TESTIMONY OF JOHN CRAWFORD
TULELAKE, CALIFORNIA
TO THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE
ON NATURAL RESOURCES
JUNE 16, 2001
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee:
My name is John Crawford and I am a Klamath Project farmer. I
have lived in the Klamath Basin my entire life. I am a member of
the Tulelake Irrigation District Board of Directors, past
president of the Klamath Water Users Association, member of the
Board of Trustees of the Nature Conservancy of Oregon, a member of
the Upper Klamath Basin Working Group and the Klamath Basin
Ecosystem Foundation.
As part of my testimony today I have the humbling
responsibility of representing Klamath Project agriculture
including the veterans and the Hispanic members of our community.
Klamath Project irrigators are often accused by environmental
extremists of being highly subsidized and having not paid our
portion of the construction costs of the Klamath Project. In fact
we have repaid every penny of our obligation to the Klamath
Project and the following statement will provide insight to other
accomplishments of the agricultural community:
"Through the half century since the Klamath Project was
completed, the Federal Government has invested about $14.7
million in construction of the project. During that same period
the project has produced crops having a gross value of more than
$350 million. During the last 10 years alone, project lands have
produced 67 million bushels of potatoes valued at $80 million,
and 42 million bushels of barley valued at $62 million. Federal
tax collections alone since 1940 have reached a cumulative total
of about $95 million, or more than 6 times the project's cost.
Two hundred thousand acres of fertile land have been
reclaimed from swamp and arid prairie. More than 1,600 farm
families and scores of merchants and tradesmen derive an
excellent livelihood from this reclamation project. About 44,000
acres of the 200,000 acres reclaimed were originally in the
public domain. These public lands have been dedicated to the
most worthy purpose of assisting our war veterans. I can think
of no finer program. Since 1922 settlement opportunities have
been provided to more than 600 veterans of World Wars I and II.
Although the accomplishments in the Klamath project area in
the past half century have been great, there is still room for
expansion, and even greater accomplishments are in store for
this area in the future if full development of the water and
land resource potential is effectively achieved.
I believe that you will find this a very interesting study
and another example showing that expenditures for our
reclamation program constitute one of the nation’s wisest
investments."
The above is an excerpt of the statement of Clair Engle, the
Chairman, to the members of the House Interior and Insular
Affairs Committee dated May 16, 1957.
That wise investment has provided over 6 billion dollars in
farm products based on the value of today’s dollar.
Words cannot begin to describe the pain being experienced in
our communities. Farm families have lost income. Long-term
commodity supply contracts have been terminated. Debts will not be
paid. Dreams are being shattered. The loss is not only economic.
It is a loss of our identity. There is no separation between our
work and the rest of our lives. We are farmers and ranchers.
Recently, I have seen Tom Hanks of "Saving Private Ryan" fame
soliciting support for the World War II memorial in Washington
D.C. As a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars I fully
support this effort, but believe there is no better place to
recognize the admiration and respect earned by our World War II
veterans than here in the Klamath Basin. This can be accomplished
if our government honors its commitment to the veterans who
homesteaded the Tulelake area of the Basin.
The vast majority of the Basin’s Hispanic people are permanent
residents of the area. These proud leaders and valued members of
our community are inexorably linked to Basin agriculture. No water
has equated to loss of jobs and some of the men have already been
forced to leave the area in search of work. Now that the school
year has ended this exodus will continue and escalate. It is
tragic that we may lose our friends and neighbors that make up the
Hispanic community.
How have we arrived at this deplorable and devastating outcome
that destroys our communities and provides no recognizable benefit
for any of the endangered species? This outcome is the product of
a corrupted scientific process and a disproportionate focus on the
Klamath Project.
Instead of having applicant status in both the Section 7
consultations for suckers and Coho salmon as we held in the
development of the 1992 opinion for suckers we have been excluded
from the salmon consultation and relegated to commenting on the
sucker biological opinion after the fact. The Department of
Interior has ignored two different sucker restoration plans
developed by the Klamath Water Users Association in their
preparation of biological assessments and opinions. They have
ignored credible peer review including Oregon State University’s
assessment of the sucker biological opinion that said the opinion
was comprised of "illogical conclusions", "inconsistent and
contradictory statements", "factual inaccuracies and rampant
speculation". The review also stated that the document had the
potential to severely damage the public credibility of U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service (USF&WS).
