Ten "Talking Points" on the Klamath Basin Crisis

by James Buchal, Published: 7/28/01

Fact #1: There are no truly endangered species in the Klamath Basin. Sucker populations are higher now than in the 1970s, and Klamath irrigation has nothing to do with coho salmon populations, because they are hundreds of miles downriver on the other side of impassable dams. Bureaucrats can list any particular group of animals, large or small, as endangered, and courts do nothing to stop them. We spend billions of dollars a year on "endangered salmon" programs in the Pacific Northwest at the same time we are having some of the largest salmon runs ever counted.

Fact #2: Taking the farmers' water this summer has done nothing for sucker or coho salmon populations. The federal government has failed to measure any increases in sucker or salmon numbers, because Klamath irrigation has no measurable effect on sucker or salmon survival. Biologists can't predict what makes sucker and salmon populations go up and down at all, and can't explain why suckers sometimes die off in high water years, yet demand an end to irrigation. Their real agenda is not about fish, but about moving people off the land.

Fact #3: The Klamath Tribe has no real water rights. The Klamath Tribe has Treaty hunting and fishing rights, which mean that State governments can't discriminate against them with hunting and fishing regulations. Liberal federal courts have tried to invent "implied" water rights to keep fish and game from being wiped out, but must leave it to the States to define the actual amount of water. The federal government has spent millions to produce a junk science "Hardy Report" claiming that the Tribe needs more implied water rights than there is water, but the State of Oregon hasn't yet fallen for it and issued such water rights.

Fact #4: Taking the farmers' water reduces hunting and fishing opportunities for the Klamath Tribe and everyone else, because it kills off birds and deer and other things people actually hunt. The net impact from halting irrigation on the Klamath Basin ecosystem can only be negative because there is now less of nearly every kind of living thing. Hunting and fishing rights are only a pretext for the Tribe, whose leader admits that sucker claims are really aimed at recovering reservation land now held by the Federal Government. Klamath Basin farmers could team up with the Klamath Tribe so that both groups can get what they really want from the federal government, but both groups let federal folks with forked tongues divide them.

Fact #5: The Federal Government's seizure of Klamath Basin water rights will ultimately cost United States taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation, because the Fifth Amendment to the United State Constitution forces the the Federal Government to pay just compensation when it seizes private property. Because there were no benefits from the seizure, the money will have been utterly wasted. Waste and abuse of federal funds is rampant in most federal agencies, because no one is ever held accountable.

Fact #6: Environmentalists invented the lie that farming in the Klamath Basin is not "sustainable", claiming there is never enough water, and newspapers and urban politicians repeat the lie. They scare farmers in the Basin into selling their land for less than it is worth. Governments are taking money from the farmers and everyone else, and giving more and more of it to the environmentalists to help them take over more and more land. Yet Government already owns more than half the land in the West.

Fact #7: Farmers in the Klamath Basin are going bankrupt. The poorest, Hispanic members of the community have already left, because they could no longer make a living. Herds built up over decades are being slaughtered. Wells are running dry. Health clinics report growing problems. Even childrens' grades fell from the stress on the community.

Fact #8: No Act of Congress compelled this tragedy. With the stroke of a pen, government bureaucrats could rescind bogus Endangered Species Act listings. With the stroke of pen, Secretary Norton could grant an exemption from the Endangered Species Act. But the Bush Administration has only offered only enough water to make it look good in the newspapers.

Fact #9: The blight upon the Klamath Basin has been creeping across the entire West. Environmentalists and bureaucrats focus upon rural areas, and don't enforce environmental laws equally against the cities. The cities can afford to fight back, but rural America can't. Yet urbanization is one of the few lawful human activities -- other than overfishing -- that has measurable effects upon fish and wildlife populations.

Fact #10: Until these facts become generally known, government will continue to use lies to take control of the land and water in the Klamath Basin. Only greater conflict in Klamath Falls will bring these facts to the attention of the American people. Only greater leadership in the Klamath Falls community can organize it to bring about that conflict in a way that also brings out these facts.

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." ---Patrick Henry

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