Klamath Falls Herald and News

Letter to the Editor

October 21, 2010

   The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors asserted at its April 1 special meeting that there’s 60,000 acre-feet of water storage behind Iron Gate Dam. So I researched it.

   Klamath County Commissioner John Elliot criticized my character Oct. 17 in the Herald and News by attacking my truthfulness. He demanded I apologize in regards to comments I made in my Oct. 10 letter about the 60,000 acre-feet of water for Shasta Valley farmers.

   Elliot stated in his commentary that, “No entity, including the state of California, was granted this water right.”

   An April 22, 2004, letter to Magalie R. Salas, Secretary Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Water Rights, says: “The State of California holds a second senior water right for 60,000 acre-feet of water stored in Iron Gate Reservoir, for the purposes of irrigation, industrial, domestic, municipal, recreation, and fish and wildlife uses in the Shasta Valley.”

   I see no need to apologize for my research or with sharing it with my neighbors. I honestly research any of my stances and back them up.  

   Elliot should be more worried about section 19.4.5 of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement which gives the Klamath Basin Coordinating Council the power to renegotiate the content of the KBRA if “Substantial effects of climate change are determined by the Klamath Basin Coordinating Council to be manifest or reasonably likely to occur;” (KBRA pages 133-134).

   Environmentalists already claim climate change is occurring. It’s naïve to give them this big of a loophole to make it even worse.

   This is a great concern because if the KBRA is enacted, then the Klamath Basin Coordinating Council’s 18-seat membership will be in control of our water. It’s comprised of a strong majority of groups that advocated the 2001 and 2010 water shortages.

   Brandon Criss

   Butte Valley rancher