Greg Williams: Improvements since 2001 water crisis

By STEVE KADEL

H&N Staff Writer

March 14, 2008

Greg Williams spent 30 years with Northwest Farm Credit Services, retiring in 2002 as the regional vice president in Klamath Falls .

   Greg Williams grew up on a cattle and hay ranch near Bonanza, but he made his career observing agriculture from a different perspective. 

   He spent 30 years working for Northwest Farm Credit Services, retiring in 2002 as the cooperative’s regional vice president in Klamath Falls . 

   That means Williams was in a key role during the 2001 water shutoff, when Northwest had about $41 million in loans outstanding in the Klamath Basin . 

   “It was a pretty stressful time,” he recalls. 

   Dodging the bullet 

   Federal financial assistance helped most farmers endure the shutoff rather than liquidating. Without the aid, Williams says, the social, ecological and economic effects would have been catastrophic. 

   “Most growers dodged the bullet with financial assistance,” he says. “However, agribusinesses and some farmers still sustained large losses. I know because I saw the financial records.” 

   The water shutoff left farmers wondering when the same thing might occur again. Williams says that led to many of Northwest’s customers planting fewer acres of row crops such as potatoes and onions due to potentially unstable water supplies — a factor that left them less able to repay loans. 

   The water shutout was particularly ill-timed, Williams says, because potato prices were high in 2001 when Basin farmers could not plant. 

   Real estate 

   Real estate prices were affected, too, and Williams says sale of properties virtually stopped for eight months after the cutoff. 

   Worries over water prompted many people to request loans of $100,000 to $250,000 to drill and develop a well. 

   “Some were dry or had inadequate water,” Williams says. “For others, this increased their debt/asset ratio, used cash reserves, and did not appreciably increase the value of the land.” 

   Lenders noticed effects among their customers such as anger, health problems and tensions between neighbors, he says.

Working with farmers 

   Despite problems throughout the Basin’s agriculture industry in those days, Williams says Northwest was able to continue financing farmers “with no more attrition of our customers than normal,” although in some cases they asked for additional collateral, a Farm Service Agency guarantee, or more on-farm visits to monitor crop production. 

   Other lenders worked with farmers, too. 

   “The lenders not panicking kept conditions from getting worse,” Williams says. 

   Although the Klamath water settlement is far from being approved, he says conditions have improved in recent years in the Basin. One reason for that is establishment of the voluntary water bank, which promises some water stability from year to year, Williams says.

Side Bar

Greg Williams on the restoration agreement:

   What he likes: “If we can bring all parties together, having a long-term plan for management of the Klamath watershed would benefit everyone,” he says.
   
   What he doesn’t like: Not everyone is in agreement, including the Hoopa Valley Tribe and the off-Project irrigators who oppose the current document. 

   “One sticking point they may not get resolved is who’s going to pay for this,” he says.

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