There is no doubt that there is a problem brewing in the Klamath Basin this summer – caused both by nature (with low precipitation) and by people (another kind of Gordian Knot of competing regulations that aren’t very effective for fish recovery). And there is no doubt that any measures taken to patch up problems – and Sustainable Northwest does think there needs to be special effort applied to help the farming community AND affected fishing communities – will be incomplete and imperfect.

That’s the nature of crisis management, and that’s why we need a comprehensive approach to basin fisheries and economies.

We are nervous about repeating a 2001 – when water caused severe economic impact to Klamath farming – but we are also nervous about 2002s and late 90s in which ecosystem conditions including water availability caused severe impacts to both salmon and sucker fisheries (with their own cascade of cultural and economic impacts to both tribes and commercial fishermen).

Solutions have to address both fish and agriculture.

The vexing reality is that there IS a comprehensive plan that has just been signed (the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement) that – were it legislated into place today – would carefully manage water such that there would be increased certainty for farms (they would not get anywhere near as much as they would like, but they would have had resources to design their operations to survive scarcity in dry years), and also a better balance of water management to optimize conditions for both salmon (Lower Basin) and sucker (Upper Basin). The KBRA is part of an integrated package that also calls for the removal of four dams on the mainstem Klamath River which would significantly improve water issues in for migrating salmon.

The plan has been years in the making by tribes, state and federal governments, conservation groups, and farmers and ranchers – and education in Congress is just beginning. We hope our OR delegation will come together in supporting federal legislation for the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement is the path forward to end the 2001s, the 2002s and now, the 2010s.

In the meantime, we are also confident that the relationships built between former adversaries – and the understanding that sustainability of all communities and resources in the Basin are necessary – will continue to guide how people make their way through this crisis situation and into the shared future they envision.

I'm not sure if this is relevant to the discussion, and I certainly would appreciate more information about how water is distributed in the Klamath basin, but when I visited family in KFalls in 2001, people were still watering their lawns, and in the middle of the day too. I didn't really see or hear of any effort to conserve water. Since I grew up down there, I followed the whole thing pretty closely in the news. Will there be a push for conservation now?

Wonderful. Unsustainable human breeding constitutes a necessity, but those that only want to protect the environment have "no real financial stake".

Rat monger.

People farm in areas that aren't best farmed because there are too many mouths to feed. Given that all can't be satisfied, maybe take a page out of my book and make sure none are.

I wonder how bad our water crisis will get before we begin to seriously discuss significant reductions in meat and dairy consumption.

An average plant-based meal takes approximately 200-300 gallons of water to get to your plate. An average meat and dairy laden meal takes approximately 3000-6000 gallons of water to get to your plate. The fact is that the standard way for raising animals for food is the most resource intensive as well as environmentally destructive means to produce food. And yes, some methods are less resource intensive,............local, grass fed, etc, however all things being equal, it is much less costly to the environment and to our health (meat and dairy add significantly to our high healthcare costs) to consume plant-based diet.

Animal ag also the leading source of greenhouse gases according to a UN report on climate change, beating the entire transportation industry. What or who you choose to eat has a much more significant effect than your choice of transportation.

Sooner or later, by choice or by necessity, we will have to drastically scale back our meat and dairy consumption.

There are plenty of resources to back up my claims. One I recommend is Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. They have identified animal agriculture as one of the top threats to a..........livable future.

Many countries are far ahead of us dealing with the issue, as presented by Joshua. Check out Australia and how sheep numbers are being factored into climate change policy. Also, having to brush up recently on the latest in human evolution theory, it was striking how much the statement that "man is a carnivore" is patently untrue. The mammals that became apes and monkeys diverged from true carnivores in the early Permian. Basically, the only thing we share, from evolution, with carnivores, is evolving on land and walking on four legs. Although it was arguably an important factor in evolving a big brain, it obviously doesn't play that role anymore. Recent research shows that as big a factor- maybe bigger- was cooking food.

