Klamath Water Crisis example essay topic

the paper is about the water crisis that is taking place right now in the Klamath Falls are of Oregon. It discusses the many problems that the different groups of interest are dealing with. The main group that I focused on was the view point of the farmers. The Klamath Lake, along with other various rivers, lakes and canals that surround it, are the basis for almost 500 species of wildlife in southern Oregon and parts of northern California. It also serves as the most important factor in a farmer's livelihood; their irrigation. The basis for the water crisis that is going to today in this region is that the current water levels and somewhat water quality are diminishing and reeking havoc on the area's wildlife.

The most notable argument from our guest lecturers and Steve Kandra (our somewhat uninvited tour guide), is that the water levels are too shallow for the two species of sucker fish to fully mature and to spawn. This makes it difficult to the many other species that rely on the sucker for a source of food, the most popular being the bald eagle, which is also an endangered species. Aside from the wildlife issues, the other main issue involved in this water crisis is the right to water usage. Some of these water rights date back many years but, they are still having difficulty deciding who gets to use the water and exactly how much they should use. There are also many other parties involved in this crisis, aside from environmentalists and irrigator's, which I feel, are left out and many people don't realize their role in the crisis. Coming from a finance background myself, I feel that one of the major stake holders in this issue that are being overlooked are the local business owners as well as the businesses that purchase goods from the Klamath area businesses.

Since many of the family farmers around this area are unable to irrigate, they have no crop to sell. This in turn means they either have no income to purchase goods or in the worst case scenario, they might have to sell some of the assets to pay for their living expenses. These assets could include anything from facing equipment to the land itself. Having been to the Klamath Falls area personally, I noticed that it is not a very wealthy town, to say the least.

You will notice that there are not a lot of corporate firms compared to family run businesses. Another group of interest that was only touched on very slightly was the Native Americans. It seemed that most of the controversy in the water crisis was either about water rights issues or about the current water levels compared to the fish population, which in turn had effects on the endangered species of this area. Very rarely did anyone speak about the Native American's wants or needs concerning the Klamath River water crisis. The Natives feel that they should have some say about what decisions are going to be made concerning the area since they have been in the Klamath are longer than any other group. As little as the Native Americans were discussed, the needs of the commercial fisherman were even less than them.

I don't think more than one person out of all the guest lecturers and people we heard from on our class trip had discussed any of the feelings of the fisherman. I'm not quite certain which guest lecturer talked about their needs, but they did mention that the commercial fisherman felt that they had an economic right to fish the waters of the Klamath. Much like the Natives, fishing these waters is a way of life for these fisherman and they felt as if it was being taken away from them. One of the groups of interest that we discussed in class one day completely slipped my mind from ever being involved in the water crisis.

The political parties, both Democrat and Republican, are also somewhat involved in the issues at the Klamath Basin. The reason I never thought about either of these groups is because we never discussed them more than one time and it was after our trip. It's difficult to give an eric perspective of these two groups because they are more indirectly involved. They way it was explained to me during a class lecture was that depending on which political party is in office, one of the opposing groups in the water crisis debates felt that because they had support from the government on a federal level, they didn't have to try as had during negotiations to compromise their position. They felt that since the president saw it from their stand point that they didn't have to budge on their position.

This leads me into the next interest group. Attorneys and litigators have been brought into this conflict because many of the parties involved feel that they are getting no where in the negotiations and some have decided to let their lawyers battle it out in court. This is especially true for irrigator's who hold water rights and feel that they are entitled to water usage regardless of the current conditions of the Klamath. I'm sure that like most attorneys, they most likely don't care about what is going on as long as they are getting paid. This may be a very stereotypical statement to make but I have found this to be true with the majority of lawyers. The next few groups of interest have received a lot more attention than the previous ones discussed.

One group of interest that was very much discussed by almost every person that spoke to our class was the scientists. They include the USFWS, B ofR, ODFW, USGS, and the NHS. The scientific groups felt that the biological orders they have published were sound in reason and took the right actions to correct the current conditions at the upper and lower Klamath Lakes to help preserve the natural habitat as well as the fish population. They also feel that the two species of sucker fish as well as the salmon are two of the most important pieces in the water crisis puzzle. Otherwise, they would have sided with the irrigator's and allowed them to take out as much water as they wanted. Another group of interest that started being talked about more throughout our class trip by Steve Kandra was the power company.

Since power companies use hydro power to produce electricity, they rely on constant water flow to create enough force to turn the turbine to produce electricity. I'm not sure of the size or the power of the turbines at Klamath Lake but I do know that the ones used at the Detroit Dam are three stories tall and produce 70,000 horse power and weigh over 500 tons. I'm also not sure how kilowatt hours or electricity PacifiCore is producing, I heard Steve tell the class but I don't remember the figure. Without the use of water to generate electricity, PacifiCore now has to find other means of power which leads to higher costs both for them and higher rates for the consumer. This now becomes a problem for the irrigator's since many of them, such as Steve Kandra, have agreements with PacifiCore for electricity rates. Since the Klamath water crisis, the power company is considering breaking those contracts and increasing their rates.

