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Drought and decisions leave less water for migrating birds Mail Tribune / Jim Craven photo Jim Hainline, a wildlife biologist at the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge, checks out one of the areas that normally would be covered with water. Refuge managers have concentrated their available water into a much smaller area of ponds and marshes. By Paul Fattig TULE LAKE - The feathery flow begins with a trickle. A few honking greater white-fronted geese, along with a squadron of quacking northern pintails, will soon splash down on the wetlands in the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. Soon the huge fall migration will cascade into this important pit stop on the Pacific Flyway. When it crests between mid-October and Thanksgiving, a cacophony of quacking, honking and squawking waterfowl will fill the marshes. "You look forward to it - it's always exciting," says Jim Hainline, a veteran wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the historic refuge. "As my predecessor once said, 'Would you look at that? Them little devils come back in spite of what we did to 'em last year.' " But this year, the returning birds, which begin arriving in earnest early in September, face a double whammy from humans and Mother Nature. First, a severe drought has left the basin with less than 40 percent of the normal runoff from mountain snowmelt. Then, following a gaggle of court cases and agency decisions, less than a third of the marshes in the nearly 47,000-acre refuge will be filled with life-giving water for the 2001 fall migration. Only about 6,300 acre-feet of water will be available for the refuge in September, Hainline says. That leaves the remainder of the usually lush marshlands little more than cracked mud flats whipped by the wind. The drought also fouls up the plans of waterfowl hunters this fall, although year-round the area draws more bird watchers than hunters. No hunting will be allowed on the marshes and ponds, although hunters will be permitted to hunt in the refuge's grain fields. Waterfowl hunting begins in October. "What little marsh we've got we're going to keep as a sanctuary," Hainline explains. "We decided to keep water on three of what we considered our most critical units while sacrificing other units. "That's how we've kept things alive as long as we have this summer. We kept concentrating our water." The battle over the basin's water has prompted some to take out their frustrations on Uncle Sam. Consider the sign, one of many protesters posted along local roads, within a stone's throw of the refuge headquarters: "Please thank the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Marine Fisheries Service for destroying the ecosystem and the economy of the Klamath Basin," it reads. Hainline, who has worked at the refuge for nearly a quarter of a century, worries about the drought's impact on local residents. But he is also worried about the wildlife. "About three-quarters of the Pacific Flyway pass through the Klamath Basin," he says. "Based on surveys we've done, the Lower Klamath Refuge accounts for about half of that. It's a very important place. "It would have had to be to catch President Roosevelt's attention," he adds. Designated in 1908 by Theodore Roosevelt, the refuge is the largest of the six Klamath Basin national wildlife refuges in Northern California and Southern Oregon. It is the nation's oldest federal waterfowl refuge. Yet all the refuges in the basin represent only about 25 percent of the wetlands originally existing before Europeans settlers arrived. A large lake once covered what is now much of the basin. "We feel that, with the reduction of the wetlands in the basin, we've gone about as far as we can go," he says. "There is just not a lot of places left for the fall migration." Up to 15 million migrating birds pass through, all desperate for water and food upon their arrival. They come down from the north - flocks of avocets, American wigeons, Canada geese, ibis, grebes, little sandpipers, stilts, teal and tundra swans. "This year a lot of the fall migration will probably move on south early," Hainline says. "But that depends on their condition when they get here. Some of them will have to rest and feed." The waterfowl may find better pickings at the wildlife refuges in California's Central Valley. But their early arrival could also cause problems, said Pat Foulk, a spokeswoman for the agency's Sacramento office. "When you get that many birds together, overcrowding can lead to diseases like avian botulism that can really sweep through a refuge," she says. "That can hit very quickly and kill a lot of birds." The agency's wildlife refuges are strung like pearls from the upper reaches of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Although that region received only about 66 percent of its normal water from snowmelt and rainfall this past year, the refuges are expected to receive their full allocation, thanks to reservoirs, officials say. Despite the concern about disease, the agency will flood its wildlife refuges in the south earlier this year to prepare for southbound waterfowl not making their traditional stopover at the Lower Klamath Refuge because of the lack of water. "This drought hasn't been very kind to animals," Foulk says, "or humans, for that matter." Hainline doesn't expect a wildlife catastrophe this year at the Lower Klamath Refuge. But he worries that the drought could trigger a chain of events if the coming winter is dry. "I think a lot of these populations can handle