TULE LAKE, CALIF. — Under the rolling cloud-scape of the Klamath Basin, a curious rite of spring is underway.
Migratory birds are flocking to the basin's necklace of federal wildlife refuges straddling Oregon and California -- one of the most important stops on the Pacific Flyway. As usual, the geese, mallards and terns are sharing the sanctuaries with tractors.
Agriculture fields have elbowed onto what once were marshes and shallow inland seas, shrinking the basin's wetlands by nearly 80%. Environmentalists have long fought to stop that farming, saying the refuges belong to the birds.
But now, activists say, farmers in the Klamath Basin appear poised to cement their presence on the refuges, the basin's most productive farmland.
Farmers are gaining an edge in closed-door settlement talks over the fate of four dams on the Klamath River, which meanders across two states before pouring into the Pacific Ocean north of Eureka, Calif.
Environmentalists universally support dam removal, which would let endangered salmon reach upriver spawning grounds blocked for nearly a century.
Activists with a pair of Oregon-based groups, however, fear that a looming compromise backed by the Bush administration will come at an unacceptable cost: an agreement to forever allow farming in the refuges.
The 23-page settlement proposes up to $250 million to ease soaring electricity costs for irrigation pumps and possibly finance a renewable energy plant.
Farmers and other big landowners could also be shielded from endangered-species restrictions invoked to revive imperiled fish species: the salmon, two types of suckerfish in Upper Klamath Lake and the bull trout, which is found in upstream tributaries.
"The Bush administration has hijacked these talks about dam removal to advance unrelated policy goals bad for the environment and bad in the long term for the Klamath Basin," said Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild, a Portland nonprofit.
At this point, that resolute stand is a lonely one.
Other participants in the talks, including several national environmental groups, say it's too early to go to the mat over a deal that's anything but done.
"If folks are talking about one thing or another being sold out, we think that's very premature," said Amy Kober of American Rivers. "There's still plenty to be worked out."
The administration's top negotiator declined to discuss details but rejected any notion of pressure from Washington.
