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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In order to provide a balanced perspective, I'm
providing more opinions on the Klamath situation, courtesy of Mr. Dan Keppen of
KWUA.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tom Stokely</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=dkeppen@cvcwireless.net href="mailto:dkeppen@cvcwireless.net">Dan
Keppen</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=dkeppen@cvcwireless.net
href="mailto:dkeppen@cvcwireless.net">Dan Keppen</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=kwua@cvcwireless.net
href="mailto:kwua@cvcwireless.net">KWUA</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, August 03, 2004 12:42 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Three opinion pieces on Klamath </DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<P><SPAN class=headlinedetail>The Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC)
continues its efforts to downsize the KIamath Project and eliminate lease
land farming near Tulelake and Lower Klamath Lake. Two editorials written by
local landowners in response to a recent ONRC opinion piece that appeared in
last week's Herald and News follow. Also, another ONRC letter to the Sacramento
Bee, "Wildlife vs. Potatoes" - familiar theme - is included
below.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=headlinedetail></SPAN> </P>
<P><SPAN class=headlinedetail><A href="news: Klamath Falls, Oregon">Herald and
News: Klamath Falls, Oregon</A></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=headlinedetail><A
href="http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2004/08/02/viewpoints/op_ed/9915.txt">http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2004/08/02/viewpoints/op_ed/9915.txt</A></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=headlinedetail><FONT size=3><STRONG>ONRC using Basin issues
</STRONG></FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=storydetail><FONT size=3><STRONG>to raise
money for itself</STRONG></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>Published August 2, 2004</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail><STRONG>By LANE ROELLE - Guest
columnist</STRONG></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>I would like to address a few of the issues that Jim
McCarthy talks about in his commentary in the July 19 Herald and News. In my
opinion, his entire commentary was full of half-truths, innuendo, misinformation
and outright lies.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>Maybe the Endangered Species Act needs to be
dismembered. Of the millions, maybe billions, spent on implementing the act, how
many species has it saved? How many species have been delisted? Why do the
environmentalists consider peer review dismembering? What do they have to
conceal? Is it maybe their scientists know the outcome of their studies before
they begin?</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>I don't believe anybody thinks that the "water woes
will disappear" by any one measure. I do believe what the elected officials want
is true science behind the listing of any species. And if the Oregon Natural
Resources Council was really concerned about wildlife, I would think they would
want the equivalent.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>As for the "major campaign contributors," I didn't
realize what a political powerhouse the Klamath Basin is, or that the
Rockefellers and Nelsons farmed in the Basin.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>When it was reported that 34,000 fish died, the upper
Klamath Basin received all of the blame for the entire fish kill the next day.
McCarthy states that "...the Bush administration chose to ignore the reality
that there wasn't enough water to safely supply all of the Basin's competing
needs. As a result, 34,000 Klamath River salmon died."</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>More than a year later it was reported in several
articles that the fish die-off was caused by several mitigating factors. The
environmental groups involved in the fish die-off first held responsible the
upper Klamath Basin, and subsequently distorted their study to agree with their
biased outcome. That is how these groups work: Find someone to blame, and then
make their study fit their outcome. What wonderful science they
practice.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>But the most ambiguous statements he makes are about
the financial aspects of the lease lands. I will give him the benefit of the
doubt that his figures are correct, but he doesn't once mention the money that
the farmers earn off of the lease lands.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>He makes it sound as if these farmers derive
absolutely no income off of these lands. He states "...$1.9 million a year in
rents." Let's say, on the conservative side, that the lease payments are half of
the costs to operate a lease, that indicates that another $1.9 million is going
back directly into the Basin economy in seed, fertilizer, fuel, equipment,
parts, college tuition and other things.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>His hyperbole continues with his saying "Local
landowners go bankrupt because they can't pay their mortgages." They are going
bankrupt because the banks are apprehensive about financing operating loans with
the uncertainty of having water allocated year to year. Private land rental
prices are market driven. Profit margins are slim in farming to begin with, and
to suggest that not farming these lease lands would change that, is not only
asinine, it is a lie. McCarthy would not know this because all of his education
has come from a book.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>The only real basis for the ONRC to be involved in
the Basin's problems is money. Without some type of critical crisis, the ONRC
would not be able to dupe people into contributing to its cause.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>These environmental organizations, and the people who
work for these organizations, contribute nothing to society. They wreak havoc on
families that just want to make a living.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>When this beautiful Klamath Basin, which I love, is
dried up and just another ghost town, these people will attack some place else.