something like what happened this past year," he says during a tour of the refuge. "Based on geologic records, we know that Mother Nature has done this before here. There have been extended periods of drought in the past. "But if it comes year after year, it'll be a major problem." That doesn't mean the fall migration won't be harmed this year. Birds such as the white-faced ibis, which rely heavily on shallow marshes, have apparently already been impacted, he says. "They just kind of disappeared," he says during a tour of the refuge. "They've scattered. But I think the young fledged OK." Hainline stops at Unit 3 just off the highway that cuts through the northern portion of the refuge. Each unit covers several hundred or thousand acres. There is neither water nor waterfowl on Unit 3, which is supposed to be permanently flooded but is now dry. Nearby, the main delivery canal from the Tule Lake Refuge has been dry and dusty all year. "Normally you'd see egrets, herons and all kinds of fish-eating birds," Hainline says. Nearby Unit 4 is filled with hard stem bulrushes - known as tules - as tall as a man. It would normally get water in September, but not this year. The story is the same at Unit 7: bone dry. Some birds appear to be unruffled by the drought. A squadron of red-winged blackbirds, their red and yellow epaulets faded this time of year, wheel over a mud flat. A harrier with its telltale white rump soars over the marsh. The drought has yet to greatly affect the populations of mice and other rodents the harriers prey on, Hainline says. And many of the fall arrivals such as geese, while roosting and resting in the marshes, can feed in the grain fields grown specifically for them at the refuge, he says. Pintails, which come in September and October, along with green-winged teal, mallards and other puddle ducks, will find their food supply short. Shorebirds that depend on shallow marshes also will be left high and dry, he says. Even long-legged birds like sandhill cranes will be impacted. "They like something that's not much deeper than their toes," he says. "And they like it wide open where they can see, where they have a lot of room between them and cover where a predator might be." Even our national symbol will ultimately be affected. The largest winter population of bald eagles in the contiguous 48 states arrives in November and December. "We want enough waterfowl in the fall so that when winter comes there'll be a residual group that 'overwinters' here," he says. "We need them to keep the eagles fed during the winter." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Wyden aims to bring all sides together in basin From staff and wire reports U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden plans to float legislation this fall to balance agricultural needs with those of endangered fish and wildlife in the troubled Klamath Basin. Concerned that court-sponsored mediation is moving too slowly for farmers drowning in foreclosures, the Oregon Democrat announced Friday that he will bring together representatives of farmers, environmental groups and Indian tribes shortly after Labor Day to begin crafting a legislative package, according to an aide. In the past, Wyden said he would be willing to support federal funding to increase water storage, improve efficiency of water delivery, a locally driven process to restore reservation lands to the Klamath Tribes in exchange for water rights and a buyout of farmland to reduce demand for irrigation. Wyden sent letters Friday to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Department of the Treasury asking for patience with Klamath Basin farmers having trouble making loan payments this year. Based on reports by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the needs of endangered Lost River suckers and shortnosed suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River, the federal Bureau of Reclamation in April shut off irrigation water to 90 percent of the 220,000 acres of the Klamath Project. The network was started in the 1907 to irrigate the Klamath Basin. Wyden wrote that a program of buying out some farmers to reduce demand for irrigation water will help assure that those farmers who remain as well as those who quit will be able to pay off their loans. "While federal buyouts are not a guaranteed outcome in the upcoming political process, I can assure you that Congress is far more likely to assist family farmers to procure additional water resources for wildlife protection than to bail out banks that have foreclosed on family farmers and, as a result, possess land with uncertain water rights," Wyden wrote. While some farmers have denounced buyouts as a federal land grab, others have been working on programs to buy out some farmland to reduce irrigation demand and increase fish and wildlife habitat. Congress has authorized $20 million in emergency aid to farmers denied water, but it falls far short of the estimated $220 million that agriculture in the basin grosses in a year, said Greg Williams, regional vice president of Farm Credit Services. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to begin taking applications from landowners and lease holders next month for the estimated $90 to $100 an acre offered under the emergency aid package. There have been few bankruptcies and foreclosures so far, but farmers have been digging deep into savings to stay afloat while being unable to bring in a crop, said Williams. "Repayment will become a problem this fall," he said. "It's time to move forward." 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