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Book looks at Basin
water issues
Book signing, program for
‘Water War’ is on Thursday
Tarlock
Doremus
Holly Doremus is an environmental lawyer who admits that most of the legal briefs she writes for law journals are tough reading.
She hopes there’ll be a wider audience for “Water War in the Klamath Basin: Macho Law, Combat Biology and Dirty Politics,” a book she co-authored with A. Dan Tarlock, who specializes in water law.
“I think both of us enjoyed this,” she said. “I think (the Klamath water crisis) is representative of other water projects, but this is one you can get a handle on. Hopefully, more people will read this book than read our law journal papers.”
Doremus and Tarlock will discuss why they wrote the book, the ongoing role of science and give short readings during a free Thursday night program at the Klamath County Museum, 1451 Main St.
Doremus is a professor at the University of California-Davis and Berkeley and Tarlock is a distinguished professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Demonstrators gather to meet Gov. John
Kitzhaber at the Klamath Falls Airport in April 2001.
“Water War” examines how water issues have affected the Klamath Basin since the Klamath Reclamation Project was authorized in 1905. By the 1950s, more than 200,000 acres of Klamath Basin farmlands were supplied with project irrigation water. In 2001, the federal government said no irrigation water would be delivered from Upper Klamath Lake because of drought conditions.
“We thought this situation illustrated what makes water conflicts so difficult to resolve. There are conflicting claims,” Doremus said. “These things are just not quickly resolved.”
Conflict inevitable
She believes Klamath Basin water conflicts were inevitable because of the aggressive development of irrigation systems in the early 1900s, and late 20th century concerns about environmental issues.
“We talk about ‘macho law’ as law that encourages conflicts because it encourages people to believe they have these very strong claims,” Doremus said, referring to laws involving water rights and the Endangered Species Act. “We think that encouraged all sides of the conflict to not compromise.”
The book, written over several years, went to press before the proposed Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was announced in January.
“It was hard to cut it off because things kept happening,” Doremus said. “We’re very humble about what we don’t know. A lot of things have changed. We’re hoping to learn from the audience.”
Side Bar
Program Thursday
A free program on “Water War in the Klamath Basin,” a new book by Holly Doremus and A. Dan Tarlock, will be at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Klamath County Museum public meeting room. Copies of the book, published by Island Press, will be sold — $30 for soft cover and $60 for hardcover.
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