Klamath Water Users Association 

Ongoing discussions between upstream irrigators, the Klamath Tribes, and Project water users have focused on assessing potential "water balance" scenarios that might provide collective benefits to irrigators, tribes and the environment. While little discourse has occurred relative to a pending proposal by the Klamath Tribes to return national forest lands to their historic reservation, growing concern in the local community has focused on this controversial issue. Several dozen protesters lined up outside Monday’s meeting at the Shilo Inn in Klamath Falls to show their opposition to any tribal land return. Inside, the proceedings were decidedly less exciting.

"We spent most of the day looking at various computer-generated model runs to assess how water might be managed to meet the needs of farmers and fish," said Dan Keppen, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association. "It appears that a combination of increased flows into Upper Klamath Lake, voluntary demand reduction in drier years, and flexibility in lake levels and Iron Gate flow releases may provide a short-term solution to our problems. In the long term, the development of new storage appears to be an obvious permanent solution."

KWUA’s hydrologic consultants – MBK Engineers of Sacramento – are currently reviewing the computer model and related scenarios. The model runs were developed for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) by it’s Technical Services Center in Denver, Reclamation’s Klamath Basin Office manager Dave Sabo and his assistant, Christine Karas, also provided an overview of the Conservation Implementation Program, Reclamation’s plan to facilitate Basin-wide recovery of fish species.

KWUA – like the rest of the Basin community - has not seen the proposed forest management plan that is expected to be released by the Klamath Tribes some time this week. The proposed return of forest land to the tribes has generated growing controversy- particularly in the Sprague River valley – regarding potential implications for landowners adjacent to the national forest. Sportsmen are also concerned that future access into lands managed by the tribes will be restricted. KWUA has not endorsed any land proposal of the Klamath Tribes.

"We will listen to such proposals, and those of other parties, with an open mind," said Keppen. "We cannot take any action until we have a full explanation and understanding of how those proposals would affect us and our community before even taking a position."

Dave Solem, KWUA President and general manager of Klamath Irrigation District, participated in a panel discussion on water marketing at the annual conference of the Oregon Water Resources Congress (OWRC) in Seaside this week. Solem joined a group of other Oregon water interests to discuss how water transfers are being handled in various parts of the state. Solem outlined the principles developed by KWUA earlier this year relative to the Klamath Project water bank, which this summer provided over 50,000 acre-feet of farm water for environmental purposes.

Representatives from the Hoopa Valley Tribe braved a pre-holiday snowstorm and traveled to Klamath Falls on November 25^th to meet with board members of the Klamath Water Users Association. Hoopa Tribal members Danny Jordan, Joseph Jarnaghan and Mike Orcutt made the trek north to update Project irrigators on their efforts to try to secure additional Trinity River supplies.

The Hoopas in recent months have become increasingly vocal about their intent to aggressively engage Central Valley Project irrigators over Trinity River issues. The Trinity – which is the largest tributary to the Klamath River – is an important fishery resource for the tribe, which depends on salmon that use the waters near the Klamath-Trinity confluence. The Trinity also provides water supplies to the Central Valley Project, which exports water from the upper Trinity watershed for use on California agricultural lands. The Hoopas and some Central Valley irrigators have been embroiled in a battle for Trinity water for several years.

Jordan, Jarnaghan and Orcutt outlined the Tribe’s efforts to advocate for higher flows to remain in the Trinity River. They also suggested that an agreement be developed amongst Klamath River stakeholders that would provide a 5-year moratorium on litigation in the watershed. The Hoopas believe this might provide some breathing room to advance collaborative efforts to secure funding and implement restoration actions on the lower Klamath River.

KWUA will further evaluate the Hoopa’s proposal in coming weeks.

Myth-making on the Klamath River achieved mythical proportions in an article included in the December 11^th issue of Rolling Stone magazine. An article entitled "Crimes Against Nature" contains brief allegations that Bush Administration policy officials were responsible for the deaths of 33,000 salmon on the lower Klamath River in 2002. The article was written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who is considered by the magazine as "one of the nation’s top environmentalists". Kennedy’s eleven-page report contains photos of dead fish in Lake Erie, polluted skylines in Texas, and burned forests in California. The article alleges that the Bush Administration – financed by the energy industry and "supporters on the far right" - have launched a campaign to "sabotage" environmental laws and "steal the national treasure". Most of the article focuses on alleged Bush mishandling of air and water quality issues, but two brief references to the die-off are also made.

