One of the great objectives of conservation is to restore a more natural condition to our environment, to erase the ravages of mankind’s mistakes, and put things back the way they were. I am a strong advocate for environmental restoration, and am proud of my participation in many such efforts over the years.
Once in a while, especially in debates about “restoring” healthy forests and watersheds, someone asks – properly so – exactly what “state of nature” we are trying to restore.
That is precisely the question facing the beleaguered farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon and northern California. For over 20 years, they have been fighting for their survival against federal agencies determined to “save” endangered Coho salmon and lost river suckers, at the expense of farms, ranches, and communities.
The Bureau of Reclamation controls operations of the Klamath Project, dating from 1906, which supplies water for irrigation and power generation. That includes the Link River and Keno Dams, and a couple major canals, built in 1921 by the California Oregon Power Company (PacifiCorp). Water stored in Agency Lake, Upper Klamath Lake, and Lake Ewauna, have enabled the evolution of a massive agricultural economy, and a world-class salmon fishery.
When the Coho salmon were added to the endangered species list, those in the Klamath River Basin became federal protected. Naturally, the first instinct of conservationists was to focus on increasing water flows in the river, seeking to recreate the state of nature. That meant cutting back – drastically – on water available for irrigation.
The law requires the Bureau to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to determine how to manage dams, canals, and other facilities, to avoid further damage to the endangered fish. In this case, USFWS issued a “biological opinion” requiring substantially more water to be left in the river. This triggered a crisis for agriculture in 2001 because of the extreme drought that year, the worst in a century. So for the first time, priorities had to be determined, and the Bureau chose salmon. Many farms and ranches dried up, and many farm families did not survive. Five years later the 50-year contract between the Bureau and PacifiCorp expired, and to get continued permission to operate, PacifiCorp drastically reduced hydroelectric power generation at Link River Dam, increasing river flows for fish.
The drought has returned, this year even worse than 2001, and the Bureau is about to take the same action again, drying up agriculture because fish hold the higher priority. The agency announced that it will provide roughly 140,000 acre-feet of irrigation water in 2020 – one third of the historical demand for Klamath Project water, needed to irrigate 230,000 acres on 1,200 farms. Legal challenges are already underway.
This time, there are 20 years of history to examine, with a crucial question: Has the Bureau’s insistence on higher lake levels and increased river flows helped the fish? Not even a little.
As local farmer Ben Duvall wrote for the Salem Capitol Press last week, “Unfortunately, for the past 20 years, agency-imposed higher and higher Upper Klamath Lake levels have contributed to a whopping zero percent survivability. You read that right. Not 0.01 percent or 0.001 percent. ZERO. Does it seem rational to continue to ruin the economic base of the Klamath Basin in order to save zero fish?”
Reasonable people may disagree about the relative value of fish vs. agriculture. But even those who insist on returning the Klamath River to its “natural flow” should spend a little time studying what that was. Before the Klamath Project, much of today’s highly productive farmland was a mostly flooded marsh. Over 80,000 acres were reclaimed, and are now farmed. In its “natural state,” Duvall’s farm was under water, but now he will not be able to get enough to irrigate a crop.
More to the point, many western rivers flowed heavily in the spring but dried up late in the year. The government’s 2020 plan will send 150,000 acre feet of water down the Klamath River – which nature would never have provided. That water is available only because of reservoirs that were built to store irrigation water.
Thus, the USFWS’s ruling wasn’t really a “biological opinion.” It was a political one. One which led to 20 years of bad decisions based on faulty assumptions about “nature.” Yet at the expense of devastating hundreds of long-term farm families, and the economy of those communities, the government continues trying to “restore” an environment that never existed.
This column originally appeared in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel May 29, 2020.
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