PRESS RELEASE: 2004 FUNDING OPINION

Available Funds
USBR Funding

Notice:

As of April 6, 2004 all USBR employees and high-level Department of Interior employees will not report to work.

This will only be temporary, but the forecast predicts 1 in 3 years that personnel will experience lay-offs. On the brighter side, efforts to develop a "Funding Bank", are in place. Downsizing and a request to have the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) contribute 25% the first year and 50% the second year are being negotiated. Cuts in salary and BIA contributions to the Funding Bank may keep this agency viable!

Because this funding forecast is very similar to a weather forecast some problems are sure to arise. The worst-case scenario would be willing hires from foreign countries could be cultivated to help relocate those impacted by this crisis. Our sympathies go out to the affected families.

Since the USBR is one of the most efficient, cost effective and understaffed agencies that work with agriculture, the economic base of this nation, it is only sensible that the cuts be made here first.

At this time of economic instability, downsizing of the government seems the only reasonable option.
      In regards to the above USBR  'funding opinion', this is not real.  But the 'biological opinion' for April 6, 2001, that took away 1400  farmer's and rancher's irrigation water, is real.
      In regards to the 'funding bank', this is not real. However, the current 'water bank' for 2003, 2004, eternity, that downsizes the Klamath Project by 100,000 acres--- the most efficient, cost-effective irrigation project in America--- is real.
      (
This 'Press Release'  was submitted to KBC by a Klamath Project farmer for release  Sept. 23, 2003, 8 PM.  His purpose was to allow the agency viewer to feel his pain and experience, if only for one brief day.  KBC allowed this release with his request of anonymity. )