Convoys Roll to Help Farmers

Sympathizers from throughout the West are heading to the troubled Klamath agricultural region in pickup truck convoys to lend support to water-starved farmers along the Oregon-California border.

The convoys, led by veterans of the smoldering fight over federal policies in the West’s rural reaches, are fanning worries about the potential for trouble in the drought-plagued area.

Convoys originating in Nevada, Montana and even the Malibu beachfront are expected to arrive in Klamath Falls, Ore., early next week to deliver livestock feed, canned food and donations.

A rally is planned Tuesday that will coincide roughly with the anticipated shut-off of an emergency delivery of water ordered a few weeks ago by federal officials. Even with that water, farmers in the Klamath region have struggled to survive in one of the worst droughts in 100 years.

After less than a quarter of the usual rainfall last winter, farmers were virtually cut off from their usual allotment of irrigation water because of concerns over two species of threatened suckerfish in Upper Klamath Lake and the endangered coho salmon downstream.

The Klamath water crisis in recent months has become a rallying point for a wide range of groups irate over provisions of the Endangered Species Act, and other federal policies they believe have unfairly limited their rights.

Klamath farmers have proven adept at attracting the national media, holding a bucket brigade down the main street of Klamath Falls and hosting a flag-waving “cavalry” ride over the bluffs into town. Perhaps to greatest effect, they mounted a July 4 protest that spawned repeated attempts to force open the main irrigation canal head gates.

Since then, federal law officers have managed to keep an uneasy peace at the head gates, though protesters have established a permanent presence there with a command post inside a trailer.

The arrival of the convoys could stir the pot anew, and even some farmers are a bit uneasy.

“Feelings are mixed,” said Rob Crawford, a farmer from Tulelake, Calif. “If we can keep a handle on it, keep it peaceful and positive, then I think it’s a good thing.”

Jeffrey McCracken, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the network of irrigation canals in the Klamath region, said his agency hopes the farmers “get the publicity they’re looking for and get it peacefully.”

Zeke Grader, leader of a Pacific Coast fishermen’s group that has fought to see more water reserved for endangered fish, worries that the crisis has attracted a disgruntled mix of anti-government agitators who could spell trouble.

“It’s got elements of Christian fundamentalism and a whole lot of paranoia,” Grader said. “It makes for some interesting times.”

The Portland-based Willamette Weekly reported that one activist, a conservative radio talk show host from Montana named John Stokes, planned to burn a 10-foot green swastika when he reaches Klamath Falls with a Montana pickup parade dubbed the “Convoy of Tears.”

“People have to realize this green movement is based on Nazism,” Stokes told the weekly. “We have no notion of letting this country turn into a Third Reich.”

Leaders of the Klamath Tribes, a group fighting to protect the suckerfish, urged the convoy leaders to stay away.

“We respectfully ask the convoys to turn around and go home,” said Allen Foreman, tribal chairman. “Their message will actually hurt farmers and ranchers in the basin by raising false hopes and discouraging people from coming together to focus on the search for workable answers.”

Noon Rally for Convoy

But the convoys were rolling by early Wednesday, on the way through more than half a dozen Western states.

“We’re definitely a nonviolent group,” said Joann Mider, a retired bank employee from Kamiah, Idaho. “We’re not part of a militia. We’re taking cameras. We’re just people concerned who could get off work.”

“We’ll go away when enough people stand up for their morals and say this thing is wrong,” said Joe Bair, a civil engineer in Klamath who is a leader of the head-gate protest.

Bair traveled 600 miles south to Malibu this week to help lead a caravan of pickups and flatbed trucks from Southern California.

The convoy began with a noon rally next to Malibu’s Surfrider Beach, where four dozen people gathered around a 10-foot replica of a bucket symbolizing the water controversy.

Many in the crowd were sign-waving property owners from the Santa Monica Mountains disgruntled over pressures of their own they say they have felt from the federal government.

“Cutting off water is the same as legislating you out of doing anything with your land,” said Calabasas ranch owner Brian Boudreau.

Surfers and beachgoers paused to stare at the huge bucket, mounted on the back of a flatbed truck.

The bucket was built by an Elko, Nev., blacksmith for the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade--a group that last year won a dispute with the U.S. government over repairs to a washed-out road near Jarbidge, Nev.

The first person to step up to the bucket and contribute to a fund to benefit Klamath farmers was Vern Padgett, president of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District.

“I’m doing this myself,” said Padgett, a medical doctor who lives in Calabasas and pulled a $20 bill out of his pocket in exchange for a plastic toy bucket and shovel.

Grant Gerber, an Elko lawyer active in the Jarbidge road dispute, organized the convoy, which will make a dozen stops as it meanders up the spine of California in the coming days.

Klamath farmers were surprised, Gerber said, when he suggested starting one leg of the convoy in Malibu.

“Their reaction was, ‘Do you mean there are people down in the big city who support us?’ ” said Gerber.

“This is a nice area,” said Bair, as he surveyed the famed surfing beach from the back of the bucket-bearing flatbed truck. “Klamath was a nice area, too, before they cut off our water.”