Klamath Falls, OR – In response to the Oregon Water Resources Department’s (OWRD) recently released 2024 groundwater monitoring report for the Upper Klamath Basin, the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) has formally highlighted several areas of technical and analytical concern that may affect future water management policy.
KWUA Director of Water Resources, Erek H. Fuchs, Ph.D., submitted a letter to OWRD Director Ivan Gall following an April 30 meeting with OWRD leadership and staff, where OWRD presented their annual groundwater report. While KWUA welcomes the transparency and collaboration from OWRD, Dr. Fuchs identified the following issues in his letter:
- Over-simplified conclusions: The report attributes increased groundwater pumping largely to decreased precipitation, but KWUA analysis shows a weak statistical correlation between these variables.
- Omission of surface water policy impacts: The report fails to fully consider how management decisions by the Bureau of Reclamation — such as withholding available surface water from irrigators — drive greater reliance on groundwater pumping.
- Data reliability and representativeness: KWUA raised questions about the completeness and representativeness of the dataset used to model groundwater use trends across the Klamath Project area, a point that OWRD has since agreed with.
- Lack of recharge analysis: Research demonstrates that denial of surface water not only increases groundwater extraction, but also severely reduces shallow aquifer recharge — an omission from the report that could misguide future management decisions.
The letter also emphasized the need for a more robust, collaborative approach that includes participation from local irrigation districts, and technical experts across agencies, including KWUA. “We are committed to working with OWRD and other partners to develop science-based water management strategies that support long-term sustainability for agriculture and the ecosystem,” Dr. Fuchs concluded.
You can read the full letter here.
