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<h1 itemprop="headline" id="fullStoryHL" style="box-sizing:
border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; font-weight: 500;
padding-left: 8px;"><font size="3"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Objections to Klamath deal omitted?</span></font></h1>
<p itemprop="alternativeHeadline" class="media-heading"
id="fullStorySub" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px
5px; padding-left: 8px; padding-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 5px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">WaterWatch of Oregon, others want
objections included in formal record</span></p>
<p id="fullStoryByline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin:
0px; padding-left: 8px; font-weight: bold; clear: both;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">By <a
href="http://www.bendbulletin.com/NewsroomStaffList/?person=53"
style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">Andrew
Clevenger</a> / The Bulletin / <a
href="http://www.twitter.com/andclev" style="box-sizing:
border-box; text-decoration: none;">@andclev</a></span></p>
<p id="fullStoryPub" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 20px; padding-left: 8px; font-style: italic; padding-top:
4px;"><time itemprop="datePublished"
datetime="2014-11-27T00:03:33" style="box-sizing: border-box;
-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255,
255, 255, 0);">Published Nov 27, 2014 at 12:03AM</time></p>
<div class="article-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;
padding-right: 20px; padding-left: 10px;"><span
itemprop="articleBody" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“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.”</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">McCarthy said he has been unable
to get any answers from members of the committee staff.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“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.”</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
<p class="Newstext" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px
0px 10px; padding-left: 8px;"><span
style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color:
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>
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</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Sent from my iPhone</span></div>
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