Klamath River--21st Century Boston Tea Party?

The Klamath River farmland is rich, but needs water from the Klamath River to be farmed--something the farmers have been doing for a hundred years. Since the water has been turned off to protect the endangered sucker fish, the farmland has been turned into a huge dustbowl. Mt. Shasta is in the background.

After more than 100 years of having what they thought to be deeded water rights to the Klamath River, and with their very livelihoods and everything they owned at stake, the Klamath River farmers and their supporters have said no to the insanity of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), our liberal court system and the Bureau of Reclamation (BoR). A federal court had ordered the irrigation canal gates closed last April so as to not threaten the watery habitat of an endangered sucker fish that lives in the Klamath. It left the 1400 farmers without any irrigation water, making their arid farms worthless and unable to provide a living for themselves. A growing civil rebellion has been playing tag first with the BoR, then with federal marshals, and finally with armed US Park Service heavies as local and national citizens protest the tyranny of the global agenda. It has all the earmarks of a Boston Tea Party of the 21st Century.

Between 150 and 300 residents from all walks of life broke into the Canal A gates and opened one of them on July 4, in open defiance of the federal government and the Endangered Species Act. (Gary Thain, Herald and News.)

As 1400 farmers and those that provide services to them began to feel the effects of being financially crushed by the federal government, they took action. It started publicly on July 4 when up to 300 citizens from every walk of life in the Klamath Falls, Oregon, area rallied around the canal gatehouse that feeds the irrigation system of the parched Klamath River Basin in South Central Oregon. They broke into the locked gate area and opened the irrigation gate in an act of open defiance to the ESA that had been used to close it. There was a moment of concern when Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger drove up. But, he said he was just there to check the water level of the canal, not to stop the opening of the gate! Later, when accused of not doing enough to enforce the law, Evinger said "It just appears to me that they are trying to save their lives."

The first time the gate had been opened was the night of June 30. No one is saying who did it, and the sheriff refused to investigate it. The Klamath Water District, who normally controls the gate, said they would not close it again. The job then fell on local employees of the BoR, who were not wild about the task either. It is a terrible burden to enforce a heinous law that will most certainly annihilate 1400 families and the communities that support them. Land values have plummeted from about $800 to $50. The sucker fish had more rights than the generation of families who had lived there for over 100 years.

US Marshals arrive to protect gates

Upper left is the canal gate compound with citizens on the right and US marshals on the left. Upper right. On July 13, the otherwise law-abiding Klamath citizens open one of the gates for the third time. Lower left. US Marshals stand guard over the gates on Saturday July 14. By July 15, one or more of the US Marshals had been replaced with armed National Park Service agents. Lower right. Klamath citizens pray for their future as the gates are once again closed on July 14.

A seesaw contest of irrigation gate opening and closing followed the public display on July 4. The BoR, realizing they were out of their league in something that made them sick anyway, called in Federal Marshals on July 14. Seven Marshals snuck in the back way to the gatehouse compound expecting to see wild-eyed crazies of the 60s vintage. Instead, what they found were respectable families grilling hotdogs and hamburgers keeping vigil on the canal gate.

Much like the guards chained to Paul when he was imprisoned in Rome, the Marshals were a captive audience to the local citizens. They had to listen to the stories of these people. There was no reports of shouting or hate-filled speech. These were people who loved their country and wanted to be productive citizens. But their government was crushing the very life out of them – favoring a sucker fish over the citizens that paid their salaries. Over the next several days those Marshals began to be affected by what the ESA was doing to these otherwise law abiding citizens.

Six inch pipe was laid to pump water symbolically to the dry irrigation canals.

By Saturday July 14 the farmers began to rig a six inch irrigation line and pump between the lake and the canal, by-passing the canal head gates in a symbolic gesture. Before they were relieved by the US Park Service police on Sunday July 15, the Federal Marshals allowed the farmers to extend the pipe into the canal to prevent erosion that would have occurred if they had to stop at the fence. When asked about the pipe by a reporter, one Marshal is reported to have said, "I wonder why they didn't use a bigger pipe."

