Mediation over Klamath Project water complicated by federal judge 

April 23,2001

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - Mediation to settle a lawsuit brought 
by Klamath Basin farmers demanding water allocated to threatened 
and endangered fish has been complicated by a federal judge's 
ruling over coho salmon. 
Meanwhile, some farmers in the Tule Lake area have agreed to 
sell out to a conservation organization that wants to phase out 
farming on national wildlife refuges that are a major stop for 
waterfowl on the Pacific Flyway. 
Representatives of irrigators, the federal agencies, 
environmentalists, salmon fishermen and Indian tribes gathered in a 
federal courtroom in Eugene on Monday to try to work out an 
agreement over operations of the Klamath Project without having to 
go to trial. 
"It's not clear what, if anything, will come of this," said 
Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's 
Associations before going into the closed-door session. 
Based on the needs of endangered sucker fish in Upper Klamath 
Lake and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River, the U.S. 
Bureau of Reclamation has declared there will be no water for 90 
percent of the 200,000 acres of farmland served by the Klamath 
Project or the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. 
A group of irrigators sued the bureau, as well as the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, 
which produced biological opinions setting minimum amounts of water 
needed by the fish. 
The lawsuit challenges the biological opinions and seeks an 
injunction ordering the bureau to release water to the farmers. 
However, in California, U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown 
Armstrong issued an order last week saying she will not lift an 
injunction she imposed in another case barring distribution of 
water to farmers until she is convinced there will be no harm to 
threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River. 
Jim Bryant, chief of land and water operations for the Klamath 
Project, said attorneys for the agency were reviewing the order and 
putting together a response. 
If no settlement is reached, a hearing in the case is scheduled 
for Friday. 
Meanwhile, 53 farmers controlling 20,000 acres of irrigated land 
stretching from Newell to Merrill to Malin have signed options with 
the American Land Conservancy to sell their land for about $4,000 
an acre, for a total of $80 million, said Bill Havlina of Big Sky 
Realty. 
Havlina said he expected as many as 30,000 acres to be sold. 
American Land Conservancy wants to secure a federal grant to put 
the land into a trust administered by local irrigation districts 
exclusively for farming. 
Farming allowed on 22,000 acres of the Tule Lake and Lower 
Klamath National Wildlife Refuges would stop, for the most part, 
and the land would revert to marsh and water storage. 
"I realize, 50 years ago, people were promised things," said 
Phil Norton, manager of the wildlife refuges. "But a lot of folks 
believe farming should be off the refuges. 
"It will allow us to operate the refuges more naturally," he 
added. 
AP-WS-04-23-01 1915EDT