Local Newspapers Target KFA
By Felice Pace, Siskiyou Sentinel
March 2002

Anti-Conservation

On February 15th the lead story in the Siskiyou Daily News proclaimed Pace Attacks Conservation. This edition was placed in the mail of every Siskiyou County resident.

Not to be outdone, The Pioneer Press came out on February 20th with the headline: Pace Claims to Represent Family Farmers.This article was strong on attack, opinion, and innuendo, but wrong on the facts.

The Siskiyou County press is at it again. Most people understand these papers have a right-wing agenda. Much of their content is little more than propaganda. However, the constant attacks have an effect over time. Many residents have come to accept this misinformation repeated in our communities by word of mouth as fact.

My objective here is twofold: to give the rest of the story, and to demonstrate how right-wing propagandists ply their trade.

The real issue behind these latest attack stories is the million-plus dollars the Department of Fish & Game plans to give Scott Valley ranchers to build and maintain fish screens. There is nothing wrong with granting money for fish screens, per se. For over ten years, the Klamath Forest Alliance has supported grants to farmers for fish screens. But KFA does not support this grant for several reasons. First, part of the taxpayer funding involved is earmarked for salmon restoration. But fish screens wont help fish if there isnt enough water in the streams. Second, the grant is limited to the area between Fort Jones and Etna. Those who divert in the Scott River Canyon or in Quartz Valley or above Callahan should not be excluded. Third, the current Siskiyou RCD has shown itself unable to manage money properly. The RCD has had repeated financial and administrative management problems in recent years.Fourth, over half the proposed funding comes from the California Wildlife Conservation Board, established by the voters in 1947. These funds are intended for the protection and restoration of wildlife and fish habitat. Fish screens are not habitat. Several of the locations proposed for screening are dewatered for much of the year.

Ranchers in the middle of Scott Valley want these screens because they fear liability for salmon stranded in their fields. If the state wants to give these farmers grants to comply with Fish & Game codes, that money should come from the Agriculture Department, not from funds intended for habitat and fisheries restoration.

Our understanding of restoration has evolved over the years. Where we once targeted money to the most degraded areas, restorationists now know that we must target public funds to the specific factors limiting our fisheries. This is the only way to successfully rebuild fisheries worth billions of dollars to our river and coastal communities. The number one factor limiting salmon recovery in the Scott River watershedand the best target for restoration moneyis over-allocation of water resources.

Over-allocation of water in Scott Valleyas in other parts of the West--results in the dewatering of streams for substantial periods of the year. In the most recent drought, for example, Kidder Creek ran water for less than two months. During much of that time, the six irrigation ditches diverting water from Kidder ran full.

Since completion of the Scott Valley Adjudication in the early 1970s, farmers in Scott Valley have drilled hundreds of irrigation wells, pumping water hydrologically connected to the surface water of rivers and creeks. Meanwhile, they still run ditches. In this way, some irrigators have substantially increased their water use since the 1970s. There have been consequences. As measured at the USGS gauge in the Scott River Canyon, the minimum fish flowsrequired by the adjudication go consistently unmet during late summer and fall. This is the period when salmon need water most.Average late summer and fall flows have dropped consistently since the 1970s.

There are several ways to address this problem. One, suggested by KFA years ago, would establish a local water trust. The trust would use restoration funds to purchase water rights from willing sellers and return this water to streams and the river. By concentrating on stockwater rightswhich run from October until April the trust could help fish while farmers retain the irrigation water they need. In a program suggested by KFA, many Scott Valley farmers have already received again at taxpayer expense alternative stock water systems. These systems make running ditches in the off-irrigation season unnecessary. Unfortunately, those individuals who control the Siskiyou RCD and Scott River Watershed Council oppose such ideas as contrary to their extreme, property-rights-above-all philosophy.

Now lets look at how the Siskiyou Daily News and Pioneer Press spin the facts for their attacks. The letter to Wally Herger was an open letter sent to most of the newspapers in the Northstate. I handed out the e-mail message on the fish screens at a recent meeting of the Scott River Watershed Council. Both actions were open and public. Yet the news articles implied I was trying to hide my actions.

My letter to Wally Herger lambasted him for voting against an increase in the agricultural assistance programs of most benefit to Siskiyou County farmers and ranchers. These programs include the conservation reserve, wetland reserve and similar agricultural conservation programs. A visit the USDA Farm Service Agency in Yreka is all that is required to see how much land in Siskiyou County is enrolled in programs that pay the landowner an annual rent for a number of years. Big agribusiness opposed increasing funding to these programs because the re-allocation would cut into the commodity payments of most benefit to the largest corporate farms. The California Farm Bureau Federation worked hard for the big corporations and against the interests of California family farmers by opposing any shift from commodity payments to conservation payments. Rice and cotton are corporate crops in California, and receive generous crop payments.

The letter to Herger began: On behalf of the members and supporters of the KFA and on behalf of family farmers here in Siskiyou County, throughout your district and around the country... There were no claims of representing family farmers as stated by the Pioneer Press. The rest of the article quotes various leaders of the right-wing faction controlling the RCD. He certainly doesnt represent my point of view, stated George Thackeray. Thackeray was once a dairy farmer, but he is now a politician.

But this is all a smokescreen. What the right-wingers really want to do is defeat the drive by commercial and sport fishermen, lodge owners, river guides, river recreation companies, Native American tribes, conservationists and others to secure a fair share of the water for salmon, steelhead, and restore our rivers. Lifestyles and economies depend on these fish and on healthy rivers and streams.

Most of us learn about sharing in kindergarten. Many of our Valleys right-wing ideologues apparently did not attend. Encouraged by the radical anti-government right-wing, many members of the agricultural community have embraced the fight against the Endangered Species Act. But a small group of irrigators can only stand so long against the legitimate rights of tribes, sport and commercial fishermen, coastal and river communities, and river recreationists.

We should do what is right and just. Its time for everyone to stop name-calling, put extremist views aside, and come together to ensure that all stakeholders in the Klamath Basin get their fair share of the water on which we all depend.

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