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| RANDY STAPILUS / Oregon |
The announcement of a major water basin deal-in-principle out of Klamath Falls (see the environment section), which drew the presence of the governor and both senators, was positive enough (they would not have shown, surely, if it had not been).
But don’t mistake that for finality.
For one thing, the water situation at the Klamath, as elsewhere, is ever-changing, so that a deal that works now may not work only a few years down the line. There’s not much getting away from that.
And that’s apart from the fact that although a deal was structure, not everyone is thrilled with it.
The deal means that many agricultural water users will have to make do with a lot less. Tens of millions of dollars may bleed out of the area’s farm economy in the near term as a result. (Some of the alternatives, to be sure, would have bled a lot more.)
The website Counterpunch offered a contrary view even to that: “As the legal trustee for federal tribes, the federal government is supposed to protect and advance the tribes’ interests. However, examination of dozens of western water deals shows that the Feds have not acted in good faith as the tribes’ trustee. Instead the feds have encouraged tribes to accept government funding in exchange for giving up – or agreeing not to exercise – tribal water rights.
“Those water rights are the only hope for really restoring our rivers and – in the case of western salmon rivers – our salmon runs; that hope is evaporating as more tribes settle for government funding rather than sticking to the right to restoration flows. The idea that government funded restoration projects can substitute for restoration flows is a chimera; tribes, environmental and fishing groups that have bought into that myth are sadly misguided.â€
The deal is, apart from all of that, just a deal-in-principle. The parties involved may have quite a challenge ahead keeping even that much from flying apart.
