[env-trinity] Various News Stories about Klamath-Trinity

[Tom Stokely]

TRINITY RIVER RESTORATION
Hupas ask power interest to back out of Trinity suit 
Eureka Times-Standard - 3/17/04
Dozens of Hupa Indians marched on the offices of the Northern California Power Agency on Monday asking that a suit barring restoration of the Trinity River be dropped. 

Joined by Roseville residents, fishermen and environmentalists, the tribal members offered the agency officials a basket of kippered salmon, as a peace offering. 

The power agency is suing over the approval of a restoration plan for the river, most of which is diverted to the Sacramento River and Central Valley farms. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed off on the plan in 2000.

But a suit has blocked the implementation of the plan.

Other cities and utility districts, including the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District have dropped out of the suit being spearheaded by the Westlands Water District. 

"The Trinity River is part of our sustenance and culture," said Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall. "The NCPA is destroying the river, the fish and our tribal heritage by taking too much water from the river."

The 2000 restoration plan calls for a reduction in the diversion, from about 75 percent to nearly 50 percent. That difference only produces a small amount of power, and estimates have been made that the average power agency ratepayer would only see a $3 per year increase in their bill if the plan was implemented. 

The Hoopa Tribe, which sees the plan as a settlement, has been presented with two settlement proposals that would crimp flows to the river more than the restoration plan. Westland's proposal was rebuffed, as was a recent proposal from the U.S. Interior Department, as ignoring the two decades of science behind the original restoration plan. #

KLAMATH RIVER BASIN
Bureau's water bank taking shape
Klamath Falls Ore. Herald & News - 3/17/04
By Dylan Darling, staff writer
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has started informing Klamath Reclamation Project irrigators who is in and who is out of its water bank this summer.

Contracts for land idling and ground water substitution, both inside and outside the Project are ready to be signed, said Dave Sabo, Project manager.

But those two types of accounts will only be a part of the water bank. The bank is required by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service as protection for threatened coho salmon downstream in the Klamath River. Sabo said he can also use stored water and possibly other options.

"I have a limited amount of money to spend on the water bank, so I have to make it go as far as it can," he said.

The water bank needs to have 75,000 acre-feet of water in it, and the Bureau has a $4.5 million budget to acquire it.

That amounts to about $60 per acre-foot, which is the amount of water needed to cover an acre of ground with 12 inches of water.

He said some of the contracts the Bureau will sign will be optional ones, with larger pumps that will only be kicked in if the water is needed. He said this year's bank should be more flexible than last year's because the Bureau can count flow extra river flows resulting from rain and snowstorms.

If extra water falls from the sky, then less water is needed from the ground.

The issue of whether high river flows could be counted as part of the water bank is a point of contention between the Bureau and the Fisheries Service. The two federal agencies still haven't agreed how much water was ultimately sent downstream as bank flows last year.

But the Fisheries Service said the flows can be part of the bank this year, Sabo said.

Groups on opposite sides of the Klamath water issue have similar sentiments about the water bank - saying it's a Band-Aid, not a long term solution.

Dan Keppen, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association, said he appreciates the government's support of the program because it compensates farmers and ranchers for changing their water use, but it's not something that will remedies the Basin's problems permanently

"We reluctantly support the water bank," he said. "The water bank isn't going to be the silver bullet that solves the problem."

Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations said the water bank is inherently unstable, especially if it gets underfunded by the federal government.

"It depends on a Congress that is harder and harder pressed to pay the bills," Spain said.

He said his group favors a permanent purchase of water rights, rather than the "renting" of water.

The storage in this year's bank would come from the Agency Lake Ranch, which the Bureau owns and can hold about 12,000 acre-feet of water and from national wildlife refuges like Lower Klamath Lake.

Although this year's bank will need to be about 50 percent larger than last year's pilot project, the Bureau has less money to spend this year. Last year about $4.75 million was spent.

In the pilot water bank last year, irrigators were paid fixed fees of $187.50 per acre idled, and $75 per acre-foot of groundwater.

This year, the Bureau didn't set prices and opened the water bank to bidding.

Sabo said the bids ranged from about $30 to about $150 per acre-foot.

The Bureau has about 400 applications, representing about 60,000 acres and about 140,000 acre-feet of water, from which to choose.

He said expanding the water bank to outside the Project helped get more applicants.

"It just makes more sense since the whole Basin impacts the river, not just the Project," he said.

Next summer, the Bureau will need a water bank of 100,000 acre-feet.#



RELATED
Removal of dam still not a sure thing
Studies, opinions still needed on Chiloquin Dam
Klamath Falls Ore. Herald & News - 3/16/04
By Dylan Darling, staff writer
President Bush earmarked $2.1 million in next year's budget for the removal of Chiloquin Dam, but before the dam can be removed several bureaucratic hurdles will need to be cleared.

