Video Security for Canal That Farmers Fought to Use (Klamath Falls)

New York Times ^ | 1/02/01 | AP

[kattracks]

LAMATH FALLS, Ore., Jan. 1 — A security fence, video cameras and motion detectors have taken the place of the federal police guarding the head gates of the Klamath Reclamation Project irrigation system.

The $90,000 security system was completed last week around the Klamath project, a United States Bureau of Reclamation site that became the center of protests last summer over federal restrictions on irrigation for farms. The limits were put in place to conserve water for threatened and endangered fish, a bureau spokesman, Dave Jones, said on Monday.

The cutoff forced farmers with no other source of water to sell cattle, let pastures and hay fields go brown and forgo annual plantings of potatoes, grain and other crops.

The federal police were brought in after irate farmers pried open the head gates to an irrigation canal four times and siphoned off water with a pump and a pipe.

The bureau spent about $750,000 guarding the head gates from July 14 to Sept. 26, when the federal police left the site, after protesters agreed to scale back their activities in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Security guards will remain through mid-January, when a final decision will be made on relying solely on the fence, cameras and motion detectors to protect the head gates, Mr. Jones said.

Mr. Jones said water restrictions might not be necessary this year.

"We are hoping for a very peaceful new year," he said. "The snowpack building up in the Siskiyous and the area there gives us every hope this will not be another contentious year, that we have enough water to meet both the environmental obligations we have as well as our longstanding relations with the farmers who depend on that water."

Because of last winter's drought, there was not enough water to supply farmers after meeting Endangered Species Act requirements for the endangered suckerfish in Upper Klamath Lake, the project's primary reservoir, and the threatened coho salmon in Klamath River, which drains the region.

More than 240,000 acres of ranches and farms rely on water from the federal irrigation project in the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon.

A report from Oregon State University said the water dispute polarized the Klamath Basin and involved an undercurrent of racism against the Klamath Tribes, which consider the suckerfish to be sacred gifts from their creator.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"...my point was that the government could at any time step in and stop this once and for all."

I am going to need an updated memo on where we stand on the issue of more government, or less government.

This is in the Courts, where it belongs, leave it alone.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"This is in the Courts, where it belongs, leave it alone."

This is what will happen again, the farmers will take what they own
instead of waiting for a Clinton appointed judge to steal more from them.



The Stand at Klamath Falls by Jeff Head
Eyewitness Accounts of Actions at the Headgates and their Impact
By: Jeff Head - July 13, 2001 through The Present
LAST UPDATED - October 10, 2001

[The Westerner]

How are they attacking individuals? Are they attempting to harrass them or buy them out? They've told you that they have plenty of fish to put on the endangered list if the court cases go against them? That's so unscrupulous. Oh, I forgot, Communism 101, "the ends justify the means." I'm very sorry you have to go through this.

[Goddess50]

I will communicate responses to your questions via private email. It's sensitive stuff and will also "end up in the courts".

Thanks for putting HUMANS first.

[Goddess50]

"Citizen vs citizen". Citizens "just doing their jobs"...like the armed Citizens: Feds "just doing their jobs"...like the Citizens of Germany "just doing their jobs" against the Jews. Each citizen must be individually responsible for determining when just doing their jobs becomes morally, ethically, and --the right thing to do--. I watched two Feds walk off their jobs at the headgates because they didn't feel the government was right in their actions. They probably lost very lucrative jobs, but they were more concerned with personal issues against fellow mankind, than financial gain........

.....and this is all about financial gain!

[Goddess50]

Thank you for re-posting or Calvary picture. It's a proud picture of our flag flying in a summer breeze being supported by people who know how to care for our land, our livestock, our crops, ... and can do it all quietly and unassuming...just taking care of business.

I don't believe that most people living in the concrete jungles have any idea what makes this lifestyle so appealing to so many. The visiting with the mailperson at the mailbox for 10-15 minutes, fighting the bull thistle out of your pasture, the sound of a hay baler at 2:00 AM, checking calves after a heavy snowfall...I could go on and on. But that really doesn't matter. They will continue to open their plastic covered meat and pop it in the microwave, not even aware that it could well have come from a cow that was giving birth...calf got stuck, so they killed and butchered her with the calf still inside -- financial decision. Graphic? Yes, but I know how my beef was raised, butchered, cleaned, wrapped, and frozen...and I like knowing it isn't full of chemicals and processed in some foreign facility (have you seen some of them). I don't have to use chemicals to keep my cattle healthy...they are raised in a healthy environment..I don't have to use massive amounts of chemical nutritional supplements...they eat healthy, fresh pasture grass, not on some dry lot in little pens so crammed together that if one gets sick, all get sick...so more chemicals.

Look at your average 13 year old girl...were you that developed at her age? No...it's the growth hormones in your meats that are being transferred to us.

My point: Rural America and the role it plays in keeping America healthy and strong is vital to our continued success as an independent nation. We must not rely on foreign foods, clothing, etc., or it will come back to haunt us. Good tasting, nutritional foods can only come from the source. Wipe out Rural America and the foundation of our security and we're lost. Doesn't anyone care about that anymore?

[Issaquahking]

If you guys consider yourselves help on this issue, consider yourselves fired! Redrock came to the headgates and spent a few days helping with the cause. I don't recall seeing either one of you there. Your noise is weak and uncalled for in attacking the man, come out and visit the headgate and perhaps you will relize it's nothing like you might think it is.
Rant off>
Meanwhile I will rest my case and recommend that we all pay attention to Goddess50 because she truely is, on this issue.