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[Pages H2288-H2289]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROTECT FARMERS' WATER AND PROPERTY RIGHTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, in that we do have other things going on in
this country besides the virus, we do have a crisis up in the Klamath
Basin on the border of California and Oregon right now.
The Klamath farmers up there are the owners of the Klamath Project
water. It was created approximately 100 years ago to allow the ability
to farm crops to returning World War I and World War II veterans at
that point. Those growers owned the right to approximately 350,000
acre-feet from the Upper Klamath Lake, water created by the project
which would not exist without the creation of the project.
This year, after many years of having their water pirated away from
them, their allocation during a lesser water rainfall and snowfall
season was 140,000 acre-feet, they were told on April 1, the second-
worst allocation they have ever had, rivaled only by 2001 when they got
zero acre-feet allocated to them. 140,000 acre-feet, they were told.
[[Page H2289]]
So as farmers do--I am a farmer; I get it--we go out and start the
process of planting; tilling the ground; ordering up your fertilizer
and your seed; applying the fertilizer; and then, finally, seeding the
ground.
Well, lo and behold, a few weeks later, it was decided to release
50,000 acre-feet from that lake in order to help suppress a virus
farther down the Klamath River called the C. shasta, which is supposed
to be harmful to the coho salmon, a fish that is deemed endangered on
the Klamath, yet not endangered in other areas of the country.
Right on the heels of the end of that 50,000 acre-foot release for C.
shasta virus for coho salmon, it was decided that there is now not
enough water in the lake. The incoming water supply was misestimated.
They were told they were going to have to cut back from the original
140,000 acre-feet. They were going to cut back approximately 60,000
acre-feet of that, leaving them with about 80,000 acre-feet for the
entire season. This is crops already spent, the cost already incurred
to be put in the ground.
The water supply is estimated to last until approximately June 15.
From June 16 to September, they are going to be in a very dire way.
They are going to be out of water, with the investment in the ground.
As devastating as 2001 was, this will break many farms up in the
Klamath Basin. Unique crops they grow up there--mint, radishes,
potatoes, many others--as well as the refuge that sits at the far end
of that system that needs the water to flow through those irrigation
districts so we will have a duck population, so we will have other
wildlife that is extremely important not only for the area but for the
entire State of California and the West Coast.
This duck population is going to be devastated. Just recently, when
they had good water, they had a huge number of ducks hatch, and we had
a good population. That is going to be devastated.
Farming is the only major economic industry, really, in the region,
other than some tourism. There are about 12,000 farms in that Klamath
Basin. Approximately $75 million has been spent putting those crops in.
It is thought, as it is being estimated right now, the total effect on
the region, if this water is taken away and not restored by somewhere
around June 15, $200 to $300 million more is coming out of that area.
We have created a crisis up there.
This water, by law, belongs to the irrigators, not to the Endangered
Species Act, not to a Federal agency. The irrigators themselves spend
$30 million a year to maintain and operate, if it is actually
operating, the project. They still have to pay that bill.
But the Endangered Species Act is being interpreted to require water
that doesn't belong to the government to be taken and given either to
keep the lake fuller for the sucker fish or run downstream in order to
allegedly help the coho salmon. There are science and arguments out
there that this doesn't help those two species, yet we continue down
this blind path, doing it year after year after year, for least 20
years.
At this point, with the uncertainty of our Nation's food supply, from
the farm gate to the markets, this is what we have going on with
farmers up there, having their property rights taken. We must do
better. We must take immediate action.
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