Klamath Basin Debacle
A Public Policy Failure

In early October, when returning from a much needed vacation in Modoc County, in California's far northeast corner ("Where the West Still Lives" according to the Chamber of Commerce), I journeyed up Highway 139 toward the Klamath basin and the small rural farm towns of Tulelake, California and Merrill, Malin and Bonanza, Oregon and the regional center of Klamath Falls.

The Klamath ecosystem controversy has been on CAFF's radar screen for the last several years and became even more prominent this past spring when a federal court order resulted in the curtailment of all water deliveries to 1,400 family farmers in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project service area on the Oregon-California border. I have some experience with federal service curtailments and the resulting severe economic dislocation. I was personally involved in the agricultural drainage controversy in the western San Joaquin Valley during the mid-1980s.

The ecosystem conflict in Klamath did not arise overnight but has elements that are familiar to all that reside in the western United States. Early Euro-American settlers partnered with the willing Bureau of Reclamation to dam the Upper Klamath Lake and tributary rivers in Oregon as well as dike and dry up wetlands in the Tule and Lower Klamath Lake regions of California. Federal water service began in the area about 1905. Small farm communities developed in the area based on the bountiful crops provided by the convergence of rich bottomland soils, regular water supplies and hard work. Crops were exported to major cities in Oregon and California as well as the East. Regional centers like Klamath Falls developed providing the needed infrastructure for the farmers.

As was so often the case during the early development period, the needs of the original inhabitants of the area were ignored and one-sided treaties bartered away the Native American tribes' land. The environment for fish and wildlife was completely disregarded. The economic system worked reasonably well for the white inhabitants for about 95 years until the rise of environmental accountability, the Endangered Species Act and drought. What nature gives, nature can also take away.

So, now where are we? Many thousands of acres of farmland are fallow. Rural communities are imploding. Farmers are committing and attempting suicide. Farmers and their workers are lining up for food stamps. People are leaving the area in droves. Environmentalists who brought the original suits are vowing to "return the Klamath Basin to nature." Federal agencies are working in open opposition to each other and in barely disguised warfare. Native American tribes, both upstream and downstream, are advocating for substantial redress. Other federal and state agencies, on both sides of the border, are mounting small economic mitigation efforts. Voluntary habitat restoration efforts have ground to a halt. Farmers are occupying canal head gates under the guns of the federal Marshall service.

Bloodshed may be imminent if water service is not restored in the spring of 2002. Why should CAFF care about what happens 300 miles away from Davis in an area where there are few CAFF members, no CSAs, only a few farmers' markets and little urban development pressure "down below" as the people of Modoc like to call the rest of California. Because what we see and how the situation for good or for ill is resolved in the Klamath Basin could very well portend how resource allocation issues are resolved or not resolved in California. Ecosystem over allocation is the norm in California. From water to air, to transportation, to housing, to education we are exceeding our carrying capacity. Just like Klamath, the accounts are coming due in California. The financial and environmental impacts here will be far more severe if California does not systematically address its coming ecosystem meltdown by redirecting public policy.

Is the Klamath basin a public policy failure? Absolutely. And it's one which Californian's disregard at their peril. We should very much care how the situation is resolved. As they say at the upcoming Bioneer's conference, "We are all related."

For more information on the Klamath Basin controversy, go to the Klamath Herald and News website at www.heraldandnews.com, two excellent articles in Orion magazine, summer issue www.orionsociety.com by Mike Connelly "Home is Where They'll Lay Me Down" and "The Klamath Debacle: bankrupting and ecosystem" by Seth Zuckerman at www.Tidepool.org. Thanks to Mike Connelly, Woody Deryckx, and Nancy Kendra who graciously agreed to be interviewed for this article. Mike farms and ranches in Bonanza, Oregon. Woody is past president of the Organic Farming Research Foundation and farms organically when he has water. Nancy and her husband farm in Merrill, Oregon when they have water.