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<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>TRINITY RIVER RESTORATION</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Hupas ask power interest to back out of Trinity
suit </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Eureka Times-Standard -
3/17/04</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P>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. </P>
<P>Joined by Roseville residents, fishermen and environmentalists, the tribal
members offered the agency officials a basket of kippered salmon, as a peace
offering. </P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>But a suit has blocked the implementation of the plan.</P>
<P>Other cities and utility districts, including the Sacramento Municipal
Utilities District have dropped out of the suit being spearheaded by the
Westlands Water District. </P>
<P>"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."</P>
<P>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.
</P>
<P>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. #</P>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>KLAMATH RIVER BASIN</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Bureau's water bank taking
shape</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Klamath Falls Ore. Herald & News -
3/17/04</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>By Dylan Darling, staff
writer</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P>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.</P>
<P>Contracts for land idling and ground water substitution, both inside and
outside the Project are ready to be signed, said Dave Sabo, Project manager.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>"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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>If extra water falls from the sky, then less water is needed from the
ground.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>But the Fisheries Service said the flows can be part of the bank this year,
Sabo said.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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</P>
<P>"We reluctantly support the water bank," he said. "The water bank isn't going
to be the silver bullet that solves the problem."</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>"It depends on a Congress that is harder and harder pressed to pay the
bills," Spain said.</P>
<P>He said his group favors a permanent purchase of water rights, rather than
the "renting" of water.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>This year, the Bureau didn't set prices and opened the water bank to
bidding.</P>
<P>Sabo said the bids ranged from about $30 to about $150 per acre-foot.</P>
<P>The Bureau has about 400 applications, representing about 60,000 acres and
about 140,000 acre-feet of water, from which to choose.</P>
<P>He said expanding the water bank to outside the Project helped get more
applicants.</P>
<P>"It just makes more sense since the whole Basin impacts the river, not just
the Project," he said.</P>
<P>Next summer, the Bureau will need a water bank of 100,000 acre-feet.#</P>
<P> </P></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>RELATED</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Removal of dam still not a sure
thing</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Studies, opinions still needed on Chiloquin
Dam</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Klamath Falls Ore. Herald & News -
3/16/04</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>By Dylan Darling, staff
writer</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>The act, established in 1969, provides a list of studies that need to be done
before a federal project can move forward.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>"The president's budget anticipated the successful completion of the NEPA
process," he said.</P>
<P>And it anticipated that the result of that process would be the recommended
removal of the dam.</P>
<P>This week, Tedrick will be in the Klamath Basin to talk to the groups
involved with the possible removal of the dam.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>Although the money for removal is in the budget, Korson said it is not a done
deal.</P>
<P>"It's not a forgone conclusion until the NEPA is done," he said.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>The Tribes have not taken an official position as to whether the dam should
be removed or not.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>"It's gets pretty complicated," Gentry said.#</P>
<P> </P></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>RELATED</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Editorial: If Shilo talks falter, talks must go
on</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Klamath Falls Ore. Herald & News -
3/14/04</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P>The not-so-secret talks at the Shilo appear to be in trouble.</P>
<P>Inside, the participants haven't yet been able to agree on the complicated
task of divvying up the Basin's water.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>The secrecy has proved troubling to both participants and the public.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>The federal government would apply the salve of money. The number bandied
about is $200 million-plus for habitat restoration and other work.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>In other words, if we here in the Basin can agree on things, the government
would make them happen.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>But solutions imposed from outside are certain to fail, or take so long as to
guarantee failure.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.</P>
<P>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.
#</P></DIV>
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