Members of Congress and stakeholders continually ask the same
questions, but honest answers never seem to materialize. If all
the fish kills in Upper Klamath Lake have occurred at high water
levels why is the average fish kill elevation the same as that
prescribed as the minimum level in the biological opinion. If no
fish kills have occurred at low levels why is the concern so
heavily weighted that they may occur in the future? If the only
viable year class of suckers recruited in the last ten years
(1991) occurred in a low water year elevation 4138 why is that not
recognized? If the healthiest sucker population with the most year
classes occurs in Clear Lake where virtually no emergent
vegetation exists why does the USF&WS insist that the relationship
between emergent vegetation and lake levels in Upper Klamath Lake
is so important? If fish kills on the Klamath River (including
Coho) occurred in August of 1994, May and June of 2000 and May of
2001 when releases were being substantially augmented with water
from Upper Klamath Lake and the temperature of that water was
toxic to fish why does the National Marine Fisheries Service
insist that more water regardless of its quality is better? Since
fish returns (particularly Coho) were excellent in 1995 and 1996
following the lowest flows since Link River Dam was constructed
why won’t the agencies acknowledge that other factors may have
more influence than flows in the main stem Klamath below Iron Gate
Dam?
The demand that the Klamath Project must shoulder all of the
responsibility for providing lake levels, river flows and any
other needs the agencies can dream up goes well beyond unfair and
borders on the ridiculous. There are two other federal irrigation
projects, thousands of acres above Upper Klamath Lake, thousands
of acres irrigated from the Shasta and Scott rivers. The federal
government does not have the courage or creativity to deal with
this iniquity. It has simply been chosen as easy target.
The perception shared by the tribes and some environmental
groups that all of the water stored for irrigation plus all of the
inflow for the year is still not enough to protect resources even
with no deliveries to agriculture and the refuges is completely
counter productive to attaining agriculture’s cooperation for any
endeavor. The resentment that this attitude has instilled in the
community will result in long-term harm to agriculture’s support
for restoration projects and activities. We have initiated or
supported the creation of nearly 25,000 acres of wetlands that
have changed from productive agricultural lands in private
ownership to federal or conservancy ownership. We have supported
appropriations for the refuges and collaborated with the
California Waterfowl Association and Ducks Unlimited to improve
wetland habitats. Unlike others we have never demanded all the
water and never will. We support our fellow food producers in the
commercial fishing industry and have focused our restoration
efforts on improving water quality. We think that these
improvements, which have been well documented, provide the most
positive impact on the fisheries relied upon by the commercial
fleet and also improve conditions for endangered suckers and the
trust resources of the downstream tribes as well. It has been
stated by Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen's Associations, that market conditions in the Klamath
Basin may make agriculture's future an effort in futility. Like
the fishing industry we have fought through tough times before and
survived. We can prosper again, but only with an adequate supply
of water. The unfortunate truth for both fisherman and farmers is
that the cheapest meal I can think of today consists of a big
baked potato and a fillet of pen raised Chilean "Coho" available
at Safeway in Klamath Falls for $1.89 per pound.
The devastated condition of this Basin not only includes a $250
million loss of farm gate revenue and the risk of public safety
related to wind and soil erosion that continues to occur, but the
horrible degradation of 200,000 acres of habitat for hundreds of
species living in the Klamath Project. How can we justify the
elimination of this habitat in the name of single species
management in Upper Klamath Lake when that management will
probably not benefit the endangered suckers.
If an adequate economic relief package is not forthcoming the
long-term harm and damage may be so severe that the people of this
community cannot survive. Existing disaster and drought relief
programs provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture can
probably not be modified or adapted to provide for these
circumstances. Economic relief must be crafted to accommodate the
tremendous need based on what has occurred in this Basin.
The California community wants to thank Governor Gray Davis for
taking quick, decisive action and providing immediate relief in
the form of 5 million dollars for the drilling of wells to augment
our non-existent allocation of water.
The primary concern that I have regarding this entire issue is
that I cannot identify a single action taken by the Department of
Interior that will prevent us from being in this identical
situation next year. I don't believe that any type of long-term
solution has been addressed by the federal agencies.
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