4:09/04. KLAMATH IRRIGATORS TURN TO INTIMIDATION
TACTICS: "The mother of all frivolous lawsuits," is the description
given by PCFFA Executive Director Zeke Grader to a class action
lawsuit filed 29 August in Siskiyou County Superior Court (Yreka,
California) by a Walnut Creek, California lawyer on behalf of Upper
Klamath Basin landowners against every organization that has ever been
party, including PCFFA, to any recent lawsuit seeking upper basin water
reforms or asking that the Bureau of Reclamation follow the law. The
suit seeks damages for recent water cutbacks, even though most were
drought related. The complaint also alleges that lake fish and coho
salmon are not really endangered or threatened with extinction (in spite
of all being formally listed under the federal Endangered Species Act)
and that saying that they were endangered is part of some vast
conspiracy to deprive farmers of their land ("rural cleansing"). This
action is what is called a SLAPP suit (for "strategic lawsuit against
public participation") whose sole purpose is to stifle, harass and
intimidate opponents who speak out on public issues or against
development. Todd True, an attorney with Earthjustice Legal Defense
Fund said the suit appeared to be "a recycling of claims that were made
in litigation by the irrigators in federal court in Eugene....And the court,
as it should have, rejected the claims there.." However, the filing of
frivolous lawsuits can backfire, and those who bring such suits can wind
up having to pay all costs and legal fees of those they attack plus
additional fines. Filing frivolous lawsuits is also a violation of attorney
professional ethics codes and can result in disciplinary action against the
lawyers who bring them.
Most Klamath Project farms are far from drying up. To date this year,
according to a Bureau of Reclamation report to a federal task force in
Yreka, California on 29 August, Klamath Project irrigators have
received over 195,000 acre-feet of water directly from the Bureau. At
least an additional 50,000 acre-feet has also been received from the
more than 100 emergency wells drilled in Oregon and California, for a
total of about 245,000 acre-feet, or considerably over half of a normal
water year's allotment in spite of the record drought. Additionally the
majority of farms in the Upper Basin have never been on the federal
project's subsidized water system, but have long had their own wells or
sources of water, and are fully watered even this year. For more
information see: www.pcffa.org/klamath
.
Also see the 29 August Oregonian Klamath Basin question and answer
fact sheet at: http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_
standard.xsl?/base/news/99908617217192308.xml
In another action aimed at intimidating those seeking water reforms
and protection for the fish and the salmon fishery, Klamath Basin
irrigators and their anti-government allies are attempting to block the
Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC), one of the plaintiffs in the
Klamath litigation, from receiving a small grant from the City of
Portland to implement energy conservation and storm-water runoff
reduction renovations at its recently purchased Portland office property.
According to the 30 August Oregonian, the Klamath County Board of
Commissioners has written Portland Mayor Vera Katz a strongly
worded letter demanding that the grant be rescinded and asserting that
providing funds to ONRC shows an 'utter disregard' for the farmers in
the Klamath Basin. ONRC has long been a critic of Bureau of
Reclamation water policies and water over-allocation in the Klamath
Irrigation Project, and is the lead plaintiff in a recent lawsuit to restore
some of that water to the National Wildlife Refuges that the Bureau of
Reclamation frequently allows to dry up. Multnomah County
Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees the grant program, said
these grants are for energy conservation and to reduce pollution into the
Willamette, not for any political purposes, and should not be pulled for
political reasons.
4:09/05. KLAMATH IRRIGATORS SUED BY MUNICIPALITY
FOR POLLUTING DRINKING WATER: The small town of Bonanza,
Oregon, in the Upper Klamath Basin, has voted to sue surrounding
irrigation districts over the impact farm-based water pollution is having
on their town water supply, which is now so polluted by nearby farms
that it had to be shut down, according to a 29 August report in the
Oregonian. Irrigation activities by some farmers in the Basin have
jeopardized fish and wildlife populations, including
commercially-valuable salmon runs in the Klamath River, but this
lawsuit alleges the waste water from the irrigation is jeopardizing human
drinking water. To see the article go to: http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?
/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/front_page/99908613317192122.xml
4:09/03. 2001 NORTHWEST SALMON PRODUCTION LINKED
TO WEATHER SHIFT: In a 30 August Associated Press story in the
Salem Statesman-Journal, a team of biologists and atmospheric
scientists say the low pressure system that sits off Kodiak Island every
winter had been pushing nutrient-rich water north toward Alaska and
away from Oregon and Washington. This weather pattern known as the
"Aleutian Low" likely played a large role in the record return of coho
and chinook salmon to the Pacific Northwest this year, according to
these researchers. They noted that, from 1977 to 1998, the Aleutian Low
was larger and more intense than it had been since the mid-1940s. But in
the winter of 1999, the pressure system suddenly shifted west to
Kamchatka, and ocean conditions changed almost overnight in the
Pacific Northwest. Different kinds of zooplankton - tiny sea plants and
animals - appeared off the Oregon and Washington coasts, shifting the
food chain in favor of salmon. To see the article, go to:
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=29002
.
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