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KWUA Significant
Accomplishments, 2001-2004
KWUA
12/10/04
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KWUA HOME
Federal Political Arena:
KWUA was the most vocal and engaged
organization that advocated for 2002 Farm Bill
funding that would help Klamath Basin
farmers, not buy them out. The result: $50
million in U.S. Department of Agriculture EQIP
funds that pay for 75% of improvements to help
on-farm water use efficiency. Since 2002, over
800 applications have been submitted by Basin
farmers and ranchers to use these funds.
KWUA helped write and advocate for federal
legislation that earlier this year reimbursed
Klamath Project irrigation districts $2.6
million for operations and maintenance funds
paid in 2002, despite the curtailment of water
deliveries.
KWUA has actively engaged in federal
appropriations processes that have brought
over $10 million into the Basin in the past
three years to support a federally-conditioned
environmental water bank.
KWUA,
working with Rep. Doolittle (R-CA), developed
legislation that will provide $25 million in
Water Resources Development Act funds to help
irrigation districts and local agencies
implement projects to conserve and generate
water.
- KWUA has
worked closely with the Klamath Basin
congressional delegation to fund improvements
that will protect imperiled fish species and
lead towards recovery of these species. Key
projects that have received funding in the
past three years include the "A" Canal fish
screen ($16 million), studies intended to
improve fish passage at Chiloquin Dam, and
development of a pilot project to aerate Upper
Klamath Lake. Counting President Bush’s Fiscal
Year 2005 budget request, in three years,
federal agencies have committed over $260
million to address Klamath Basin resources
issues.
- KWUA has
forged a strong relationship with the Bush
Administration. In 2003, David Anderson, a
senior White House environmental advisor,
spoke at KWUA’s Annual Meeting. At this year’s
annual meeting, President Bush personally sent
a letter of commendation to KWUA that was read
to the audience by Klamath County Commissioner
Steve West.
State Political Arena
In Oregon,
KWUA has worked with the Oregon Water
Resources Congress repeatedly over the past
five years to thwart proposed state
legislation that would make it more difficult
for Klamath Project irrigators to fully
protect their water rights in the Klamath
River adjudication process.
- In the past
two years, KWUA has developed a strong
relationship with Oregon Governor Ted
Kulongoski, who has met directly with local
water users three times in the past 18 months.
In early 2003, the governor and his resources
staff allowed Oregon to make its presence felt
in the PCFFA, et al. v USBR, et al
litigation by submitted an amicus brief
to the court. He has clearly demonstrated a
willingness to work towards a balanced program
that reflects a "watershed-wide" approach to
solving fisheries problems, rather than simply
focusing on the Klamath Project.
- In 2003, the
Oregon Department of Agriculture recognized
the proactive conservation efforts undertaken
by local water users, and presented KWUA with
its "Leadership in Conservation" award. The
receipt of this award provided positive media
coverage and injected some much-needed
positive praise into our local community.
Earlier this year, Gov. Kulongoski again
recognized our association on the steps of the
capitol in Salem.
- Governor
Kulongoski in July 2004 sent a strong message
to our community when he appeared as the
keynote speaker at the 50th Annual
Meeting of KWUA in Klamath Falls. Before
nearly 300 audience members, he reaffirmed his
pledge to put a high priority on solving water
problems of the Klamath Basin in a way that
keeps agriculture going.
- On the
California side, we have worked aggressively
to develop new relationships with the
Schwarzenegger Administration. Earlier this
year, the new California Resources Secretary
and the regional director of the California
Department of Fish and Game met directly with
KWUA in Klamath Falls to discuss the need for
a watershed-wide approach to solving our
problems. In October, the "Klamath River
Watershed Coordination Agreement" was signed
by both governors and four Bush cabinet level
secretaries that memorialized this philosophy.
In 2002, former Assemblyman Dick Dickerson,
who helped broker a deal with former Gov. Gray
Davis to bring over $8 million in emergency
assistance to Tulelake farmers in 2001, was a
special guest of honor at KWUA’s annual
meeting.
Legal Arena
In the recent
past, there have been a number of lawsuits
affecting the interests of the Klamath Project
and the Upper Klamath Basin generally. KWUA has
intervened in many of these cases. Importantly,
due in large part to KWUA’s intervention in the
2003 PCFFA et al v. USBR et al case,
Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong failed to find a
linkage between Klamath Project operations and
the 2002 die-off of salmon on the lower Klamath
River. Had this occurred, serious restrictions
may have been placed on future Klamath Project
operations. Other cases where water user
intervention has helped Klamath Project
irrigators in recent legal decisions:
- Pacific
Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations,
et al. v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and
National Marine Fisheries Service
,
The plaintiff environmental organizations
brought suit in April of 2002 in the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of
California, claiming that the Bureau of
Reclamation was in procedural violation of the
Endangered Species Act with respect to coho
salmon. They sought a temporary restraining
order that would preclude irrigation
diversions if certain Klamath flows were not
met. The application for temporary restraining
order was denied on May 3, 2002.
