[env-trinity] Objections to Klamath deal omitted

[Thomas Schlosser]

  Objections to Klamath deal omitted?

WaterWatch of Oregon, others want objections included in formal record

By Andrew Clevenger 
<http://www.bendbulletin.com/NewsroomStaffList/?person=53> / The 
Bulletin / @andclev <http://www.twitter.com/andclev>

Published Nov 27, 2014 at 12:03AM

WASHINGTON — Several Oregon groups that oppose the Klamath Basin deal 
pending in Congress are concerned their objections weren’t considered 
when members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee 
approved the legislation earlier this month.

WaterWatch of Oregon, the Hoopa Valley Tribe and Oregon Wild were not 
invited to testify at a June 3 committee meeting, so the groups 
submitted written testimony for inclusion in the written record of the 
hearing, Jim McCarthy, a spokesman for WaterWatch of Oregon, told The 
Bulletin this week. Their submissions were not included in the written 
record, and the committee voted to approve the bill earlier this month.

“We’re just concerned, and we want to find out, if the committee was 
able to consider all of the submitted testimony before they passed the 
bill on to the full Senate,” he said. “If they didn’t, that’s a real 
problem and a real mistake by the committee.”

McCarthy said he has been unable to get any answers from members of the 
committee staff.

Requests by The Bulletin for comment from the offices of the Energy and 
Natural Resources Committee and from Sen. Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana 
Democrat who chairs the panel, went unanswered.

Federal legislation is needed to codify the Upper Klamath Basin 
Comprehensive Agreement, an effort to develop a water-sharing plan for 
competing claims on limited water, including those of the Klamath 
Tribes, irrigators and ranchers and environmentalists, who want to see 
more water dedicated to fish and wildlife. The deal was signed in April, 
just more than a year after the Oregon Water Resources Department 
adjudicated the issue following 38 years of litigation.

Under the principle of first in time, first in right, the Klamath Tribes 
were awarded top claim on much of Upper Klamath Lake and portions of its 
tributaries. But should high-priority rights holders exercise a “call” 
on their water claim during particularly dry years, ranchers and 
irrigators worry they wouldn’t have enough water for their livestock and 
crops.

While most of the participants in the Klamath Basin Task Force, formed 
by Gov. John Kitzhaber, signed off on the deal, WaterWatch, which 
participated in the task force, did not agree to support the deal, 
McCarthy said. While the deal promotes water sharing by some groups, it 
also over-promises on the water available, making massive fish die-offs 
like the one that occurred in 2002 likely in drought years, he said.

Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both D-Ore., are co-sponsors of the 
bill formalizing the Klamath deal. As a member of the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, Wyden was vocal in urging his colleagues to support 
the bill when it was voted out of committee earlier this month.

Wyden spokesman Keith Chu said Wednesday he didn’t know why the written 
testimony from WaterWatch and others hadn’t been included in the written 
record of the June hearing and referred the matter to the committee. 
Wyden is well-aware of the groups’ concerns, Chu said, noting that a 
representative of WaterWatch participated in a hearing on the matter in 
June 2013.

“Senator Wyden’s staff talked to the conservationists who had a 
different point of view a number of times, so it’s not as though their 
view wasn’t heard,” Chu said. “He respects their view, of course, but 
ultimately the judgment was to move forward due to the wide support in 
the basin.”

Wyden does support having the testimony in the record, and his staff is 
following up with committee staff to see how to make that happen, Chu said.

If the Klamath legislation is not passed before a new Congress is sworn 
in in January, it must be re-introduced and go through the committee 
process again because pending legislation expires at the end of each 
Congress.



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