Let's Get Real in the Klamath River Basin
By Felice Pace, Oregonian Editorial
June 25, 2001

Resource economists at Oregon State have responded with professional estimates suggesting that agriculture is worth only about $30 million per year. The local newspaper, however, mistakenly reported the economists as stating that agriculture accounts for 35% of Klamath County income and 58% of Siskiyou County income. They really said 3.5% and 5.8%. Reporters also dutifully describe the sugar beet and potato crops grown but fail to mention that prices and demand for these crops has plummeted as a result of NAFTA-generated competition. Local officials even deliberately overstated what was planted this year in official reports required to secure disaster assistance.

It is time to get real folks. If we are going to "balance the waters" and heal our communities we have to begin by acknowledging and understanding where we have been. We need to acknowledge that government and private water and land development in the Klamath Basin has caused a massive transfer of income from those whose livelihood and culture depend on fish -- First Americans, fishermen, coastal and river communities -- to those whose livelihood and culture depend on irrigated crops and logs to lumber mills. Furthermore, contrary to the claims of irrigators, this income transfer did not all take place 90 or so years ago. In fact, in the late-1970s Upper Basin irrigation districts invested in tile drains and the Bureau of Reclamation doubled the size of the Klamath Straits, increasing water demand and resulting in a dramatic decrease in water quality on Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges and in the Klamath River.

The dominant patterns of far production have changed too. The Klamath Reclamation Project was created on the Jeffersonian model and favored small family farms. Beginning in the early 1980s, however, many family farmers stopped farming and began leasing their land to neighbors. In the Tulelake Area today, a handful of farmers operate on thousands of acres of leased land as well as their own families' parcels. It is estimated that 30% of project irrigated farmland is now leased to a handful of growers. Additionally, the Enterprise Irrigation District now supplies more backyards and schools than farms as steady health and financial service growth has spurred the unchecked advance of Klamath Falls onto prime agricultural land.

Judging from Saturday's congressional hearing in Klamath Falls, there is no shortage of politicians prepared to demagog this issue for their own political ends, as well as a host of true believers eager to cheer them on. Politicians and right-wing radicals, however, can't change the legal reality of tribal water rights nor the challenges facing farmers in a global marketplace.

Whether or not the Bush Administration decides to make the Klamath Basin a poster child for its dislike of the Endangered Species Act, the reallocation of water among upland, river canyon and coastal communities will continue. There is an alternative to doing this in conflict. Finding that path, however, will depend on appointed officials foregoing the temptation to paper over needed changes and elected representatives rising above the expediencies of electioneering. It will also depend on all sides rejecting economic myths in favor of an honest reading of history.

We all need to get real!

Felice Pace is conservation director for the Klamath Forest Alliance and can be reached at Klamath Forest Alliance P.O. Box 820 Etna, CA 96027; phone 1-530-467-5291.

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