Western farmers and consumers to pay a high toll to "save fish"

from The Lehmi Observer, May 2001

The first of many anticipates restrictions or denial of irrigation water has already taken place. In Klamath Falls, for instance, for the first time since 1907, farmers have been denied irrigation water.  Federal dam operators announced April 20 that they will use the water instead to "protect" imperiled fish.

That decision means that almost 90 percent of the 210,000 acres irrigated by Klamath Project reservoirs will go dry in what is already one of the driest years in memory.  Federal biologists have recommended extremely high water levels for endangered suckers in the lakes or of threatened coho salmon in the river, Bureau of Reclamation officials said, according to a report in The Lehmi Observer.  As a result, they will cut off all irrigation flows from the shallow lake, which supplied most of the water for the basin's farmlands.  

The federal decision goes against the entire history of the Klamath Basin. In 1905, California and Oregon ceded lake and marshland to the federal government specifically for conversion to agricultural use under the Newlands Reclamation Act.  The Klamath Project then evolved into a complex system of irrigation canals, dams, diversions and drains, bringing life-giving water to crops grown in some of the richest soil in America.  Water use rights under a California-Oregon compact set water use priorities with agriculture first, recreation second and wildlife third.

The decision, discussed at levels as high as the White House, marks a shift in the project's priorities from farmers to fish. 

The tri-county Klamath Basin produces $100 million in hay, grains and vegetables.  This, in turn, produces an additional $250 million in economic activity in the various agriculturally dependent communities throughout the region.  Livestock herds, now being liquidated, are worth another $100 million in replacement costs.

Without farming activity, thousands of farmworkers will have no work.  Without farmers to buy seed, supplies and equipment, the infrastructure of small businesses that support agriculture will collapse.  Then, like dominoes, the restaurants, grocery stores and other small community businesses will lose their customer base.  Property values will plummet, thousands of loans will default and the county tax revenues will follow the economic spiral downward.

In addition, the 210,000 acres in the Klamath Basin normally produce a large percentage of the nation's potatoes and alfalfa.  The alfalfa goes to feed the cows in California dairies that are complete paved - they grow no food of their own - and no alfalfa means no milk?

How did we get to this place?  According to federal agencies, once a species has been listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it's alleged needs must come before the needs, rights and property of individual Americans.

Because the federal government is involved in the mechanics of distributing the farmer's and rancher's water, it has decreed that fish come before farms and families.

Now, experts predict 420,000 tons of topsoil will blow away this year, because farmers without water cannot even plant crops to retain the soil.

Does anyone see a parallel between the Spotted Owl and the Shortnosed Sucker?  Both were used as surrogates to cripple an industry: the owl crippled our wood products people, and the sucker cripples our agriculture.

In Washington state, Columbia River irrigators have vowed not to turn off their pumps this summer even if the state orders them to shut down.  "If it comes down to civil disobedience, so be it - but the pumps are going to stay on," said Darryl Olsen, consultant for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association.  "People just can't walk away from the financial investment they have in these systems."

Gov. Gary Locke and the Department of Ecology are presently pursuing a plan that would cut water to about 200 water users and could bankrupt some of them.  A handful of state senators are trying to dissuade them from doing so.  "We owe it to the people of this state to keep our growers producing the products that feed the world," eight Republican senators said in a letter to Locke. "Interruption of water could be the nail in their coffin."

Olsen estimated that should the plan be implemented, about 20,000 acres would be affected - land worth about $80 million.  "Stream flows were arbitrarily set by the [Ecology Department] in 1980," the senators' letter said. "Based on historical records, we now know those levels are unreasonably high."

Excerpts from the Lehmi Observer, with credit to Paragon Foundation press release of 4/20; the Oregonian, and the Tri-City Herald (WA).  Printed with permission.