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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN
class=articleHeadline><STRONG>GAO to scrutinize Klamath water
bank</STRONG></SPAN> </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<P class=articleSpacer><SPAN class=articleByline>By <STRONG>John Driscoll
</STRONG>The Times-Standard</SPAN>
<P class=articleSpacer>
<P>EUREKA -- The U.S. General Accounting Office is launching an inquiry into a
water account created for the Klamath River in 2002 by buying millions of
dollars of water from farmers to send downstream for salmon.
<P>The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation water bank project reportedly bought $4
million of water in 2003 -- and has more than $4 million available to buy even
more water this year -- from farmers along the central California-Oregon border.
The billions of gallons of water is intended to improve conditions for
threatened salmon in the lower Klamath River.
<P>Reps. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, and Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, the
ranking minority member on the Committee on Government Reform, asked the GAO to
find out how much money was actually spent, whether it reduced demand for water
and whether it was used for other purposes than to send water to salmon.
<P>"We spent money on this and was it well spent?" asked Thompson on a recent
trip to Eureka.
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<P>Last spring, as Reclamation was amassing the water bank, heavy rains forced
officials to spill water from lowermost Iron Gate Dam. Reclamation weighed
whether to count the spilled water against the water bank, infuriating lower
river communities. In June, Reclamation put out a press release saying the
50,000 acre feet in the water bank would bolster flows to the river.
<P>Four weeks later, it was gone. Reclamation changed the water year type for
the watershed, cutting back flows due to hot and dry weather.
<P>Staff have just been assigned to the inquiry and discussions will soon
determine what the scope on the investigation will be, said the GAO's Bob
Robinson.
<P>"It's imminent to get started, but we're not under way right now," Robinson
said.
<P>This year, the bureau is seeking to buy 75,000 acre feet from farmers. Next
year, it will try to buy 100,000 acre feet. The program is ordered by the
fisheries element of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which
in 2002 found Reclamation's 10-year plan for the project would jeopardize
protected fish.
<P>Ernie Niemi, an economist in the Eugene, Ore., office of the firm
EcoNorthwest, was sharply critical of the water account program, saying it
doesn't transfer water from the low-value users to the high-value users.
<P>"This is more like a bureaucracy that doesn't have the skill or innovation to
manage the resource," Niemi said. "It's another Stalinesque approach to managing
resources in the basin."
<P>The federal irrigation project serves about 220,000 acres of land in the
Upper Klamath Basin. In 2002 and 2003, Reclamation sought water only from the
farmers in the project.
<P>A call to Dan Keppen of the Klamath Water Users Association was not returned
by deadline.
<P>Bill Jaeger in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at
Oregon State University said the water bank concept has a lot of potential, and
could be implemented better.
<P>Jaeger said any time something new is tried, there will be problems.
<P>"You're going to have lots of bumps in the road," he said.
<P>He said a key change would be to include water users outside the project, an
option that would make for better efficiency and cost savings. Reclamation is
looking outside the project this year.
<P>The GAO's Robinson said he didn't have a time frame to finish the
investigation. </P></FONT></BODY></HTML>