Turned down by the God Squad

Perhaps the most serious blow came on Friday the 13th of July when the ESA God Squad turned down their petition for an exemption to the ESA. The God Squad is a special provision within the ESA who can overturn an ESA ruling if special hardship can be proven. It is an ad-hoc committee composed of the secretaries of Agriculture, Interior, the Army, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and one individual from each affected state. Only two cases have been heard since 1964 and in neither case was relief given the petitioners by the God Squad.

Apparently the ESA states that the Committee may be called by a federal agency, the governor of the state in which an agency action will occur, or "a permit or license applicant may apply to the Secretary for an exemption for an agency action if, after consultation under section 7(a)(2) of the Act, the Secretary's opinion indicates that the agency action would violate section 7(a)(2) of the Act."

The request was made by the Klamath River Water District who holds the permits to distribute the Klamath River Water to the farmers. The God Squad ruled the District did not have proper standing to make the request. Since the law does not provide that the harmed citizen can petition for relief, there is nothing more the citizens can do. They are at a legal dead end. They have no rights or standing to protect their lives from the abusive implementation of a destructive federal law. Ultra liberal Governors Gray Davis of California and John Kitzhaber of Oregon had refused to reply to requests that they petition. The Bureau of Reclamation – the federal agency in charge of the project – had also declined.

Department of Interior releases too little too late

The farmers were about to install an 18 inch irrigation pipe and a bigger pump when they received word on July 25 that Gail Norton, Secretary of Interior, announced that it would be safe to release about 75,000 acre feet of water into the canal. Unfortunately, it will take 10,000 acre feet just to recharge the canals. The worst thing is that it is too late to do most farmers any good. They cannot plant this late. Plus, the amount of release only amounts to about 20 percent of the average annual use.

Two weeks after Norton made the announcement a coalition of radical environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the Department of Interior to stop even the small amount of water going to the farmers, according to the August 7 Sacramento Bee. Typical of their anti-human actions, they want to give it to the bald eagles instead. "The eagles need water now, and we will not stand by and watch our country's national symbol be harmed," Wendell Wood of the Oregon Natural Resources Council said from Eugene. Norton responded by saying that the bald eagles weren't even in the area now. "Bald eagles that winter on the refuge are hundreds of miles away at this time. The farmers in the Klamath Basin are not," Norton said from Washington, D.C. "Supplemental feeding of the eagles is already being considered in the event their natural food supply is affected by the water shortage."

Norton understands the release of this small amount of water is more a token gesture than a life-saver, but she hoped it would provide "a little relief to some desperate farm families during the remainder of this season," according to the July 25 NewsMax. But, Norton also said the water supply is insufficient to service both farmland and adjacent national wildlife refuges. The farmers claim they have been doing it for 100 years in much worse drought years than this one. Furthermore,

The wonderful world of international treaties

The property rights of the Klamath farmers and tens of thousands of other landowners in the US are in fact being nullified by international treaties that trump the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. The ESA is authorized by five UN treaties, the worst of which is the Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere. Entire sentences and paragraphs in the ESA are taken verbatim from this treaty, especially those dealing with habitat protection. Tens of thousands of families' lives have been destroyed in the past because of the ESA and these international treaties.

But, the Klamath River tragedy is the first time so many people have been hurt in such a blatantly destructive way. If the local residents can refrain from using violence, the Klamath River crises may serve the same role as the "Boston Tea Party" for the horribly abusive use of environmental law to strip property rights from otherwise law abiding property owners. As time goes on more and more non-local citizens show up to lend a hand to the farmers plight. While they are welcome, there is an increasing risk that a hot-head may show up that does something violent, destroying the moral stand that these local farmers and citizens are taking.

Nonetheless, as long as the protest remains peaceful it represents perhaps the most visible way to date of how badly the civil rights of rural Americans have been violated by abusive environmental laws such as the ESA that unnecessarily punish American citizens while doing little to protect the environment. Overwhelming evidence has shown that the ESA has not saved a single species, but has destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Americans. V mc

See for Yourself:

http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/7/24/163610.shtml