As a landowner and stakeholder in the Klamath Project, I take exception with your Farmers versus Fish article written by Don Roberts in the Oct/Nov issue of Salmon Trout Steelhead Magazine.  This article should have been categorized as FICTION, since there are no true facts presented.   I will point out the most blatant examples.

Source:  The Klamath Project (Seventh Draft) Eric A. Stene Bureau of Reclamation History Program

To Meet Fishery, Tribal Trust and Refuge Needs

“Local water users have taken a leadership role in addressing water management actions to improve water supply reliability for Klamath Project irrigators, and to free up new supplies for imperiled fish species and nearby national wildlife refuges. KWUA has worked since 1999 to develop temporary demand reduction programs for the Klamath Project. The intent of these programs is to provide incentives to landowners to either idle cropland or use groundwater in place of Klamath Project water to meet newly created environmental water objectives proposed by federal fishery agencies. Meanwhile, local water users have taken voluntary actions to provide the nearby refuges with supplemental water supplies in recent years.”

Here’s a question for you, Mr. Amato:  What would you do if one morning you woke up and learned that you couldn’t publish your magazine anymore because the U.S. Government had repealed your right to “free speech”?  You’ve lost your livelihood.  Would you fight to regain that right?  Your government has turned its back on the promises it made over 200 years ago.  Wouldn’t you fight?

This is “alternative” science?  These facts come from a fish biologist with a Master of Science degree in Natural Resources (Fisheries) from the University of Michigan in 1979 and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Bowling Green State University in 1974?  David Vogel Biography - http://kwua.org/factsheets/vogelbio.htm

Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in 2003, based on the conflicting evidence presented by the parties regarding the cause of the fish die-off, found that a “triable issue of fact” exists as to whether Reclamation breached its duty to the Yurok Tribes through its operation of the Klamath Project. Accordingly, the Court denied the Tribes’ motions for summary judgment on this matter. Further, later in 2003, the NRC committee in its final Klamath report did not accept arguments that the operation of the Klamath Project caused the 2002 fish die-off or that changes in the operation of the Project at the time would not have prevented it.

Myth:  Klamath Project operators extract only a very small portion of water from the river.

“A consulting hydrologist, Mark Van Camp of Sacramento, told the water users an analysis of the draft BuRec historic water flow study shows that downstream flows have increased 30 percent over discharges before settlement. That’s apparently because the irrigated land uses less water than evaporation loss from the thousands of acres of wetlands that existed before the shallow lakebeds were diked, drained and put to the plow.”  (Emphasis added)

Final Draft – Undepleted Natural Flow of the Upper Klamath River by the Bureau of Reclamation 12/08/03  http://www.usbr.gov/mp/kbao/docs/DraftFinalRpt.pdf

The following chart is courtesy of the Klamath Bucket Brigade staff research and represents only the water available for irrigation from Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River, not the Lost River system or ground water pumping:

Real Truth:

The acts authorizing the Klamath Project required the irrigators to repay project capital costs, which they have done, with the exception of the costs of "reserved work” facilities.

1,400 Klamath Project farmers sell nearly $25 Million of potatoes, $50 Million of alfalfa and $15 Million of onions each year plus other crops.  If there were not a market for our crops, the Water Crisis of 2001 wouldn’t have happened; the farmers here would have been gone a long time ago.

Myth:  Less water committed to KIP will lead to economic disaster in the region.

Real Truth:

Please tell me what percentage “publishing” contributes to the personal income and  economic statistics in the Portland metro area?  Could it be even less then 1%?  Why is “publishing” a magazine a fine lifestyle livelihood – and farming isn’t?

“Publishing” decimates our forests for the paper that idiotic articles like this are printed on.  Speaking of our forests – and the forest product mills that crank out the lumber for our homes, the toilet paper to wipe our butts, and the paper for magazines, newspapers, the packaging for your Soy “GardenBurgers,” and published environmental group “talking points” – the Klamath Basin was once home to 11 lumber mills that employed over 15,000 men and women.  Because of another Endangered Species, the Spotted Owl, those jobs have been reduced by ninety percent.  This was true “economic disaster” and the aftermath wasn’t pretty.  Losing another resource-based industry in the Klamath Basin would not only profoundly impact southern Oregon and Northern California, but would economically devastate the entire west coast.

The rest of Mr. Roberts’s article is so full of hyperbole that it doesn’t deserve a point-by-point response, but he quotes Hunter and Pedery of WaterWatch; two people who live in wood houses, drive SUV’s, and flood the world with green environmental rhetoric,  but have never done a single thing on the ground to help the environment.  One of my favorite quotes is:  The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty.  The activist is the man who cleans up the river.  ~ Ross Perot

In the past year, our irrigators have finally begun to get the recognition – if not the actual regulatory relief – they deserve for their proactive efforts. To wit: 

·         Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA) was awarded the 2003 “Leadership in Conservation” award by the Oregon Department of Agriculture;

·         KWUA, last month, was honored on the steps of the Oregon state capitol for “exemplifying the spirit” of the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds;

·         Tulelake Irrigation District in January received the F. Gordon Johnston award for its innovative canal lining project completed near Newell; and

·         U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman and NRCS chief Bruce Knight last month recognized local rancher Mike Byrne for his leadership in conservation. 

It is clear that our irrigators have not been idle in the past ten years. Their efforts to improve their environment are all the more impressive when you consider that, all the while, the uncertainty and difficulty associated with keeping their farming operations profitable have not diminished.

Klamath Project farmers are working to clean up the river, changing their farming practices, and trying to work with the government agencies and environmental groups to reach a consensus that will help the environment and enable them to continue with their chosen profession.

What is wrong with that?  Why can’t people who don’t live here, don’t work here, and have never visited here, let us clean up our own problems without sticking their two cents’ worth in?

I think Klamath Basin farmers need to start focusing their attention on the environmental problems in the Portland metro area and start writing slanted fictitious articles blaming everything on Portland magazine publishers.  Let’s start raising Cain about the pollution in the Willamette and Columbia River and its effect on the Columbia River Salmon and Steelhead runs. Wouldn't that be fair?

Barbara Hall

Klamath Project Landowner and

Board member of the Klamath Bucket Brigade, Inc.

www.klamathbucketbrigade.org

541-850-9495