Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
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Disaster, if not extinction

Letter to the Editor, Times-Standard, by Greg King, North Coast Environmental Center 4/30/2009

KBC Response: 1 Yes, with the KBRA, Project irrigators are giving up 10's of thousands of acre feet of water, even on wet years. According to KBRA Draft 11, this is in addition to the Endangered Species Act/ESA and Biological Opinions having precedence over water allocations.
2 Table of Contents of allegations against Vice President Cheney, including July 31, 2007 House Natural Resources Committee Hearing entitled 'Crisis of Confidence,' regarding Vice President Cheney and the Klamath River Salmon Die-off of 2002. According to Indian Country Today, Science clears Cheney in Klamath salmon die-off
3 What Mr King fails to mention is, Klamath Project is in a closed basin; for most of it there was up to 30' of water on top of our fields before the Project was built; the rest was stored in Klamath Lake or pumped uphill through a hole blasted in a mountain so we could put water INTO the Klamath River. We are forced to pump our aquifer to irrigate fields because the Tribes and Environmental groups, and Biological Opinions want this water that historically had no way to reach the river.
4 Flat out lie. Read the agreement.
5 Yes, the KBRA spells disaster and extinction. It plants endangered salmon and fish parasites/lamprey into the Klamath Basin, takes governance away from elected officials and gives it to a task force of Tribes, environmental groups, gov't agencies, and 2 farm reps, to these closed-door negotiators. It downsizes the Klamath Project, takes out 4 Klamath River Dams serving 70,000 customers with talk of Keno and Link River dams, obliterating Siskiyou County economy, and obliterating Klamath irrigation if Keno and Link come out. Here are the Klamath Tribe plans with the 90,000 acre KBRA land gift. Taxpayers and power rate payers will pay up to 4 billion dollars for dam removal. In essence, we believe it spells disaster and extinction for the Klamath Basin irrigators.

1 For the Karuk Tribe's Craig Tucker to insist that “farmers are giving up water” under the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) is to hide the reality of this deal. The NEC opposes the KBRA for many excellent reasons, with the lack of water for fish topping the list.

In 2001 farmers genuinely, though not voluntarily, gave up water. During that dry year the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation allocated only 75,000 acre feet of water to farmers in the Klamath Reclamation Project. This was to uphold the Endangered Species Act, which mandates adequate flows to protect Klamath salmon.

2 The next year, thanks to meddling by Vice President Dick Cheney, farmers received 400,000 acre feet of water. The result was the worst fish kill in U.S. history: 68,000 adult salmon went belly up in the Klamath.

3 Under the KBRA farmers in 2002 could have received even more than 400,000 acre feet of the Klamath River's flow: 340,000 acre feet outright from the river, as allowed under the KBRA, plus unlimited groundwater pumping, which would be subsidized by millions of dollars allocated by the KBRA. In the upper Klamath basin's porous soils, groundwater contributes significantly to in-stream flows.

4 Farmers are not giving up water. If they were they would have left the table long ago, saving more than $1 million in attorney fees.

5 The KBRA portends disaster, if not extinction. The NEC will not relinquish protections afforded salmon by the Endangered Species Act, which is what the KBRA is asking us to do.

Greg King
Klamath Campaign Coordinator
Northcoast Environmental Center
Arcata