Editorial: Seal Klamath deal

January 27, 2008

Sacramento Bee

Two ingredients are essential in resolving intractable water conflicts:

• A willingness by all parties to engage in honest negotiations.

• A willingness to compromise.

Up in the Klamath River basin , a mix of farmers, Indian tribes, conservationists and government agencies have a rare chance to quell decades of bitter dispute.

They are close to a deal to remove four dams, restore salmon runs on one of the West's largest rivers and protect farmers against endangered species lawsuits. This deal would restore wetlands, ensure more water for wildlife refuges and protect various interests in times of drought.

But for this pact to work, everyone must be willing to give, including groups on the fringes – hard-line farm activists and wildlife advocates. It also includes PacifiCorp, which operates the Klamath dams and is part of Warren Buffett's empire.

In 2001, the Klamath erupted in near-violent clashes. To protect salmon and other fish, federal agencies cut back irrigation water to growers in the basin, which straddles the California and Oregon border. Farmers got more water the next year, but then thousands of salmon died in warm waters below the Klamath dams.

For more than a year, the regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Steve Thompson, has been trying to broker a Klamath peace treaty through talks with 26 affected parties.

This treaty would depend on a $950 million public investment – to retire water rights, restore wetlands and improve habitat for salmon.

Some groups, unfortunately, are demanding more. The Hoopa tribe wants guaranteed flows in the Klamath, discounting the benefits to salmon by removing dams. Two Oregon environmental groups want an end to farming in wildlife refuges, even if it scuttles a deal to bring more water to those refuges.

A better course, for all interests involved, would be to recognize the fragility of the current deal, and then band together and put real pressure on PacifiCorp.

This Portland-based utility is engaged in a bit of brinkmanship, claiming it has been excluded from talks while failing to get involved. PacifiCorp knows it will have to pay more to install fish ladders – and face lawsuits – than to dismantle the four dams. Yet they continue to hold out, perhaps hoping that Congress will spoon out a deal sweetener courtesy of federal taxpayers.

The Bush administration, which has leverage through the federal relicensing process, needs to stand firm. A resolution of the Klamath crisis is near. With a bit more work, it could become a model for other water pacts, including one that continues to elude California in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. 

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Source:  http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/663154.html