Op-Ed submission to the San Francisco Chronicle

RE:  The best of times, the worst of times

When Mr. Stienstra next decides to regurgitate propaganda that the Yurok, Hoopa, and Karuk Tribes and the environmental coalition passes out as the truth, he should read the Bureau of Reclamation's Upper Klamath River Undepleted Natural Flow Study before he writes another word.

Final Draft of Undepleted Natural Flow of the Upper Klamath River December 2004 .pdf

This document is in final peer review and proves that more water is now being released from the Upper Klamath Basin for summer and fall downstream Klamath River flows then flowed naturally before the Federal Klamath Irrigation Project was built in the early 1900s.  The Klamath River is not ‘dying,’ as Mr. Stienstra states. 

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), flows at the mouth of the Klamath River average 12 MILLION acre-feet per year.

The entire Klamath Project, Tulelake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges normally use only 400,000 acre-feet per year. 

If Mr. Stienstra had done his homework before writing “The best of times, the worst of times,” he'd know that -- even though this is a 'drought' below average water year -- the two lower basin refuges are already chockfull of water for fall bird migration, three months early. 

He'd also know that the Klamath Project is complying with the National Marine Fisheries Service's mandated 100,000 acre-foot 'environmental use' water bank for the ‘threatened' Coho salmon in the Klamath River . 

That means that an additional 100,000 acre-feet of water is going downstream for salmon and not being used to irrigate hay and potatoes. 

The farms in the Klamath Project are using a scant 300,000 acre-feet this year and will be allocated that same amount each year until 2012.  

Put simply, not only are the Project farmers making do with less, but so, too, are the wildlife refuges -- all for the 'threatened' Coho salmon that Portland Federal Judge Hogan has twice ruled from the bench is a bogus Endangered Species Act listing.

Does Mr. Stienstra eat potatoes?  Does he know that more than 90% of the fresh market potatoes sold in the San Francisco Bay area are grown in the Klamath Basin?   The very potatoes available at his local grocery stores and served in his favorite Bay area restaurants were grown here!  Why would he seek to cut off the hand that feeds him?

Does he think all his food -- from beer and wine to steak and eggs -- appears by magic in the grocery store or on his dinner plate?

Barbara Hall

Vice President

Klamath Bucket Brigade, Inc.

507 Main Street

Klamath Falls , Oregon