It turns out the green slime up there may be due more to natural causes than man-made ones…the discussion continues.
An excerpt.
Another view: Water use on Klamath not so simple
By Greg Addington -- Klamath Water User's Association, www.kwua.org
Special to The BeePublished 12:01 am PDT Sunday, August 27, 2006
The editorial was irresponsible. Residents of the Upper Klamath Basin are becoming numb to agenda-driven rhetoric. However, this latest accusation directed at Klamath Basin farmers deserves a response.
The editorial attempts to connect Klamath project agriculture to the toxic algae blooms behind hydroelectric reservoirs on the Klamath River. It alleges, "In the Klamath, fertilizers from farms on the Oregon-California border flow downstream." The Bee is making claims that it cannot substantiate.
Upper Klamath Lake is, and has long been, a naturally eutrophic body of water. Webster's dictionary defines eutrophic as "a body of water characterized by a high level of plant nutrients, with correspondingly high primary productivity."
The naturally warm and shallow lake is in this state prior to one drop of water being diverted for the production of food and fiber within the reclamation project. Upper Klamath Lake's water quality problems are a major issue for the entire Klamath River Basin, but they are not caused by irrigation in the Klamath project.
In 1995, a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation provided funding for a UC Davis study, "An Assessment of the Effects of Agriculture on Water Quality in the Tulelake Region of California."
The study analyzed the effects of agriculture on water quality in the Klamath Basin. It noted that the irrigation water from Upper Klamath Lake is naturally rich in phosphorus (a factor in algae blooms) and that it was unlikely that irrigated agriculture contributes phosphorus loads in amounts that would alter the natural state of the river.
