Klamath Czar

The Associated Press ^ | 9/6/01 | Katherine Pfleger

[christie]

Thu Sep 6 17:44:05 2001 This is the latest on the AP wire page Lawmakers, officials grappling for ways to help Klamath

By KATHERINE PFLEGER The Associated Press

9/6/01 7:54 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress members and government officials decided Thursday to initiate a fast-moving process to provide legislative solutions in the parched Klamath Basin.

"The timetable is really yesterday," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who hosted the meeting that brought the lawmakers together. "What we are going to have to do is move very quickly in terms of the short-term effort because we are faced with foreclosures."

At the same time, those involved also plan to look for long-term fixes to help the basin, where a drought has a variety of interests battling for water.

To name a few, farmers and ranchers need water for their crops and livestock. Environmentalists and tribes want it for threatened and endangered fish.

Many options are on the table, according to those who attended the meeting, including projects to improve water quality and quantity, reforms for the Endangered Species Act, buyouts of the farmers who want to sell their land and different forms of financial assistance.

For instance, Wyden said officials may be able to "ring some additional value" out of federal disaster aid. Participants said no individual proposal emerged as a front-runner, but the trick will be building consensus among all interested parties.

But both long- and short-term solutions must come quickly as Congress wraps up its legislative year and farmers have to begin making plans for next year.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Wyden have asked the Bush administration to establish a point of contact for the litany of federal agencies involved in the basin -- a "Klamath czar," Smith suggested.

Smith said he's a "phone call away" from getting the final decision from the administration, which has been working for months on finding a solution to help interests in the water-strapped region.

At the Thursday meeting were Wyden, Smith and a handful of House members, including Reps. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Wally Herger, R-Calif. The Oregon and California governors also sent staff representatives, as did Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Sue Ellen Wooldridge, U.S. Department of Interior deputy chief of staff, also participated.

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[christie]

AuntB posted this article she found at klamathbasincrisis.com on a couple of threads. It deserves it's own thread. Looks like the bureaucrats are going to slice up the pie.

[christie]

Bump for your list.

[Carry_Okie]

What part of the words "private property" do these thugs think that they can partition? Perhaps they are deciding how much water they are going to buy?

Thugs. These people steal with a handshake.

[Jeff Head]

Those water rights the farmers have pre-date the ESA, they are separate and disctint and do not impact other upstream or downstream rights, and were created specifically for irrigation.

They should be held inviolate.

The effort to creat a Czar and all of the mediation are just fancy ways of getting people to "negotiate" away their rights, their livelihood and their liberty. My advise it to not negotiate the issue of the water rights. If farmers want to willing give up those rights, or share them on a case by case, year to year basis ... so be it. But not under the coersive conditions. To do so, IMHO, is to relent to tyranny.

This is not really about the ESA, the fish, the Tribes, the fishermen or the environment. It is about control and power on the one hand, and whether the people are willing to stand up and put such efforts down.

[annalex]

Irreparable harm has already been done to the Klamath farmers, because they know that no matter what resolution will come down this time, their property rights are endangered for years to come -- until their water rights are confirmed inequivocally to supercede past, present or future acts of Congress. Until such time, any sale of property is a sale under duress. Even those farmers who are now pressed to accept some compromise should sue for the full, pre-crisis market value of their farms, and loss of future farm revenue if they sell.

[christie]

Goes from bad to worse. No mention that the farmers "want" what they legally own and have paid for.

My question is, who in these meetings is representing the farmers.

[Black Agnes]

This sounds like a kangaroo court.

[T. P. Pole]

Participants said no individual proposal emerged as a front-runner

How about "open the gates"?

