The farmers on the Klamath Reclamation Project were given their land, given all the water they wanted and given electrical power at 5 percent of the public rate.
The first time they didn’t get all the water they wanted, they complained loudly and committed acts of civil disobedience.
This civil disobedience is commemorated by the giant water bucket in front of the Klamath County Government Center. The national media came to Klamath County to report on the plight of the “poor” farmers. School children sent them their lunch money.
When the national media left, a local journalist asked a farmer what he would do now and was told that he would take half a million from savings and dig a deep production well. Many of these wells were drilled and the aquifer dropped alarmingly. This could eventually lead to decertification of the Klamath Basin.
The U.S. Department of Interior will provide $2 million in addition to the $5 million already released to pay the farmers to leave their land idle.
Hollie Cannon, executive director of Klamath Water and Power Agency, said that is only one third of what they want and will lobby for the rest. So the farmers want $21 million to plant nothing.
These are the same people who were given their land and water and the same people who complain about government handouts to the poor.
People are incensed when an unemployed person gets food stamps or when the elderly and the disabled get housing help or go homeless. Who works the agricultural jobs?
Do not cry for the “poor” farmers; they cry enough for themselves. I dread the thought of hearing them complain all summer and every summer.
Byron Stanton
Klamath Falls