Items Tagged with 'Klamath Basin farmers'

The Newsom administration has extended an emergency drought regulation for the Klamath Basin a year after winter storms ended the drought.

The Bureau of Reclamation only plans to allocate 50,000 acre-feet of water to Klamath Basin farmers this year, a drought-inspired move that has producers concerned about the 170,000 acres of cropland they hoped to irrigate.

California has already surpassed $101 million in USDA crop insurance indemnities due to shortages of irrigation water supplies and the numbers will likely climb much higher.

The state water board has approved an emergency regulation enabling the agency to curtail senior water rights along two key watersheds in Northern California.

The Biden administration is assuring lawmakers that it's working to provide short-term emergency relief to the drought-stricken West even as farm groups continue to push for some relaxation of environmental rules that limit access to irrigation water.