Smoke Signals 2003 water feature
3
In The Klamath Basin You Can Have Fish
Or Farms, But Not, Apparently, Both
Modern Day Indian Wars are being fought over water in Oregon and Northern California.
OCTOBER 1, 2003
The Klamath Basin, now an area
with two million acres devoted to
agriculture, was in bad shape as
far back as 1916. That was when
the Bureau of Reclamation, then a
new federal agency, first lured
farmers out there with promises
like those used to sell land under
water in Florida.
Once farmers arrived,
they discovered they had
come to a highland with
a short growing season
and less than 12 inches
of rainfall a year none
of it in the summer ac
cording to a report in The
Oregonian.
Unlike outright real estate scams,
the Bureau of Reclamation, to its
credit, through its so-called Kla
math Project, poured more than
$50 million into the area in the form
of dams and canals to bring the
dream to life.
Forget that lakes filled with fish
were drained, that dams cut off
salmon runs, that loggers killed off
the habitat of deer and other wild
life. The economics made
it appear to work for
awhile. Even Fri to-Lay
swooped in for the potato
crop.
Lost in the rushing
waters are not only the
Klamath Tribes, but also
the Hoopa, who have re
lied on the Trinity River,
a Klamath River tribu
tary, for thousands of
years, or until the Bu
reau of Reclamation tun
neled through a moun
tain range 40 years ago
to tap the Trinity for irri
gation. In some of the
years since, according to
a recent Los Angeles
Times article, 90 percent
of the river has been di
verted for irrigation.
In recent times, the
foolishness of the project
has become obvious. The
toll on native fish has
been devastating. Indi
ans stopped fishing the
depleted sucker fish in
1986. Two years later,
the U.S. Fish and Wild
life Service came tailing
along behind, and in 1988, the
agency recognized the sucker fish
as 'endangered'.
A dozen years later, the problem
had only worsened. In the sum
mer of 2001, to provide more water
for endangered salmon and sucker
fish, the Reclamators shut off irri
gation rights to all but a few of more
than 1,000 farmers in its 230,000
acre irrigation project.
Farmers scaled fences to open ir
rigation spigots by hand. The gov
ernment was driving them out of
business they said. It didn't take
long to see that the farmers were
endangered, too. In the end, hun
dreds went belly up.
Politicians heard the farmers'
screams, and last summer, the
Reclamators turned tail and gave
the water to the farmers for irriga
tion. Thirty-three thousand
chinook salmon went belly up,
stranded in small pools where the
The lesson of farmers gone wild
has nonetheless reverberated
through the ranks of politicians.
They are bringing up to date
Solomon's wisdom of saving the
baby by cutting it in half.
Last summer, Oregon Represen
tatives Earl Blumenauer (D - Port-
norm ujfi
ami vjitium
WXL1U
Emm
water temperature climbed well
above what is healthy for the fish.
Nearly 1,500 rivers and streams
in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington
have been identified as "tempera
ture impaired," according to the
Environmental Protection Agency.
A panel of scientists convened by
the National Academy of Sciences,
however, found that low stream
flows could not solely explain the
loss of fish. The warm water in
land) and Greg Walden (R-Hood
River) wrangled over legislation to
improve Oregon watersheds. Not
surprisingly, Democrat
Blumenauer proposed limiting crops
in the Klamath Basin while Repub
lican Walden suggested that Port
land city effluents, not farmers,
were the problem in the Willamette
Basin. Two different watersheds
may have required two different so
lutions, but the politicians were not
1 , .. 1 11" "' umiiimjp-ii) "
KILLS
n OfrSALMON
mmw
... .. S ( "'JJ'' w ,
fmifr li'1- "- 1 if II
A U Ml
; ... II II
1, r ." , 11 11
which the fish died, the report said,
may have been caused by sending
warm lake water down the river.
Putting the problem in another
perspective, Klamath Tribes Chair
man Allen Foreman said of an Or
egon State University report last
December, "The Report confirms
that there simply is not enough
water in the Klamath Basin even
to support competing demands from
different agricultural groups, much
less to reconcile the demands of ir
rigators with the Klamath Tribes
right to the water required to re
store treaty-guaranteed fisheries
and wildlife."
to be dissuaded in the Tightness of
their causes. The result: no signifi
cant improvements for water or fish
in either place.
Earlier in the year, Senator Ron
Wyden (D) proposed a $175 million
aid package to the Klamath area
aimed at three goals: "arriving at
sustainable levels (of water),"
"provid(ing) certainty for people and
wildlife," and "clean(ing) up the re
source." One facet of that proposal
sought to "restore Tribal homeland
in exchange for significant water
rights." The deal fell apart.
Put another way, according to
Bud Ullman, an attorney specializ
ing in water issues for the Klamath
Tribe, "the water hasn't yet been sto
len." "The Tribe's position is that they
want their fisheries restored and they
want their land back," said Ullman.
"It's not a land-for-water deal the way
Wyden had expressed it."
The process has moved beyond
the Wyden suggestion at this point,
said Ullman. "The White House
is getting involved in discussions
between the Klamaths and a presi
dential working group appointed in
March, 2002 to try to find solutions
for the land and water issues."
This year, the Fisheries section
of the National Oceanic and Atmo
spheric Administration (NOAA-Fish-eries)
issued a biological opinion for pro
tecting threatened coho salmon. The
Bureau of Reclamation used that in
formation to promise water for the ir
rigation needs of farmers. At the same
time, it promised a slight increase in
water for fish, which did not satisfy
the Tribe. The Bureau also created a
'water bank' by paying farmers not to
use water that they probably weren't
entitled to use in the first place, (but
had been using because of
nearly a century of unre
solved duplicate, overlap
ping and unregulated wa
ter rights). The bank,
which at one time included
50,000 acre feet, and was
to be used to protect
against another fish die-is
still possible for later this
summer, had already been
exhausted by the end of
July, according to Ullman.
Unaddressed, however,
was how that extra water,
which has already been
sent down the river, would
have helped if the fish were
not dying from lack of wa
ter anyway, as the Na
tional Academy of Sciences
had determined.
"Nobody believes the Na
tional Academy study,"
said Ullman.
No matter. A federal
judge killed a good part of
the plan for being "arbi
trary and capricious."
While killing the plan, the
judge let it stand for the
coming season or until a
new plan could be written.
With this kind of federal
oversight, is it any wonder that in
April, American Rivers, a Washing
ton, D.C. environmental advocacy
group, named the Klamath River as
the third most endangered river sys
tem in the country?
It is also another catastrophic
symptom of federal malfeasance
toward its Indian obligations, dem
onstrating once again that laws and
agreements are worthless when
those in control are without the
honor to stand by them.
Another unnecessary tragedy for
the region is that farmers and In
dians victims of the same corrupt
and inept federal policy have
turned against each other.