[Anonymous2]

1)why are boxbrain and feinwhine 'there' with representation? for the interests of the 'tribes of environmentalists'?! 2)if the b2 (bomb the constitution and sink american sovereignty administration?) 'formation' has been working on a solution, then why did the b2 doj 'go after' b. martin? why did the b2 admin not insist on supplemental 'assistance' while they took the long route to doing the right thing, assuming they do, before it came to foreclosures and destruction? 3)the 'tribes of environmentalists' can have all the water they want - at the bottom with the suckers. disgust, disappointment and disdain. the 3 d's. i'm totally ashamed of the former free republic. oh, but it would be worse with algore? how much worse does it have to get?! we're already there, because klamath is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Frohickey]

What part of the words "private property" do these thugs think that they can partition? Perhaps they are deciding how much water they are going to buy?

Thugs. These people steal with a handshake.

I think that the Feds ought to just go up to the farmers, and shoot each one in the head. How dare these farmers think that they have property rights in the United States of Amerika? Don't they know that the government is all-knowing and you do not get in the way of the government?

[Darth Sidious]

ESA: FUBAR since conception.

[Anonymous2]

accepting any 'buy-out' is ridiculous. that's the precedent the freds want, all over america. they will gladly use american's resources to buy out the property rights of other americans, because none of it is the fred's money to begin with. the government needs to do the right thing by these folks and ensure it never, never, ever happens again. yeah, that's likely.

[spartan68]

>Sen. Barbara Boxer,D-Calif., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.<

Well, I see the worlds two biggest communists have their nose stuck firmly into someone(Oregon's)elses business again
Can't wait to hear what kind of Socialist answer they have for all of this
/scarasm off

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

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Klamath Falls Research Thread 1

Klamath Falls Research Thread 2

Klamath Falls Research Thread 3

Click Here to pull up all Klamath Threads

[RonDog]

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[Iscool]

The current gov't seems to think the water is theirs...

I didn't see anyone in the list to represent the Farmers/Ranchers...I hate to sound pessimistic, but this doesn't sound good for the Klamath project or the people out there...The Feds have all but said the farmers have lost...They will divvy this water out so as to reap the most amount of votes come next election time...Sounds like it's crunch time...

[AuntB]

That was the problem I had too, Iscool. No direct representation of the farmers. It's salt in the wound. You can bet though it will cost PLENTY of tax payers dollars no matter how they implement it.

Here's an example how the government is handing this so far from the interview with Barbara Martin and Carmen Bair by Roger Fredinburg.

Fredinburg: So, why are they STILL there?

Martin: We’d like to ask them the same question. In some of my documentation I got from their attorney against my restraining order…. Carmen….tell them how much money they’ve used so far in tax dollars as of August 31st.

Bair: The total is $506,288.11. Taxpayer dollars.

Frediburg: That’s how much they spent having people standing around looking stupid at the gates?? Five Hundred thousand dollars and all they’ve got is an outhouse down there!………….Okay, so the American Taxpayers have paid half a million dollars….and all that they got for that was some security guards Standin’ around at the head gates.

Bair: $88,880.00 of that went to …..the Olympic Inn for their lodging. …….I haven’t seen any documentation that the Olympic Inn which is on one of our main streets of Klamath Falls has donated or done anything for a farm family, but they have almost a hundred thousand dollars in their hands lodging federal government.

[maxwellp]

While watching the Klamath Falls situation, as I posted on a previous thread, I've noticed these initials: EPA, BOR, BLM, DEC and ONRC. What is the ESA? To my way of thinking there should be only one initialled organization and that is: U.S.A. When I think of the taxpayer dollars going to these idiotic, bureaucratic, senseless drags, I really get mad. I feel they are useless, expensive, high-living thugs.

[christie]

. . . standing around looking stupid at the gates . . .

That was my first impression when I arrived at the headgates. If it weren't so damned sad . . .

Politicians take care of those with the big bucks, and we know it's not the farmers.

I guess California has a couple of counties involved, but the input of Boxer and Feinstein is definitely not good news.

[Fred Mertz]

You nailed it, Jeff Head! A Klamath czar sure sounds good....NOT!!