News Service June 19, 2001

GOP Critical of Klamath Water Cutoff

By Jeff Barnard
The Associated Press

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- Western Republican congressmen hoping to change the Endangered Species Act came to the Klamath Basin on Saturday, where they attacked the science behind a decision to cut off water to farmers to save endangered fish.

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson and Idaho State Rep. Dell Raybould, R-Rexburg, participated in the congressional field hearing. Raybould is a grain and potato farmer.

"When I learned the House Resources Committee was planning a field hearing in Oregon on the devastating impacts of the Klamath Basin decision, I knew it would be important for me to attend the hearing and facilitate the participation of an Idaho farmer," Simpson said before traveling to Oregon. "I cannot stress enough how important this hearing and the consequences of the Klamath Basin decision are for Idaho agriculture."

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Committee hearing, acknowledged that there is little support in Congress for amending the Endangered Species Act but said he hoped the conflicts between agriculture and wildlife in the Klamath Basin would help convince the nation that changes need to be made.

Representatives of Indian tribes, fishermen and conservation groups testified that dissolving the Endangered Species Act and the findings of federal biologists would not make the problems in the Klamath Basin go away.

Obligations under treaties with the Klamath, Yurok and Hoopa tribes to maintain viable fisheries would bring the same pressures to bear on farmers, said Yurok spokesman Troy Fletcher.

The Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act would also serve as roadblocks to business as usual, said Andy Kerr, senior counsel to the Oregon Natural Resources Council.

In April, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation decided to cut off irrigation water to 90 percent of the 200,000 acres served by the Klamath Project straddling the Oregon-California border so that there would be enough water during the current drought to sustain endangered sucker fish and threatened coho salmon.

At the request of Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., Pombo brought the House Resources Committee to the Klamath County Fairgrounds, where about 1,500 people, many of them farmers, cheered criticism of the ESA and booed environmentalists.

None of the committee's Democratic members attended.

Republicans on the committee echoed the complaints of the Klamath Water Users Association that the science behind the decision to turn off the water to more than 1,000 farms was potentially flawed and the process had been closed to public participation.

To raise public confidence, the Department of the Interior will put out for peer review the biological opinions that led to the Klamath Basin water shut-off, said Sue Ellen Wooldridge, deputy chief of staff for the department.

Acknowledging that the biological opinion on the sucker fish had been amended as a result of peer review by Oregon State University scientists, Walden said he would still like to see the Endangered Species Act amended to make peer review mandatory.

With thousands of biological opinions produced each year under the act, mandatory peer review would be costly, Wooldridge said.

The congressmen harshly criticized a proposal from environmentalists and some Klamath Basin farmers in which Congress would buy out willing farmers at the premium price of $4,000 an acre so they could retire or start new careers.

"If somebody offers you air while their hands are around your neck choking you, you are pretty willing to accept it," Walden said.

Dave Vogel, a biologist hired by farmers, took issue with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinion setting a higher minimum water level for Upper Klamath Lake for sucker fish.

Asked by Pombo to identify the biggest scientific flaw in the biological opinions that led to the water cutoff, Vogel answered, "The single-minded approach that more water is always better for fish. And it's not."