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http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/106708351639070.xml
Beyond farmers vs. fish
The Oregonian 10/26/03
The bitter tug-of-water over warm, polluted water
won't save fish or solve the Klamath crisis, says
the best science
A new report on the Klamath Basin should put an end
to the obsession with saving threatened fish almost
solely by taking water from farmers.
A national panel of scientists argues persuasively
that it's wrong to keep fighting over warm, polluted
water in Klamath Lake, which probably would not
restore coho salmon or native suckers in any case.
The real solution, they say, is a basin-wide effort
that includes removing three dams, restoring large
areas of wetlands and returning more clean, cool
water to lakes and streams.
It could take decades, or longer, to accomplish the
broad changes laid out by the National Research
Council in its report released last week. The report
describes a prescription for the Klamath Basin that
is more costly, more politically difficult and, in
some cases, even more unlikely than prying water out
of Klamath Project farmers.
The scientists call not only for breaching the
Chiloquin Dam, a small span that blocks access to
sucker spawning habitat on the Sprague River. They
also suggest that salmon recovery may require the
breaching of Iron Gate Dam on the Klamath River, a
major producer of electricity, and Dwinnell Dam in
California's Siskiyou County, which would drain a
reservoir surrounded by hundreds of homes.
They also propose reflooding lakes and wetlands
throughout the Klamath Basin in Oregon and Northern
California -- using water that has to come from
somewhere, and fertile land that in some parts of
the basin is now covered with potatoes and alfalfa.
The researchers also proposed shutting down a major
hatchery for years to determine if the stocked fish
are overwhelming native coho salmon in the Klamath
River.
These proposals may prove every bit as tough,
complicated and controversial as the policies that
led to the shutoff of water to Klamath farmers in
the dry summer of 2001, and the die-off of 33,000
salmon in the shrunken lower river last year.
Yet they are different in a significant way, too.
The council's plan would spread the burden for fish
and wildlife recovery throughout the entire Klamath
Basin, where it fairly belongs, rather than putting
the full weight on one group of farmers.
The real risk of this plan, which the Bush
administration intends to use as a policy road map,
is that it offers so little to fish and wildlife in
the short term. It's not clear, for example, what
the government would do to keep Klamath wildlife
refuges from going dry in the next few summers, or
how it will prevent additional fish kills.
It's also uncertain what would happen if the
government fails to take on the most challenging
recommendations, such as breaching dams and
reflooding wetlands now being farmed. If diverting
irrigation water isn't the solution, dam breaching
is untenable and only some small portion of wetlands
is restored, just how will salmon and suckers be
saved?
The Bush administration has had a keen interest in
the Klamath Basin almost from the time President
Bush took office, and the farm crisis exploded
there. The administration has focused primarily on
defending the interests of farmers, not on resolving
the underlying water shortage in the basin.
Now scientists have produced an ambitious to-do list
to save the endangered species and preserve farms in
the Klamath Basin. The Klamath crisis is not all on
the farmers anymore.
It's on the Bush administration.
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