{"id":4270,"date":"2026-06-25T07:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T15:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klamathid.org\/home\/?page_id=4270"},"modified":"2026-08-24T13:25:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:25:27","slug":"water-dashboard","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/klamathid.org\/home\/water\/current\/water-dashboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Dashboard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n \n
\n Water Year 2026<\/span>\n \u2014<\/span>\n Upper\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake<\/span>\u2014<\/b><\/span>\n Keno\u00a0outflow<\/span>\u2014<\/b><\/span>\n Klamath\u00a0Falls<\/span><\/span>\u2014<\/b><\/span>\n updating\u2026<\/span>\n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n <\/span>\n Water Year 2027<\/span> began October\u00a01.<\/b> The supply and accountability figures below have reset for the new water year. The 2026<\/span> irrigation season is finishing \u2014 final deliveries typically run into mid-to-late October.<\/span>\n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n

<\/span>Water\u00a0Year\u00a02026<\/span>, against sixty-five years of record<\/p>\n

The Project put more water past Keno than nature did in most years.<\/h1>\n

Snow and spring runoff fill Upper\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake behind the natural reef at Link\u00a0River.<\/p>\n

Without the Project, that water spilled over the reef mostly in winter and spring. It then crossed a Lower\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake of open water and tule marsh that consumed much of it before it ever reached Keno. The natural river ran hardest in May. By September it had fallen to almost nothing.<\/p>\n

The Project stores that water, delivers it to farms above Keno, and pays the rest over Keno\u00a0Dam through the months the natural river was drying up. Across sixty-five years of gaged record the river below Keno carried on average 199,944\u00a0AF a year more<\/b> than the natural lakes would have passed \u2014 because the natural system evaporated roughly a quarter of its supply off Lower\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake before the water ever got there.<\/p>\n

Here is that record \u2014 and how the c\u2019waam and koptu in the lake above, and the salmon in the river below Keno, are faring in it.<\/p>\n\n \n

\n
\n Water\u00a0Year\u00a02026<\/span> \u00b7 net inflow to Upper\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake<\/span>\n 752,264<\/b> AF<\/span><\/span>\n this water year to date, from 1\u00a0October \u00b7 about 63<\/span>% of an average year (~1.2\u00a0MAF long-term average)<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
\u2192<\/div>\n
\n
\n ~161,000<\/span>AF<\/span>\n delivered to Project farms<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
\n 542,572<\/span>AF<\/span>\n passed over Keno so far this water year<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
\n 47,430<\/span>AF<\/span>\n returned to the river to support targeted Keno flows<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n The short version<\/span>\n

Before the Klamath\u00a0Project, the river\u2019s water crossed a wide, shallow lake on its way south, and roughly a fifth of it evaporated<\/b> before it ever reached the town of Keno.<\/p>\n

That lake was drained a century ago, so the water that used to disappear now stays in the river.<\/p>\n

The Project also changed when<\/b> the water arrives: the wild river ran hard in May and nearly dried up by September, while the Project holds water back in spring and lets it out through the summer.<\/p>\n

Across 65 years<\/b> of measurements \u2014 a span that takes in the Christmas flood of 1964 and all the years of irrigation from 1889 to today \u2014 the river below Keno carried more water than it would have without the Project in 51 of those years<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Since 2001, under a series of federal biological opinions, the river, the lake and the farms have all<\/b> received less than they did before \u2014 the farms most of all.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

