP that a “key component” in the development of alternative strategies for the refuges was “the availability of water for refuge management purposes.” The Service’s ability to provide water for use in the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Refuges is severely limited. The two refuges, particularly the Lower Klamath Refuge, depend heavily on the Klamath Reclamation Project (“Project”) for water. In recent years, factors outside the control of the Project have significantly reduced the amount of Project water available for the refuges. In addition to the important factors detailed in the paragraphs that follow, such factors include increases in electrical power costs (which makes pumping of water much more expensive), extended droughts, and tribal trust obligations. First, five species of fish found in the Klamath Basin have been listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”), requiring the Project to prioritize the diversion of water flows in order to protect these species. In 2013, the Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a joint Biological Opinion (“2013 BiOp”) that now governs the Project’s compliance with the ESA. Nat’l Marine 10 AUDUBON SOCIETY OF PORTLAND V. HAALAND Fisheries Serv. & U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., SWR-20129372, Biological Opinions on the Effects of Proposed Klamath Project Operations from May 31, 2013, through March 31, 2023, on Five Federally Listed Threatened and Endangered Species (2013). According to the EIS/CCP, “The 2013 BiOp has a large influence on how much and when water is available within . . . the Klamath Reclamation Project.” Second, surface water rights in the Upper Klamath Basin are largely determined under Oregon state law. The relative priorities of Oregon water rights in the Basin are set out in a March 2013 Final Order of Determination (“FOD”) issued by the Oregon Water Resources Department (“OWRD”). The FOD gave the Service nearly 85,000 acre-feet of senior water rights, with an assigned priority date of 1905, for irrigation uses in the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Refuges. In a 2014 amendment to the FOD, the OWRD concluded that use of water for the purpose of growing wetland plants is not an irrigation use within the meaning of the Service’s 1905 water rights. The United States has challenged the OWRD’s 2014 amendment in the Klamath County Circuit Court, but no final decision is expected within the 15-year life of the EIS/CCP. In the meantime, the 2014 amendment to the FOD controls. The Service believes that use of water for its so-called “walking wetlands” program, in which agricultural land in the Tule Lake Refuge is periodically flooded on a rotating basis, is irrigation within the meaning of its 1905 water rights. (See below for a further description of the walking wetlands program.) Remaining federally owned water rights for the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Refuges are not limited to irrigation uses, but they have been assigned priority dates of 1925 and later. AUDUBON SOCIETY OF PORTLAND V. HAALAND 11 Third, rights to federally owned water within the Project are determined by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau classifies water rights within the Project as having A, B, or C priority, with “A priority” water users receiving water first. The refuges have not fared equally well under the Bureau’s classification system. Lease land in the Tule Lake Refuge has an A priority. However, lease land in the Lower Klamath Refuge has a B priority. Irrigated non-lease land in the Lower Klamath Refuge has not been assigned a priority. According to the EIS/CCP, unresolved within-Project priorities have contributed to “drastic[] decline[s]” in the amount of water diverted to Lower Klamath Refuge. Finally, recent political attempts to resolve the myriad water disputes in the Klamath Basin have been unsuccessful. The United States; the States of California and Oregon; the Klamath, Karuk, and Yurok Tribes; Klamath Project water users; and various other stakeholders negotiated a Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (“KBRA”) in an effort to resolve disputes in the region over natural resources. However, Congress failed to take action to implement the KBRA and allowed it to expire in 2016.