Response to California Department of Fish and Game’s regional official’s letter in Redding Record Searchlight, July 4, 2010 

By Frank Tallerico

Siskiyou County Superintendent of Schools, retired

I am writing in response to the Letter to the Editor written by Dennis Lynch and Mark Stopher in the Record Searchlight dated July 4, 2010

The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) and the Hydro-Electric Settlement Agreement (HESA) are not all about fish and habitat restoration.  Its all about greed and power on the part of certain interests including government agencies both state and federal, several Native American Tribes and at least 9 non-governmental organizations. (NGO’s) who call themselves “stakeholders.”

These documents were conceived in secret with no public meeting postings or input.  These secret meetings totally ignored established laws which were put in place to govern the Klamath River water allocations in 1957.

The Klamath Basin Compact was signed by both California and Oregon legislatures and signed by the governors of the two states.  The Compact was later approved by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and sent on to then President Eisenhower who signed it into law in the Fall of 1957.  This document is still in force today and should not be ignored by the signatories to the KBRA and the KHSA.

There are elements in the KBRA that calls for congress to authorize CHATERS which will create a REGIONAL GOVERNANCE authority.  This regional governance authority would super-cede county boards of supervisors and/or commissioners.  The Hydro Agreement defines how we, the rate payers, are going to pay for dam removal and alternative energy to replace the lost clean, green energy created by hydro-power.