U.S., States Vow to Fix River Use

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.

“We’ll try to find synergies, instead of stumbling over each other’s work,” said Norton, speaking during a telephone news conference while on other business in Duluth, Minn.

Environmentalists said the announcement three weeks before the Nov. 2 election seemed intended to help President Bush curry voter favor in Oregon, a battleground state. Bush is slated to visit Oregon this week.

Jim McCarthy, an Oregon Natural Resources Council analyst, called the move by Norton “a smokescreen” to defuse “uncomfortable questions” during Bush’s visit.

McCarthy said federal officials have made little progress to resolve the Klamath dispute, which exploded during the summer of 2001 when farmers saw their water supplies slashed to help the endangered fish.

But farmers in the Klamath Basin, a fertile swath of 200,000 acres straddling California’s northern border, applauded Norton’s announcement.

Dan Keppen, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Assn., said efforts to solve problems with endangered species and water allocation along the Klamath have been hamstrung by fragmented management of the Klamath, once the nation’s third most productive river for salmon.

“We have two states, a strong federal presence, four tribes, competing agricultural users, and a vigilant environmental community,” Keppen said. “Plus ties to Central Valley agriculture. Plus five national wildlife refuges.”

He said the new agreement boosts chances of finding solutions that encompass the entire watershed. “While it would seem intuitively obvious that a coordinated approach is needed, amazingly, this approach had not materialized,” Keppen said.

Klamath farmers, who have borne the brunt of the impact as wildlife agencies have scrambled to ensure the survival of the coho and endangered suckerfish, are eager to see timber firms, commercial fishermen, cattle ranchers and farmers along other rivers that feed the Klamath play a role in restoration efforts.

The cooperation agreement was signed by Norton, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat. The plan spells out few responsibilities and allocates no additional money.

Bush has budgeted $105 million toward the Klamath next year, including habitat conservation, water banking and wetlands protection.