\n

Where the water goes<\/p>\n \n\n snow and spring runoff<\/text>\n collect here<\/text>\n \n \n\n \n \n Upper Klamath<\/text>\n Lake<\/text>\n\n \n \n Link River Dam<\/text>\n the only control on the lake<\/text>\n\n \n \n \n Ewauna<\/text>\n\n \n\n \n \u201cA\u201d Canal<\/text>\n drawn from the lake<\/text>\n\n \n the natural river spread<\/text>\n south from here into<\/text>\n Lower Klamath Lake<\/text>\n\n \n \n the Klamath Straits<\/text>\n the lake\u2019s natural outlet then,<\/text>\n and the Project\u2019s return route now<\/text>\n\n \n Keno Dam<\/text>\n on the old Keno reef \u00b7<\/text>\n everything measured here<\/text>\n\n \n \n Klamath River<\/text>\n to the Pacific \u00b7 254 miles<\/text>\n\n \n \n Klamath Reclamation<\/text>\n Project<\/text>\n farms and refuges \u00b7 Oregon and California<\/text>\n\n \n \n Lower Klamath Lake<\/text>\n drained in the 1920s by Congressional<\/text>\n authorization and direction<\/text>\n\n the lake once evaporated about a fifth of the basin\u2019s supply \u00b7 the Project now farms its bed, and reaches well beyond it<\/text>\n <\/svg>\n

Simplified after Reclamation drawing 12-209-3 (1949); not to scale, and the canal and drain network is far denser than shown. For the full Project see Reclamation\u2019s Klamath\u00a0Basin\u00a0Area\u00a0Office maps<\/a>, which include the Project and irrigation districts, the wider river basin, and the Project area as it stood in 1905.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

\n

AF<\/b> \u2014 an acre-foot, enough water to cover an acre a foot deep. About what a Klamath family farm uses over 45 to 60\u00a0days.<\/p>\n

cfs<\/b> \u2014 cubic feet per second, a rate of flow rather than a quantity: how fast the river is running past a point.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

Left to nature, in Water\u00a0Year\u00a02026<\/span> about 180,717<\/b>\u00a0AF of that inflow \u2014 24%<\/b> of the year\u2019s usable supply above Keno \u2014 would never have reached the Klamath\u00a0River. It would have evaporated off Lower\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake and been transpired by the 55,842\u00a0acres of tule marsh the Keno and Snowgoose reefs kept flooded. Set against the whole river that is a small figure: at Klamath\u00a0River near Klamath, nine miles above the mouth, the U.S.\u00a0Geological\u00a0Survey measured an average of 14,700\u00a0cfs \u2014 about 10.6\u00a0million\u00a0AF a year, making the lake\u2019s evaporation roughly 1.7%<\/b> of what the Klamath carries into the Pacific. A further 15,501<\/b>\u00a0AF would have gone out of the basin through the Lost\u00a0River\u00a0Slough.<\/span><\/p>\n\n \n

\n
\n

The management<\/p>\n

The Project re-times the year.<\/p>\n

The clearest thing in the record is when the water moves, not how much.<\/b> Across 65 reconstructed years the natural river ran hardest in May \u2014 a median of 2,349\u00a0cfs<\/b> at Keno \u2014 then fell away to 558\u00a0cfs<\/b> by September in a typical water year. That is the median<\/b>; the mean is 618. In the driest tenth of years September ran 258\u00a0cfs<\/b>, and in the driest year on record the reconstruction falls to 105\u00a0cfs<\/b> \u2014 with a single day at 102<\/b>. Anyone modelling from these figures should take the percentile, not the middle. What the Project does is store<\/b> that water. When it is not needed for irrigation it can be released through drought and low-flow periods to hold up flows at Keno where live flow alone would not, and to approach the minimum summer and autumn flows the natural river carried \u2014 though no water right presently authorises releases of stored water for that last purpose.<\/p>\n

Nature would have run most of this water off in the winter melt, and much of the rest would have evaporated from the natural lakes before reaching Keno. The Project holds it back and pays it out through the dry months. On the annual total for Water\u00a0Year\u00a02026<\/span> it is on course for 24,401<\/b>\u00a0AF more<\/span> over Keno than the natural lakes would have released \u2014 about 3% of the year\u2019s supply, and a projection to 30\u00a0September rather than a measurement.<\/p>\n

Held behind Link\u00a0River\u00a0Dam. Against what the two natural lakes would have passed over their rock reefs, the river below Keno runs below<\/b> nature through winter and spring while the lake fills, and above<\/b> it from midsummer on, when the natural river would have fallen away to little or nothing. The annual figure is a projection to 30\u00a0September; the seasonal pattern is what the record supports most firmly.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

