The Klamath Drought Response Agency was awarded a $15 million grant by the USDA to reduce demand for irrigation water in Klamath River basin of southern Oregon and Northern California. The money “will assist in allowing the limited amount of water to be used for practices that are vital to region’s food supply and reduce adverse impacts to producers in the region and supply and distribution chains,” said the USDA on Monday.
Federal officials shut off irrigation to hundreds of farmers in the basin because of long-running drought and to preserve endangered suckerfish. More recently, at least 117 wells that supply homes in the area have run dry, said the Statesman-Journal newspaper in Salem, Oregon.
“We recognize that current USDA programs and services are not enough to meet this historic challenge and this pilot will help us to find more tools to add to our toolbox,” said Gloria Montano Greene, deputy agriculture undersecretary. In May, the USDA said up to $10 million was available to producers through a disaster program that covers losses incurred in 2018 or 2019 and the Interior Department said it would give $15 million to the Klamath Drought Response Agency.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to visit a drought-hit farm near Salem, the state capital, in northwestern Oregon and attend a briefing on wildfire response on Tuesday.