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.
This is the flaw in their logic.
The express purpose of those land trusts is to exclude people (except for the "special" people).
My prayers for success are with this brave woman.
May she succeed, and may this suit be the first of many.
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