Reservoir level sinks fast after signing of agreement

March 7, 2010

   When the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was being signed in Salem, Greg Addington and the Klamath Water Users Association, among others, were apparently too busy celebrating to notice that the main reservoir in the Klamath Reclamation Project was being drained at approximately 900 cubic feet per second.

   Now that the historical party is over, their new-found friends are draining the reservoir at 1,330 cubic feet per second.

   When the National Academy of Sciences was asked to review the water theft of 2001, Glenn Spain, who claims to represent West Coast fishermen, said that the NAS was the “supreme court” of science.

   The National Environmental Protection Act (Endangered Species Act) says that the best science available should be used.

   One would assume that the NAS is the best science. The NAS did recommend that the dams on the Klamath River should be removed, but they also said that minimum lake levels and minimum stream flows were not justified. The signers of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement must have missed this.

   The salmon in the Klamath River are threatened. The two suckers in Klamath Lake are endangered.

   Why is it that the threatened fish are getting all of our water when the reservoir that holds endangered fish is being drained?  

   When Addington, the Klamath Water Users Association and the others who signed the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement are slapping each other’s back, I hope that they slap each other extremely hard.

   Science (NAS) was with us, but the lure of government money won the battle.

   Bill Newell

   Klamath Falls