Agenda 21 Takeover in Klamath Basin Posted By: RumorMail [Send E-Mail] Date: Saturday, 29-Mar-2014 13:06:58 snip Barbara H. Peterson Farm Wars Agenda 21 is alive and well in Klamath County, Oregon. Klamath Basin farmers are feeling the wrath of the Klamath Tribes in collusion with the Federal and Oregon state governments. Water is now basically off limits to ranchers unless they get approval from the tribes, and approvals are few and far between. Let’s take a little trip in the Wayback Machine to 2001… In April of 2001, the greatest water theft in history took place in the Klamath Falls Basin. This theft was conducted by the Federal government on the pretense of saving the “endangered” sucker fish for the Klamath Tribes. After speaking to a member of a tribe who was not in agreement with this theft, I found that the sucker fish is not one that the tribe normally eats, but instead, is used as bait because it is unpalatable. The sucker fish also requires low water levels, not more water as the Federal government states. This “endangered” sucker fish was also considered a pest in the 1960s: snip Fast forward, and it’s now 2014… FORT KLAMATH, Ore. — Many ranchers in Oregon’s Upper Klamath Basin appear to grudgingly accept a water-sharing settlement between irrigators and the Klamath Tribes that was finalized earlier this month. Rancher Roger Nicholson, a harsh critic of water calls by the tribes and federal government that led to a shutoff of Upper Basin irrigation pumps last summer, says the deal is the best that ranchers could hope for and predicts it will be agreed to by a vast majority of affected landowners. “This at least allows some usage, and in some years quite a bit of usage probably,” said Nicholson, who was involved in the talks. “The only other alternative is years more of litigation.” The talks came after a court last year granted the tribes senior water rights in the Sycan, Wood and Williamson river watersheds draining into Upper Klamath Lake, where the tribes say a decline in sucker fish populations has threatened their livelihoods and traditions. The pact that the parties have been ironing out since late December includes various restoration projects, stipulated in-stream flows and the permanent retirement of 30,000 acre-feet of water for restoring fisheries. Nicholson said landowners won a key concession in that they’ll be compensated for land they can’t use as a result of the deal. If approved by ranchers and tribal members, the pact will be included in legislation by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to authorize and fund the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and a companion measure to remove four dams from the Klamath River. To be certain, opposition to the Upper Basin agreement persists. Jerry Jones, who operates a small ranch south of Chiloquin, Ore., believes the agreement could spark new legal battles. “It does away with our private property rights,” he said. Bruce Topham, a rancher in the Sprague River Valley, said he’s unsure whether he’ll sign the agreement. He objects to the amount of land that ranchers would have to put in easements – 130 feet on each side of a river or stream, he said. “We basically aren’t allowed to use it,” Topham said. “In our case, it’s a lot of acres … You’re controlled on what you can do on your own land.”
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 01:32:04 +0000
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