Posted on 06/19/2002 8:26:50 AM PDT by cogitator
Klamath Basin Farmers Get $50 Million in Aid
KLAMATH FALLS, Oregon, June 18, 2002 (ENS) - Farmers in the Klamath Basin whose crops and livestock suffered last year from lack of water will benefit from $50 million in aid earmarked in the 2002 Farm Bill.
Farmers in the Klamath Basin faced last summer with no water for irrigation, as all available water has been diverted to protect endangered sucker fish and threatened coho salmon. Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued an opinion stating that the Klamath Basin irrigation system threatens two endangered fish, the Lost River and shortnose suckers.
Last fall, several groups petitioned the UFSWS to remove the fish from the endangered species list, hoping to forestall water diversions this year. While the Department of Interior says more water is available for all purposes this year, the USFWS and Bureau of Reclamation are still required to protect water resources primarily for the sake of the endangered fish.
More than 100 landowners and managers attended a workshop in Klamath Falls last week to learn about a provision of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (2002 Farm Bill) that set aside $50 million for the Klamath Basin. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Klamath Soil and Water Conservation District conducted the workshop, which is one of several to be held on cost effective land management techniques.
The 2002 Farm Bill provides the resources to producers in the Klamath Basin to help address water conservation issues such as water quality and quantity and irrigation systems. NRCS will use a ranking system for fund distribution and will distribute funding throughout the life of the Farm Bill.
The 2002 Farm Bill also provides technical and financial assistance, conservation tillage and residue management techniques and noxious weed identification and control programs.
"Aid to Klamath Basin farmers is a key priority for the Bush Administration," said Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman. "These kinds of workshops help ensure that farmers and ranchers from the Basin area are fully informed of the benefits available to them."
In March 2002, President Bush established a cabinet level Klamath River Basin Federal Working Group to address concerns raised by farmers, ranchers, fisherman, tribes and others affected by the difficult conditions in Klamath. The Working Group will work with farmers and ranchers to implement these Farm Bill conservation programs.
The Farm Bill contains record level support for environmental stewardship, funding programs including the Conservation Reserve Program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Farmland Protection Program and the Wetland Reserve Program.
More information about the 2002 Farm Bill is located at: http://www.usda.gov/farmbill
From what is said in the article, it sounds like at least some of the money should be spent on potential ways of solving the problem(s).
BINGO!!! Give the man a cee-gar!
The money will help some, but the precedent is being maintained. The NFWS has issued what amounts to a continuation of the same farce that led to the problem last year.
The lake and system was built for irrigation, not to maintain sucker fish. The Act creating it was a contract with those citizens and that contract called for the system to be privatized and turned over to the farmers when construction was paid off. The government is in default and refuses to admit it or act upon it. Instead, through the ESA they maintain their own control over water rights that belong to those farmers ... and in so doing are advancing a dangerous envoronmentalist agenda that lines up perfecty and not coincidentally with the UN's agenda 21 and several other programs.
Unless this core issue is solved, sooner or later there will be more trouble ... and it will be worse than last time because all trust is being lost.
The federal government, and government in general needs to back out of this business and make good on the act.
Some of these people will not be bought off and in the end they will fight for their way of life and their livelihoods. I hope it doesn't come to that ... I am glad some are being repaid for damages inflicted upon them buy an out of control government ... but these are the facts and they cannot be glossed over IMHO.
FRegards.
Those involved paid for the construction and at the end of that period the system was supposed to be privatised. That has not happened and the government's maintenance of control and it's farcical application of the ESA to do so at this juncture is what is leading to this particular problem ... while they continue to collect money from the irrigators.
There are many "subsidies" regarding agriculture where what you speak of is true and they need to be addressed. I do not view this particular issue, with respect to the cutoff of water and the irrigation system there in the Klamath Basin specifically, as the same issue to which you refer.
Sounds like a hell of a deal.
They get screwed out of $300 million in crops and livestock income in 2001, and we as tax payers have to pony up $50 million in aid. Andy Kerr and his fellow Oregon enviral Nazis need to be Ricoed in court for the $300 million plus lawyer fees.
This money is pure compensaton for damages rendered by farcial and baseless action by government that inflicted harm on the water rights and thus the land rights of these individuals.
But, it does not come close to the core issue. The core issue is that these farmers have paid for the costs of the system according to the original act and the system is supposed to belong to them ... it is supposed to be private like it should be. The government is standing in the way of that and using a sunsetted and baselss ESA suite to do so.
They are doing this IMHO, because living up to the original agreement would create an unhealthy precedent for big government in agriculture and it is a precedent worth fighting for.
Hope that helps regardinmg this particular issue.
The only purpose this serves is to create dependency where none was under the successfully fulfilled contracts in the first place.
Now, the Feds and their enabling enviro-medlers are in the cat-bird-seat!!!
"We're from the government and we want to help you out!"
So, from my perspective, this is not a "hand-out" at all. It should represent payment for damages ... but I bet the fine print when they take any of this money says something far different. Which makes it simply blood money if true.
You are right however that this does not represent a solution. If it represents a payment for damages, then it helps ... but the core issue remains and that issue is that government needs to get out of the picture and let that irrigation system be privatised as was originally intended and then float or sink on its own. From what I saw it wil float just fine and the government is deathly afraid of that precedent.
Amen to that. Unless this is restitution for damages, it is no solution at all and the farmers there know it. It will only lead to worse because it makes plain IMHO the government's intent to "take" the water again at a future date ... and with the NFWS ruling regarding the suckers ... I'd bet it isn't to far distant.
I am also alarmed at the continued pressure to view federal acquisition of more provate land as a cure all to animal problems. A decade ago, Siskiyou County was around 62% government (promarily federally) owned. Now it is 73% and the BLM is targeting additional land below the new national monument. This is in spite of the fact that the county has a policy of no net gain in federal land.
I would say that it is quite clear that federal policies are targeting the removal of people from our area.
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