"(U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton) and White House political advisor Karl Rove forced National Marine Fisheries scientists to alter findings on the amount of water required for the survival of salmon in Oregon’s Klamath River, to ensure that large corporate farms got a bigger share of the river water," the article states. "As a result, more than 33,000 chinook and coho salmon died - the largest fish kill in the history of America." The article also contains a photo of Interior Assistant Secretary Bennett Raley with a caption that reads "Ex-property rights advocate; caused a massive salmon kill in Oregon by diverting water for irrigation."

KWUA is preparing a response to the magazine that outlines the obvious errors in the article.

The Klamath Water Users Association yesterday participated in a panel discussion in San Diego that focused on the recent release of a widely publicized report on Klamath River watershed fisheries prepared by the National Research Council (NRC). KWUA Executive Director Dan Keppen joined Danny Jordan of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and William Lewis, Chair of the NRC Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River Basin, in a ninety minute discussion of the recent report, and how that report might influence future policy decisions in the Klamath Basin. The panel was moderated by Art Baggett, Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board.

Chairman Lewis provided a summary of the NRC Committee’s work, and focused particularly on the report’s recommendations, which call for a watershed-wide approach to solving the problems of the Klamath Basin.

"The report clearly indicates that recovery of endangered suckers and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath Basin cannot be achieved by actions that are exclusively or primarily focused on operation of the Klamath Project," Lewis noted.

Dr. Lewis also discussed the limitation inherent in relying solely on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a means of recovering fish species in the long-term.

"The ESA is a tool that is intended really as an emergency action," Lewis said. "It’s use is much like how one might respond to a car wreck."

The Hoopa Tribe’s Danny Jordan agreed that the NRC report provides a necessary first step towards addressing the true problems of the watershed.

"The report provides a fresh look at how comprehensive planning is needed," he said.

Jordan dedicated much of his presentation to the report’s focus on the importance of the Trinity River system to the overall Klamath watershed, and the intent of the Hoopa Valley Tribe to aggressively pursue implementation of flows proposed in the Trinity River Record of Decision (ROD). The Trinity ROD is currently tied up in federal court, and the flows it recommends cannot be implemented until impacts associated with Central Valley Project water and power considerations are further refined by the federal government.

Keppen discussed how the final NRC report is important to Klamath Project irrigators. In addition to demonstrating that the NRC Committee found weak scientific support for the higher lake levels and Iron Gate flow releases in the 2001 Klamath Project operations plan, the NRC report is important because it found that the operation of the Klamath Project was not the cause of the 2002 fish kill and that changes in the operation of the Project at the time would not have prevented it. He also promoted the report’s emphasis on the need for watershed-wide coordination of restoration actions, and noted that the political environment might be ripe to move Klamath management into a new direction.

"With new leadership in Sacramento, the stars may finally be aligned to develop the interstate and federal coordination essential to tackle the challenges of this watershed in a holistic way," he said.

Late last month, a powerful alliance of Idaho water users filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue several federal agencies as part of an aggressive strategy to protect Idaho water. The 60-day correspondence provides notice of intent to sue the Secretary of the Interior, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), the Secretary of Commerce, and NOAA Fisheries for violations of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), and other provisions of federal law, regarding operation of the BOR projects in the Upper Snake River Basin.

Water user representatives say the legal action is necessary to aggressively protect and defend Idaho's water against the "numerous, misguided legal attacks" being leveled by the environmental community. The action was taken on behalf of several irrigation water stakeholders, the Coalition for Idaho Water, and the Idaho Water Users Association.

"We did not make the decision to fight over Idaho water in the federal courts - the environmentalists did. Now that we have been forced onto that path, we must fight and we must fight aggressively. The 60-day notice is one part of that strategy," said Norm Semanko, Coalition for Idaho Water President, and Executive Director & General Counsel of the Idaho Water Users Association.

