Reprinted from Capital Press, Vol. 77, No. 36, Sept. 3, 2004

Dan Keppen

In the wake of the July 17 congressional field hearing held in Klamath Falls, Ore., I
have been altogether confused by media statements and opinion pieces written by
outraged opponents of the Klamath Irrigation Project. These critics apparently either
missed the hearing, or perhaps attended another hearing that I was unaware of. The July
17 hearing in Klamath Falls – organized by U.S. House of Representatives Resources
Committee – has been tagged by critics of Klamath Basin farmers and ranchers as yet
another attempt to “gut,” “dismantle” or “cripple” the federal Endangered Species Act.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. I was at the hearing, and what I
witnessed was an amazing degree of agreement, coming from very diverse panelists,
about the importance of applying common-sense solutions to resources decisions that
impact real people.

Three strong, overriding themes were voiced by virtually all of the government,
education, tribal, agriculture, conservation, and fishing interests who testified at the July
17 hearing.

1.  The witnesses at the hearing agreed that developing new surface storage supplies
would help diffuse the tension between competing water interests in the Klamath Basin.

2.  The need to cooperate and implement a watershed-wide solution to the challenges
facing the Klamath Basin – a strong theme contained in a 2003 National Research
Council committee report on Klamath River fish recovery – came out loud and clear at
the Klamath Falls hearing.

3.  The diverse panelists agreed, to the voiced approval of 700 audience members, that
peer review of critical resources decisions — like the review conducted by the NRC
committee of the federal decision to curtail Upper Klamath Lake irrigation supplies in
2001 — is a good thing.

As with the recent hearing, much spin and counter-spin followed the NRC
committee’s reports, which effectively found no scientific basis for the 2001 cut-off to
the Klamath Project. Proponents of the agency decisions (opponents of the Klamath
Project) correctly point out that the NRC committee did not say the decisions were
“wrong” or “arbitrary.” And, they say, “Science is uncertain, we all know that: hence, no
big deal.”

For anyone who endured the consequences of the 2001 decisions, the efforts to
minimize the significance of the NRC committee’s findings are absurd. In 2001, a
desperate community was looked in the eye and told, “sorry, we know it may hurt, but
‘the science’ is compelling and requires you to go without water.” This was wrong,
literally, and as a matter of policy. For whatever reason, the agencies had become too
close to, and too much a part of, the side-taking that had come to dominate issues
surrounding the Klamath Project. For this reason alone, outside review was needed.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., have introduced
legislation that would require the establishment of standards for scientific and
commercial data that are used to make decisions under the ESA. It would also require
that relatively greater weight be given to data that have been field-tested or peerreviewed.
The former requirement would help clarify when such things as “personal
observations” or mere folklore are considered by the agencies to be reliable enough to
make decisions with potentially profound effects. The provision of the legislation
generating greatest attention would require peer review of ESA listing decisions and ESA
section 7 consultations by a disinterested panel, and create procedures for that process.
There is nothing inherent in peer review that either favors or disfavors economic
interests. If the administration of the ESA has reached such a point that oversight is
perceived as critical, the act is not working.

The Klamath peer review and the recent field hearing underscore the point. That peer
review process not only forced a reconsideration of otherwise-unchecked disastrous
decisions, it pointed to a better approach for species recovery. We would be remiss to
ignore the precedent set by the NRC committee’s report. The recent hearing in Klamath
Falls was just one forum to remind the public not to forget the disastrous 2001 decision in
the Klamath Basin, and to urge our policy makers to do everything in their means to
avoid repeating it, in Klamath or anyplace else.