We Still Need You,
Klamath Farmers
Nine years
after the historic call for
help emanated from Klamath
Falls, Oregon -- a call
answered by Americans from
all walks of life and places
as distant as Ohio, over
2,200 miles east -- another
crisis looms. Those in
positions of power are
grinning from ear-to-ear at
"historic signing
ceremonies." They chortle
with glee at how their
"collaboration and
"consensus-driven
stakeholder process" has
been "inked."
Those few
letter writers who continue
to stand against the removal
of the four dams on the
Klamath River -- and the
three Oregon elected
officials who've never
wavered in their stand to
protect the promises made to
those on the Klamath Project
-- are being marginalized by
a media that seems to have
had its loyalty bought and
paid for.
The voices of
the original lottery winners
have been largely silenced
by age and death, but their
descendants' voices may have
been silenced by deceit and
coercion.
No dictionary
perused online or in hard
copy has yet to yield
synonyms tying words like
"independence,"
"versatility," "freedom,"
"property rights," "resource
utilization," etc., to
"collaboration,"
"consensus," "stakeholder,"
etc.
There are
some situations where
agreement between factions
can never be reached. One
such situation was the lords
and serfs of Europe. Those
that chafed under the heavy
hand of the land-LORDs had
few options and none that
involved remaining in their
native lands. A small number
of these moxie- and
hope-filled, courageous
souls set out from "the
other side of the pond" on a
journey to America, a place
about which they had
heretofore only known in
dreams. The perils known to
these immigrants were many
-- from dying aboard ship
from a wide variety of
maladies, not the least of
which was malnutrition,
dysentery, etc., to
surviving the journey only
to perish before emerging
from the indentured
servitude which had
purchased their passage to a
new land.
The settling
of America was fraught with
untold dangers. Starvation
happened to pioneers. So did
dying of thirst or
succumbing to fevers and
diseases for which there
were no easily-procured
remedies. Getting to
America's eastern shore was
tough enough. Making it all
the way to Oregon required
many more of God's blessings
and much privation. The
Western Migration required
something in the way of
promise in order to lure men
to leave their safer, but
poorer, homes in the East.
Those married men that made
the journey had to scrimp
and save in order to book
passage for their families
to join them. Single men had
to first conquer places --
"stake their claim," as it
were -- before they could
dream of marrying and
raising families. Viewing
old photographs of these
settlers is looking into
faces made tired and old by
the demands made to simply
survive.
The Klamath
Project was a promise, from
the federal government to
the lottery winners / war
veterans who sought to make
a forever home in the
Klamath Basin of northern
California and southern
Oregon. Both sides promised
something. The federal
government, in far-off
Washington, D.C., promised
the winners of these Project
Lands water "in perpetuity"
in exchange for the promise
to transform unproductive
high desert land into
productive, thriving farm
and ranchland. The high
desert of this region
presented its own brand of
challenges. Not only was it
dependent upon snowpack for
irrigation water during the
growing season, but it was
also a place where the
temperatures meant frost in
virtually every month.
Growing food crops was not
as easy as it was for
farmers in the Midwest, who
had a more temperate, longer
growing season and more
abundant rainfall. The
promise of water in exchange
for the promise to wrest
fertile food-growing was
inextricably entwined. It
was not possible to deliver
economic prosperity through
farming and ranching,
without the promise of water
"in perpetuity."
When did the
government's promise of
water get broken? That
answer is not nearly as
important as the fact that
the promise WAS broken and
continues to be broken, year
after frightening,
disheartening,
soul-crumbling year.
Did the
Klamath Project farmers ever
break their promise? No.
They never did. However,
they can no longer raise
food and fiber to feed and
shelter America if the other
promiser -- the federal
government -- reneges on its
promise. Now that four or
even five generations of
blood, sweat and tears
equity have been willingly
put into this place beloved
to so many as simply "the
Klamath," a government, with
malice aforethought, has
broken its promise and
levied the ultimate fine
upon the people of the
Klamath Basin and Project:
the cessation of
agriculture, ranching and
the vibrant economy of this
most special place located
in the high desert of the
Pacific Northwest.
How can such
a terrible death knell sound
in such a place without the
population raising a hue and
cry the likes of which would
carry clearly all the way
to Washington in the
District of Columbia? How,
indeed. Language deception
was truly a weapon of mass
destruction, the likes of
which is yet to be seen, but
which is coming like a
runaway freight train. Using
words that these honest
Klamath Project people had
been taught to trust, their
property rights -- in the
form of their economic
freedom and prosperity --
have been taken. Those
drafting the "agreements"
have an intimate,
professional knowledge of
how to word phrases,
sentences, paragraphs, and
binding agreements, so those
whose rights are being
"rurally cleansed" barely
realize what is happening
... until it's a "done
deal."
The
volatility of the Klamath
River -- sometimes a drunken
sluggard filled with
algae-growing warm water,
sometimes a raging bull
goring all in its flooding
path -- needed
damming. This place of
temperature swings,
inversion layers, frost and
freeze, heat and drought,
needed people with
resilience, strength of
character and the
sticktuitiveness to make of
the Klamath Basin a place
that not only could feed
itself, but could also feed
much of a nation from its
bounty. Klamath Pearl
potatoes, horseradish, mint,
onions, hay, beef, and so
much more, were grown and
harvested, supporting with
quiet pride a place that
began with a government
promise and a lottery.
Perhaps none
will dare call it a terrible
crime, but crime it is, for
in its wake, the
"restoration agreement" will
leave a place that once knew
the caring and devoted hand
of the farmer, the
appreciation of the farmer's
wife and children, who were
able to buy yard goods and
little luxuries -- and even
college and businesses of
their own! -- again barren
and bereft of the fertile
loins of the Klamath dirt,
needing only water and hard,
honest work to bring forth
property rights and freedom.
A promise is
a promise. A broken promise
is a broken promise. Those
who did not stand at the "A"
Canal Headgates and drink in
the sights, sounds and
concentrated patriotism
distilled in that place, can
never know how great was the
promise, how terrible the
broken promise.
Surely at the
last moment, more will see
what has been done and move
to rectify it. Surely God
will once again smile on the
Klamath Basin. Surely the
promise must be made to
stand and the promise
breakers must not be allowed
one more meal of Klamath
Project-grown food.
Let them eat
cake, but let them eat it
somewhere else. They have no
right to a piece of the pie
that they never earned and
never deserved.
Those brave
farmers that voluntarily
left the "A" Canal Headgates
when 9-1-1 happened, kept
their promise, even knowing
the track record of other
party that promised water
for the Klamath Project "in
perpetuity."
We in
America need the
Klamath Basin farmers, their
friends and families to
again unite. They have
helped feed us, in America,
for a hundred years. We
cannot afford to have their
voices -- and the Klamath
Project -- silenced by
broken promises. We need
the food produced in the
Klamath Basin, but perhaps
even more, we need
the backbone of those
Klamath farmers, who quietly
helped care for America,
keeping their promise, for a
hundred years.
(Permission to post from the
author.)
