A time to choose: collaboration or conflict?

In water struggle, more conflict means more litigation

By JEFF MITCHELL, WILL HATCHER, BUD ULLMAN and LARRY DUNSMOOR

May 31, 2009

Klamath Falls Herald and News

(This is the first of two parts on the Klamath Tribes’ assessment of Klamath Basin water issues.)

It is time to choose between collaboration and conflict in the Klamath Basin. Choosing settlement will direct energy and resources into constructive, collaborative resolution of complex problems.

Rejecting settlement is choosing conflict, and will direct energy and resources into litigation and regulatory action, pathways the Klamath Basin has been experiencing for the past 20-plus years.

Much has been said lately about removing the lower four Klamath River dams and settling parts of the Klamath Basin water adjudication. All of these things and more would be accomplished through Basin-wide settlement agreements. Not surprisingly, strong emotions and opinions about the changes that would come with settlement have been widely expressed.

Also not surprising, but always disheartening, local and national racist elements have been making their presence known. Months ago, locals linked with a national anti-tribal group drove around rural Klamath County placing anti-tribal DVDs in mailboxes. Two weeks ago, elected officials released results of a poll that was blatantly designed to elicit anti-tribal sentiment.

As is always the case, those who push these kinds of views rely on the fact that most people are not well informed on whatever issues are in view. Their task is easy to do here, since the issues surrounding tribal rights, dams, and water are complex. Two good examples are the emotional debates surrounding water rights and dam removal.

Before addressing these issues, however, several facts must be emphasized. The Klamath Tribes have lived here for millennia — this is our home, and we are not going anywhere. We signed a Treaty in 1864, and so did the United States, and this continues to hold both moral and legal significance, which we will not abandon.

We have valid, substantial rights and interests in water, in fisheries and in many other areas. Our commitment to collaborative, settlement-based solutions to complex, divisive issues is real, as we have demonstrated over the past several years of productive negotiations.

The Klamath Tribes hold the most senior water right in the Upper Klamath Basin — time immemorial.

A question asked in the poll was whether respondents thought that “the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement will give the Klamath Tribes too much control over our water. Water rights in the West follow a pretty simple rule — “first in time is first in right.”

Who was using the water in the year 1200? Perhaps you can understand our gut reaction to the question asked by the poll, which clearly states that the water belongs to someone else.

We realize, of course, that nobody knows how much water they have a right to until the ongoing water adjudication has run its course. Those who commissioned the poll know this as well.

After many more years of litigation, the water adjudication will establish how much water each party has a right to, and in what priority order.

Even if the Tribes only partly prevail in the adjudication, there will be significant reductions in the availability of irrigation water. While the ultimate outcome of the water adjudication remains uncertain for all parties, one thing is certain: Enormous amounts of money have been spent in the adjudication by all parties since it began in 1975, and much more will be spent if settlement is not achieved. One of the things this money will buy is continued conflict.

We are working hard to collaboratively settle water rights issues in ways that meet our needs and the needs of others. The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement is a remarkable example of such settlement with the irrigators in the Klamath Project.

We remain committed to seeking similarly remarkable, collaborative outcomes with other Basin interests. We welcome the recent formation of the Upper Klamath Water Users Association because there has for too long been no voice for the rational, reasonable people who we know exist in the area outside of the Klamath Project.

Part 2 will appear in Tuesday’s Herald and News print edition.

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Source: http://www.heraldandnews.com/articles/2009/05/31/

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