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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> Pelican Network
[mailto:rocinante@pelicannetwork.net] <br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, March 30, 2005
4:10 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> KRC@pelicannetwork.net<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> US GAO AUDIT FINDS
KLAMATH WATER BANK EXPENSIVE, POORLY MANAGED AND SECRETIVE,</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><font
size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>US</span></font></st1:place></st1:country-region>
GAO AUDIT FINDS KLAMATH WATER BANK EXPENSIVE, <br>
POORLY MANAGED AND SECRETIVE, <br>
RECOMMENDS MANY IMPROVEMENTS <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>NEWS FROM
THE PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION OF FISHERMEN'S ASSOCIATIONS <br>
Northwest Regional Office <br>
<st1:address w:st="on"><st1:Street w:st="on">PO Box 11170</st1:Street>, <st1:City
w:st="on">Eugene</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">OR</st1:State> <st1:PostalCode
w:st="on">97440-3370</st1:PostalCode></st1:address> <br>
(541)689-2000 Fax: (541)689-2500 <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'> Web:
www.pcffa.org Email: fish1ifr@aol.com <br>
=========================================================== <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Contact:
Glen Spain, NW Regional Director <br>
30 March 2005 <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Washington</span></font></st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1:place> -- Today the US Government Accountability
Office (GAO) released a long-awaited independent <br>
federal audit of the Bureau of Reclamation's (BOR) Klamath Irrigation Project
water bank program, and found it wanting <br>
in a number of areas. Among the Report's findings, conclusions and
implications are: <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>(1) Although
the BOR is providing the water bank water downstream as measured at Iron Gate
Dam, the accounting for <br>
that water within the Project above Iron Gate Dam is so sloppy that it is
difficult to tell what taxpayer money is actually <br>
buying or whether it is buying the water paid for. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>(2) The
Water Bank is still heavily dependent on aquifer pumping rather than reduction
of upper basin irrigation demand <br>
as originally intended, and now there are serious concerns about the depletion
of that aquifer. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>(3) The Report
confirms that the BOR's whole process around developing and managing the water
bank has been <br>
secretive and closed to public scrutiny, and needs to be greatly improved and
opened up to assure accountability to the <br>
public. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>(4) The
Water Bank water leasing program is frightfully expensive in the long run
compared to outright purchasing and <br>
retiring of water rights, could cost taxpayers more than $65 million through
2011 (pg 16), its lottery process makes it <br>
inherently uncertain and it depends entirely on annual appropriations from a
cash-strapped U.S. Congress. The report <br>
concludes "This uncertainty adds urgency to Reclamation and stakeholder
efforts to collaboratively identify and evaluate <br>
long-term solutions." (pg. 40) Water banking is clearly a short-term
fix, but not a long-term solution. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
arid <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>'s limited water supply is clearly
over-drawn, and the status quo is simply <br>
unsustainable," commented PCFFA's Glen Spain. "Until irrigation
demand is reduced to meet actual supply, with <br>
enough left in the river to protect valuable fisheries, the whole <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> will remain in crisis. All
the lawsuits, <br>
marches and politics in the world cannot create more rain. Even farmers will
eventually have to live within the <br>
rainfall they get." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
Klamath River was once the third most productive salmon river system in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Today its once abundant <br>
salmon runs are down to less than 10% of their historic numbers, with coho
salmon runs so damaged they are federally <br>
listed as "threatened with extinction" under the Endangered Species
Act. Diversion of water from the river to feed <br>
ever-expanding irrigation systems is a large part of the problem that has
devastated these valuable fisheries. The Bureau <br>
of Reclamation diverts more than half of the summer flow of the whole upper <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> each year to feed water to <br>
its federal Klamath Irrigation Project, and water system development has
greatly altered the hydrology of the basin. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Poor
Klamath water flows in most past years, particularly in 2002, created several
serious fish kills. Because of past fish <br>
kills caused by a river reduced by federal irrigation withdrawals to a warm
trickle, today too few fish are returning to the <br>
Klamath River as adults to support harvests, and these Klamath "weak stock
management" constraints are triggering <br>
industry-wide ocean salmon fishery closures that may cost fishing-dependent
California and Oregon communities and <br>
businesses as much as $100 million dollars in economic damages this year alone.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Poor flows
that are damaging today's ocean salmon fisheries were deliberately created by
the Bureau of Reclamation in <br>
2002 when it took too much water from the river to feed a bloated upper basin
federal water project. The water bank <br>
was intended to help reduce the size of that Project gradually, with fair
compensation to farmers willing to idle their lands <br>
on a year-by-year basis, but has been misused over the past few years to prop
that Project's excess demand up by <br>
drawing down the aquifer. Today that aquifer is badly deleted when most
needed to alleviate a serious drought. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The GAO
audit request was originally made by Congressman Mike Thompson, whose
Congressional District has the <br>
longest coastline of any in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
and includes many fishing-dependent ports and communities greatly affected by <br>
Klamath fish losses. For more information about the GAO report also
contact Matt Gerien, Press Officer for the Office <br>
of Rep. Mike Thompson, (202)225-3311. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Here is
the GAO website for the full report: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05283.pdf">http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05283.pdf</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
##### <br>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 color="#18605a" face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:#18605A;font-weight:bold'>Klamath Restoration
Council</span></font></b> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Our
mission is to restore and protect the uniquely diverse ecosystem</span></font> <br>
<font size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>and promote the sustainable
management of natural resources in the entire <st1:place w:st="on">Klamath
River</st1:place> watershed.</span></font> <br>
<font size=2><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>We believe this will be
accomplished with actions and legislation that integrate sound and proven
techniques based on tribal knowledge, local experience and the best of Western
Science.</span></font> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 color="#18605a" face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt;color:#18605A'><a href="http://www.pelicannetwork.net/krc.htm">http://www.pelicannetwork.net/krc.htm</a></span></font>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Mail:
Box 214 Salmon River Outpost <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Somes Bar</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">CA</st1:State>
<st1:PostalCode w:st="on">95568</st1:PostalCode></st1:place>
Phone: 530 627 3054</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Visit our Salmon Gallery: <a
href="http://www.pelicannetwork.net/salmongallery.htm">http://www.pelicannetwork.net/salmongallery.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</blockquote>
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