U.S. Water News Online
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- Klamath Basin farmers are going ahead with their appeal of a federal court ruling that gave more water to salmon, raising doubts among salmon advocates that farmers are really interested in solving the region's environmental problems.
Attorneys for the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents about 1,000 farms irrigated by the Klamath Reclamation Project, filed a brief with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in their appeal of an injunction speeding up the timetable for the government to increase Klamath River flows for threatened coho salmon.
The appeal came after the Bush administration withdrew its own appeal and four weeks before a summit organized by the governors of Oregon and California to find solutions to the Klamath Basin's long-standing environmental problems, particularly four hydroelectric dams widely blamed for hurting struggling salmon runs.
"While we're getting close to turning the corner and getting along a lot better, we're not quite there yet. Until we get there, we have to keep our options open," said Greg Addington, executive director of the association.
In 2001, irrigation water was shut off to most of the Klamath Reclamation Project to provide water for threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River during a drought.
After irrigation was restored the next year, tens of thousands of adult chinook died of gill rot while stuck in low warm pools in the river.
Last summer, commercial salmon fishing was practically shut off along 700 miles of Oregon and California coastline to protect struggling Klamath River chinook.
The Klamath summit is tentatively set for the middle of December in Klamath Falls with representatives of state and federal agencies, farmers, tribes, conservation groups and fishermen.
The appeal seeks to lift an injunction imposed last May by U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong, which says that irrigators will have to do without water in years when there is not enough for both farms and fish.
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