Water War Pits Farms Against Fish

In the past, the rich farm fields in these parts would be greening up about now. Rob Crawford would be dutifully toiling over his crop--wheat and barley and potatoes--like generations before him.

But these days Crawford stands idly at the edge of fields that lie stark and fallow. With blue eyes narrowed against the stiff wind, he watches as gusts whip away the fertile soil and kick up a massive dust plume--blanketing houses, schools and stores.

To Crawford, it looks as if his whole community might just blow away.

He and the 1,500 other farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin, a productive agrarian region straddling the Oregon border, have been denied water this year. They are casualties of a drought and efforts to save endangered fish. In the long history of Western water wars, it is the first time a community has been forced to stop farming, experts said.

Without water, delivered reliably for nearly a century by a federal irrigation project that taps the mighty Klamath River, the farmers can’t plant. Many face bankruptcy or outright ruin.

So do people at the irrigation equipment store, the packing sheds, the seed warehouses. Already, many of the region’s 3,000 or so farm laborers, who have lived here for decades, are eyeing work elsewhere.

The grocer is worried about dwindling business. So is the school principal. On Friday, Gov. Gray Davis declared a state of emergency in the region.

“This thing,” Crawford, 43, muttered, “is so rotten and so wrong.”

Judge Rules for Fish

These farmers have lost at nearly every step--in jousts with federal stewards of wildlife and the fisheries, in fights with commercial fishermen and Native American tribes, in two federal courts. The most recent setback came Monday in Eugene, Ore., where a U.S. district judge said the need to protect endangered species--two types of sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake and the threatened coho salmon in the river downstream--outweighed the economic needs of the farmers.

But the growers are a hardy lot, many of them from families lured to the region by government promises of free-flowing water forever. They’ve had a good run. About 250,000 acres are in agriculture, all of it family farms. The loamy soil of this drained lake bottom has been good to them. Now they talk of feeling cheated. They vow to fight to the end.

To dramatize their plight, thousands of people are expected to mount a protest Monday in Klamath Falls, Ore. Fifty farmers, representing each of the states, will form a ceremonial bucket brigade down the main street.

Some locals see a 21st century dust bowl in the making.

“This is an epic tragedy, the remaking of the “Grapes of Wrath,”’ said Larry Turner, a local wildlife photographer. “The Endangered Species Act has an overbite that doesn’t factor in people.”

But there are people behind the endangered fish.

In Oregon’s Upper Klamath Lake, the two kinds of sucker fish are part of the cultural heritage of three Indian tribes--the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin. C’wam and Qupto, they call the fish. Since regaining sovereign status in 1986, the tribes have pushed to protect the Upper Klamath.

From the lake, the Klamath River dives into California, cascading hundreds of miles through forests and mountain ranges before emptying into the sea. The Yurok tribe has long fished its waters, the third-most productive salmon fishery in the United States, but the salmon have diminished. Commercial anglers out of ports up and down the coast have likewise seen their livelihood dwindle.

“We need that water for our fisheries, just as much or more than the farmers,” said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns. “Our communities have been systematically strangled.”

Spain contends that the depletion of salmon has cost 3,700 jobs. In a drought year like this one, with the snowpack that feeds the Klamath one-third of normal, the farmers can eke by on federal assistance, Spain said. But the fish “only have one river.”

Troy Fletcher of the Yurok tribe said his people don’t relish seeing farmers hurt. But he and others believe agriculture in the Klamath Basin has taken too big a share of Sucker fish and salmon were added to the nation’s endangered species list in the 1990s. But several seasons of heavy rain kept water in the river and the fight from flaring. With the drought, federal fishery biologists warned of the salmon’s demise if water volume down the Klamath River wasn’t doubled. Scientists, meanwhile, called for increased water levels in Upper Klamath Lake to give the suckers a better chance.

In early April, a lawsuit by fishermen and environmentalists ended in an order against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees the hundreds of miles of earthen canals and irrigation ditches that have served the Klamath region since 1907.

Within days, Reclamation officials took an unprecedented step and virtually turned off the tap. Jeff McCracken, a Reclamation Bureau spokesman, called it a “tragic situation: We’ve never before had a community that couldn’t continue farming.”

