The Klamath Adjudication and the KBRA: Klamath Falls Presentation on April 18th

On Thursday evening April 18th KlamBlog editor and long-time Klamath River activists Felice Pace will present “The Klamath Adjudication and the KBRA: Implications for tribal water rights, fish and wildlife” at the Klamath County Museum in Klamath Falls. The presentation – along with follow up q&a and discussion - will take place between 7 and 9 PM. The Klamath County Museum is located at  1451 Main Street in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The public is invited to attend.

 Early 1900s: Salmon Fishing at Link River below Upper Klamath Lake

The State of Oregon has denied the Klamath Tribes right to flows for salmon

The presentation is sponsored by the Klamath Claims Committee in order to inform and foster discussion among members of the Upper Klamath River Basin Community concerning developments which are of critical importance to the future of the Klamath River Basin and to natural and human communities throughout the basin.  Members of the Claims Committee are all members of the Klamath Tribes - a single tribal government with members who are Indigenous Klamath, Modoc and Yahoskin natives.

The goal of the presentation is to cut through the public relations spin which has issued from several sources concerning the proposed Klamath Adjudication Order and the KBRA. It will clarify how the proposed Order and the KBRA are related as well as how both would impact tribal water rights if they become final as proposed by the State of Oregon.

The proposed Klamath Adjudication Order and KBRA will be placed within the context of a major push by the federal government beginning in the 1980s to settle existing and potential tribal water rights claims throughout the American West.  It will focus on the State of Oregon’s denial of the Klamath Tribes’ claims to off-reservation water rights to support treaty hunting and fishing rights, including the denial of the tribe’s claims to flows in the Klamath River below Klamath Falls. This will include the likely impact of the proposed Adjudication Order and the KBRA on Klamath Salmon, Lost River and Shortnose suckers and on Klamath Wildlife Refuges should the Order and KBRA be adopted and implemented in their present form.     

The presentation concludes with description of a plan and vision for restoration of the Klamath River Basin and recovery of treaty fisheries which is radically different from the vision embodied in the KBRA. 

The Final Facilities Removal EIS/EIR and the politicization of Klamath Science

With recent distribution of the Klamath Facilities Removal Final Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report, the analysis and assessment phase for the KHSA (Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement) and KBRA (Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement) has officially ended. Including appendices and other material, the EIS/EIR is mammoth; it may well be the largest and most complex environmental impact report ever completed for anything pertaining only to the Klamath River Basin.

But producing those thousands of pages has been a rocky ride for the Department of Interior (Interior) and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW); the process which produced the scientific studies, summary documents and even press releases for the analysis and assessment have been plagued by allegations of official misconduct. And while the first complaint by a whistleblower has already been rejected by Interior, other whistleblower complaints from scientists involved in producing information used in the EIS/EIR are still working their way through Interior's scientific integrity and whistleblower processes.

Whatever the disposition of the additional complaints turns out to be, scientific integrity reviews to date have already confirmed that the bureaucrats in charge of the EIS process intentionally skewed document summaries and press releases in order to emphasize conclusions their bosses at the US Department of Interior favor while omitting conclusions not favored by superiors. Remarkably, Interior's scientific integrity review said essentially that “spinning” press releases and omitting unfavored information from summaries does not violate scientific integrity so long as the underlying scientific reports are not manipulated.

Others have pointed out that members of Congress and other decision makers rely on those document summaries and rarely if ever read the underlying science reports.

This begs a question of propriety raised by KlamBlog early in the EIS/EIR process when the bureaucrat heading the EIS/EIR team made comments to authors on draft independent scientific reviews dealing with KHSA-KBRA impacts to Klamath salmon. KlamBlog believes comments to scientists from the head of an EIS/EIR team with the intention of influencing changes in a draft report (a report which was supposed to be “independent”) was inappropriate. Telling scientists what the head of the environmental review would like to see changed in their report was simply not appropriate because it could have introduced bias into a report that was supposed to be independent. 

