I recall local (Sacramento) talk shows getting calls from federal employees of BLM, Bureau of Reclamation, and others working in regional offices in Sacramento that included that part of Oregon.
They all sided with the farmers. IIRC.
Seems to me that civilian employees should borrow from the military and follow LAWFUL orders not the psycho whims of aged 1960s New Left Marxist-Alinsky campus radical, psycho spoiled brat, environmental nut cases (and their ideological issue). For VP Gore add corrupt dingbat.
Gore was not VP in 2001 (except for early January) of course but for those who do not know the misery heaped upon the farmers started earlier.
IIRC there was at least one suicide owing to the financial ruin that some suffered -- largely due to the timing of denying water AFTER farmers had financial commitments for the new season. Gore and pukes destroyed them.