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<H1>Discord threatens Klamath River water talks</H1>
<H2>Klamath: Refuge farms 'a deal-killer'</H2>
<H3>By David Whitney - McClatchy Washington Bureau</H3>
<P>Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, August 12, 2007</P>
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<P>Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., second from left, testifies July 31 before the
House Natural Resources Committee. Listening are, from left, California Reps.
Mike Thompson, John Doolittle and Wally Herger. <SPAN>McClatchy Tribune/Chuck
Kennedy</SPAN></P></DIV>
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<P>WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON -- When the House Natural Resources Committee met in
July to discuss whether Vice President Dick Cheney had improperly interfered in
the battle over Klamath River water, Republicans complained that the hearing
could derail negotiations to settle the heated farming vs. fish fight.</P>
<P>"Let's do what's best for the fish, farmers, the tribes and the fishermen,"
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., pleaded, with fellow GOP Reps. John Doolittle of
Roseville and Wally Herger of Marysville sitting in solidarity with him at the
witness table. "Let's encourage them to find common ground, not rub salt in old
wounds when they are so close to an historic agreement of enormous
significance."</P>
<P>But as the projected November deadline for a deal moves steadily nearer,
environmental and Indian tribal leaders are raising concerns that the pact that
everyone so desperately wants is in danger of slipping away because of what they
see as political manipulation.
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<P>"Whatever comes out of these negotiations has to have a scientific basis,
rather than a political basis," said Clifford Lyle Marshall, Hoopa Valley Tribe
chairman. "There were political strings being pulled before the negotiations
started -- and they are still in play."</P>
<P>Critics warn that the evolving 60-year agreement is being shaped by Bush
administration officials and is looking more and more like a $250 million-plus
gift to irrigators, assuring them of ample water and subsidized power to pump it
in exchange for a huge but possibly elusive environmental victory -- knocking
down four dams on the river.</P>
<P>The hydroelectric dams are owned by Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp, which is
no longer involved in the talks.</P>
<P>"PacifiCorp hasn't committed to anything," said Steve Pedery, spokesman and
conservation director for Oregon Wild, an environmental group now excluded from
the talks because it wouldn't sign on to a binding 23-page "settlement
framework" in January.</P>
<P>"The framework is what we had to agree to in order to get a seat at the table
with PacifiCorp," Pedery said.</P>
<P>Greg Addington, director of the Klamath Water Users Association and a strong
advocate of a negotiated settlement, said he was disappointed that critics are
beginning to go public before a deal is done. "I'd hope that we could work these
things out amongst ourselves and not in the media," he said. But he added that
even among irrigators there are "big concerns," despite assurances of water and
subsidized power.</P>
<P>"The certainty to irrigators is a value to us," he said. "But it comes at a
cost to us. It is not all roses for us. The settlement, if implemented as it is
today, will be painful for us."</P>
<P>Alex Pitts, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official, declined comment,
other than to say the talks are not being directed by the administration.</P>
<P>Some 26 groups are involved in the secret talks, including representatives of
state and federal agencies, local governments, Indian tribes, environmental
groups, irrigators and fishing organizations. Participants have signed
confidentiality pledges.</P>
<P>The fight over Klamath water is a textbook example of a conflict so complex
and long-standing that the best promise for success is a negotiated
settlement.</P>
<P>Farmers rely on the same water for irrigation that fishermen and Indian
tribes need for the health of fish, and in many years there is too little of
it.</P>
<P>Complicating the tensions are federal laws protecting endangered fish and
nearly a century of federal policies that drained once-rich wetlands for
migratory birds and converted them into irrigation-dependent farmland for
homesteaders.</P>
<P>The problems came to a head in 2001 when outraged farmers had their water
supply turned off during a prolonged drought to save water for salmon runs.</P>
<P>The tables turned in 2002 when water was restored to farmers while reduced
downriver flows of sun-heated water created ideal conditions for the spread of a
pathogen that killed an estimated 70,000 salmon.</P>
<P>That massive die-off, the worst in U.S. history, led to a fishery disaster in
2005 and 2006 as commercial fleets along 700 miles of the Pacific Coast were
idled to protect the diminished Klamath River run.</P>
<P>Settlement talks began in 2005, about the time PacifiCorp applied to
relicense its dams for up to 50 years. Environmentalists want the dams removed
to reopen the upper Klamath to salmon.</P>
<P>Several participants said hopes for a balanced agreement began to fade last
fall and accelerated with the settlement group's release of the January
framework. Among its many principles, the details of which are now being
negotiated, is a pledge to increase minimum water supplies for irrigators, and
protect farming operations on the 39,000-acre Tule Lake National Wildlife
Refuge, where costly pumping drains rich lake-bottom lands for farming.</P>
<P>Environmentalists long have opposed refuge farming, saying places like Tule
Lake should be allowed to return to their natural wetlands state. "This was a
deal-killer for us," said Pedery of Oregon Wild. "This is an effort by the Bush
administration to lock in agriculture in the refuge."</P>
<P>Felice Pace of the Klamath Forest Alliance said the deal is looking more and
more like a bargain with the devil -- the promise of dam removals in exchange
for binding water rights for farmers. Also troubling is the decision to
virtually exclude California's Scott and Shasta rivers from the talks even
though irrigation demands on them affect 35 percent of the water flowing down
the Klamath River, Pace said.</P>
<P>"When and if this settlement happens, the governors of Oregon and California
will be there to declare the water wars are over and the Klamath is fixed," Pace
said. "But what commitments are the states making? I'll be there to protest if
the Scott and Shasta rivers are on their current trajectory with no commitments
to stop their dewatering."</P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>