<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Add to the mix the controversy from Central Valley Project water and power customers over releasing additional Trinity Reservoir water to prevent another big fish kill on the lower Klamath this year.</div><div><br></div><div>The drama continues to unfold as the summer bakes on...</div><div><br></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div><div>Tom Stokely<br>Water Policy Analyst/Media Contact<br>California Water Impact Network<br>V/FAX 530-926-9727<br>Cell 530-524-0315<br><a href="mailto:tstokely@att.net">tstokely@att.net</a><br>http://www.c-win.org</div></div><div><br></div></span></div></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/07/water_squeeze_in_oregons_klama.html#incart_river">http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/07/water_squeeze_in_oregons_klama.html#incart_river</a> </div><div><h1 class="entry-title" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 18px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; ">Water squeeze in Oregon's Klamath Basin pits ranchers against tribes, both with strong ties to the land</h1><div class="clearfix" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 22px; "></div><div id="article_container" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 22px; "><div id="multimedia_main_gallery" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; 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padding-left: 0px; "><div id="preloadGallery" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Loading Photo Gallery</div></div></div></div></div><div id="Byline" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Scott Learn, The Oregonian </strong>By <span class="author vcard" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Scott Learn, The Oregonian </strong></span><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Email the author</strong> | <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Follow on Twitter</strong> <br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">on July 06, 2013 at 12:00 PM, updated <span class="updated" title="2013-07-08T13:30:44Z" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">July 08, 2013 at 6:30 AM</span><div id="sponsor_tablet" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="sub-sponsor" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div></div></div><div id="social_top" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div><div id="story-package" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="adunit nomobilead" id="StoryAd" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div></div><div class="entry-content" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">SPRAGUE RIVER -- A summer evening on Jim and Caren Goold's front porch. The river meanders through their cow pasture, a curly blue ribbon framed by foothills dotted with ponderosa pine. And, yes, the cattle are lowing.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">It's about as pastoral as a scene gets. But the upper Klamath Basin, already three months into a drought emergency, is far from peaceful this summer.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Two parties with strong ties to the land, the upper basin ranchers and The Klamath Tribes, are pitted against each other for limited water, the latest skirmish in one of the nation's most persistent water wars. And deep historical divisions stand in the way of compromise.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">In late June, a state watermaster handed Jim Goold a yellow card ordering him to shut off irrigation for the first time in his 40 years on the 617-acre ranch.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"It's beyond frustrating," Caren Goold says. "We have all this wonderful water going by and we can't touch any of it."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">The Goolds worry they'll lose pasture for 300-plus cows, their income and their ranch, where Jim's parents are buried out back. They see a future land grab through the <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Bureau of Indian Affairs</strong>, with land values falling as irrigation water evaporates.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Here's where history's twists come in. Much of the upper basin, including the Goolds' ranch, was once <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">The Klamath Tribes</strong>' reservation land. The federal government "terminated" the tribes in 1954, a move that included cash payouts, but is widely seen as a tribal disaster.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">This year, fortunes sharply changed. The state of Oregon ruled that the tribes' "time immemorial" water rights on the former reservation remain intact, giving the tribes a firm upper hand. Last month,<strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "> tribal leaders called their water rights</strong> to sustain their hunting and fishing grounds, triggering the shutoffs.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Twenty miles down Sprague River Road, at the tribes' offices in Chiloquin, Perry Chocktoot talks about his own attachment to the land, too. He grew up hunting and fishing here. His grandmother taught him how to smoke and can fish --110 minutes, 15 pounds of pressure.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Chocktoot, the tribes' cultural and heritage director, says court cases and water rights decisions should have warned the ranchers what was coming. But too many of them view Indians as "drunken idiots," he says. "And, guess what, we're not."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"We're here by the gift of our creator to help the community," he says. "That mindset has never been reciprocal. They had a chance to effectively work with the tribes, but they said not just no, but hell no."</div><div align="center" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Dry times </b><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Absent a judicial reprieve or a settlement, the water rights decision means irrigation with river water will be shut off to hundreds of ranchers this summer, shriveling pasture for 70,000 to 100,000 cattle. <div id="asset-13047036" class="entry_widget_large entry_widget_left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; width: 380px !important; float: left; "><span class="adv-photo-large" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: block; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241); height: 39px; max-width: 380px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><img class="lazy" data-original="http://media.oregonlive.com/environment_impact/photo/13047036-large.jpg" alt="GS.10025953A_GR.KLAMATHFALLS-02.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; max-width: 380px; display: block; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; " id="ceed8efb-d342-4313-9830-b6700380b640" height="1" width="1" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:BDB42823-99E3-44BE-9344-F172B53DD19D@att.net"><span class="photo-data" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 5px; display: block; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-bottom-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-left-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; font-size: 10px; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">View full size</strong><span class="caption" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 3px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; display: block; text-align: left; line-height: 1.25em; "></span><span class="byline" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: block; width: 220px; float: right; text-align: right; line-height: 1.35em; "></span></span></span><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div>So far, state watermasters have shut off water to roughly 300 irrigators on the Sprague and Williamson rivers, with more tributaries of Upper Klamath Lake still to be evaluated.