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Klamath gates are no more 10/29/02 MICHAEL
MILSTEIN The worn concrete head gates that claimed a notorious place in Klamath
Basin history for blocking water to farms last summer are now history.
Farmers dramatized their waterless plight last summer by inching the gates open in front of television cameras. A 300-pound piece of the battle-worn steel gates and a chunk of concrete from the damlike structure will go to the Klamath County Museum for display. "We're looking forward to having an actual piece of the original structure to tell the story," said museum manager Judith Hassen. "It definitely will be a story people will tell their children." The museum was already building a collection of key mementos from the dramatic water struggle. One is the stepladder Klamath Project farmers and their allies used to scale the fence around the federal head gates, which were eventually defended, around-the-clock, by federal guards. "We're not interested in forming an opinion; we're just interested in telling the story that had a profound impact on this area," Hassen said. Endangered species mandates kept the gates closed most of the summer: Biologists had decided water in Upper Klamath Lake near Klamath Falls was needed by protected suckers in the lake and coho salmon downstream in the Klamath River. Farmer protests drew national attention that helped prompt a scientific review of the decision to withhold irrigation water for fish. The review found the decision unjustified, and farmers received full allotments of water this year. "Everyone was (protesting) hoping it would have long-term effects, but I don't think they realized the full effect it would have," said Donnie Boyd, a farm equipment dealer in the small town of Merrill. The new head gate structure at the mouth of the Klamath Project's main A Canal will include an elaborate fish screen sought by biologists for a decade but delayed by funding shortages. Studies have shown the canal and hydroelectric plants can draw millions of young suckers out of Upper Klamath Lake each year, cutting severely into the population. Interior Secretary Gale Norton accelerated the project following last summer's cutoff of water to farmers. The V-shaped fish screen funnels suckers and other incoming fish into a bypass pipeline that reverses course and carries the fish through a station where biologists can examine them. The pipeline then returns the fish to Upper Klamath Lake, away from the canal intake. The project should be done by the start of the next irrigation season in April. Michael Milstein: 503-294-7689; michaelmilstein@news.oregonian.com |