Klamath Basin Conflict Nears a Settlement

By Williams, Christina

Democrats cried foul this summer when news reports claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove had interceded in the decision to allow Klamath Basin farmers to resume field irrigation in 2002, resulting in 4 massive fish full. Calls for a full investigation made the latest ripples in the politically charged Klamath waters.

The Cheney-Rove twist, the implications Of which have yet to play out, was just another reminder of how many far-reaching interests are at play in the Klamath Basin. The region has become a symbolic national battlefield where agricultural interests are pitted against the demands of environmentalists. But for those who live in the basin, the water issue isn’t an object lesson or a Political football – it’s the linchpin of the local economy.

A drought in 2001 prompted the shut-off of water to Klamath Basin farmers in order to send more water downriver to keep the endangered salmon’s habitat intact. The resulting $20 minion hit to the local economy launched a flurry of support for the irrigators, including 16,000 buckets passed hand to hand in a symbolic brigade.

Emotions ran high and continued to do so the following year when a federal decision to let the farmers irrigate was blamed for the death of thousands of adult salmon that sickened in the warm, shallow water. But last summer: a glimmer of detente. The closing of the commercial salmon fishing season along Oregon’s coast led to a new friendship and collaboration between former adversaries as basin farmers and coastal fishermen met to talk about their shared interest in healthy salmon.

Now, thanks to settlement talks spurred by the relicensing process for PacifiCorp’s Klamath River dams, the environmentalists, farmers, tribes, fishermen and various government agencies are sitting down to hash out a plan for the basin that will work for everyone – and by many accounts they’re damn dose.

“We’re on an aggressive schedule to get something done by the end of the year,” says Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association. “It wouldn’t have worked two or three years ago. People were so angry for so long. Now we’re finally at a point where we can all sit down.”

Addington represents members of the basin’s 17 irrigation districts whose main interests in the settlement talks are preserving the water they’ve been using to irrigate their land since the Bureau of Reclamation first pumped water off the basin floor and set up the canal system that provides water for 1,400 farms and ranches. In addition, the irrigators want to preserve the relatively cheap power they’ve been using to run their irrigation pumps, and secure some kind of guarantee that it a new water management plan results in a blockbuster comeback of endangered fish to the basin, it won’t trigger mother invocation of the Endangered Species Act and result in another irrigation shutoff.

Exactly what will emerge from the settlement talks isn’t dear but most parties indicate that everything is on the table. Environmental groups are agitating for the removal of PacifiCorp’s dams in an effort to restore the natural flow of the river and make it more hospitable to salmon. Others in the basin are touting a plan to create a new water storage reservoir in Long Lake Valley, a natural bathtub over the ridge from the Running Y Resort near Klamath Falls.

“If we could capture four days of runoff during the spring, that would be enough irrigation water for all of the basin farmers,” says Klamath County Commissioner Al Switzer, a proponent of the Long Lake idea.

Officials are optimistic enough about the settlement talks that a basin water summit called for by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulonguski is on hold in the hopes that the hard work will be done by the settlement negotiations.

“Assuming we reach a settlement, it’s huge,” says Suzanne Knapp, policy adviser to Kulongoski. “It’s a cause for celebration.”

Copyright MEDIAmerica, Inc. Aug 2007

(c) 2007 Oregon Business. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.