At a hearing in Klamath Falls, where irrigation water has been shut off, six congressmen say livelihoods need protection, too

Sunday, June 17, 2001

KLAMATH FALLS -- Western Republicans meeting in a congressional field hearing Saturday put Southern Oregon's drought-parched Klamath Basin at center stage of their drive to reform the federal Endangered Species Act.

Six Republican congressmen, four of them members of the House Resources Committee, hammered environmental groups and federal wildlife agencies for misusing what they call questionable science and the worst drought on record to shut off irrigation water to most of the federal Klamath Project on the Oregon-California line.

They said there is no better example of why the 1973 Endangered Species Act must be reformed so people do not lose to imperiled species, such as the endangered Lost River and shortnose suckers and threatened coho salmon that will get what little water flows through the basin this year.

"Klamath is becoming the clarion cry for what could happen anywhere in the West," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who organized the hearing of the House Resources Committee to examine the dilemma in the basin, where farmers, tribes and wildlife demand more water than exists in a dry year.

Runoff from the mountains ringing the high desert basin is more than two-thirds below normal. Biologists ruled in April that most of the water must stay in Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River to dilute harmful nutrients and sustain protected fish.

No Democrats from the 51-member Resources Committee attended the six-hour hearing, which drew about 1,500 people to a cavernous arena at the Klamath County Fairgrounds. But Walden said he hoped the pain the Klamath Basin is enduring for the sake of the fish will be heard clearly in Washington, D.C. Economic losses are expected to amount to more than $200 million.

"This thing's coming to a head like it's never come to a head before," he said, noting trucks parked nearby that had hauled donated food from Portland, Eugene, Medford and other parts of Oregon for farm families.

"I hope all America gets this: It's time to amend the Endangered Species Act," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. "We can't save every species, and maybe that's the way it should be."

Sue Ellen Wooldridge, deputy chief of staff in the Department of Interior, told congressmen that not all of the studies that led to the cutoff of irrigation water went through a review by independent scientists because the Endangered Species Act does not require it.

She pledged that the Bush administration will undertake such a scientific review, which will offer farmers little relief this year but may boost the credibility of federal actions in the future, she said.

She also acknowledged that the more than 1,000 farmers who depend on the Klamath Project for water are bearing an unfair burden, because the Endangered Species Act holds the federal reclamation project to a higher standard for wildlife protection than other water users.

"This focuses the full burden of the ESA on one group of people, and that's not right," Wooldridge said.

The crowd, many wearing stickers that said "Reform ESA now," cheered calls for revisions in the Endangered Species Act and ridiculed Andy Kerr of the Oregon Natural Resources Council when he advanced a $100 million government buyout of farmers willing to sell their land. Such an approach would open more land to wildlife and reduce the overall demand for water, he said.

Walden said if Congress locates extra money for the Klamath Basin, it will be used to build more reservoirs to store water for drought years, not for buying up farmland in the 200,000-acre Klamath Project. He said the proposal by environmental groups to buy out farmers whose fields are drying up would be like "someone offering to sell you air when their hands are around your neck, choking you to death."

The Bush administration has proposed $20 million in relief for the Klamath Basin in the current budget. The full House is expected to vote on the appropriation next week.

Allen Foreman, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, told the congressmen that even if Congress were to revise the Endangered Species Act, the government must still uphold its treaty obligations to Native Americans