Oregon
Natural Resources Council, et al. v. Keys, et
al.
Federal agencies have historically obtained
ESA biological opinions and incidental take
authorization concerning various activities
within the Klamath Project. The activities
include authorizing use of aquatic herbicides,
and pesticide use on lease lands. In this
case, the plaintiffs sought an order enjoining
both the use of aquatic herbicides (acrolein)
throughout the Klamath Project and the use of
copper-containing pesticides on the lease
lands. The U.S. District Court for the
District of Oregon upheld the magistrate
judge’s findings, and adopted the latter
recommendation to completely dismiss the case.
On July 1, 2004, the District Court entered
final judgment dismissing the case.
Communications
and Outreach
During the 2001
water crisis, local water users and the
agricultural business community developed strong
media and public relations that have carried
over to the present. Important steps were taken
to improve media and public outreach in 2003:
- Tours
:
KWUA members played an important part in
hosting several tours of the Klamath Project
in the past year. Educators from Yale
University, Humboldt State, University of
Oregon, Western Washington College all
traveled to Klamath Falls in 2003 to tour the
Klamath Project. KWUA also participated in a
tour conducted by the Klamath Soil and Water
Conservation District for conservationists and
state elected officials from Arkansas.
- Water users
made great progress strengthening
relationships with coastal fishermen,
irrigators in the Scott and Shasta Valley,
Rogue Valley irrigators, and the Klamath
Tribes, and participated in tours hosted by
some of these groups. The Nature Conservancy
provided local water users an opportunity to
tour its Sycan Marsh property last summer.
- KWUA’s
Weekly Update was released in April of
2002, and has been distributed in electronic
format every week since. Direct distribution
of this update has increased in the past two
years from a few hundred original subscribers
to several thousand. Our friends in the water
community like the Oregon Water Resources
Congress, the National Water Resources
Association, and Oregonians also distribute
the Weekly Update for Food and Shelter.
- This year,
KWUA created its own stand-alone website:
www.kwua.org,
which is visited daily by Basin residents, as
well as agency employees, stakeholders, and
academics around the country.
- KWUA has
developed improved relations with newspaper
writers and editors throughout the west.
Opinion pieces have been printed in many
papers, including The Oregonian, The
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and
The New York Times. Klamath Project
irrigators were quoted in 2003 in national
newspapers like The Los Angeles Times,
USA Today, The San Francisco
Chronicle, and The Sacramento Bee.
- KWUA has
also contributed letters, articles or
information included in a diverse range of
publications, including Outside
magazine, Mother Jones, Western
Water, The Furrow, and
California Ag Alert.
- KWUA Board
members, individual water users, and KWUA
staff have appeared on national television
telecasts, local television and radio, radio
talk shows throughout the Pacific Northwest,
and National Public Radio in the past year.
Public outreach
was also an important part of 2003. KWUA
participated in several community events,
including two public meetings held at the
Klamath County fairgrounds in February that
collectively drew over 1,000 attendees. KWUA
also delivered presentations to numerous local
civic groups. Local water users, businessmen and
consultants also participated in a truly
remarkable number of panels at conferences
throughout the West, including:
Agriculture /
Water Associations:
Association of California Water Agencies,
Mid-Pacific Water Users, Tri-State Water Users,
Oregon Water Resources Congress, American Water
Resources Association, National Water Resources
Association, and the Nevada Farm Bureau
Federation.
Environmental
and Water Law Conferences In:
Seattle, Portland, Yosemite, San Francisco,
Stanford University.
Other Seminars:
University of California CVPIA Conference, U.S.
Interior Department Water 2025 (Sacramento),
2003 Water Education Foundation Briefing on
Water Law and Policy (San Diego), Cascade Earth
Sciences (Klamath Falls), Yale School of
Forestry (New Haven, CT), Univ. of Montana
School of Law (Missoula).
Earlier this
year, KWUA played a key coordinating role as the
Klamath Basin hosted the U.S. House of
Representatives Resources Committee field
hearing in Klamath Falls, which drew five
congressmen and over 700 attendees to the Ross
Ragland Theater.
Science
While KWUA
reviews and prepares comments on dozens of
agency reports, the association and its members
also dedicated time and effort towards
addressing the numerous other administrative and
regulatory processes that confront local water
users.
KWUA in 2003
released two reports prepared in the past year
that address temperature, flow and habitat
considerations on the Klamath River. One report
specifically addresses the conditions before,
during and after the unfortunate die-off of
33,000 fish on the lower Klamath River in 2002.
The other study assesses important assumptions
made in a controversial draft flow report
developed by Dr. Thomas Hardy in 2001. David
Vogel, a fisheries scientist with Natural
Resource Scientists, Inc. authored both of the
following reports:
Both reports
were developed and used as a basis for testimony
submitted by Vogel in PCFFA et al. v. USBR,
et al. this past year.
Klamath Water Users
Association
2455 Patterson Street, Suite 3
Klamath Falls, Oregon 97603
Phone (541) 883-6100
FAX (541) 883-8893
kwua@cvcwireless.net |
