Klamath Basin faces hard choices

Capital Press Editorial

It's decision time for irrigators, environmental groups and tribes with a stake in waters of the Klamath Basin.

Years of often stormy talks, many behind closed doors, ended Jan. 7 with the release of two complex documents. Both are "drafts," an invitation by the authors to consider amendments from stakeholders who don't like the fine print, which now carries a lawyer-like precision.

Taken together, the hydroelectric licensing settlement agreement and the optimistic Klamath Basin Restoration agreement have the potential to resolve decades of conflict, some with roots in the early 20th century.

That's when a predecessor to PacifiCorp, the current hydroelectric license holder, built the first dam that closed the upper Klamath Basin to migrating salmon. It's also when the fledging federal Reclamation Service bought up existing irrigation rights and got permission from Oregon and California to regulate surface water through the Klamath Reclamation Project, which today irrigates about 210,000 acres of cropland and pasture. Removal of four hydroelectric dams is at the center of both deals.

There's also a potential to resolve water rights issues for eight contested cases in Oregon.

All of this is prelude to repeating what we said in October when the first draft of the hydroelectric settlement agreement emerged. Give the process time to work. If your group has a stake in the river, its fish, its water, the economy sustained by the massive interstate basin, it's probably much better to sign on and be at the table. The alternative is more legal wrangling and river management by a federal judge living in the San Francisco Bay area.

As is sometimes said when a difficult choice is presented at the ballot box, the best action for the long run is probably to "hold your nose" and say "yes." Then give this process time to work. We urge stakeholders to approve the agreements -- with negotiated amendments if that will help -- and get it done by the end of February. Then Congress can work on its part of the deal with a community of Klamath stakeholders pushing to get the three years of study launched.

That in turn will answer lots of questions and give the opportunity for fine tuning before engineers go to work on what could be a 2020 contract to tear down dams.