Environmentalists up ante in Klamath Basin water war - AP 1-24-02. Courtesy WGEN

EPA used junk science in Klamath Falls. Hansen says EPA should be reformed.

Major Victory in Hage v.United States. Landmark Takings Case Decided in Favor of Property Rights

Wow the Cow - lists the many uses of cattle. From American National Cattlewomen.

Major Victory in Hage v.United States - Landmark Takings Case Decided in Favor of Property Rights

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Environmentalists told the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Thursday they will file a lawsuit unless the agency prepares a plan for distributing limited Klamath Basin water to farmers, endangered fish species and wildlife refuges by April 1.

Environmentalists last year won a similar lawsuit, forcing the agency to shut off irrigation water to about 220,000 acres of farmland in the Klamath Basin Reclamation Project so that there was enough water for endangered sucker fish and threatened coho salmon.

The shutdown sparked angry protests by farmers who pried open the headgates to an irrigation canal, prompting the agency to call in federal police. If the bureau doesn't file a water-use plan, environmentalists say they will sue to make sure there is enough water for suckers and coho salmon.

"A year ago, we were in a similar position," said Todd True, a lawyer with the EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund. "We don't want to go there again. The administration has 60 days to do what the law requires and we expect them to do that."

Jeff McCracken, a Sacramento, Calif.-based spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation, said the agency expected to have a draft biological assessment for the basin by next week, the first step toward a final plan.

That assessment must then be reviewed by the National Marine Fisheries Service to ensure it meets the standards of the Endangered Species Act, he said.

A wet winter and a better-than-average snowpack will likely make it easier for the bureau to meet everyone's water needs this year -- but that doesn't undo the problem, True said.

"There's less chance of a complete train wreck this year, because there's more snow in the mountains. But that's a false sense of security," he said. "We're kidding ourselves if we think one wet year is going to solve the problem."

McCracken agreed that a wet winter will help the agency in its planning this year.

"We obviously expect to have a lot more flexibility in getting the water to our farmers," he said.

Also at issue is whether the agency will submit a long-range plan for the Klamath Basin or will issue a one-year proposal, as it has done in the past.

Environmentalists and commercial fishing groups would like to see the bureau craft a long-term plan that will give farmers and fishermen a multiyear framework on which to plan their water use.

The groups said Thursday that the Bush administration promised last August it would prepare a five-year water-use plan for the Klamath Basin in 2002.

McCracken said he does not know yet if the water-use plan will be a one-year plan or a multiyear proposal. The agency must negotiate with the NMFS before they agree on the length, he said.

"We may say we want a 10-year contract and they say they want a one-year contract," he said.

With the April 1 deadline drawing near, environmentalists worry a long-range plan may fall flat.

"We are within seven weeks of their deadline," said Glen Spain, Northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations Inc.

Spain said the bureau can't continue to "... lurch from year to year on inconsistent plans based on a one-year horizon ..." because farmers and fragile fish need a water supply that is stable and predictable.

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On the Net

EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund <http://www.earthjustice.org>

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations <http://www.pcffa.org>

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation <http://www.doi.gov/>

Washington, D.C.- House Resources Chairman James V. Hansen today called for reform of the federal Endangered Species Act in the wake of a National Academy of Science report that says the decision to withhold desperately- needed water from Klamath Basin farmers last summer was wrong. The federal U.S. Fish & Wildlife Agency used the authority given them in the Endangered Species Act to withhold the agriculture water, claiming the move was necessary to protect an endangered species of sucker fish.

Chairman Hansen’s statement:

“A handful of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service bureaucrats withheld desperately-needed water from farmers in the Klamath Basin last summer. Now we find out that that decision was based on sloppy science and apparent guesswork. I am appalled. They made decisions that devastated the economy of an entire region - and they literally backed that decision up with armed federal agents. Farmers lost their farms; businesses closed and thousands of birds and animals at a nearby wildlife refuge died for the lack of water - all unnecessarily.

“This latest travesty in the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act should be one more nail in the coffin of that broken law. The ESA has become a wrecking ball in this country, devastating personal finances and regional economies. We must reform this law. We must protect species and people. This law does neither.

“We have recovered few - if any - species because of the ESA. Meanwhile, the ESA has cost private citizens, local governments and regional economies billions of dollars over its 30-year life. The cost estimate for the Klamath Basin debacle alone is in excess of $135 million, according to researchers at UC-Davis. That’s unconscionable. It’s time we reform this law, grounding it in sound science, not political ideology.”

Rep. Greg Walden’s statement:

“Had we not gotten an outside review of the science and the decisions leading to the water shut-off, the federal government would have continued down the wrong road. Now we find out that higher lake levels don’t help suckers and higher stream flows may actually kill Coho salmon. What we have known all along is that this combination has been destroying agriculture in the Basin and leveling an economic sledgehammer on the community.

“This report exposes flawed decisions that were made in the name of protecting fish, which forced family farmers and ranchers to go bankrupt and brought widespread harm to the economic vitality of the entire Klamath community."

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