They don't even live here, to see the carnage they leave behind. They are no
better than the illicit TV preachers who prey on little old widow
ladies.</SPAN></P><SPAN class=storydetail>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail><B><FONT size=4>Reality ignored</FONT></B></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>Jim McCarthy (July 19 commentary) is a classic
"windshield manager" from another country.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>He is critical of the official United States House of
Representative field-hearing process that occurred at the Ross Ragland
Performing Arts Center on July 17. This was a very important process of our
government.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>McCarthy is critical of the proposals to enhance the
Endangered Species Act. He uses the ploy of equivoque to polarize the issue. In
McCarthy's mind, you are either for the current interpretation of the act, or
you are trying to "dismember the ESA."</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>Not one person involved with the hearing is trying to
gut the law. The hearing focus was on ways to make a 30-year-old law better.
Everyone on the panel of experts agreed that peer-reviewed science will improve
the Endangered Species Act.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>McCarthy reminds me of a conversation I had 10 years
ago with one of his comrades from Oregon Trout. The conversation ended with the
statement to me: "The concept of sound, verifiable science that has been
peer-reviewed is a concept that the environmental community will not
support."</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>As a windshield manager, McCarthy looks down on the
Klamath Basin and sees a refuge for wildlife that is freckled with productive
agriculture. His textbook solution to his perceived problem is to end refuge
farming.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>While he tries to camouflage his socialist economic
agenda with a flavor of capitalism, he ignores reality. Crop production in the
Klamath Basin complements wildlife. Elimination of farming on the national
wildlife refuges would do little to bolster our economy, and it would not save
much, if any, water diverted from storage.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>McCarthy is wrong. The Oregon National Resources
Council is wrong. We need irrigated agriculture in our nation and in the Klamath
Basin. Dismantling our infrastructure will harm our society and it will harm
wildlife.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>By staying in Ashland and trying to resolve perceived
and real problems in Klamath Falls, McCarthy has exposed the agenda of ONRC. The
agenda has become a mantra - dismantle productive agrarian communities for the
benefit of society as a whole.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail>I know of one very good example of the result of this
direction. Perhaps McCarthy can spend this coming winter in North Korea. Take a
whole bunch of photos through the windshield (read bars) and offer a policy
analysis to the media in a country that is starving to death.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail><STRONG>William D. Kennedy</STRONG></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=storydetail></SPAN><SPAN class=storydetail><STRONG>Klamath
Falls</STRONG></SPAN></P></SPAN>
<DIV>
<DIV class=storyText id=storyBody
style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: verdana,geneva,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<H3><FONT size=2>From July 27th Edition of the Sacramento Bee:</FONT></H3>
<H3><A
href="http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/letters/story/10150394p-11071178c.html"><FONT
size=2>sacbee.com -- Letters to the editor -- Letters to the editor: Enron and
California</FONT></A></H3>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/letters/story/10150394p-11071178c.html">http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/letters/story/10150394p-11071178c.html</A></FONT></DIV>
<H3>Wildlife vs. potatoes</H3>Re "Water turns to bad blood," July 6:
Conservationists, fishermen and Native American tribes support restoring marsh
on 22,000 commercially farmed acres (known as "the leaselands") on Tule Lake and
Lower Klamath national wildlife refuges to recover critical waterfowl habitat
and help correct the destructive water imbalance in the Klamath Basin. But the
article was mistaken that the proposal would require a purchase of the lands.The
public already owns these lands. Returning them to marsh would only require
changing government policy to recognize that our national wildlife refuges are
for protecting wildlife not raising potatoes.
<P>A leaselands solution would help the Klamath's fish and wildlife by reducing
summertime irrigation water demand while increasing natural water storage. It
would also assist the local agricultural economy by shifting roughly $1.9
million in seasonal farmland rental business from federal government coffers to
local private landowners, and reducing or eliminating the potentially
astronomical costs of annually pumping water from the leaselands area after the
Klamath irrigators' exclusive $10 million electricity subsidy expires in 2006.
<P>
<P align=right><B>- Jim McCarthy, Ashland, Ore.<BR>Policy Analyst, Oregon
Natural Resources Council</B>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></P></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dan Keppen<BR>Executive Director<BR>Klamath Water
Users Association<BR>2455 Patterson Street, Suite #3<BR>Klamath Falls, OR
97603<BR>(541) 883-6100 - Fax (541) 883-8893</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>