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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"><FONT
face="Courier New" size=2>KLAMATH WATER SUPPLY: <BR><BR>Supes ask for Trinity
water, once again - Eureka Times-Standard <BR><BR><BR><BR>KLAMATH WATER SUPPLY:
<BR><BR>Supes ask for Trinity water, once again <BR><BR>Eureka Times-Standard -
3/23/05 <BR><BR>By John Driscoll, staff writer <BR><BR><BR><BR>As the Klamath
River Basin edges ever closer to drought this year, the <BR>Humboldt County
Board of Supervisors has repeated its request for cold, <BR>clean water from the
river's largest tributary. <BR><BR><BR><BR>In what has become an annual plea,
supervisors Tuesday sent a letter to <BR>the U.S. Interior Department asking for
50,000 acre feet of Trinity <BR>River water that could be used to chill and
raise the lower Klamath <BR>River during the fall salmon run.
<BR><BR><BR><BR>The county, supervisors wrote, is entitled to the water at no
cost, and <BR>will make it available to the entire Klamath Basin for free, to
help <BR>fish. <BR><BR><BR><BR>"Time is of the essence if we are to protect the
lower Klamath River on <BR>which so many of our citizens depend," the letter
reads. <BR><BR><BR><BR>The county was promised 50,000 acre feet each year --
16.25 billion <BR>gallons -- in the 1955 act that authorized the damming and
diversion of <BR>part of the Trinity River. <BR><BR>The U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation has said the water is under the purview <BR>of the State Water
Resources Control Board; the Interior Department last <BR>year answered the
county's request, but dodged the issue. <BR><BR><BR><BR>In short, the county has
had no luck. For now, that appears unlikely to <BR>change. <BR><BR><BR><BR>"Our
position has not changed," said Reclamation spokesman Jeff <BR>McCracken.
<BR><BR><BR><BR>But many -- including the National Research Council -- believe
the water <BR>from the Trinity is the best ticket for holding off another fish
kill, <BR>like that which claimed up to 68,000 salmon in the fall of 2002.
<BR><BR><BR><BR>Last year, the bureau bought 36,000 acre feet from farmers in
the <BR>Central Valley -- beneficiaries of the Trinity project -- to send down
<BR>the Trinity. <BR><BR><BR><BR>Snowpack and rainfall in the basin are only
about 40 percent of normal <BR>this year, and the bureau has asked its central
Oregon-California border <BR>irrigation project contractors to plan to conserve
water. At the same <BR>time, it's taking bids from farmers interested in
fallowing land or <BR>pumping groundwater to produce 100,000 acre feet of water
from the <BR>Klamath side for fish. <BR><BR><BR><BR>A picture of how that
program will be put together will be available at <BR>the end of March. #
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