Water Warriors
By Audrey Hudson, Washington Times
January 15, 2002

Racism and a lack of leadership are preventing the resolution of a Western water war, according to a draft report by Oregon State University and the University of California. The report, which has outraged many California and Oregon residents, was initiated after the federal government cut off irrigation water to hundreds of farmers in the Klamath Valley to protect the endangered sucker fish and coho salmon (see, "Federal Fish Rules Hook Other Fauna," Oct. 1, 2001).

The Klamath Indian tribes view the fish as sacred gifts and banded with environmental groups to turn off the spigots. Angry farmers reacted to the water shutoff last summer by forcing open the canal system on several occasions. Federal marshals were called in to guard the headgates. Crops and livestock were lost and many farms went bankrupt.

The report, under review, described an atmosphere of "farmers vs. Indians" and noted that a strain of racism is running "quietly beneath the surface." Tribal members have reported being shunned or "treated badly" and say fund raising for Indian events has dropped dramatically.

Critics of the report claim racism is not a factor. "A lot of farmers are upset that this is how this is being characterized, but it's not race — it's a simple matter of having no water and seeing the family farms slip away from them," says Dan Keppen, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association. According to Keppen, the racism hype is seeded in one event that occurred Dec. 1, 2001, when three men drove through Chiloquin, Ore., home of the Klamath tribes offices, firing shotguns at street signs and yelling "sucker lovers."

The water shutoff cost more than 2,000 jobs, about 3.5 percent of the area's total employment. The Oregonian has reported that farms lost about $71 million in revenue without the water, and the loss to the regional economy totaled about $134 million, about 3.2 percent of the total.

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton allowed a limited water release earlier this summer, but the farmers quickly exhausted the short supply in replenishing scorched fields and pastures. Environmentalists filed a lawsuit to block the limited supply from going to farmers at all and said the water should instead travel downstream to a wildlife refuge containing endangered birds. Some have called for the state or federal government to purchase the affected farmland and retire it from agriculture. But farmers say the solution has to be more flexible and revisions in the Endangered Species Act considered.

Congress established the water project to reclaim desert land by constructing federal irrigation projects and reservoirs so the land could be converted to agricultural use and made available to homesteaders. The government gave preferential treatment to veterans, and the area was settled primarily by veterans.

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