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Klamath Tribes want a future for entire community 

 

We have a golden opportunity to bring long-lasting stability to the Klamath Basin

 

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

Guest Writers

Herald and News

December 14, 2011

 

 

     The Klamath Tribes want a future for themselves, and for the entire surrounding community, centered on cultural, social, and economic stability. We entered into a treaty with the United States to permanently preserve resources and rights that shaped and maintained our cultural integrity for thousands of years.

 

   The Tribes will never stop valuing c’waam and koptu (the endangered suckers), c’iyaals (salmon), meyas (resident trout and steelhead), wocus (pond lily), the water that sustains these resources, or myriad other aquatic and terrestrial resources.

 

   Because we enormously value these things, we will never stop seeking ways to ensure their continued existence and availability to tribal members. We also will continue to strive for healthy economies, good jobs, and a safe place in which to raise our families, just like everybody else.

 

   The past decades have made it pretty clear that stability does not emerge from litigation, government regulatory oversight, or public infighting among neighbors.

 

   Recent experiences with the Endangered Species Act have offered some hard lessons on this fact, and the Klamath Basin water adjudication promises to do the same.

 

   A golden opportunity

 

   We have a golden opportunity to bring long-lasting stability to the Klamath Basin by way of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA), which will settle the water rights litigation between the Klamath Reclamation Project irrigators and the Klamath Tribes.

 

   Provisions of the KBRA also provide interested off-Project irrigators the opportunity for a similar settlement outcome, which we are working on with the Upper Klamath Water Users Association.

 

   We have demonstrated with our actions that we see our best future emerging from the KBRA, and that we stand ready to enter into fair agreements that will benefit the overall community and economy.

 

   Our communities stand at a crossroads. Either we work together to build something through the KBRA that will benefit us all, or we can fight it out in the courts to see who wins, and who loses. We hope people will choose to work together for a settlement that benefits the overall community and local economy.    

 

 
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