Oregon

Show Date: Wednesday, April 16
Show Location: Central Oregon Community College
City: Bend, OR
Guest Speaker: Don Gentry, Klamath Tribe
Issues of focus: Klamath River water and fish issues

Summary Don Gentry came to speak to our audience and also played a traditional flute. He taught us a lot, backstage, in our meeting over dinner. The Klamath River ascends from the mountains of central Oregon down to the Pacific Ocean, crossing the territory of the Klamath, Modoc, Yurok, and Hupa people, and was once home to the third largest salmon fishery on the Pacific coast. The taking of land from the Klamath people, through the federal termination of this community in the 1950's opened up the land to more agricultural development, and unsustainable logging practices on these now federal lands. In the past two years, a huge crisis has resulted: federal policy makers have pitted fish and Native people against Oregon farmers.

This past year, 33,000 fish died on the Klamath River, as the Bush administration allocated the water of the Klamath River to the farmers in the upper Klamath. That decision flew in the face of the Endangered Species Act and scientists for the US Dept. of Fish and Wildlife had to seek "whistleblower" status. All of this illustrated what most of us already know: fish need water.

The Klamath River Basin is known as the "Everglades of the West," and provides refuge for 80% of the waterfowl in the Western Flyway. The Klamath River is also historically the third largest salmon fishery in the Pacific Northwest.

The Bureau of Reclamation re-plumbed the Klamath basin with 6 dams, l85 miles of canals, 516 miles of lateral ditches and 45 pumping stations. The resulting loss in fish was substantial: sockeye, pink and chum salmon are extinct in the basins, Cohos are listed as threatened and most other fish are endangered.

In spite of the dams and the termination of the Klamath people's federal recognition, the water rights remained with the Klamath tribe. Water was "over-allocated" under agreements between the states, and the Klamath River Basin Water Compact began to negotiate water allocations. Repeated court decisions have held that the Klamath Tribe has the most senior, "from time immemorial" water right in the region.

Klamath lands were opened to "homesteading" by veterans from the wars, and the great Ponderosa pine forests of the Klamath territory were sent to lumber mills. Both unsustainable farming practices and clear-cutting of riparian waterways have resulted in the destruction of the Klamath watershed, and the ecosystem and way of life of the Klamath people and the salmon. Farms are also located on the Klamath Tule Lake Refuge and Lower Klamath Refuge and require about 60,000 acre feet of the Klamath River per year. An additional impact of the farms is that they load the river and wetlands with pesticides, including 2 neurotoxins, l4 endocrine disrupters and 11 carcinogens.

Political pressure from farming groups and private property interests made the Bush Administration allocate the limited water to farmers, and subsequently kill fish. The allocation violated the original treaty rights of the Klamath people.

At present, the Klamath people are seeking to keep their water in the river and to have some of the land, which is theirs, returned to them under a federal restoration act.

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