<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">It's an echo of Klamath water fiasco a decade ago.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">In 2001, the U.S. government cut off water to irrigators who tap Upper Klamath Lake as part of the <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">century-old federal reclamation project</strong>. The shutoff stemmed from <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Endangered Species Act</strong> listings of coho salmon and two species of suckers and strict ESA requirements on federal projects.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">The next year, with intervention from Dick Cheney, the farmers got water instead, and 30,000 chinook salmon died in the lower Klamath River.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">That crisis pushed project farmers to negotiate with the tribes, federal and state governments and others to share water and restore riverside habitat. The 2008 <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement</strong> was coupled with a plan to remove four <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">PacifiCorp</strong> dams on the Klamath River by 2020, which would be the largest dam removal in U.S. history.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">But this year is different. Cattle ranchers above the lake, outside the reclamation project, were free to irrigate despite the ESA listings -- until this year's water rights decision.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Many of the ranchers are still fighting, in court and on the streets. On Monday, they rallied in Klamath Falls, driving cattle trucks down Main Street.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">They also have challenged the water rights decisions in Klamath County circuit court, asking for a stay this summer. They say the state gave the tribes more water than they need to support hunting and fishing habitat.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">The tribes' water calls would reduce irrigation even in normal water years, the ranchers argue. State officials figure tribal rights fall well below normal streamflows, but the ranchers think the state's flow estimates are too high.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Roger Nicholson, who leads two ranching groups, raises cattle on 3,000 acres near Fort Klamath. Some of that land came from tribal members, he says, but most has been in his family since the 1890s.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">The tribes' water calls affect his draw even on streams outside the former reservation, he says, since those flows are needed to meet the water rights the tribes won downstream.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">The water rights decisions were "a travesty of justice," Nicholson says, and the shutoffs are "an economic catastrophe beyond compare." Affected ranches cover more than 100,000 acres, ranching groups estimate.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"It's bankrupting a whole community," Nicholson says.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Some ranchers can draw on wells this summer to water pasture, and the state is allowing withdrawals for cattle drinking water. But most will have to sell cattle, buy hay to feed them or try to move them to greener lands.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">None of those options look good. Selling cattle early usually brings low prices. Hay prices are already spiking. And the rest of the West is dry, too, particularly California, limiting spots to move the cows.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Ken Willard, a rancher along the Sprague River, normally runs 500 head of cattle on his ranch. He chopped down to 120 in anticipation of the shutoff, and figures he has enough hay to feed them for just another month.</div><div class="m-factbox" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-right: 0pt; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 15px; padding-top: 12px; padding-right: 12px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 12px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-right-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-bottom-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-left-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); border-top-width: 4px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11.8px; line-height: 16px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); width: 120px; float: right; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241); "><div class="m-factboxhed" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); ">See related story</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Key wildlife refuge in Klamath Basin hit hard by water shortage</strong><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div></div>Willard wants Klamath County commissioners to allow ranchers to sell off in 10-acre lots. Then, he says, he and his wife could build their dream house and retire.<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Willard is upset at the tribes. He thought they would support ranchers' water draws as long as they gave them access to the land to fish and hunt. Ranchers have also made conservation upgrades, he says, swapping enclosed pipes for open ditches, restoring streamsides and building fences to bar cattle from streams.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"I just think the tribe is set on wanting everything," he says.</div><div align="center" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Ties to the land </b><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">The tribal timeline starts more than 10,000 years ago, but modern conversations turn to two key years: 1864, when a treaty carved a 2-million-acre reservation out of 22 million acres of the tribes' ancestral homelands; and 1954, when the Termination Act eliminated it.<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">The act paid 1,659 tribal members $43,000 each for relinquishing their tribal membership, funding the payments with reservation land sales. For others, it put land in a trust, with much of the acreage later sold off to non-natives.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">For some ranchers, that's a grievance: The tribes were compensated for the land, but still hold the water rights attached to it.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Tribal members don't see it that way.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"My granddad equated it to scratching a penny with a pocketknife," says Chocktoot. "That scratch you get off the penny, that's what you were given for your life, your culture."