Sierra Club spreads untruths,
yet Lease-land farming will go on report is in H&N June 13, 2003.

 Sierra Club, in their promotion of diminishing or eradicating lease-land farming in the Tulelake Basin, is spreading false information: See Sierra Club article  

KBC commentary
on Sierra Club article

#1  There are no sugar beets grown in the Tulelake Basin, and there have been none here for many years.
#2  Potatoes, grain and alfalfa have exceptional nutritional value for wildlife. " There are 200 million waterfowl use days that waterfowl have to be fed here in the Klamath Basin. That's about 70 million pounds of food...we couldn't even cover half of that under the natural systems.  The other 1/2 has to come out of the farms." Robert McLandress, Ph.D. ecology, UC
#3 "...risks for wildlife because such crops are dependent on many highly toxic pesticides and large volumes of irrigation water," Sierra Club article. The USFWS has VERY stringent rules on pesticides on our refuges.  Phil Norton, recent manager of Tulelake USFWS refuges, has repeatedly stated that there have been NO (not even one) deaths or illness of wildlife related to the minimal pesticide use on these refuges. Also, all of the basin's irrigation runoff goes onto the refuges.  Irrigation uses 1/2 as much water as wetlands.  Then all of this water stays on the refuge or is diverted to the Klamath  Lake. Basin water is reused 9 times.
So, Sierra Club, your stated goals of wildlands...returning our rural farmland into preColumbus times, are destroying our farms, our economy, our livelihoods, our wildlife and ecosystem, while you use  lies to promote your agenda.  Rewild  L.A., Portland,  San Francisco, DC, and leave our healthy ecosystem alone.  Show us a sugarbeet here.  Show us an ill bird from pesticides.  Show us a field that hasn't been munched drastically by our wildlife. Show us peer-reviewed science showing that higher water levels help fish, when sucker kills were on high-water years.  KBC