Klamath River Basin

SACRAMENTO -- After more than three years of negotiations, a collection of long-quarreling Klamath Basin farmers, fishermen and tribes announced a breakthrough agreement Tuesday that they said could lead to the nation's most extensive dam-removal project.

Wading anew into one of the West's fiercest water wars, a scientific panel from the National Research Council said this week that a more comprehensive study needs to be done on the problem-plagued Klamath River Basin. Past studies have focused only on the main river -- which has seen dams and water diversion hurt threatened salmon and suckerfish populations -- ignoring its many tributaries, the panel said in a report.

A federal judge Wednesday rejected the major arguments of Klamath Basin farmers who sought $1 billion from the federal government after regulators virtually cut off irrigation water during a drought to protect endangered fish. Environmentalists and fishermen who have been battling farmers over water in the sprawling agricultural basin on the California-Oregon border called the decision by Judge Francis M. Allegra of the U.S. Court of Claims a major victory.

President Bush released a budget Monday that would boost Klamath River Basin spending by 21%. If Congress approves it, the federal government would allocate $105 million for the Klamath next year. The budget proposal includes an extra $16 million for habitat conservation, water banking and wetlands protection. Barriers to salmon migration would be removed and more farmland given to waterfowl and fish. "It's a baby step in the right direction.

Resolving to end one of the West's fiercest water wars, the Bush administration forged an agreement Wednesday with Oregon and California to cooperatively solve squabbling over the drought-racked Klamath River. Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the new partnership should help ease tensions among farmers, Indian tribes, environmentalists and fishermen over management of the river, home to endangered coho salmon and two species of suckerfish in Upper Klamath Lake.

Back in the parched year of 2001, the water-starved farmers of the Klamath Basin embraced what seemed a common-sense bit of conventional wisdom. Everyone said that steep cuts that year in irrigation water, which for generations had turned the fertile region into an agricultural oasis each spring, were hitting hard in the pocketbook. By most accounts, the local economy suffered a loss topping $250 million.

With a notable absence of celebration, federal water officials cranked open the canal gates Tuesday to begin sending irrigation water to farmers in the Klamath Basin. They might as well have been opening another season of discontent. Federal officials are walking a fine line between delivering to the farmers and avoiding another huge fish die-off like last year's.

A federal proposal to provide farmers in the parched Klamath Basin nearly a full ration of irrigation water came under attack Wednesday from environmentalists and other foes who say it could cause a reprise of last year's major fish kill on the Klamath River. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plan would provide farmers in the basin straddling the Oregon-California border about 75% of the water they would expect in a normal rainfall year, federal officials said.

Stepping squarely into one of the West's most tumultuous water wars, a federal judge on Thursday ordered the Bush administration to revamp a long-term irrigation plan for the drought-plagued Klamath Basin that had been criticized for favoring farmers over fish. U.S.

Hit with allegations that the Bush administration is playing politics in the drought-plagued Klamath River Basin, the U.S. Department of the Interior will investigate whether White House political strategist Karl Rove helped shape a decision to provide more water to farmers at the expense of endangered fish. The probe by the department's inspector general comes at the request of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who is a presidential candidate.