Fish, Farmers, and Dried Up Dreams
By Paul Strand, Christian Broadcasting Network, 2001

Loggers and miners have blamed the Endangered Species Act for cutting deeply into their industries. The act demands that saving endangered animals takes precedence over any other consideration, and some feel that humans are on the losing end of the deal.

Now that law may be about to cost more than a thousand farmers their spreads in the Klamath Falls region of Oregon and northern California. Environmentalists say endangered fish there must be saved or the ecosystem could be irreparably hurt.

But a desperate community wonders whether the government should favor fish over farmers.

The bureaucrats who decide which animals should be protected under the Endangered Species Act decided awhile ago that the sucker fish and the coho salmon should be added to the list. Unfortunately, the water that those animals depend on in the Klamath Basin region is about the only water that can be used to irrigate nearly 200,000 acres here.

Since April, most of that water has been cut off from those acres. It pours right through some headgates just below the Upper Klamath Lake.

Without that water, some 1,400 farms that depend on it can grow hardly any crops at all. Without crops, that means nearly certain bankruptcy for those 1,400 farmers.

"This is between a 90 and 99 percent loss," said farmer George Voss, describing the trouble his farm is facing.

Voss and his family are likely to lose the farm they have had since 1932. They are already almost a half-million dollars in debt.

George's mother Phyllis came out west with her father to the Klamath Basin in a wagon when she was just six. "And I got to stand up in the front and hold the horses' reins," Phyllis said.

Phyllis' father served in the U.S. military during World War I. As thanks for their service, the U.S. government offered free farmland to military veterans like Voss, and also a specific pledge in their deeds to always give them water.

Phyllis still has the document that promised water to her family in perpetuity. But this year, federal agents, egged on by environmental groups, decided water levels in Upper Klamath Lake would fall too low to sustain the sucker fish and salmon. So the government broke its promise of guaranteed water to the farmers.

Six months later, this is the result: "And the ground is so dry, it's literally just like a dust bowl," George explained. "You can dig down two feet and it's just dry as a bone."

"I'm devastated. It's ruined the community. It's ruined our life," Phyllis said.

Dick Carleton, another farmer facing ruination, said, "There's a lot of frustration, but the biggest emotion is betrayal."

Carleton used to harvest potatoes in the fall, but now his harvesting equipment lies dormant. "Just sitting. Can't even sell it for scrap iron," he said.

Carleton's field alone would have generated some $30,000, but now it is nothing but worthless weeds. "But we're still paying taxes on this property. We paid our water taxes on this property. The payments go on, but it's not generating any income to offset all those expenses," he said.

The Klamath Basin used to be a vast expanse of lakes and marshland. But in 1905, the government decided to build hundreds of miles of canals and ditches to turn it from wilderness into super-productive farmland.

Carleton's grandfather was one of the first farmers lured by the government's promise of free land and guaranteed water.

Dick's mother Ellen has lived right here on the farm for 60 years. She says the deed from the government was very specific. "On the title to this place there is a contract that we have water on it," she explained.

She had hoped to see it all passed on to a fifth generation of Carletons. Now as it all dries up, she feels "very betrayed and very sad about it all."

Phyllis Voss said, "I was talking the other day to a man whose father also homesteaded here in the same year, and he said if his dad was alive he'd just drop dead again."

And farmers are not the only ones facing bankruptcy. Donnie Boyd, who sells farm equipment, said, "Every single business in Klamath County is effected. Businesses that are directly related to agriculture like my own are off 55 to 65, maybe 70 percent."

Residents fight back with grim humor. Signs like these fill the basin: "Call 911: Some sucker stole my water," "Farmers: the endangered species," and "If Klamath Falls, who is next?"

But the struggle and fears are wearing them down.

Nurse practitioner Michael Sheets says this water crisis is also causing a health crisis. "Our depressed patients have went from one in 15 needing medication to one in three," he said. "We have grown men in the middle of summer with pneumonia. We have children with the nightmares, worrying about where they're going to be living."

Sheets says at first, farmers were just angry and upset, but now it has gotten worse. "You can only be angry so long, and then you become depressed and despondent, and then your body starts to shut down and you get ill. That's the phase we're in now."

Is all this pain really necessary? Environmentalists say the water is dangerously low and the fish must be saved.

"All of creation is important," said Felice Pace who calls himself a Christian environmentalist. "Jesus Christ as the Creator put these fish in this lake for a reason and that they're supposed to be there."

Some in the Klamath basin believe the concern for the fish is just a cover. They suspect environmentalists are using the Endangered Species Act to start depopulating the basin, and maybe much more.

"It's a land grab and a rural cleansing," said Donnie Boyd.

Jeffery Pollock, a conservative Oregonian running for Congress, agreed, "It's not about the fish. The fish is all smoke and mirrors." Pollok says there are liberal forces "that would like to see farmers off their lands, people unable to own property."

Sean Paige of the Competitive Enterprise Institute says that perspective is not uncommon. "If you talk to people in the West, there's a lot of people who believe that there is an active program to depopulate the West," Paige said.

But Felice Pace scoffs at such talk. "This idea of rural cleansing is something that has been created by the anti-environmental movement... big interests... in order to try to discredit the Endangered Species Act."

But as far as Carleton is concerned, "This whole movement is not about a fish or it's not about a farmer. It's about controlling the land and the natural resources in our country."

And some are concerned that a major danger resulting from the Endangered Species Act is whether it is now threatening the actual lives of some members of the HUMAN species.

For instance, four firefighters back in July were cut off by an out-of-control blaze here in the forests of Washington state. The only water that could be reached in time to save them contained fish protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Bureaucrats argued for nine hours about whether to take the water. By the time they finally decided to do it, it was too late. The firefighters were dead.

Sean Paige warns more tragedies are ahead as long as bureaucrats interpret the Endangered Species Act to put animals' interests above humans'.

"I think tragedies are bound to happen. I mean, the federal government's been involved in increasing the amount of sharks off the Atlantic seaboard of the U.S. and you have more attacks. Now they're talking about integrating grizzlies into the Rocky Mountain West. That's been very controversial in Idaho. Wolf packs have been integrated. Those have caused... people haven't been hurt yet, but livestock have been attacked," Paige explained.

Meanwhile, back in the Klamath Basin, the fight goes on.

"We can't support farmers getting all the water and Creation, ya' know whether it's fish, birds, whatever it is, getting none. There has to be a balance," Pace said.

But the farmers call that propaganda. They say the environmentalists' fight to save three kinds of fish has cut off the water to hundreds of other kinds of wildlife who live off the farms and surrounding land, and now they are endangered.

"And all of these have been denied this water to take care of three fish... 435 species," Carleton said.

He showed us two wildlife refuges that have also been cut off for much of the year. "This is dry now...the ground's cracked and everything. Normally the water out here would be this deep. And remember: this is a national wildlife refuge, run by the Fish and Wildlife. And the Fish and Wildlife has shut the water off to this refuge," Carleton said.

A protest camp has now grown up near the headgates. Four times local farmers jumped the fence here and tried to get the water flowing again. Now armed federal agents guard the headgates at all times.

"To me, it's kind of a sad situation when you move armed troops in against God-fearing, tax-paying, hard working citizens of your country. It makes you think of people like Stalin, Hitler, Milosevic, and places like Ruby Ridge and Waco," Carleton said.

This fall, the National Academy of Sciences stepped in to try and defuse the Klamath crisis. It has appointed a well-respected panel of scientists to review the issue from all sides. They will issue their recommendations this January.

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