Klamath Water Crisis: destruction of a community

For the first time in the history of the Basin over 170,000 acres of fertile land cultivated by our family farmers will not receive water. This disastrous action by federal bureaucrats spells more than ruin of the 2001 growing season. For many farming families even a single missed growing season promises huge financial losses from which they may not recover.

Despite what anti-production extremists suggest, farmers and ranchers are not relics of a bygone age. They are a linchpin to our national security. America’s ability to provide abundant, high quality food has always kept us strong in times of war and peace.

Basin irrigators knew in advance that there would be shortages this year, but – as in years past – they had reasonable expectations that the shortages would be shared among all water users. Instead the producers are being forced to bear the entire burden. And because the canals that provide water to irrigated agriculture also serve national wildlife refuges, they too will do without water this season.

The decision to shut off project water can only be attributed to failed reasoning. Not only are federal managers willing to sacrifice farming communities (a sacrifice portended by the thousands of loggers displaced by the spotted owl listing during the Nineties), they are willing to cause injury to other protected species, such a bald eagles which rely on the refuges for survival.

Put People Back Into the Environmental Equation

FDR’s famous declaration of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor as "a day that will live in infamy" was appropriately resurrected by Basin irrigators upon learning of the Bureau of Reclamation’s April 6, decision to shut off agriculture from Klamath Project water deliveries. Under the authority of the Endangered Species Act, the Bureau of Reclamation relied on suspect biological opinions demanding that all available Project water be applied to keeping Klamath Lake levels and Klamath River streamflows unrealistically high.

Klamath Lake levels established by federal biologists are ample proof that the word "practical" does not enter into their reasoning. Similarly, the instream flows required for Coho salmon are inconsistent with historical water supplies and even conflict with the biological demands for suckers. Between the two flawed biological opinions there is not enough water.

Rather than finding an alternative to allow irrigation to continue at some level, this season federal managers refuse to figure people into the equation, and federal judges have so far agreed. Federal courts are unwilling to order the release of Klamath Project water, explaining that the ESA compels our government to extirpate communities in hopes that suckers may thrive.

We do not agree with this grim assessment. The ESA has specific provisions that allow for a panel of high level representatives of the Bush administration to step in and rescue the Klamath Basin. This panel is termed the Endangered Species Committee and would be comprised of the Secretary of Interior, Secretary of Agriculture and others who report directly to the President.

Family Farmers Deserve Better

The sanctions imposed on the Klamath Basin community are an insult to all the past and current efforts to both conserve water, protect fish and wildlife, and improve water quality. Producers undertake these responsible management practices despite the fact that most water quality problems result from naturally occurring pollutants, such as phosphorus. Similarly, fish and wildlife populations have always seesawed between highs and lows depending on the amount of rainfall and snowpack.

Nonetheless, in their role as the first and best environmentalists, family farmers have been the first to step up to the plate and take proactive action. Responsible landowners have installed many miles of riparian fencing in addition to other environmental restoration activities.

The Modoc Point Irrigation District was granted an irrigation project formerly administered by BIA. The District’s diligent efforts have already resulted in the installation of a large fish screen on their diversion canal. They are also open to all reasonable options for fish passage over the Chiloquin Dam. In another major project, the Klamath Irrigation District is developing a state-of-the-art fish screen for the "A" canal. These are win-win situations allowing districts to remain economically self-sufficient while meeting the community’s obligation to protect wildlife.

What Can Be Done? Stand Together

The natural resource community must stand together and protest the unreasonable application of laws by federal agencies. Why are the needs of America’s national symbol, the Bald Eagle, being subordinated to the suckers? Who makes the value judgment that fish take priority over birds?

Moreover, why are federal decision makers unwilling to convene the Endangered Species Committee? There is a tried and true maxim that the simplest solution is usually the correct one. Here we have a federal law, the ESA, being used as the sole justification for dismantling the Klamath Basin economy. That same law provides a vehicle for carving exceptions when necessary. If this is not the type of situation Congress envisioned when providing for exceptions, then no other disastrous situation can ever be deemed worthy (Of course we remain suspicious that, if suckers were present in the Potomac and federal fish biologists forced Washington DC to stop using its municipal water supplies, then an exception might be found).

We urge everyone to contact your Congressmen and Senators, the Bush Administration, and the media. Tell them to use the simplest solution and save the Basin’s family farmers from ruin: convene the ESA Committee.