news story / By Japhet Weeks

The Klamath knot:

Will frustrated enviros, Dick Cheney jam the settlement?

(July 12, 2007)  This summer is already proving to be another difficult one in the Klamath Basin, both on and off the river. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently issued a warning about dangerously high levels of toxic algae blooming on the Klamath River in Iron Gate and Copco reservoirs. And the Klamath Fish Health Assessment Team — made up of biologists with state and federal agencies and Native American tribes, among others — have increased the fish die-off readiness level from green to yellow, meaning that the fall Chinook and coho runs could be in danger this year.

Meanwhile on land, 28 disparate stakeholders including the states of California and Oregon, U.S. water and wildlife agencies, fishermen, Native American tribes, farmers and environmental groups have been negotiating a settlement behind closed doors for over two years about how to share water in the Klamath Basin, and what to do about PacifiCorp’s hydropower dams there. As their negotiations proceed, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is working in parallel to complete its final environmental impact statement, which will determine whether or not to relicense PacifCorp’s Klamath dams. The group of stakeholders is trying to balance the protection of imperiled fish species — including salmon, two types of sucker fish and the bull trout — along with national wildlife refuges and the interests of farmers who depend on river water for their livelihood. The task doesn’t just sound Sisyphean. It is.

Klamath River. Photo courtesy of Jim Simondet, NOAA Fisheries.

GALLERY >

“If it were easy, it wouldn’t be hard,” said Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents irrigation districts in the upper basin.

Unfortunately for the stakeholders, things don’t look like they’re going to get easier any time soon. Two out of the 28 groups are no longer at the table — Oregon-based non-profits Oregon Wild and WaterWatch of Oregon, which were pushing for the complete phasing out of commercial farming on the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath national wildlife refuges. These groups came to loggerheads with other stakeholders, and, according to representatives, ended up being excluded from negotiations, which have moved forward without them.

“It’s because they weren’t looking for a solution … Their agenda is to have agriculture out of the upper basin,” said Addington.

Steve Pedery, conservation director of Oregon Wild, sees it differently. In a July 5 op-ed in the Eugene Register-Guard, he wrote that the Bush administration and its agribusiness allies “hijacked closed-door talks over the removal of four Klamath River dams, demanding that conservation groups, tribes and fishermen support permanent commercial agricultural development on the Klamath’s spectacular national wildlife.”

Reached by telephone while on a canoe trip on the Williamson River, which flows into Upper Klamath Lake, Pedery explained that last summer he thought things were “fairly positive” as a result of “traction” gained in the talks. But then the federal government put a “settlement framework” on the table, which stipulated “permanent refuges for agribusiness” in exchange for dam removal. That’s when Oregon Wild was told “to sign or else.” When they and WaterWatch refused to do so, they say, the negotiating committee was simply dissolved and subsequently reorganized without them.

“Compromise isn’t ‘Four groups get in a room, two make a deal and force it on the others,’” Pedery said about his experience at the negotiations after the framework was introduced. Nonetheless, he said Oregon Wild continues to be involved in the process through sister groups and allies in the tribes.

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