The report is final

Whatever the problems in its making, the EIS/EIR is now final. Whether it is ever used as the basis for a decision to implement and fund the KBRA and KHSA, however, depends not on Interior but on Congress. That is the case because what both deals propose is outside the scope of the normal legal and administrative processes which apply to dams, federal water management and endangered species. Said another way, what Interior and other federal agencies want to do with the KHSA and KBRA is beyond the authority those agencies possess under the foundational laws which govern them.

Looked at another way, however, the EIS/EIR process has now provided the public, decision makers and the public itself with a wealth of newly integrated scientific, economic and social analysis which should enable us to better understand the impacts of these two complex and controversial deals – the KHSA and KBRA.

Well, almost.

The Final EIS/EIR does include analysis and assessment of impacts which are likely if the KHSA is implemented. With respect to the KBRA, however, we get the assessment without the corresponding analysis. That is because Interior chose to consider the KBRA programmatically. Programmatically is bureaucracy speak for deferring real analysis to what is know as the project phase, i.e. the time at which a component of the KBRA is ready to be implemented.

There are a couple of problems with Interior's programmatic approach. For one thing, many aspects of the KBRA are already being implemented by the Bureau of Reclamation and other federal agencies. Deferring analysis of actions that are already being implemented looks a lot like intentionally avoiding the analysis.

Assessing KBRA impacts in the Final EIS/EIR without the benefit of analysis means that the assessment and its conclusions are based on assumptions which may or may not correspond to reality. In numerous instances  KBRA provisions are assessed as “positive” and “beneficial” without any real analysis to back up the assertions.
Here are a three examples gleaned from many found in the Final EIS/EIR:

Example #1:

           The FEIS (Vol. I, 3.2-143) states: “If Upper Klamath NWR dries more frequently in the summer and fall, but for shorter periods that allow wetlands soil to remain wet in the root zone below the water level, the breakdown of peat soils may be minimized if not completely negated. Aldous et al. (2005) tested different hydrologic treatments for cores from undisturbed and restored wetlands around Upper Klamath Lake. If wetlands were allowed to remain moist, rather than dry completely, the release of phosphorus was minimized, and the undisturbed wetlands, which included Upper Klamath NWR, effectively had no phosphorus release. Because KBRA-flows and their effects on Upper Klamath Lake water elevation cannot be conclusively predicted at this time, it is not possible to determine whether the NWR wetlands or their soils would remain moist even if they are drained more frequently, which would minimize phosphorus release, or if they would dry out significantly more, which could foster some phosphorus release.”

          That sounds reasonable; but in reality the impact of the KBRA on how often Upper Klamath NWR dries out has already been demonstrated. For the past three water years, the Bureau of Reclamation has implemented what is essentially the KBRA approach to water management. Each time it has dried out – or in the case of 2013 plans to dry out – Upper Klamath NWR. The impacts of what is essentially the KBRA's approach to water management on phosphorus release to Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River could have been analyzed and disclosed using real life examples of KBRA water management, but that is not what those in charge of the EIS/EIR chose to do.

In accordance with the KBRA's water management scheme, 

the Bureau of Reclamation has dewatered Upper Klamath NWR 

 every year since the deal was signed  

Pace calls out Addington-Tucker attack on democratic process

It has long been KlamBlog's contention that it was wrong for federal and state bureaucrats, tribes, environmental and irrigation interests to conspire behind closed doors to determine the future of the Klamath River Basins Public Trust Resources. Worse still, the KBRA Water Deal seeks to establish that closed-door process as the manner in which the most important Public Trust Resources - water - will be managed going forward.

KlamBlog has also called attention to the fact that -  in the two years since the KBRA was signed - managing water via back room cronyism has resulted in regular cuts to river flows as well as to the yearly dewatering of Klamath wildlife refuges. 

The alternative we have advocated is for a new Klamath River Compact and a new Klamath Compact Commission which would have seats for tribes and counties as well as states and the feds. A new and properly empowered Klamath Compact Commission would coordinate water management under existing federal, state and local authorities and would oversee an open, democratic process for coordinating restoration strategies and allocating restoration funds.

