Mark Stopher, Acting Regional Director of California Dept. of Fish and Game, recently wrote an opinion piece in the Redding Searchlight, regarding the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) and the Klamath Hydro Settlement Agreement (KHSA).  Mr. Stophers statements are so horribly misleading and un-factual that I felt compelled to respond.

I am a member of the Siskiyou County Water Users Association, as well as Vice Chairman of Scott Valley P.O.W. (Protect our Water).  We have been in a struggle with Mr. Stopher and his cronies from the Calif. Dept. of Fish and Game for quite some time.

Please, bear with me, while I share some of the personal experiences we have recently had with Mr. Stopher and his agency.

The CDFG has chosen to “re-interpret” a fifty year old water law to force water right owners into some very expensive environmental permits.  Signing these permits would give Fish and Game broad control over our water rights in addition to adding fees of tens of thousands of dollars to each water right owner.  Some of these rights are over 150 years old.  There are many other aspects of the “valley wide permitting process” that would outrage most citizens of this country.  This “permitting process”, is a grab for money, power and control of land use.  In spite of what Mr. Stopher says, this process, has nothing to do with saving the fish.

We have demonstrated to CDFG that agricultural water right owners are exempt from these permits by California legislative statute, Fish and Game code, as well as, Constitutional law.  Why does the CDFG persist?   The Department of Fish and Game ignores the laws and the Constitution of California, ignores case law, and ignores the Constitution of the United States, all with the aim of gaining control of our Property rights. “ Water Rights” in California are Property Rights!

The CDFG has sent teams of armed Game Wardens to individual ranches and farms to threaten prosecution and fines to those who fail or refuse to sign up for the voluntary “Permitting Process”.

Now that you know how far Mr. Stopher and his agency is willing to go to accomplish their agenda, let us explore the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and the KHSA.

Mr Stopher says that we need the KBRA/KHSA because several Klamath Basin communities have faced a crisis in natural resources.  Why haven’t we heard of this tragedy?  Why no specifics?  I wonder which communities were affected and exactly what sort of crisis of natural resource has taken place.  If it were true, these crises should be national news!

I am remiss in my last statement. Several decades ago, The Fish and Wildlife Service spent a tremendous amount of money and time trying to poison the sucker fish in the Klamath Basin to provide more habitat for Salmon and other species.  Recently the Federal Government shut off the water to Reclamation Project farmers to protect that very same sucker fish. This caused a very serious loss of income and property to the community.  Those events are certainly a crisis, but they are a crisis of bad government and not of natures making.

There are special interest groups in the Klamath Basin and on the Lower Klamath using that same sucker fish in addition to the Coho Salmon in an attempt to control SEVERAL HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS in “Restoration Money”.  This fact is a crisis for taxpayers!

Mr. Stopher alleges that in 2002 there was a massive die off of Salmon prior to reaching the Spawning grounds during “a very dry September”.  A large number of those fish were killed at Fish and Game’s directive in violation of a Federal Environmental Listing.  Why is Mr. Stopher so concerned with this Salmon Kill?  California listed the Salmon a year or two later due to, supposedly, depressed populations.  Very interesting timing.

The function of a dam is to regulate water.  Dams provide higher flows during dry periods of the year with water that has been captured to prevent flooding during the wet season. I cannot imagine how removal of the dams would improve flows during, “a very dry September”.

Removal of the Dams along with the clean energy the dams provide, would do nothing, other than to harm tens of thousands of people that Mr. Stopher and his agency are supposed to serve.

Mr. Stopher tells of the lost commercial fishing season to supposedly protect “weak Klamath River Salmon Stocks”.  Salmon range from Southern California to the Gulf of Alaska.  Are we supposed to believe that a 700 nautical mile strip of ocean, mentioned by Mr. Stopher, is populated exclusively with Klamath River Coho Salmon?  Are Klamath River stocks weak?      Our water users group has reputable evidence that says otherwise.

Mr. Stopher, the CDFG, and the special interest groups he is allied with, routinely ignore many other factors in supposedly declining fish populations. These factors include, over fishing by foreign fishing fleets, ocean borne pollutants, temperature variations, predation, unregulated tribal fishing and parasites.  These factors almost never receive any mention in the propaganda the CDFG uses to scare people into thinking the sky is falling.

Mr. Stopher and those he represents would place all the blame on ranchers and farmers because of fish that do not return to Klamath River, from the ocean, after years at sea.  Does the CDFG have evidence that some fish are not simply going up some other river?  How by any stretch of the imagination can agriculture be held responsible for fish that either will not or cannot return to any given river from the ocean.  Poor science, greed, and lies will never save the environment.

The KBRA/KHSA groups are guilty of ignoring The Klamath Basin compact.  This compact after approval by the legislatures of Oregon and California, was ratified by the Federal Government and signed into law by the President of The United States. This compact is the law of the land!

The KBRA (Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement)/ KHSA (Klamath Hydro Settlement Agreement) will accomplish the following things:

KBRA/KHSA will reduce dry season flows in the middle and Lower Klamath due to dam removal.

KBRA/KHSA will eliminate a very productive fish hatchery at Iron Gate.

KBRA/KHSA will eliminate clean Hydro power and much needed water storage in Siskiyou Co.

KBRA/KHSA will nose dive property values for the people in Copco Lake and in other areas.

KBRA/KHSA will eliminate flood control for riverfront property owners downstream of dams after removal.

KBRA/KHSA will harm Scott and Shasta farmers and ranchers by demanding more and more water to maintain late season flows caused by dam removal.

KBRA/KHSA will not save the salmon in the Klamath River. KBRA/KHSA will harm Salmon as well as many other species of wild life for generations to come with heavy metal and toxic sediments behind the dams proposed for removal.

KBRA/KHSA will do untold harm to the people of Siskiyou County.

KBRA/KHSA will harm you.  It is yet one more example of the people in servitude to government and special interest, instead of government serving the people.

KBRA/KHSA and all the parties to the agreement, including Mr. Stopher and the CDFG are engaged in closed door agreements in violation of the Brown and Public Records act.  This agreement has not been a transparent plan and is cloaked in secrecy so that the People of the affected Counties will awaken to find it a done deal.

The scoping process is not what it is portrayed to be.  We believe the special interests involved in pushing this agreement have already made up their mind.  The groups involved in the KBRA/KHSA have excluded the Siskiyou Board of Supervisors from these secret negotiations and are ready to enact this deal no matter what people of our county say or think.

Government has only ONE function.  That function is to serve the people.  When a government or any agency of the government places burdens upon its people that are so onerous as to be unbearable, it is our duty and our responsibility to change or remove that government or agency and to replace it with one that represents the rights and interests of the people.  WE THE PEOPLE, say NO to this offense to our Liberty and our Property!

Please show your support on August 28th at the Siskiyou County Fairgrounds.  The Restore Honor-Water Rally is to show our government and its appointed officials that we will stand upon the Constitution of the United States and upon the Constitution of the State of California to protect and defend our Liberty, and our Property.  We are engaged in an act of Civil Disobedience in Siskiyou County to save our way of life.  We will not submit.  We will not sign our property or our liberty away.  We will fight for what we hold dear.  We say NO!  Believe me friends and neighbors, if Mr. Stopher and his gang succeed in Siskiyou, YOU WILL BE NEXT!!!

Visit www.pienpolitics.com for news of this and other water issues.

Where Do You Stand?

Mark Baird

Member, Siskiyou Water Users Association

Vice Chairman, P.O.W. Scott Valley