By Kehn Gibson, staff writer

Federal agency officials defended current water releases over Iron Gate Dam that exceed those called for in the 2003 Operations Plan, calling them a "buffer" to avoid falling below minimum flows.

Since midnight on Aug. 1, releases over Iron Gate have fluctuated between 995 and 1,000 cubic feet per second. The 2003 Operations Plan calls for a flow of 979 cfs through the month of August.

"The ability to operate that system is not fine tuned,’ said Christine Karras, the Bureau of Reclamation’s acting operations manager for the Klamath office. "It is just wiser to operate in a manner that ensures we will not fall below the minimums set."

"It’s only a difference of 21 cfs," said Jim Simondet of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Arcata. "In our Biological Opinion, we did identify the necessary flows as 1,000 cfs."

When asked, Bob Davis of the Bureau’s Klamath office said the 31,000 acre-feet of water that was released over Iron Gate Dam in June that was above what the 2003 Operations Plan called for was water made available from the "water bank," a pilot project that paid Klamath Project irrigators $187 per acre to idle land this season. Through the program, 17,000 acres in the Project were idled and more than 50,000 acre-feet of water was never used.

"The water bank contribution is all behind us now," Davis said. "The 31,000 acre-feet (in June) was all water bank water."

As reported in this paper July 9, the Bureau’s Klamath Project manager, Dave Sabo, said Irma Lagomarsino of the NMFS’s Arcata office and an unidentified member of the Yurok Tribe approached him in April after heavy rains and snowfall blanketed the upper Klamath Basin. Sabo said Lagomarsino demanded flows higher than those set in the Operations Plan, and he had no choice but to comply.

Soon after, on June 25, the Bureau told project irrigators water deliveries would cease because levels in Upper Klamath Lake would be violated. By July 1, under direct pressure from the White House, the water year type was changed for the upper Basin.

"The water year type is driven by data," Karras said. "The water bank is a pilot project, and we are still learning."

Karras said discussions within the Bureau about next year’s water bank, when Project irrigators will be asked to idle enough land to supply 75,000 acre-feet of water, have yet to include providing the Bureau the flexibility to proactively manage the Project as conditions warrant.

"We haven’t really discussed that," Karras said. "This year, it appeared it wouldn’t be a problem, but things changed."

In the interim, the rate of release over Iron Gate Dam will continue through the month of August, and in September the Operations Plan calls for an increase to 1,168 cfs.

Should the Bureau continue to provide the current "buffer," about two percent, the release will be nearly 1,200 cfs daily, or more than 2,400 acre-feet per day.