Now KlamBlog's principle writer and editor Felice Pace has called out these undemocratic practices in a major article appearing in the on-line journal Counterpunch. In Political Theater of the Absurd in the Klamath Basin, Felice takes the Irrigation Elite's Greg Addington and the Karuk Tribe's Craig Tucker to task for suggesting that newly elected Klamath County Commissioners can not take Klamath County out of the KBRA. According to Felice, Addington and Tucker are seeking to turn the KBRA into a virtual Hotel California where - in the words of the Eagles classic song - “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!”

The Irrigation Elite's Men:  Klamath Water Users Association  

Executive Director Greg Addington (right) and Lawyer Paul Simmons (left) 

Read Felice's article in full at this link.

Connecting the dots

As part of monitoring how the media reports on Klamath River issues, KlamBlog follows several newspapers including the Klamath Falls based Herald and News. In recent months we've noticed an interesting juxtaposition of articles in that publication. 

On the one hand, the H&N regularly publishes news articles touting the economic development efforts of Klamath County leaders. Looking for economic salvation from the outside, these leaders have been courting corporations interested in turning wood into electricity. Biomass elctrical generation has become the mythical golden fleece for many of the West's rural forest counties. Many rural leaders hope fervently for a return to the good old days when salmon and clean water were sacrificed to maximize timber production. 

Juxtaposed with articles about economic development hopes are others announcing that the air in Klamath County is so bad that everyday folks must stop burning wood for heat. Klamath County already has the worst air in Oregon; just recently it was announced that the county also has the most unhealthy population. Local political leaders, however, seem to be wearing blinders; they fail to  connect the dots. 

Mount Shasta rises above unhealthy air in Klamath Falls Oregon 

While their citizens appear to be catching on (between fits of chronic coughing), Klamath County politicians - like most western rural political leaders - seem not to recognize that in today's world a clean, healthy environment is a key to a healthy population which is the key to a healthy economy. Quality of Life is the concept connecting them all.

Klamath County political leaders who want a healthy economy should spend less time chasing the next smokestack and more time figuring out how to improve the health of county citizens. Cleaner air is one obvious place to start.  

That reminds KlamBlog of yet another old tune from the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary - "When will they ever learn?"  

Stay tuned!
     

Gorgeous new video for Klamath Dam Removal

There is a gorgeous new video available on causes.com featuring the mural in Orleans which KlamBlog recently called to readers attention. The "cause" in the video is Klamath Dam removal; it features traditional members of the Karuk and Yurok Tribes.

Karuk artist Biran Tripp working on the Orleans mural

The causes.com page then asks viewers to click on a link in order to "add your voice to theirs, send an Un-Dam the Klamath letter to Congress and share this action with your friends." 

The link is to the Klamath Riverkeeper page where one can sign a letter to Congress asking members to "please introduce and pass legislation to Un-Dam the Klamath in 2013."

There is no mention anywhere on causes.org of "the other side of the story" - that is, of the normal route to dam removal through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Also not mentioned is that, while many folks who have worked long and hard for the River and Klamath Salmon think Congressional authorization of the KHSA Dam Deal is the quickest and best path to dam removal, others who have also worked long and hard for Klamath restoration think FERC is the surest, quickest and best path to dam removal.

That is why at the same time Klamath Riverkeeper is urging folks to contact Congress, the Hoopa Tribe has petitioned FERC to resume jurisdiction over the fate of PacifiCorp's Klamath River Dams and Rogue Group of the Sierra Club is urging folks to contact FERC in support of the Hoopa Tribe's petition.

Such is the state of affairs on the Klamath: natural allies and friends who have worked long and hard to restore the Klamath River and Klamath Salmon have been divided by the KHSA Dam Deal and KBRA Water Deal. The division plays on old inter-tribal antagonisms and weakens the overall effort; it is NOT in the interest of the River.

KlamBlog believes we need leaders who can resolve the conflict and bring those who work for the River and Klamath Salmon back into coalition.  That IS the River's interest.