This would lead to yet another problem for the irrigator's. One of the last major groups of interest that I'm going to mention in this water crisis is the environmentalists. They feel that the fish and wildlife are of the up most importance in this issue, therefore, they should agree with the scientists that put out the biological order stating that in order for the fish population to remain stable and increase, the water levels could not drop below a certain point. The group of interest I decided to focus on is the farmers. I know we were suggested to take the side of a group that would normally disagree with but I really felt that I should side with the farmers on this issue. I think its because I'm not a very strong environmentalist type.

I think its also because I'm not sure why the Klamath area is so important and why it needed to be on the national news. As stated in class by a number of individuals, there are more important places that are having worse problems than the Klamath River Basin; the most notable one for me is Yucca Mountain in Nevada. They are storing nuclear waste in the base of the mountain. If it were to leak into the soil and into the water near the Hoover Dam, it could potentially harm more than ten million people.

However, the people closest to this issue felt that it was important enough and so did a lot of people across the nation. I think that many of the farmers are starting to realize that they are facing similar problems today that many of the Native Americans had faced many years ago and are still facing today. The loss of their land and their way of life is a feeling that is starting to hit very close to home for a number of farmers in the Klamath Falls area. They are unable to water their crop and therefore turn a profit. Similar to the video we saw on OWIC and the Bridge Creek area, many of the farmers have been farming that land for many years, some of them for over a hundred years.

I think they feel that if they have been there for so long, why it would be any different now. Out of the many groups of interest represented in this case, the ones that I feel are the most troublesome for the irrigator's are the scientists and the environmentalists. The scientists are the obvious ones because they are the ones who put out the biological order saying that they are not allowed to take out water past a certain level. They also have a lot of pull since they have many agencies working with them that agree with there decision. For listening to Steve Kandra talk, it seems that he felt that a major player on the side of the scientists was the endangered species people. He had said that they hold one of the highest rights in regards to water levels because it's federal law and not state law.

This is difficult for the farmers because they really have nothing they can do to fight back. The chances of them suing the federal government and winning are about zero. That would also require a lot of money that they already do not have due to not being able to farm their land. As you can see, this would make it fairly easy to have hostile feelings towards the scientists and the environmental groups that support them. One of my favor quotes came from an ecologist by the name of PhD Robert McL andress. He stated that "there are 489 species of wildlife in the Klamath Basin, the biological order deals with three".

This caught my attention because every class period that we discussed the issues of the water crisis, and absolutely ever person we talked to on our trip and all the guest lecturers only mentioned two species of sucker fish and salmon. Why is it that only three species of wildlife, none of which are endangered, are the basis for the decision of the biological order? Another group of interest that the farmers and irrigator's would be going up against would be the commercial fisherman. They want the water levels to remain high so the fish have a chance to mature and spawn, giving them plenty of fish for their businesses.

After listening to Steve as well as some other of the lecturers, I think that the farmers just saw this as one more stakeholder that was moving in on them and it was one more group that they would have to fight with. As I mentioned earlier, this is why they see their way of life slipping away. They have already been told that they are not able to pull water from the canal for irrigation, but now they have another group that is against them. The Native American tribes in this region also pose a threat to the irrigator's. Technically, they have first claim to the land.

However, the discussions both in the classroom as well as on the trip had led me to believe that the government isn't siding with the Native Americans on their claim to the land. From what I understand, it seems that the only side they have taken is that of the many governmental agencies involved in this crisis, such as that of the ESA. From what I understood from the lectures and some of the people we heard from on our trip to Klamath Falls, the endangered species of this region have been put at the top of the list above everything else, including humans. Just how the farmers saw their way of life slipping away from them due to this conflict, the Natives have to go through this once again. Even though the federal government recognizes many tribes and allows them to participate in their traditional practices, the endangered species of the Klamath Lake area takes a position on the list above them as well. I feel that a lot of the groups of interest that are against the farmers feel that the wildlife and surrounding habitat are more important than the farmland and the crop production that comes out of that land.

These groups feel that they need to protect the species that live in their area so that the wildlife will thrive and prosper and the environment will be restored to a better state. One of the obvious groups at the head of this side of the debate would be the scientists and the environmentalists. From watching the video in class on OWIC and Bridge Creek, it seems as if a lot of people, not just the scientists and environmentalists, feel that farmers and ranchers do nothing but destroy the land that they are on. They also feel that farmers and ranchers pollute the environment. The farmers do this by the use of pesticides in their fields. It enters the soil and then deposits into the rivers and streams.

In the video about OWIC, they talked a lot about the use of the land that ranchers use. They said that cattle can damage the land very easily and it can take quite a few years to reverse the damage. It also discussed some of the problems with the cattle polluting the streams. What wasn't discussed very much were the steps that the ranchers were taking to help preserve the land. It seems like all they did was focus on the negative side of what cattle can do to the land. Regardless of what someone's standing is on the water crisis debate, it is very apparent that there isn't going to be any short term solution to this problem.

As stated by Steve Kandra and another speaker, the way I understood it was that the current biological order is in place for ten years. This doesn't leave any room for improvement. Another factor to consider is that there is 70% less rain fall this year compared to the average. This is going to be very difficult for them to keep the water levels stable without the irrigator's even taking any water. On MSNBC, a reporter discussed the current conditions around the Klamath Basis as well as a number of other places throughout the west. Many states involved with the problem of dramatically less rain fall have already declared a drought for summer.