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is an arm of the Interior Department, will be handling studies involving endangered species and the environmental impact of removing the dam. The studies fall into the realm of the National Environmental Policy Act.

The act, established in 1969, provides a list of studies that need to be done before a federal project can move forward.

In late January, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the removal of the dam should happen next year, but NEPA studies can get complex and the process can extend for years, which could delay the removal, said Doug Tedrick, chief range conservationist for Indian Affairs. Although Tedrick said the agency's goal is to get them done this calendar year.

"The president's budget anticipated the successful completion of the NEPA process," he said.

And it anticipated that the result of that process would be the recommended removal of the dam.

This week, Tedrick will be in the Klamath Basin to talk to the groups involved with the possible removal of the dam.

He will meet Wednesday afternoon with a group of "collaborators," or stakeholders, that have been meeting since September 2002 and then with members of the Klamath Tribes Wednesday evening. The collaborator group includes city, county state and federal agencies, the Tribes, water users and others.

Chuck Korson, fish passage manager at Reclamation's Klamath Falls office, has been working with the collaborators, most of whom recommend that the dam be pulled out.

Although the money for removal is in the budget, Korson said it is not a done deal.

"It's not a forgone conclusion until the NEPA is done," he said.

He said there also needs to be a study done to figure how Modoc Point Irrigation district would replace the water it gets from a diversion spurred by the dam.

Don Gentry, a natural resource specialist for the Tribes, said Tedrick will update the Klamath Tribes on the NEPA process and answer questions about the removal process.

The Tribes have not taken an official position as to whether the dam should be removed or not.

Gentry said the Tribes want to make sure that what ever is done to Chiloquin Dam - be it complete removal or improvement of its fish ladder - is what is best for the restoration of the sucker fishery.

He said there still needs to be studies of how much restoration work would need to be done upstream if the dam is taken out.

"It's gets pretty complicated," Gentry said.#



RELATED
Editorial: If Shilo talks falter, talks must go on
Klamath Falls Ore. Herald & News - 3/14/04
The not-so-secret talks at the Shilo appear to be in trouble.

Inside, the participants haven't yet been able to agree on the complicated task of divvying up the Basin's water.

Outside, there's strong opposition to one key to a resolution, the return of national forest land to the Klamath Tribes for a reservation, and opposition from water users above Upper Klamath Lake.

The secrecy has proved troubling to both participants and the public.

The conveners, Jim Root of Medford and Kurt Thomas of Bakersfield, a Tulelake native, have taken hits, most recently in the government report that said their Klamath Basin Rangeland Trust overestimated the benefit of idling pastureland above Upper Klamath Lake in 2002.

The main elements of a deal have long been apparent. In exchange for guaranteed water supplies, Basin irrigators would idle some land and give tacit or other support to the Tribes, who would "forebear" from enforcing a share of their water rights.

The federal government would apply the salve of money. The number bandied about is $200 million-plus for habitat restoration and other work.

But turning these elements into something people could shake hands over is an enormous task. The promise of the Root-Thomas talks was that their political connections to the Bush administration would provide the clout for local interests and cover for the Congress and the White House.

In other words, if we here in the Basin can agree on things, the government would make them happen.

That's still the imperative: Unless we can agree here, nobody from the outside is going to settle things. Even with a local agreement, the Basin is so divided that a settlement might not stick.

But solutions imposed from outside are certain to fail, or take so long as to guarantee failure.

Uncertain water supplies and years of lawyers' fees will eat away at the financial foundation of Basin agriculture. Nobody will lend money to farmers who can't be sure of water.

The Tribes can't get land back without the support of enough whites to make a land-return bill anything other than political suicide for the Oregon members of Congress, without whose support the bill could not pass no matter which party runs the Capitol and White House.

Environmentalists cannot ensure the survival of endangered fish unless there's a significant effort to create and restore habitat, which only the federal government can afford.

If the Shilo talks falter, the parties should find ways to stay in touch, to keep talking, to open up the process to the public and to interests both above Upper Klamath Lake and below Iron Gate Dam.

On that last point, the inauguration of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was promising. He's oriented toward resolving difficult problems, and his administration won't be scapegoating Basin farmers.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski signaled early on that he wants to be a leader about the Basin rather than a partisan, as his predecessor was. Both governors have had representatives in the Basin recently, and both could prove helpful.

If it's too early to write off the Shilo talks, fine. But the news and the talk hasn't been encouraging. It may be time to look for a new way out. #



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