February 16, 2008, Letter opposing the KBRA giving Mazama Tree Farm to the Klamath Tribes

Frank Wallace, Chairman of The Klamath Basin Alliance, Inc., delivered the following statement in regards to the Klamath River Basin Restoration Agreement at the Klamath County Board of Commissioner’s hearing February 11, 2008.

Klamath Tribe representatives’ repeated statements say they want to work with the rest of this community.  Tribal reps say they support our farmers and ranchers and want to make us whole.  Their actions over the past twenty years however, have sought to destroy not only our farmers and ranchers, but also our logging industry. The Klamath Tribe joined lawsuits to stop the Winema National Forest from putting up logging and thinning contracts.

The short-nosed and Lost River sucker fish were listed from data collected by a tribal biologist, data that, at its best, is questionable.  This listing has been used for one purpose: to regain land the Klamath Tribe sold to the federal government and which it was paid using taxpayer dollars.  The Klamath Tribe no longer holds any right to that land.  The suckerfish listing is being used as a leverage tool to get the land, water or the money.  Now they are back using the salmon to the same end.  They are as responsible as any other special interest group for the crisis that faces our farmers and ranchers.

The Tribe wants land, a sawmill, and special treatment on private and government lands so it can control logging, wood production and to build a biomass plant to produce electrical energy.  These are the very things it has opposed, if those things were done by anyone other than tribal members.  If The Tribe was sincere in its’ statements, it should give up its’ unattainable claims for water.  They could join this community in reasonable management of our resources and help work toward the betterment of the entire community, not just the divided few.  By its’ own actions, The Klamath Tribe has done nothing to bring us together ---- and everything to drive us apart.