[env-trinity] Eureka Times Standard 2 8 08

Byron bwl3 at comcast.net
Fri Feb 8 14:54:16 PST 2008


KLAMATH COMPACT:

Guest Opinion: Klamath plan: What have we learned in 20 years?

Eureka Times Standard - 2/8/08

By Bill Kier, of Kier Associates, lives in Blue Lake

 

As you discuss and contemplate the next decade or two of wrestling with the
terms/spirit of the proposed Klamath basin restoration agreement, it's hard
not to recall the past two decades -- the Klamath Act of 1986, with which
Congress intended to rejuvenate Klamath river salmon resources. 

 

Our consulting group was awarded a contract (summer 1988) to assist the
Klamath Act's Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) chartered Klamath River
Basin Fisheries Task Force develop what would become its long-range plan for
restoring the basin's fish resources (see
www.krisweb.com/biblio/gen_usfws_kierassoc_1991_lrp.pdf). 

Sari Sommarstrom, a key member of our team, and I split the task force list
and interviewed each of the 14 members at the very outset of the project. 

 

I interviewed the U.S secretary of agriculture's appointee, Klamath National
Forest Supervisor Bob Rice, in San Francisco, where he was doing a stint as
acting regional forester. Bob shared with me, over lunch, what I've regarded
ever since as a particularly prescient concern about the way these things
go. 

 

Bob said somehow we've got to prevent the funds available to the 20-year
program from becoming "socialized, " by which he meant from being taken for
granted and becoming an expected portion of each agency's or tribe's budget
base. 

 

Bob's point was that 20 years was a long enough period to determine, as we
proceeded, whether we were making any progress or not, and if the funds
became "socialized," then it would be impossible to redirect them toward
more promising measures -- an early-day adaptive management (a term that was
then just beginning to appear in the literature) issue, right? 

 

If any of you have looked the plan over, you'll see that it approaches the
many contentious issues in a step-wise fashion, which was Sari's influence
-- try cooperation first, and if that doesn't do it within X months or
years, seek administrative remedies. And if that doesn't do it, then
litigate. 

 

Program plans such as the task force's are typically laid aside, forgotten
early on (if ever created in the first place, which didn't really happen
with the multibillion-dollar CalFed program over the hill). 

 

For so long as she was able, Ronnie Pierce, bless her heart, was the
self-anointed keeper of the Klamath Long Range Plan -- asking in the welter
of task force deliberations "What's the plan say -- anybody checked the plan
on this?" 

What I'm saying is that we've had a heavy dose of process -- we had a plan,
a governance structure (such as it was -- the FACA committee to advise the
secretary of the Interior -- but it's frankly hard to do better), a 20-year
process, $1 million a year budget for administration, plus restoration
grants. 

 

And no more fish, really, to show for it. 

 

By the way, we were hired a second time, a decade out, to help the Klamath
Task Force evaluate the Klamath program's progress (see
http://www.fws.gov/yreka/MTE/toc-ch1.pdf) 

 

One of the principal findings of that evaluation was that the task force's
consensus policy, sought by the salmon fishermen after years of being
outvoted on various committees and commissions, simply wasn't working as the
consensus process is supposed to work -- where you state your position and,
if the clear majority wishes otherwise, you "step aside." 

 

In the case of the task force, the ags were simply blocking any meaningful
engagement by the task force of the in-your-face problems of water use,
water quality, etc. 

 

What, then, you have to ask yourself, is different about the present
restoration agreement/contemplating congressional
authorization/appropriation? 

 

What foibles, such as that signaled by Bob Rice 20 years ago, will likely be
repeated? 

 

What have we learned from the last 20 years that will get us to an
any-better place in the next 20 years?  

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Friends of Trinity River, Chair

California Trout, Inc., Advisor

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810

415 383 9562 fax

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary)

http://www.fotr.org

http://www.caltrout.org

 

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