From my perspective as a lover of both fishing and farming, it's not a hard call choosing between alfalfa, onions, potatoes and salmon. Preserving and enhancing a salmon run should win every time. Why? Because a mass die off of salmon is much more dangerous to the very existence of that unique resource than a year of crop failure in onions and potatoes.

Animals are simply much more vulnerable organisms than plants are. A large die off of salmon not only effects the resource for that year but for years to come. If you have a bad crop year, you simply plant again next year and hope for the best. If the salmon can't or don't exist to return and spawn......... there isn't anything you can do about it, the resource and the economy of the whole state suffers.

I love farmers and farming but onions and potatoes are hardly unique crops. They are grown all over the world. Klamath River salmon only exist there. I'd save a salmon over a spud any day of the week.

As a taxpayer I think the Federal Government should allot enough water for the salmon and enough money for the farmers to save both of them during this drought year.

A few notes from a KF local involved in water issues: Re meat & dairy, the Klamath Project that is currently set to receive only 30% of the usual water is almost exclusively farms, not ranches. There is a strong movement toward organic farming, seen as a "niche market" in a region of family farms that have a hard time competing with large agribusiness elsewhere in the country. Cattle ranches are almost all above Upper Klamath Lake, where the water rights have not been adjudicated by the State; as soon as they are, water diversions will be turned off according to priority dates to allow water to remain instream. Re water conservation in the city, the city has its own well & doesn't divert water from the river. While conservation is always a good idea, it won't have a significant impact on downstream flows. As far as "marginally arable land," it's interesting to note that the area was actually underwater when the Klamath Project was built, a huge expanse of wetlands. So rather than being like Las Vegas, etc., desert that is now being irrigated, the Klamath Project is the only Bureau of Reclamation project that actually pumped water OFF the land and into the river. Water diverted from the lake replaces some of that water for irrigation. Re salmon, there are many of us in the Upper Basin who are thrilled that salmon are going to be coming back up here. But remember that there's a whole ecosystem up here that needs to be supported too, including endangered suckers, bull trout, etc. One of the ironies is that NOAA has minimum downstream flows to protect salmon, and the Fish & Wildlife Service has minimum lake levels in the Upper Basin to protect suckers--and in 2001, those minimums competed with each other, even without agriculture! Dam removal will help immensely, and the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement assures a balanced approach to sustain the whole ecosystem. Remember that development pressures in Klamath are huge, and people love "ranchettes," small acreage, high-impact private ranches. Concrete foundations & driveways reduce percolation of water into the ground, they almost always more irrigation and fertilizer than is necessary, and they have significantly higher impacts on the environment than current uses. So if agriculture goes away, we're not going to have nice huge wetlands again, we're going to have thousands of little ranchettes. In my mind it's better to educate farmers & ranchers to reduce water use & pollution. They're already committed to sustaining their land on a long-term basis, generation-to-generation, and the KBRA has helped shift thinking toward water already. Re the government "buying back the water rights," The KBRA does identify significant water reductions for agriculture, with compensation for voluntary participation. Maybe most importantly, I want to respond to Carla Axtman's last statement: "Farmers and fishermen/tribes have completely opposing interests here and there's simply not enough water to go around." One of the most important things about the KBRA is that it clarified that there actually IS enough water to go around, in the vast majority of years, IF the right steps are taken. The most important step is removing the dams, the second is tailoring water flows to the needs of the fish, which vary over the season according to migration patterns,etc., and reduction in water use by agriculture is necessary to accommodate this. There are many other pieces of the KBRA, but the end result is that we can sustain the ecosystem AND agriculture by managing it carefully. And one more thing, Karla. Through several years of negotiations, field visits, mutual education and blood, sweat and tears, fishermen & farmers found out that their interests are NOT as opposing as one might think. Both want to support their families with livelihoods that depend on water. So do the Tribes. And all recognize the importance of sustaining the ecosystem to support those livelihoods. And all now stand up for each other, and support each other, so that they can all survive.