For the past dozen years, water users and the State of Idaho have cooperated with the federal government to help provide water from Idaho for flow augmentation, from willing sellers, consistent with state law, resulting in a total of more than 4 million acre feet of water going downstream from the Upper Snake River Basin for the flow augmentation experiment during that time period.

 "Despite this considerable sacrifice of Idaho water, the environmental community now wants more - a lot more. However, flow augmentation is a failed experiment and there is simply no basis for requiring ever-increasing amounts of water from Idaho - water that could be used for increased and competing demands within our own state - especially in the middle of an historic, prolonged drought," Semanko added.

The notice demands that the Bureau of Reclamation and the NOAA Fisheries address a number of issues that, in some regards, may be familiar to water users in the Klamath Basin. For example, the Idaho water users claim that the federal agencies failed to use the best available science, as required under the ESA, by continuing to use Idaho water for flow augmentation, which water users believe has been shown to be a failed experiment. However, the Idaho water users have taken things one step further and charge that consultation on the Upper Snake River Projects is not required or lawful under the ESA. The water users further claim that the federal agencies have no authority to acquire or use water from the Upper Snake River Basin for flow augmentation. a recovery plan for salmon, or to address known causes of mortality to the salmon.

"If these concerns are not adequately addressed by the federal agencies within 60 days, we will reserve the right to take action in federal court, as necessary to protect Idaho's water," Semanko said.

A copy of the full notice of intent to sue can be viewed at: www.iwua.org.

Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) has introduced an amendment to the Safety of Dams funding bill, S. 1727, that will require the Bureau of Reclamation to include project beneficiaries in the "planning, design, value-engineering review, cost containment, procurement, construction and management (hereafter referred to as "joint oversight") of Safety of Dams projects.  The amendment was introduced at the request of the Family Farm Alliance, as part of the association’s attempts to continue to work with Reclamation to open up their planning processes and allow project beneficiaries to actively participate in critical Safety of Dams decisions.

The amendment language allows project beneficiaries to participate in the planning process and to make alternative proposals to Reclamation on critical cost containment issues. It also requires Reclamation to respond in writing on the disposition of those proposals and include their response in their report to Congress.

The Family Farm Alliance has been working on this amendment for several years.

"We believe it is a critical part of our "good government" approach to common sense decision making," said FFA Executive Director Craig Smith. "A similar amendment was passed by the House of Representatives two years ago, but never received a hearing in the Senate. Senator Smith has been and continues to be a strong supporter. We believe the bill, with the amendment, has an excellent chance of passage."

Mike Chrisman, a regional manager for Southern California Edison and current vice president of the California Fish and Game Commission, has been appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new Secretary of Resources. Chrisman a former member of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board and a past director of the California Farm Bureau Federation. He previously held positions in the Resources Department, and the state Department of Food and Agriculture under then-Governor Pete Wilson.

"Mike's strong business and government management experience coupled with his proven track record in resource conservation will be invaluable to my administration," Governor Schwarzenegger said in a press statement.

Chrisman –whose appointment surprised many political observers – will assume control later this month of an agency with 15,000 employees and a $5 billion annual budget. His oversight will extend to the California Department of Water Resources and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), two agencies with key jurisdictional powers in the Klamath River watershed.

"Secretary Chrisman has an opportunity to bridge the current gap that exists between federal agency activities and those of the states of California and Oregon," said KWUA Executive Director Dan Keppen. "We believe that Oregon Governor Kulongoski has already demonstrated his willingness to work in a similar manner. To solve the problems of the Klamath River watershed, which spans two states and is characterized by a strong federal presence, we need a coordinated management program."

Tuesday, December 2 – Friday, December 5, 2003. Oregon Water Resources Congress Annual Conference. Seaside, Oregon.

Tuesday, December 2 – Friday, December 5, 2003. Association of California Water Agencies Conference. San Diego, California.

Wednesday, December 10, 2003 – Tri State Water Users Meeting. Portland, Oregon.
 

Klamath Water Users Association
2455 Patterson Street, Suite 3
Klamath Falls, Oregon 97603
(541)-883-6100 FAX (541)-883-8893 kwua@cdsnet.net

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