Land Rights Group 'Crashes' Meeting
Pioneer Press
July 14, 2000

SOMES BAR - An unexpected attendance at a Klamath Institute meeting Wednesday may have thwarted efforts to establish a pro-active environmental business council that objectors claim would have an anti-business stance on issues.

More than 75 members of People for the USA (PFUSA), made their presence known and voices heard at the meeting.

The PFUSA group effectively volunteered to take over the proposed council by filling eight of the 10 open seats on the board and prompting guest speaker Felice Pace of the Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) to cancel his presentation.

Members of PFUSA traveled from as far away as Yreka and Montague to attend the meeting at Junction Elementary School in Somes Bar, picking up members in Happy Camp and other areas along the way.

Pace, who himself traveled from Etna to deliver a slide show presentation of the Klamath River region, became frustrated by the group's appearance and packed his projector and other materials back into his car, refusing to give his slide presentation.

Speaking outside the school, Pace said he had hoped for a more peaceful meeting to organize a voice for people along the river who are not represented in Yreka.

"I think it's a shame these people wont be allowed to organize a committee like they intended to do," Pace said. "These are honest people who are concerned about the river and want to see it brought back to it's natural, restored state."

According to Pace, the PFUSA members were a group that, "only want to circumvent the efforts of concerned citizens."

Pace said the Klamath Institute conducted a survey of business owners along the river and found a majority of those people expressed serious concerns about the eco-system of the Klamath River and watershed areas of tributaries that feed into the river.

However, many in attendance at the meeting rejected Pace's survey result claims, stating the group only talked with less than 10 percent of all business owners on the river and focused only on those whose opinions closely resembled their own "extreme environmentalist views."

Ric Costales, of Ft. Jones, who is the president for the California region of PFUSA, said he supported Pace when his efforts were toward helping small miners and loggers in the region.

"But now that is not Mr. Pace's goal or agenda," Costales said. "He claims to help or work with people, but he uses lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits to jeopardize the livelihoods of working people in Siskiyou County.

"I am offended when he says he is representing the business owners along the Klamath River," Costales added, "when he doesn't even represent the interests of 10 percent of the people he claims."

According to Costales, Pace and the Klamath Institute are using the results of a fraudulent survey to push an agenda that is destroying Siskiyou County's economy.

The Scott Valley rancher said PFUSA conducted a survey of the same business owners listed in the Klamath Institute survey and found completely different results than those reported by Pace, including a number of business owners who claimed they were fraudulently listed in the survey.

Costales said a number of business owners along the river told the PFUSA surveyors they refused to talk with the Klamath Institute, yet comments attributed to them were found in the survey results issued by the group.

Blythe Reis, of Happy Camp, who organized the meeting to form the Klamath Business Council, admitted to the audience she was unprepared for the number of citizens who showed up.

Reis, who owns a fishing resort along the Klamath River near Happy Camp, said she organized the meeting because she was interested in educating herself and other business owners along the river about environmental concerns in the region.

"It was my hope that we form a coalition of business owners along the Klamath River who want to see the region protected and restored to a natural state," Reis said. "I know that my own business has suffered in the eight years I have owned it because of river conditions which are keeping the fish away."

Reis, who facilitated the flow of the meeting by allowing people in attendance to speak if they chose, found the majority of those in attendance did not share her views on conservation.

Ken Oliver, president of the Happy Camp chapter of PFUSA and life-long Happy Camp resident, said the extremist environmental approach pushed by the Klamath Institute is a wrong one.

"None of us who live here want to see the polluting of the river, or the clear cutting of the mountains so they can be paved over," Oliver said. "We the farmers and ranchers of and residents of Siskiyou County and the Klamath River region are the true conservationists because we respect the resources for our livelihood.

"It would be ridiculous for anyone to pollute or destroy the eco-system of the river when that is how we make our living," he added. "The same is true with the timber industry."

Pace agreed there are a number of farmers and ranchers who are trying to be good stewards of the streams and creeks on their land, but said more needs to be done to preserve the river.

"There are some who are powerful people in this county who don't want to see clean water, or properly manage the watershed areas in our area," Pace alleged. "We are talking about a serious ecological problem here that if it is not addressed and dealt with soon will mean the death of a valuable California river."

Pace cited a recent fish kill in the lower Klamath River of Chinook salmon found dead between June 18 and 24 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as evidence of the serious state of the river.

Warm water was attributed to the cause of the deaths of the salmon, Pace said, as temperatures climbed well above the limits the salmon could withstand.

Pace said decreasing flows of water being released from the Iron Gate Dam, combined with warm temperatures and heavy nutrient loads in the water may have been responsible.

He went on to add that a number of factors are causing problems to the streams and creeks filling into the Klamath region, including high sediment and nutrient load levels from cattle and other commercial animals and warm water temperatures caused by the removal of trees near shores and banks that would normally provide shade for the flowing waters.

However, Marcia Armstrong, of the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau, said the river region is cleaner now than it has ever been in years. The steps proposed by Pace and the Klamath Institute, she said, are designed to eliminate all businesses in the area which make their living by utilizing the vast natural resources of the area.

"At the turn of the century, when miners were building diversions to the river and mining the gold and other precious minerals out of the county's river, they provided much more pollution and worse conditions for fish and other wildlife than currently exist," Armstrong said. "The same is true with timber harvesting in the past. We know now that clear cutting is not good for the forest, but doing nothing, or allowing no cutting at all is also bad for the forest as well."

Armstrong explained that by thinning the forests, loggers are actually helping to prevent the spread of diseases and other ailments affecting the trees, as well as reducing the risk of wildland fires by knocking down brush and other potential fire accelerants.

Pace vowed to return at another time to give his presentation, when those he called "radicals" had left.

The new Klamath River Business Council has not yet set a schedule for meetings.

Some speculate the council may never be formed.

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