Panelists debate Klamath water agreement  

Participants say litigation is the alternative

 

BY JILL AHO 

H&N Staff Writer

October 30, 2009

 

     Six people who participated in a panel discussion about the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement agreed on two things Thursday: They had no other suggestions to solve the Basin’s water conflict, and they consider continued litigation as the only other alternative.

   Each of the panel members represented a different set of priorities at the negotiating table during talks that produced a draft of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement. They spoke at a Network of Oregon Watershed Councils gathering at the Running Y Ranch.  

   The KBRA and companion hydroelectric agreement were developed during several years of negotiations involving 26 stakeholder groups which began with a PacifiCorp   move to relicense hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. What developed was an attempt to address environmental and economic concerns, panel members said.

   Panel co-moderator James Honey, program director for Sustainable Northwest, stressed that many Basin residents do not think the agreements are a good solution to water, power and fish concerns.

   “There are stakeholders who don’t agree that the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement are the way to move forward,” Honey said.  

   Avoiding crises

   Larry Dunsmoor, a fisheries biologist with the Klamath Tribes, said the Basin faced back-to-back crises.

   “We’re all pretty sure our turn’s going to come again,” Dunsmoor said. “If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’ve been getting.”

   Becky Hyde, who represented the Upper Klamath   Water Users Association, said off-Project irrigators like herself still have issues within the KBRA to work out.

   Off-Project irrigators mostly are farmers and ranchers above Upper   Klamath Lake who do not receive water deliveries from the Bureau of Reclamation and were not directly affected by a curtailment of irrigation in 2001.

   Some off-Project irrigators   have said they were not well represented at the KBRA negotiations. Tom Mallams, one of those irrigators, spoke to that effect.

   “This process has been somewhat flawed from the beginning,” he said. “The process seems to favor those who are in agreement with what’s going on.”

   Power rates

   Klamath Water Users Association Executive Director Greg Addington said one of his priorities during negotiation was to address power rate increases, which are threatening all irrigators in the Basin, on and off the Klamath Reclamation Project.

   “We want to be able to take advantage of (natural) resources and generate power wherever and whenever we can,” he said. The agreement includes provisions to assist on-Project irrigators with developing renewable energy sources.

   Hyde said affordable power rates for off-Project irrigators are still a concern.

   “Folks in the off-Project are worried. They’re really worried,” she said.  

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material  herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have
expressed  a  prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and  educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml