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By TAM MOORE
Folks from out of town
continued making decisions for waterless Klamath Basin
farmers this week.
There was action on
three fronts.
- A mediator began
sessions April 23 at U.S. District Court in Eugene
on the irrigators' request to release some water
the federal government April 6 reserved for
protection of fish listed under the Endangered
Species Act. Should the closed-door sessions reach
a deal, it must come before Judge Ann Aiken at an
April 27 hearing on an injunction modifying the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation order.
- Lobbyists for
Klamath Water Users Association and top Bush
administration officials huddled in Washington,
D.C., poring over multimillion-dollar requests for
Klamath Project farm aid filed last week by Oregon
Gov. John Kitzhaber. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.,
said in a television interview it will take
"over $100 million" to fill all
requests.
- A real estate agent
said options have been signed on about 20,000
acres of project land in a complex deal aimed at
halting farming within two national wildlife
refuges. Neither the refuges nor the farms get
water under the current BuRec order, and the
American Land Conservancy pact needs outside help
to happen. It would take special legislation
repealing the 1964 Kuchel Act that called for
refuge farming, and additional multimillion-dollar
federal appropriations to turn the options into
reality.
About 1,200 farmers on
180,000 acres within the 94-year-old reclamation
project are denied water. Around 195 farming
operations on the far east side of the project will
share a 70,000 acre feet allocation stored in two
smaller reservoirs. Upper Klamath Lake, brimful and
overflowing into marshes this week, will be used to
keep minimum lake levels for sucker fish or see water
sent downstream to help endangered coho salmon in the
main stem Klamath.
"We are standing
at the mercy of a federal judge who will decide
everything," said Don Russell, president of the
users association.
Russell worries that
as spring temperatures increase, basin residents
denied water will find their tempers heating up. The
association brought the suit, now before the Eugene
court. The Klamath Tribes, which have senior water
rights by an 1864 treaty and prize the two sucker fish
that figure in conserving Upper Klamath Lake water,
are among parties supporting the BuRec no-irrigation
plan.
Whether or not
anything will be resolved this season is uncertain.
Planting time is past for most annual crops except
short-season potato varieties.
Russell said the
association believes it must pursue litigation to give
members some assurance there'll be irrigation water in
future years.
While the attention
focuses on the Eugene hearing, a federal judge in San
Francisco said April 19 BuRec didn't comply with the
Endangered Species Act and her early April ruling on
Klamath River coho protection.
Paul Cleary, Oregon's
director of water resources and a key player in
getting the mediation started, described the Klamath
Project as "bookended" by endangered
species. Two in the upper reaches, another more than
100 miles downstream in California.
Frontiers for Freedom,
a wise-use think tank that merged last year with
People for the USA, said this week it is joining in
calling national attention to the Klamath crisis. The
vehicle will be a May 7 "bucket brigade" and
rally in Klamath Falls. Local organizers said the
event will start at noon in Veterans Park at the south
end of town and include a march up the city's Main
Street to the rally at Modoc Field, the Klamath Union
High School football stadium.
from the Capital Press
- http://www.capitalpress.com/easterntext.html
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