Posted on 09/04/2001 12:32:35 PM PDT by ClancyJ
A Tulelake woman has filed a lawsuit against environmental and fishery groups, claiming they conspired to take water away from farmers on the Klamath Reclamation Project.
Lawyers filed the suit Wednesday in Siskiyou County Superior Court for Georgette Kirby, “and on behalf of all persons similarly situated,” in the Klamath Irrigation District who reside in California.
The suit claims water was shut off last April as a result of a conspiracy to devalue farmland by having irrigation water supplies cut off.
“The restraining order was issued as a result of a conspiracy of and by the defendants,” including the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Sierra Club, the Golden Gate Audubon Society Inc., Klamath Forest Alliance, the Institute for Fisheries Resources and “Does one through 50.”
The defendants “falsely and fraudulently represented to the court that the sucker fish and the Klamath coho salmon fish were endangered and threatened because of insufficient water to provide for the fish and for the irrigation of homesteads,” the suit read.
Kirby could not be reached for comment.
Robert E. Hannon and John F. Hannon, Walnut Creek, Calif., attorneys who filed the suit for Kirby, alleged the conspirators intended to force a water shut-off to reduce the value of croplands, cause a crop failure, and render the land useless for farming.
The defendants also conspired to purchase the lands at reduced price and then sell them as public land trusts — “(i.e., open space for public use.)”
The suit also alleges that the defendants conspired to “wilfully misrepresent” to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials that there was insufficient water to meet the needs of threatened and endangered fishes in the river.
Two species of fish, the Lost River sucker and the shortnose sucker, were listed as endangered species in 1988 under the federal Endangered Species Act. Klamath River coho salmon were listed as threatened in 1997. Biological assessments by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation resulted in biological opinions from federal regulators this spring which sharply limited the ability of the Project to deliver water to farmers.
On April 6, Reclamation officials announced no water was available for irrigation from Upper Klamath Lake. Later than decision was modified when late summer estimates indicated about 75,000 acre-feet of water could safely be diverted to farms.
Also in early April a federal district judge temporarily enjoined the Bureau of Reclamation from delivering water until it had met ESA requirements to protect the coho.
Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled Reclamation had willfully violated the Endangered Species Act for a year by failing to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service about the impact of the Klamath Project on salmon.
Armstrong also issued an injunction ordering the agency not to deliver water to irrigators whenever Klamath River flows at Iron Gate Dam drop below the minimum flows deemed necessary for the coho until it has a final plan to guide its operations and has completed formal consultations with the fisheries service to protect the coho.
The ruling came in a suit filed in June 2000 by the fishermen’s associations.
If so, is this species really endangered? Some thread was noting record high levels of salmon this year.
If we don't unite behind the Conservative effort, we will be steamrollered by the socialists.
I am appalled and saddened that with 70,000 registered members on the premiere Conservative forum on the Web, we can only garner a few thousand signatures on the petitions to stop the socialists.
It makes me wonder just how Conservative these members really are!
The congress is supposed to address this Klamath mess pretty quickly. But that will probably only mean buy out the farmers and then you still have the land grabbing running rampant and farmers being put out of business.
Sometimes they might get hung up in the wording too, but, by and large, I think they just either don't think they work or don't want to take the time.
However, when they devalue the land as in this woman's case, we are very suspicious that the environmentalists are out of control, that they are running people off the land and they then buy it up for "environmental preservation" or whatever. In her case - there is a proposal submitted by A. Kerr and R. McIntyre and the Larch Corp. to have the government buy them out. Kerr, an environmentalist, has interests in hemp for future farm crops and I am wondering if he intends to get this land (for environmental protection of the water) and then farm with hemp. In other words - run the farmers out, buy their land cheap and then use it yourself.
This little woman is fighting back. The farmers in the area have fought so hard for their land and water it is heartbreaking. We, here, care greatly and feel that this is a time to draw a line in the sand as the environmentalists take over more and more of our lands, our water, our forests, our air and seek to prevent us using our natural resources. Here are two links to the threads dealing with this ongoing situation for further information and for information concering the activities in this area of our Free Republic members.
No "endangered" coho salmon. However, without even checking, I suspect farmers in the Klamath Basin are an "endangered species".
A whopper of a coho (salmon) run! (Oregon/Washington)
From: An FR thread posted somewhere else? - More info than in snip below
THE TRUTH ABOUT SALMON IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
I. MYTH– Northwest salmon are threatened or endangered.
FACT – There are six species of salmon or steelhead in the Northwest (pink, coho, chinook, chum, sockeye, and steelhead), and not one of those species is in danger of becoming extinct. In fact, contrary to common perception, none of those species is even listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. These species are abundant in the wild, and we can produce as many more salmon as we want in hatcheries.BACKGROUND -- The National Marine Fisheries Service has arbitrarily divided these species into Evolutionarily Significant Units and then listed these ESUs for protection under the ESA. For example, all chinook salmon that spawn in rivers and streams leading into Puget Sound are considered "Puget Sound chinook" which are listed as threatened. But chinook that spawn in rivers and streams that feed into the Columbia River are divided into at least eight different ESUs, some of which are listed and some which are not. NMFS has further divided some ESUs into smaller units, or populations, to cast the broadest possible net of control over local resources.
REALITY CHECK --State and federal fisheries biologists estimate the spring run of returning chinook salmon on the Columbia River alone will exceed 440,000 this year – more than anytime since counting began in 1938! About 90,000 of these fish are believed to be "wild" salmon. Tribal fishermen this year are being allowed to catch more than 53,000 chinook, including more than 10,000 "wild" salmon that are listed under the ESA. The record run convinced the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife to authorize the first sport fishery for chinook on the lower Snake River – above the dams – in more than 30 years.
The National Marine Fisheries Service, the Department of Commerce agency that is charged with protecting salmon under the Endangered Species Act, is also responsible for authorizing and managing the commercial harvest of salmon. For 2001, NMFS more than tripled the allowable commercial harvest of coho salmon off the Columbia River from 20,000 last year to 63,000 this year. The ocean sport-fishing harvest for the same region was increased from 40,000 to 112,500. The tribal gill-net harvest for chinook salmon on the Columbia River was set at 53,000. This spring there were more than 500 gill-nets stretched across the Columbia River.
The term ESU is not applied to any other species except Pacific salmon. The term was invented by the National Marine Fisheries Service to apply solely to its efforts to list individual runs of the same species of salmon. The concept of the ESU is applied differently to different populations of salmon to meet the needs of federal regulators and was never submitted for peer review to determine if there is any scientific justification for the artificial distinction between stocks.
Despite claims by the National Marine Fisheries Service that ESUs exhibit evolutionary adaptations to specific rivers or streams (or stretches of rivers or streams) developed over centuries, if not millennia, a University of Washington study published last summer showed that salmon imported from one region can adapt to individualized habitat conditions in as little as 13 generations. In other words, a new "evolutionarily significant unit" can "evolve" in about 40 years!
Salmon are the only "species" listed for protection under the ESA that can be caught legally and sold commercially. This year’s catch of spring-run chinook was so plentiful that commercial buyers were offering tribal fishermen just 50 cents per pound, while fresh chinook were being sold from pick-up trucks along the Columbia River for $2 a pound.
Chinook salmon range from Northern California to Alaska. They are the largest of the Pacific salmon and are also known as king salmon or tyee salmon. Chinook fry spend one to 18 months in freshwater before migrating to the sea where they live an average of four to five years before returning to spawn. They generally return to the same rivers and streams where they hatched, but salmon are a colonizing fish and can wander widely, taking advantage of new habitat, and salmon from one "ESU" often end up fertilizing eggs from another.
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