Longtime farmer, rancher struggles to cope with news
Herald and News, Klamath Falls, Oregon www.heraldandnews.com
04/09/01 By Lee Juillerat
MERRILL — Lynn Pope tried not to look affected. He smiled, laughed and tried
to seem upbeat. But when the telephone call came, the outward facade visibly
melted. “Zero,” he repeated dully, while his long-time friend and fellow
farmer/rancher Gary Orem summarized the terse statement from the Bureau of
Reclamation. “We’re seeing history being made,” Pope grimly told his wife,
Lyleen, after he hung up. “The lawyers are going to be busy now.”
“Are you OK, honey?” she asked after they both sat quietly. Lynn tried to
smile. The announcement that Pope and other Klamath Basin people who make
their living from agriculture knew was coming, but didn’t want to hear, was
like a scream in the night. Friday afternoon federal officials announced that
no water will be available from Upper Klamath Lake for farmers and ranchers
who depend on irrigation water for their crops and animals. Ironically, the
news came on a day when one of the season’s wettest storms was piling up
several inches of snow. The moisture created loblollies on the dirt driveway
up to Pope’s house, but only puddles in the otherwise dry irrigation ditches
that meander through his parched fields and pastures. Way too little, way too
late.
Earlier in the day Pope had gone about his chores. He checked his fields and,
in a cascade of snowflakes, helped load an Angus bull into the stock trailer
of a buyer from the Rogue Valley. “The Best Beef in the Basin,” boasts the
sign outside the Pope Ranch on the Malin-Klamath Falls Highway near Highway
39. The old house is part of the original property bought by his
great-grandfather Fred Pope, who moved to the area in 1898. The ranch, which
over the years has expanded, is in the shadow of Adams Point. The large
living room windows of the Popes’ home, perched on a small rise, look toward
what was once Tule Lake in the days before the Klamath Reclamation Project.
When Lynn’s great-grandfather bought the property, half of those lands were
hidden under the swollen lake. Changing cycles have shifted the Popes’
operations from cattle to include potatoes, wheat, barley and alfalfa. As
markets have fluctuated so has the allocation of land for differing crops.
The farming operations spread over about 1,400 acres, including pasture lands
for about 300 cows and calves. Pope typically hires five people to help with
the work. Wells provide enough water for about a 100-plus acres of alfalfa,
but ditches from three different irrigation districts all fed by the Klamath
Project provide the rest of the water that normally soaks those other fields.
Not this year. Like others, Pope had been developing scenarios based on the
amount of available irrigation water. “Until we know what we got it’s hard
to say what will happen,” he explained Friday morning. “Without water we’d
lose a lot of employees. If that happens, and if we get water next year,
where are we going to get employees to come back, especially key people, like
equipment operators? “We have some contingency plans, but it’s real
tentative. As dry as the ground is this year I would be surprised if we can
get a first cutting (of alfalfa). Without any water it’d be a wreck for the
whole operation. It would definitely cut the number of cows you could run on
a pasture. “With no water the question is do we have to pay the full freight
on taxes. Then,” Pope smiled wanly, “there’s the problems with the banks.”
Lynn, Lyleen and their son, James, 18, who’s being home schooled, ate a quiet
lunch, watching the noon news on television. The announcement about the water
availability, the anchor said, would be made at 2 o’clock. Lynn and Lyleen,
who will celebrate their 22nd wedding anniversary this Easter, have a blended
family — some of her children, some of his, some of their own. James and
Leah, 14, live at home while four others are grown and scattered between
Klamath Falls, Florence and Eugene. Lynn, 55, is a fourth generation Pope
rancher/farmer. He gradually took over the business from his father, Randall,
who’s now retired. It’s uncertain if there will be a fifth generation. The
older Pope siblings are pursuing other careers. James has severe allergies.
Leah is too young to know. “Agriculture needs to get better because it can’t
go on this way. There’s no opportunity for young people,” worried Lynn. The
uncertainty of life as a farmer or rancher is a given.
Pope earned undergraduate and master’s degrees at Michigan State University
in food science, not agriculture. “I guess the idea was to give me some
options, but everything’s different,” he said of the changes since he
graduated in 1969. “I’d have to start again.” After the initial shock, Lynn
and Lyleen talked about him or her finding an outside job. About testing an
old well to see if it might have enough water to irrigate a field. About the
frustrations. “How far man has come with his gadgets and yet we can’t get
enough water or electricity,” said Lyleen. “It just doesn’t seem fair that
farmers should pay the whole price,” said Lynn. He drove over to Orem’s,
where he joined Gary and Mark Trotman. Both are third generation Basin
farmers/ranchers. All three slumped in their chairs, the weariness obvious in
their faces. “This is worse than D Day, gentlemen, for our little valley,”
pronounced Orem, who thought aloud about having to lay off some of his
workers, noting, “They can draw unemployment. I can’t.” “If they don’t
change these lake levels and flows, is there anything to battle for, ever?”
wondered Trotman. “You can’t say that people didn’t do the letter writing,
that the community didn’t support us, that the congressmen and senators
didn’t try to do their jobs, because they did,” said Orem, who counseled
patience. “It’s way to early to make any decisions. You can’t do it in
anger.” Pope is too much of a gentleman to be outwardly angry, but he’s
grasping for answers. “I’m not 100 percent convinced they know enough about
the suckers, their ecology, to make these assumptions. It might be a
different story if we know positively that raising the lake level would make
a difference. I don’t think anybody wants to see the species destroyed, but I
don’t think everybody is confident in the science. “And, even if that’s the
case, what are we going to do with this situation? How are they going to
resolve the problems the people are having to deal with?” “At this point,”
said Pope, “this is not the end of the story.”