http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/04/environmental_group_pulls_out.html
Environmental group pulls out of Klamath talks
| KBC NOTE: According to the NEC, "The
agreement, they said, doesn't do enough to ensure
flows for fish runs while guaranteeing water
deliveries to farms that rely on irrigation water
diverted from the river." We will remind you, the Klamath Project was a lake up to 30' deep in a closed basin. There were 30' of water on our farm. When they built the Klamath Project, they diverted water OUT of the basin, into Klamath Lake for storage, and also diverted it OUT of the basin, uphill through Sheepy Ridge mountain, through Lower Klamath refuge and INTO the Klamath River. Before the Project was built, around 1900, Link River, between Upper Klamath Lake and Lake Ewauna, occasionally went dry before the Klamath Project was built. There was no hydropower, no hatcheries, occasionally no fish (fish need water), no artificially-raised river flows or lake levels. Since there were up to 30" of water on our fields, the US government issued war veterans, with WWI and WWII homesteads, deeds with water rights appurtenant to their land for 2.5 feet of water, the rest going into storage and the river. The feds and enviros want it all. NEC said: "The farmers require water to avoid dry fields. But the salmon need that same water to avoid extinction." However in truth: Healthy salmon runs on other rivers raise questions about the Sacramento, Redding Record Searchlight 12/15/08. "But while the Sacramento has continued to see declining returns this year, fall Chinook runs on the Klamath and Columbia rivers - the next two major river systems north - appear to be healthy." |
A dry irrigation
ditch in the Klamath Basin in 2001.The California-based Northcoast Environmental Center said the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement would threaten salmon and other fish and the basin and won't speed the removal of four dams on the Klamath River, which the center supports.
The agreement, they said, doesn't do enough to ensure flows for fish runs while guaranteeing water deliveries to farms that rely on irrigation water diverted from the river.
"We understand and sympathize with the plight of
upriver farmers, who need water for their
crops," said Greg King, the NEC's Klamath campaign
coordinator. "The farmers require water to avoid dry
fields. But the salmon need that same water to avoid
extinction."
Two other environmental groups, Oregon Wild and WaterWatch, have already come out against the agreement, as has the Hoopa Valley Tribe in California and some upper basin irrigators.
The settlement was crafted over three years by a coalition of 26 groups representing government, farming, fishing, tribal and conservation interests. It was released in draft form last year, hailed as a way to end long-running disputes over water and resources in the basin that straddles the Oregon and California border.
But it would require enough political support to wring nearly $1 billion in funding from Congress to move forward, so any dissolution of the negotiation group threatens its success.
-- Matthew Preusch; mattpreusch@news.oregonian.com
As I recall the area is a wildlife refuge, gets
almost no rain...and that's the best place for farming
to be happening? There's a ton of land where farming is
appropriate, but industrial agriculture on the wildlife
refuge that threatens to push that run of salmon into
extinction. We should be able to do better.
J
Buyout time, I'm afraid... we've been attempting to support the status quo long past the time the quo has lost its status (thank you Dr. Laurence Peter).
As someone who now lives in Hillsboro, but raised on
a farm south of Klamath, i can tell you that it is not
all a wildlife refuge. There is the Tulelake wildlife
refuge located just south of the Oregon/California
border
http://www.fws.gov/klamathbasinrefuges/tulelake/tulelake.html
The area receives about 14 inches of rain a year. Actually get quite a bit of snow in the winter, as its around 4,000 feet up.
The Klamath Irrigation District started in the early
1900's. There is some good info on this page.
http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/html/klamathh.html#Construction%20History
Not interested in arguing about this at all. Just wanted to provide some background sources for those that may be interested. Much of the land was actually marshland or shallow lake that was eventually drained.
I think there is a bit of an idea that Klamath Falls is something like Burns or somewhere out in Eastern Oregon, heh, being mainly populated by sagebrush (no offense intended to those folks). Its basically a high mountain valley, and since it was home for me, quite beautiful.
My mistake, here is a more complete listing of
refuges in the area (knew i missed something...)
http://www.fws.gov/klamathbasinrefuges/
Just throwing these out there for people who are interested. To be honest I havent kept up on things down there for quite awhile, and just happened to come across this article.
Saving animals from extinction is anti-evolutionary.
You're right saving salmon (and other species that make living for humans possible), is a terrible idea:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/leaving_no_tracks/
People in Klamath Basin should be introduced to dry land farming. Better yet, stop growing Christmas trees on "hobby farms" in the valley and start producing more crops crops of nutritional value.
I didn't say wildlife management was a terrible idea.
I said it was anti evolutionary. To afford a single
species such massive support at the cost of many others
(people, sea lions) just doesn't allow nature to flow.
If salmon go extinct, something else will take their
place.
Nature is cyclical and it's foolish to think there is a
'Status Quo' that 'now' is what's always been.
On Earth Day 1970 the exspurts were fantasizing the
planet would be dead in 30 years.
Mankind(scratch mankind); PATHETIC WORM-BRAIN
POLITICIANS stupidly and arrogantly overestimate what
impact we have on the planet...
We still have stupid and arrogant running the freakshow of enviro-inbreds that bring no balance to anything. No facts to support it, just too close between the eyes to have any common sense about it.
wadahoot:
You might want to read the 30 year update to Limits to Growth.
With more powerful computer modelling and better data, what you'll see is that the only thing the systems scientists got wrong was the timeline.
Bottom line is that the earth is beyond carrying capacity already with respect to resource stocks (and sinks) -which is one of the difficulties illustrated by the Klamath Basin dispute.
If salmon go extinct, something else will take their place.
You're under the assumption that salmon extinction is "natural". Whatever takes salmon's place in the wild better learn to jump a dam and swim on dry land -- which you're also assuming that evolution will take care of.
Me wanting to preserve salmon/other fish has more to do with economies (fisherman/fishing towns) and nourishment (salmon is a great food source) rather than protecting the environment (although, that is a large part of my stance). Why let "evolution" take care of things when we can preserve something that benefits the human species?
wadahoot: You're an exspurt (sic) speller! It's good that you go on a limb and criticize the intelligence of others without questioning your own. (Usually I don't make fun of bad spelling, but you didn't even ballpark the spelling of that word).
With more powerful computer modelling and better data, what you'll see is that the only thing the systems scientists got wrong was the timeline.
It's funny how the computer models always seem to support the ideas of those who make them.
Just because it's a computer model doesn't mean that it is necessarily correct in it's forcasts.
The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were computer models too. But they are definately not real.
Bottom line is that the earth is beyond carrying capacity already with respect to resource stocks (and sinks) -which is one of the difficulties illustrated by the Klamath Basin dispute.
If you really think so, feel free to decrease the load anytime.
Again, jexpat, proves living in a fake world is just that a fake. Most "model projects" leave out many contributing factors to prove the goal they seek. The biggest joke in the world is Gores lies about "global warming", where the only place all the things he says are proven are in "model projects" but out where nature throws in other factors that are not controlled his stupid make money global warming is a hoak. It never ceases to amaze me that so many fake blogs are taken as being the only reliable source and when a true scientist that use nature, not model projects, to prove their points, basement dwellers like jexpat call them radicals.
Yeah. global warming, science, spelling. It's all a hoak! i dont need to read any of the stuff to know that!
And we should be able to farm potatoes in the desert or anywhere we want.
Your right del, we shouldnt waste time trying to save salmon. but evilution is a hoak just like global warming!
its our planet, its our water, and its our fish, and its our dams! not stoopid al gores or the fish hugging liberalheads!
Im proud to be a teabagger. Stop Socilism! Secession now!