-Caveat Lector-
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> Our Klamath Basin Water Crisis
> Fighting for Our Right to Irrigate Our Farms and Caretake Our
> Natural
> Resources
>
> Rural Cleansing
>
> Wall Street Journal - Rural Cleansing 7/26/01
>
> Commentary
> Rural Cleansing
> By Kimberley A. Strassel.
> Ms. Strassel is an assistant
> editorial features editor at the Journal.
>
>
>
> Federal authorities were forced to cut off water to 1,500
> farms in
> Oregon's and California's Klamath Basin in April because of the
> "endangered" sucker fish. The environmental groups behind the cutoff
> continue to declare that they are simply concerned for the welfare of a
> bottom-feeder. But last month, those environmentalists revealed another
> motive when they submitted a polished proposal for the government to buy
> out the farmers and move them
> off their land.
>
> This is what's really happening in Klamath -- call it
> rural
> cleansing -- and it's repeating itself in environmental battles
> across the country. Indeed, the goal of many environmental groups --
> from the Sierra Club to the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC) --
> is no longer to protect nature. It's to expunge humans from the
> countryside.
>
> The Greens' Strategy
>
> The strategy of these environmental groups is nearly
> always the
> same: to sue or lobby the government into declaring rural areas
> off-limits to people who live and work there. The tools for doing
> this include the Endangered Species Act and local preservation laws,
> most of which are so loosely crafted as to allow a wide leeway in their
> implementation.
>
> In some cases owners lose their property outright. More
> often,
> the environmentalists' goal is to have restrictions placed on the
> land that either render it unusable or persuade owners to leave of
> their own accord.
>
> The Klamath Basin saga began back in 1988, when two
> species of
> suckers from the area were listed under the Endangered Species Act.
> Things worked reasonably well for the first few years after the suckers
> were listed. The Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the area's
> irrigation, took direction from the Fish and Wildlife Service, and tried
> to balance the needs of both fish and farmers. This included programs to
> promote water conservation and tight control over water flows. The
> situation was tense, but workable.
>
> But in 1991 the Klamath basin suffered a drought, and Fish
> and
> Wildlife noted that the Bureau of Reclamation might need to do more for
> the fish. That was the environmentalists' cue. Within two months, the
> ONRC -- the pit bull of Oregon's environmental groups -- was announcing
> intentions to sue the Bureau of Reclamation for failure to protect the
> fish.
>
> The group's lawsuits weren't immediately successful, in
> part
> because Fish and Wildlife continued to revise its opinions as to what
> the fish needed, and in part because of the farmers' undeniable water
> rights, established in 1907. But the ONRC kept at it and finally found a
> sympathetic ear. This spring, a federal judge -- in deciding yet another
> lawsuit brought by the ONRC, other environmental groups, fishermen and
> Indian tribes -- ordered an unwilling Interior Department to shut the
> water off. The ONRC had succeeded in denying farmers the ability to make
> a living.
>
> Since that decision, the average value of an acre of farm
> property in Klamath has dropped from $2,500 to about $35. Most owners
> have no other source of income. And so with the region suitably
> desperate, the enviros dropped their bomb. Last month, they submitted a
> proposal urging the government to buy the farmers off.
>
> The council has suggested a price of $4,000 an acre, which
> makes
> it more likely owners will sell only to the government. While the
> amount is more than the property's original value, it's nowhere near
> enough to compensate people for the loss of their livelihoods and their
> children's futures.
>
> The ONRC has picked its fight specifically with the
> farmers, but
> its actions will likely mean the death of an entire community. The
> farming industry will lose $250 million this year. But property-tax
> revenues will also decrease under new property assessments. That will
> strangle road and municipal projects. Local businesses are dependent on
> the farmers and are now suffering financially. Should the farm acreage
> be cleared of people entirely, meaning no taxes and no shoppers, the
> community is likely to disappear.
>
> Nor has the environment won, even at this enormous cost. The
> fish in the lake may have water, but nothing else does. On the
> 200,000 acres of parched farmland, animals belonging to dozens of
> species -- rabbits, deer, ducks, even bald eagles -- are either dead or
> off searching for water. And there's no evidence the suckers are
> improving. Indeed, Fish and Wildlife's most recent biological opinions,
> which concluded that the fish needed more water, have been vociferously
> questioned by independent biologists. Federal officials are now
> releasing some water (about 16% of the normal flow) into the irrigation
> canals, but it doesn't help the farmers or wildlife much this year.
>
> Environmentalists argue that farmers should never have
> been in
> the "dry" Klamath valley in the first place and that they put undue
> stress on the land. But the West is a primarily arid region; its history
> is one of turning inhospitable areas into thriving communities through
> prudent and thoughtful reallocation of water. If the Klamath farmers
> should be moved, why not the residents of San Diego and Los Angeles, not
> to mention the Southwest and parts of Montana and Wyoming? All of these
> communities survive because of irrigation -- water that could conceivably
> go to some other "environmental" use.
>
> But, of course, this is the goal. Environmental groups
> have
> spoken openly of their desire to concentrate people into cities,
> turning everything outside city limits into a giant park. A
> journalist for the Rocky Mountain News recently noted that in June
> the Sierra Club posted on its Web site a claim that "efficient" urban
> density is about 500 households an acre. This, in case you're wondering,
> is about three times the density of Manhattan's most tightly packed
> areas. And it's not as if there were any shortage of open space in the
> West. The federal government already owns 58% of the western U.S., with
> state and local government holdings bumping the public percentage even
> higher.
>
> Balanced Stewardship
>
> Do the people who give money to environmental groups realize
> the
> endgame is to evict people from their land? I doubt it. The American
> dream has always been to own a bit of property on which to pursue
> happiness. This dream involves some compromises, including a good,
> balanced stewardship of nature -- much like what was happening in Klamath
> before the ONRC arrived. But this dream will disappear -- as it already
> is in Oregon and California -- if environmental groups and complicit
> government agencies are allowed to continue their rural cleansing.
>
>
>
>
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> Copyright Klamath Water Users Association, 2001, All Rights
> Reserved
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The secret to David McTaggart'sá[early officer in Greenpeace] success is
the secret to Greenpeace's success: It doesn't matter what is true ...
it only matters what people believe is true ... You are what the media
define you to be. [Greenpeace] became a myth, and a myth-generating
machine.
- Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace and founder Sea Shepard
Conservation Society.
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