\n

The fish the law protects<\/p>\n

Salmon downriver, and the c\u2019waam & koptu in the lake.<\/p>\n

Downriver.<\/b> Live temperature and oxygen at Keno show the conditions salmon meet today. What the sixty-five-year record shows is that the natural river was hardest on them in exactly the months that matter most. The median natural year ran 1,233\u00a0cfs<\/b> in July, 721<\/b> in August and 558<\/b> by September. In the driest tenth of years those figures fall to 658<\/b>, 350<\/b> and 258\u00a0cfs<\/b>, and in the driest year on record the reconstruction reaches 116\u00a0cfs<\/b>. On 169 days of the year<\/b> the natural river\u2019s driest tenth ran under 500\u00a0cfs.<\/p>\n

Set against that, Reclamation\u2019s 2024 Proposed\u00a0Action holds a floor near 650\u00a0cfs<\/b> year-round \u2014 2.5\u00d7<\/b> what the natural river gave in its driest tenth of Septembers, and more than five times its driest year. Across sixty-five years of gaged record the river below Keno carried more than the natural lakes would have in 51 of 65 years<\/b>, and in dry years \u2014 below-average through critically dry \u2014 about 184,000\u00a0AF a year<\/b> more. The re-timing that stores winter water is the same thing that carries the river through the summer.<\/p>\n

None of this settles what salmon need. Flow is one variable among temperature, dissolved oxygen, disease and habitat, and the reach below Keno has changed in ways no reconstruction captures. What the record does establish is the baseline: the river the salmon evolved with ran very low, very late, in the years that resemble the ones now in dispute.<\/p>\n

In the lake.<\/b> Upper\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake is the home water of the c\u2019waam<\/b> and koptu<\/b> \u2014 the Lost\u00a0River and shortnose suckers \u2014 sacred to the Klamath\u00a0Tribes and listed as endangered since 1988. They spawn in the springs and tributaries and live their long lives in the lake itself, so their water is the same water the Project stores. The July-to-September minimum elevation, the measure that governs how much lake is left them at the end of summer, averaged 4,139.21\u00a0ft<\/b> before 1992 and 4,138.33<\/b> from 2001 to 2023. It has risen since: 4,139.30<\/b> in 2025.<\/p>\n

K.I.D.\u2019s investment in efficiency \u2014 SCADA, measurement and control at the headworks and along the canals \u2014 is lowering the District\u2019s draw on the lake, leaving more water in that habitat. That is a contribution, not a solution: the District can change what it takes, but not what arrives. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Defend the water<\/span>

What the record shows<\/p>

K.I.D. represents its patrons where their water rights are decided. That case rests on evidence: sixty-five years of Reclamation\u2019s own measured inflow, the U.S.\u00a0Geological\u00a0Survey\u2019s gage record at Keno, and a reconstruction of what the basin did before the Project existed.<\/p><\/div>\n \n

\n

\n What \u201cnatural\u201d means on this page.<\/span>\n One reconstruction, used everywhere below. It takes Reclamation\u2019s own measured<\/b> daily net inflow to\n Upper\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake and routes it the way the basin worked before the Project \u2014 over the Link\u00a0River\n reef, across a Lower\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake of open water and tule marsh that evaporated much of it, and over the\n Keno reef at 4,083.1\u00a0ft. It is not a forecast and not an ideal; it is what the same water would have done\n without the works. Every \u201cnatural\u201d figure on this page \u2014 this year\u2019s and all 65 \u2014 comes from it.\n <\/p>\n

\n

Sixty-five years of the natural river at Keno<\/h4>\n

The same reconstruction, run on Reclamation\u2019s measured<\/b> daily Upper\u00a0Klamath\u00a0Lake net inflow for every water year from 1961 to 2025. Each bar is one water year; the red line is what the gage actually recorded.<\/p>\n