Water Debate Focuses on Fish

A coalition of environmental groups Tuesday called on the Bush administration to ignore a critical scientific report and maintain water levels for endangered salmon and sucker fish in the Klamath Basin.

Meanwhile, a public interest law firm sued in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore., to yank the Klamath coho salmon off the endangered species list.

Those moves came as federal regulators grapple with how to divide water between fish and farmers, who suffered during last summer’s drought. A federal decision on this summer’s water allocations in the Klamath Basin, which straddles the Oregon-California border, is expected by early April.

Shadowing that decision is a new report by the National Academy of Sciences, which concludes that federal resource agencies lacked sufficient scientific proof to warrant sluicing irrigation water to about 1,200 farmers and more than 200,000 acres in the basin.

In a joint statement, a collection of eight groups--including Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns.--called on the administration to take a “precautionary approach” and maintain high water levels in Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River.

An Interior spokesman said it would be premature to comment, given the looming water allotment decision.

“What the department is committed to is accurate and reliable science that everyone can have confidence in, as much confidence as possible,” said Mark Pfeifle, a spokesman for Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

Biologists have argued that high water in the lake helps curb oxygen depletion, which threatens two species of endangered sucker fish. Higher flows on the Klamath River, they argued, would improve water quality for threatened coho salmon.

The National Academy report countered that insufficient science exists to support those contentions, a stance that environmentalists say conflicts with the government’s legal responsibility to rush help to endangered species using the best available science.

“We have to err on the side of caution,” said John R. Anderson, the Sierra Club’s Klamath Basin issue coordinator. “If we don’t, we’ll just keep pushing the species toward extinction.”

Others worried that the Bush administration will use the academy’s report to shirk responsibility to clean up the Klamath’s water, tainted by livestock manure, pesticides, fertilizers and other contaminants.

Some environmentalists said the administration is already distorting the academy’s findings to undermine the credibility of government scientists who guard the nation’s endangered species.

Norton, who requested the report, said the academy findings would color the administration’s decision-making process in Klamath during this and future years.

“It’s pretty brilliant spin on the administration’s part,” said Steve Pedery of WaterWatch of Oregon. “They wanted to shift the debate to a question suggesting federal scientists aren’t trustworthy.”

Pedery and others see it as part of a broader strategy to challenge the Endangered Species Act.

Last summer, Klamath became a hotbed of protest over the act, as embattled farmers won support from demonstrators from throughout rural America.

“I think you’re seeing a lot more common sense brought back into the equation by this administration,” said Robin Rivett, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. “It’s a balance that’s pro-environment and pro-economy.”

Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based public advocacy group, filed suit Tuesday to remove endangered species protection from the coho salmon on the Klamath.

Last year, Rivett’s group won a legal victory to remove Oregon’s coastal coho from the endangered species list. That case is on appeal.