Water Rights Northern California

Just shy of the Oregon border, not far from fields of dust and weeds, someone has planted a homemade sign. "Call 911, some sucker stole our water." It is one of the angry jokes of this angry season in the Klamath Basin, where the needs of two endangered species of suckerfish, along with a threatened downstream salmon, have forced shut federal irrigation gates. The joke isn't funny to Allen Foreman, the chairman of the 3,300-member Klamath Tribes.

Just shy of the Oregon border, not far from fields of dust and weeds, someone has planted a homemade sign. "Call 911, some sucker stole our water." It is one of the angry jokes of this angry season in the Klamath Basin, where the needs of two endangered species of suckerfish, along with a threatened downstream salmon, have forced shut federal irrigation gates. The joke isn't funny to Allen Foreman, the chairman of the 3,300-member Klamath Tribes.

An emergency meeting of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is scheduled Monday to allocate a 50% cut in water deliveries among its urban and rural customers, including 450,000 residents and 520 farmers in Ventura County. The MWD is considering three scenarios to achieve the 50% cut: a reduction of 35% to cities and 80% to farmers, 30% to cities and 90% to farmers or 25% to cities and a complete cutoff of imported agricultural water supplies.