</div><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; "> </p><div class="embeddedMedia entry_widget_large entry_widget_left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; width: 380px !important; float: left; "><div class="mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-photo" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="adv-video_smrt" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="vidContainer" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div id="BCLcontainingBlock" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="BCLvideoWrapper" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><object class="BrightcoveExperience" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></object></div></div></div><span class="video-data" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 5px; display: block; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-bottom-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-left-color: rgb(213, 213, 213); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; font-size: 10px; "><span class="title" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.55em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: block; width: auto; line-height: 1.35em; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Klamath Tribes and cattle ranchers in water standoff</strong></span><span class="caption" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 3px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 3px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; display: block; text-align: left; line-height: 1.25em; ">Dry-year water shortages are chronic in southern Oregon's Klamath Basin, but this year the geography is different. Cattle ranchers in the basin's northern reaches are facing water cutoffs for the first time this summer after The Klamath Tribes exercised their newly affirmed water rights to protect fish in rivers feeding Upper Klamath Lake.</span></span></div></div></div>Some 800,000 acres of income-generating Ponderosa pine on the former reservation eventually shifted into the <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Fremont-Winema National Forest</strong>. Unemployment and alcoholism rose. Tribal members died at an increasingly young age.<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; "></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">By 1976, a report to the American Indian Policy Review Commission noted that few tribal members owned land or were economically independent: "In general the Klamaths lost their land and have nothing to show for that loss," it concluded.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Some tribal members stayed on as ranchers -- and are also being affected by the shutoff this summer. But most didn't, says Jeff Mitchell, lead negotiator for the tribes.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"I know who's sitting on my family ranches," he says. "There's not a family in this tribe that can't look out and see a piece of land that was in their family some time before."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">No trespassing signs went up, limiting hunting and fishing access, Mitchell says. Dams on the Klamath River eliminated salmon from the upper basin.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Two species of sucker fish, long a tribal staple, declined sharply. By 1986, tribal members stopped catching them, a stinging blow for a longtime fish people. Congress reinstated the tribes that same year.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Mitchell said the long-term goals are to work with willing sellers to create a "sustainable reservation" and to see salmon return to the upper basin.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Short-term, the tribes want more water-quality upgrades from ranchers. They also want support for the Klamath Basin Restoration Act, held up in Congress by a 15-year, $500 million federal price tag.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Millions would go to habitat restoration, including improvements to bolster fish. Another $21 million would allow the tribes to acquire a 90,000-acre timber tract on former reservation land.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"We're going to strike a deal that favors them and us," Chocktoot says. "We've never drawn a line in the sand."</div><div align="center" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Negotiations underway <br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></b></div><br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Negotiations are underway, with strong prodding from U.S. Sen. <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Ron Wyden</strong>, D-Oregon, who says the restoration agreement needs to include more cattle ranchers and less local opposition to have a political prayer in Congress.<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Nicholson and like-minded ranching leaders say they're open to a deal. But they've long been skeptical of the 2008 restoration agreement.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">In an opinion piece for the Klamath Falls <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Herald and News</strong> in 2009, Nicholson and another rancher said the restoration agreement, which called for water use reductions but didn't guarantee water for ranchers, amounted to "cultural genocide."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Removing hydroelectric dams in favor of fish has also proved controversial with conservative Klamath County commissioners and U.S. House Republicans. If Congress doesn't authorize dam removal, the restoration agreement goes away.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Rancher Bob Sanders signed on with a smaller group, the Upper Klamath Water Users Association. It has worked with the tribes and supported the restoration agreement, which included provisions to negotiate water sharing with tribes. The ranchers could have had that negotiation sealed by now if more had signed on, he says.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"I've made enemies," Sanders says, "because I do believe the tribes met with us in good faith and worked harder to make it better." Going forward, he says, "it could get nasty, because so many people are convinced the tribes should get nothing."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Outside water lawyers say the court is unlikely to overturn the tribes' water rights. But the ranchers fighting in court think they have a good shot at winning a water rights stay this summer and eventually knocking down the amount of water the tribes get.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">Jim and Caren Goold just want a resolution, soon. Jim Goold's grandmother taught him how to ranch, starting with sheering sheep when he was a high school sophomore. He's 78 now.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">"For me to have to be someplace where I don't have horses and cattle and my working dogs," he says, "you'd just as well shoot me."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; ">-- Scott Learn</div></div></div></div><br><br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div><div>Tom Stokely<br>Water Policy Analyst/Media Contact<br>California Water Impact Network<br>V/FAX 530-926-9727<br>Cell 530-524-0315<br><a href="mailto:tstokely@att.net">tstokely@att.net</a><br>http://www.c-win.org</div></div></span>
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