Capital Press: Klamath solutions in view

Two veterans of Klamath River restoration work over the past decade, Petey Brucker of Salmon River, Calif., and Alice Kilham, a Klamath Falls, Ore., businesswoman and chairman of the Klamath River Compact Commission, share stories during a break in the stakeholder’s conference at Redding, Calif.

Klamath solutions in view

Government actions, meetings address salmon and hydroelectric issues

Tam Moore
Capital Press Staff Writer

November 10, 2006

REDDING, Calif. - Rancher Gareth Plank stepped to the microphone as the opening session of the Klamath stakeholders conference ended on Nov. 7 .

"I have hope," Plank said. "We will rebuild the Klamath Basin, restore it for our children."

Plank, from Etna, Calif., wasn't alone among the 250 farmers, fishermen, activists and agency people who took three days this week to push for resolve of decades-old - and some century-old - issues that blew up in 2001 and for the past five years remained elusive.

One by one, speakers pointed to a concentration of government actions that promise resolution of water-related issues in the 10 million-acre basin shared by California and Oregon. It was drought in 2001 that brought a cutoff of water to an estimated 1,100 farms in the federal Klamath Reclamation Project, and it was low flows the next September that triggered a massive disease outbreak killing more than 34,000 salmon returning to the Klamath.

Both events triggered national publicity that got sidetracked in reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States and the U.S. decision to attack Iraq. But away from the glare of national publicity, government is paying attention to basin issues.

Next week, starting Nov. 14 in Klamath Falls, Ore., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission holds public hearings on a draft environmental impact statement for PacifiCorp's Klamath Hydroelectric Project. Fish passage has been blocked 180 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean since the first hydroelectric dam was built in 1917-18.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will hold a final work session Dec. 6 in Medford, Ore., on what it calls the Conservation Implementation Plan for basinwide restoration. Chris Karas, the Klamath assistant manager for Reclamation, announced this week that $2 million is earmarked for CIP implementation in the current federal fiscal year.

Also in December, the governors of Oregon and California and a couple of federal Cabinet secretaries are setting up a Klamath summit.

This week's stakeholders conference produced a list of projects and priorities for both the December meetings.

"I honestly believe we can improve the health of our most precious resource. … Let us celebrate our water," said Alice Kilham, the Klamath Falls businesswoman who has been chairman of the bi-state Klamath River Compact Commission for the past 10 years.

Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, was upbeat as he spoke on the opening day of the conference.

"This gives me lots of optimism, all these things coming together," he said after listing recent developments.

Grader's association has frequently sued federal agencies over Klamath management, and reworking of Endangered Species Protection for Klamath coho salmon is expected in 2008 as a result of a PCFFA lawsuit. He noted that a basinwide restoration plan, written in the 1990s for the federal Klamath Fisheries Task Force, can become a road map.

"We have something good to work from," Grader said.

But not everyone was happy with the past five years. "I see sort of a lack of process and progress," said Richard Raymond, a watershed consultant from Corvallis, Ore., who has worked for PacifiCorp. His current client is a watershed council in the upper basin's Sprague River.

After his previous experience, Raymond contrasted work with the Sprague River ranchers.

"I see a lot of people getting together and hammering out these issues," Raymond told one of 15 small discussion groups that served as sounding boards during the conference.

Tam Moore is based in Medford, Ore. His e-mail address is tmoore@capitalpress.com.