‘It Will Be A Ghost Town’

Also cut off are the vast bird refuges that checkerboard the region. They are the last remnants of an even larger series of lakes and estuaries diked and drained to create farmland. Though a quarter the historic size, the wetlands remain a major stop for migrating birds and harbor the largest bald eagle population in the lower 48 states.

Locals figure most of the eagles will find a way to survive. They’re not so sure about themselves. “It will be a ghost town,” warned Tessa Stuedli, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Assn.

Social service agencies are offering free counseling. But many people worry about fallout--domestic violence, divorce or worse.

Crawford drives by a reminder each day. Just up the road from his modest home, the farmer points to a big clapboard house. It’s a lovely spread, but the farmer who lived there, he says, committed suicide last year. Couldn’t pay his loans.

On the road into Tulelake, population 1,000 and shrinking, signs have been erected by angry farmers. “73 Years With Water . . . Until Now!” reads one of the tamer placards.

In town, a bunch of old-timers--all of them World War II veterans who won homesteads in government lotteries--have gathered at a diner. The lunch special is mashed potatoes and gravy, but mostly they chew on shared woes.

“They’re destroying a civilization, one that government encouraged us to set up in the first place,” lamented Paul Christy, 83, a farmer since he mustered out as an airman flying cover for Gen. George Patton’s North Africa campaign. “After 50 years, they’re jerking the rug out from under us.”

Eleanor Bolesta, 78, arrived here with her husband in 1947. He was wounded in Guam; she was an aviation machinist’s mate, fixing planes stateside. Bolesta rents the place out now, depends on the income for retirement. But with no water, she’ll get no rent.

“We’ve been betrayed,” she said, a bit disbelieving herself. “We’re the endangered species, not the fish.”

A Few Lucky Farms Have Wells

There’s been talk of federal aid, but most farmers scoff. Crop assistance pays one-sixth the normal take, Stuedli said. Low-interest disaster loans are fine if you’ve got income; years of sagging prices and surplus stocks have most farmers already mortgaged to the hilt. Outright grants would help. But they’re a longshot, requiring an act of Congress.

To cut the dust, $1.5 million in federal funds will go to plant cover crops and erect wind barriers. But locals are skeptical, given the dearth of water to sustain the most meager plantings.

A few lucky farmers have well water. Emergency permits to dig new wells are being issued in Oregon. On the California side, Davis ordered up to $5 million to expand access to ground water, though spiking electricity rates will make the cost of pumping painful.

Some farmers are trying to get out. More than 50 have signed options with land trusts to sell 20,000 acres.

Those who vow to stay insist they’ve tried to coexist with the fish. Many believe they’ve borne the blame for other factors--timber harvests that spill sediment into the Klamath, hydroelectric dams devoid of fish ladders, cattle that pollute upstream tributaries.

Worse, they contend that federal environmental stewards are relying on fuzzy science, that their foes are using the Endangered Species Act and return the land to nature.

It’s a common refrain.

“A year without water will knock out half the farmers,” warned Tony Giacomelli, owner of Jock’s Supermarket. “The environmentalists’ agenda seems to be to retake the land, return it to marsh, without much regard for the people.”

Giacomelli has seen business drop 15%, but knows it could get worse. It already has elsewhere.

Georgette Kirby broods behind the counter at the farm irrigation store, where sales are down 95%. Or-Buc Seed owner Russ Wedmore stews over unopened wood boxes stacked inside a warehouse that normally is empty this time of year.

At Tulelake Elementary, Principal Patty Reeder figures her school could lose 40% of its pupils. Children chart the whereabouts of departing classmates on maps to ease the hurt. After the decision to turn off water, she said, “kids went home crying: ‘I’m going to move. I’m going to move.’ ”

Venancio Hernandez figures that’s his fate. He’s been in Tulelake a quarter-century, arriving at 17 from Michoacan, Mexico. He worked up from farm hand to manager to his own crops on leased land.

But without water, there is little hope. Friends have eyed Las Vegas for construction work. With five children, ages 13 to 21, the thought pains Hernandez.

“You grow these kids to be the best,” he said softly. “You hear these bad stories of gangs and violence in the city. I like to stay here for the kids.”

He can’t talk of it anymore. He turns his back, raises his head to the dusty heavens. The tears come forth.

“For someone to just come and say you can’t have water,” he sobs, “it just feels like they cut you in half.”