The words that leap out at me from Terry Morton's comment above are "family farms." One of the most positive things Oregonians can do for both the environment and the economy is to support family farms over agribiz. I hope that folks will keep that in mind rather than calling to end farming in the Klamath Basin, especially if organic farming is becoming more prevalent.

So, what do we do next? Is there anything the urban parts of Oregon can do to help?

Oh jees, here we go.

"With all due respect to plaintive vegan cries, I'm a meat eater and a milk drinker and an ice cream and butter eater. Rather than switching to pine cones, I feel that I've done my bit by rationing my meat/dairy vice just like I do with a lot of other vices."

Serious posts about completely irresponsible uses of water are now "vegan cries." And of course people who don't eat dead animals and mammal milk products eat "pine cones." Unfortunately This is a typical meat and dairy eater's response to real problems w/ our food system. Pat I know you always like to be cute and witty but c'mon man. How about saying something like: good point, we should have a serious discussion about water waste relating to food.

What information is misleading?
Fact: it take a hell of a lot more water tom raise animals for food than to cultivate plant food and animal ag is a top polluter of the environment at every level.

Please do a bit of research on animal agriculture before you attempt to discount the ugly reality of animal agriculture.

Carla Axtman must be living under a rock.

Axtman wrote" This is a Gordian Knot of a problem in which I can see no solution that satisfies all of the stakeholders, even if you negate the people without a real financial stake (generally, the enviros). Farmers and fishermen/tribes have completely opposing interests here and there's simply not enough water to go around."

To the contrary, an agreement has been reached by Tribes, farmers, fishermen and enviros that would cut irrigation diversions to a sustainable level, remove dams, implement a drought plan, and fund meaningful restoration throughout the Klamath.

LEarn more at www.klamathrestoration.com

Craig Tucker Policy Advocate Karuk Tribe

Carla is correct that the 2010 water year will impose real pain on real people. But the future is not bleak and repetitive. While in our increasingly polarized society it may be difficult to believe, the fact is that farmers, tribes and others have actually agreed upon ways to work and live together within the limited Klamath Basin water supply. The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement sets out those ways. Oregon should continue its leadership in getting the Agreement enacted and implemented. Until that is done, all of us in the Basin will have to continue to suffer the rotating catastrophes imposed on agriculture and fisheries. The importance and uniqueness of the Agreements reached by the Klamath Basin communities cannot be overstated. Nor can the need to support their enactment and implementation. There is a solution. It is at hand if we are willing to see it.

As a local elected official who publicly supported the KBRA from its inception, I would like to invite all commentators from outside our area to the Klamath Basin (if you have not been here before) to visit with us about our water situation and the current drought. We live this, we don't just blog about it.

The survival of our agricultural community is critical to our economy, as is the survival of local and regional tribes and fisheries. In non-drought years, which are becoming fewer and far between, there IS enough water for all stakeholders, if properly managed. In drought years, as stated by "Unrepentant Liberal", state & federal governments must be pushed to allot enough water for fisheries, and allocate $$ for farmers so that both survive (thank you, Unrepentant Liberal) until we develop long-term solutions. The KBRA has provided us a realistic road map to get those solutions put into place.

A comment was posted regarding "I don't care what they grow, but they have to survive low water years without complaint." Believe me, we have to care what "they" grow, or the ag community here will not be sustainable. Movement towards niche marketing, sustainable/organic agriculture, a stable downtown Farmers' Market, CSA's and city and county food policies are just a few of the issues under consideration as we support our neighbors in their efforts to stay on the land during these difficult times.

And what is this "they"? The KBRA has helped us get past that kind of divisive language locally. I recognize we have a long way to go to heal our community. We now have a model to assist in that effort. "They" is "we".

Finally, to my good friend Terry, we ALL need to be educated to reduce water use and pollution, not just farmers and ranchers. With the new DEQ and EPA mandates for the the City of Klamath Falls and South Suburban Sanitary District (with no federal or state $$ to help us meet those mandates), we are truly all in this together. I continue to look for 'little victories', those steps that move us forward as a community and as a culture.

<h2>Always more work to do. Please join us.</h2>