Klamath Natural resource advisory council Bill Ransom speech on Klamath Settlement 041108

Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
Upholding rural Americans' rights to grow food,
own property, and caretake our wildlife and natural resources.

4/11/08 (The Natural Resource Advisory Council was supposed to vote today to recommend to the Klamath Commissioners how to vote on the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement. They decided to vote in May because they need more time, and, Draft 12 has not been made public yet. The comments recorded by board member Ransom covered the majority of the concerns expressed by most of the board, with all the board members expressing that they believe that their are viable solutions to these concerns and that they would like to see the parties work out the differences that still exist.)

4/11/08

We were told that Advisory Council member Bill Ransom's comments to the Council yesterday regarding the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement went something like this:

After spending a good deal of my time today on the phone with calls concerning how I would vote tonight, I am reminded that as we vote here, we are not just voting for those who participated in the agreement talks, but that we are representing the 65,000 plus people that live in Klamath County. What we do here also effects thousands that live below this upper basin.

With that in mind, I cannot vote to spend millions of tax payers dollars to purchase land that could be taken off of county tax rolls, during a time when we are trying to stretch dollars just to keep up with education and administration costs.

I cannot vote to remove dams when it hasn't been proven that it will restore salmon runs, or that is even the major cause of the decline of the salmon runs. It has even been indicated that dam removal will cause more damage than it will do good.

And finally I cannot vote for an agreement that does not include all the farmers and rancher that live and work in this upper basin.