The 2005 federal budget adds 21 percent more money to address fish and water issues while creating a model for the West

01/28/04 - The Portland Oregonian

MICHAEL MILSTEIN

Spotlighting the thirsty Klamath Basin as a leading conservation initiative, the Bush administration wants to increase its spending there by 21 percent over last year.

The president's 2005 budget dedicates $105 million to restore wildlife habitat, improve water conservation and expand water storage in the Klamath Basin in what it hopes will become a model for the rest of the arid West.

The new money -- subject to congressional approval -- would make Klamath the target of one of the largest increases in spending on a Western water issue, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said.

It is designed to help remedy the species declines and persistent water shortages that led to the 2001 shutoff of water to more than 1,000 farms in the federal Klamath Project at the height of a severe drought.

"We view some of the solutions we're pursuing in the Klamath as ones that will also be helpful elsewhere," Norton said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Norton said the new spending adheres to advice from a National Research Council panel that in October said any fixes for Klamath's longtime water struggles must extend across the landscape. The administration is committed to a "larger watershed approach," Norton said.

A solution "has to involve everyone," she said. That includes the Klamath Tribes, which have pressed for the return of a vast area of their ancestral lands in the form of a new reservation.

Projects in the new Bush budget start at the north end of the basin, where Chiloquin Dam would be torn out to reopen habitat for endangered suckers. They reach hundreds of miles to the southwest into California, where $2 million would go toward restoring habitat for threatened coho salmon and other recovery efforts.

Another $2.9 million would go to farmers and ranchers who agree to turn their water over to a "water bank" for a year to benefit fish and wildlife. The water bank is a key element of plans to safeguard fish while farms keep operating.

The Bush spending also includes $4.6 million for the purchase of a ranch on the north end of Upper Klamath Lake that could be returned to wetlands, offering new fish habitat and water storage.

Environmental reaction Environmental groups often critical of the administration praised the new money. Their main complaints were that it is still not enough to do everything the basin needs, and that it does not include money to reduce water demand permanently by buying farmland from willing sellers and retiring it.

"It took a long time and cost a lot of money to get us in this mess, and it's going to cost us a lot to get out," said Steve Pedery of WaterWatch of Oregon.

Leasing water through the water bank obligates the government to continue payments to farmers year after year, he said.

"The first year we're out of money and can't renew the leases, we're back to square one," he said. "It's not fair to taxpayers to make them continue paying farmers every year to not harm fish and wildlife."

Norton would not predict how long it might take to correct Klamath's water imbalances or how much that might cost. But she said the administration has completed one-time projects that should have lasting benefits, such as a new fish screen to keep irrigation works from drawing young suckers out of Upper Klamath Lake.

"Certainly we want to see the fish recover," she said. "We also want to see agriculture maintained in the basin."

2002 recommendations The increases resulted from the recommendations of a Cabinet-level task force the president appointed in March 2002 to address Klamath issues.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., cheered funding for the removal of Chiloquin Dam. He has long advocated the action, and last year won $1 million for advance engineering work and environmental analysis.

Though the aging and decrepit dam near Chiloquin includes a fish ladder, biologists say it blocks about 95 percent of the original spawning habitat for suckers in Upper Klamath Lake.

But many in the Klamath Tribes have come to view the dam as an important cultural site for fishing and recreation, tribal Chairman Allen Foreman said. He said the tribes have supported studies of its removal but have not taken a position on whether it should be removed.

The tribes generally have been a leading advocate for recovery of the suckers, one of their historic food sources.

Foreman said a critical question is whether fish habitat above the dam, affected by decades of grazing and logging, is healthy enough to benefit suckers once they reach it.

The tribes, which hold an overriding claim to much of the basin's water, are continuing talks with the administration about repatriation of reservation lands. But Foreman said the president's new budget shows the administration is following a correct course.

"I'm just really pleased the government is finally recognizing there's a need here in the basin," he said. "We've understood that for years."

Michael Milstein: 503-294-7689; michaelmilstein@news.oregonian.com