In 1908 we had a president who was so enthusiastic about America's wild and scenic places that he decreed that some areas should come under the protection of the federal government.
Tule Lake, in northeastern California near the Oregon border, was one of those places. It and its companion, Lower Klamath Lake, were designated to be among the first National Wildlife Refuges by Theodore Roosevelt.
But something went wrong. Tule Lake, already drained to a fraction of its original size, was coveted bottom land. Its wetlands were destroyed, and food for human consumption - onions, sugar beets, and other row crops - were planted in contradiction to Roosevelt's vision.
Tule and Lower Klamath lakes once hosted millions of snow geese and other birds in their annual migrations along the Pacific Flyway.
Modoc Indians made their home on these lakes until the 1870's, but prominent citizens led an aroused movement by settlers to force the Modocs to leave. There were plans for the Klamath Basin,and Modocs weren't in them, nor was all that water.
Settlers were fed up with Indians, and of course the fish, elk, deer, otter, eagles, and antelope would always get by, they thought, Nature being after all, infinite.
World War Two brought opportunities. At one point, Klamath Falls, Oregon, at the north end of the basin, became the fifth largest economic center on the West Coast, after LA, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. There the virgin timber of the hills was milled and potatoes grown on the flats were prepared for army rations.
But that wasn't enough. So in 1964 the Kuchel Act, one of the most egregious pork bills ever devised, decided to allow the refuge lands, and only those refuge lands, to be leased out to grow crops for human - not wildlife- consumption.
Tule Lake is the last refuge for the Lost River Sucker Fish, an endangered species. Today the last sucker fish are trying to hold on, in a rectangular sump of pesticide-laced water in one corner of the refuge. Meanwhile, the tractors are out there running up and down the rows on what should be marsh or open water. The project has its pet congressman Greg Walden and neoconservative feudal lord Dick Cheney cheering them on. The Kuchel Act privatized a national wildlife refuge.
This bears repeating. Thanks to the Kuchel Act, Tule and Lower Klamath Lakes are the only National Wildlife Refuges that allow food that is inedible to wildlife to be grown for profit. Obviously those crops use water, up to three acre feet of it, each growing season, water that becomes the tissue of onions, evaporates into the air, or leaches into the surrounding water, contaminated by pesticides.
Here's a map of ancient Modoc Lake before "reclamation". Notice that the lake extended across the state line.
Here's a diagram of Tule Lake, today. The last endangered sucker fish live in Sump 1A.
The repeal or amendment of the Kuchel Act has been contemplated several times. Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon authored a bill in 2003 to cancel some leases and regulate crops, but this was during the Bush reign of eco-terror, when the Gail Nortons and Dick Cheneys were running things.
Then came the Klamath River watershed "shortage" leading to Bureau of Reclamation's shut off of summer irrigation. The result was an unprecedented water war, where proud so-called independent farmers clung to their dependence on cheap electrical and water subsidies to the point of open rebellion.
Then Secretary of Interior Norton, taking orders from Vice President Cheney, cooked over 60,000 fish. That was the wake up call, that something had to be done.
Following that, an unprecedented meeting of stakeholders, including Indian tribes (with treaty rights, thank goodness), water users, the dams owner, PacifiCorps, ag lobbyists, politicians, and conservationists, met and pounded out an agreement to both remove the four dams on the Klamath River and to make explicit water management decisions to protect farmers. PacifiCorp seems to be holding most of the cards in that deal, with several exit ramps out of it if they don't like its direction. But it's a deal.
I believe that now is the time to review the Kuchel Act. I envision a truly restored Tule Lake. The ditches, the abrupt shorelines, the lack of suitable habitat, all are the raw materials for a future design project of biological elegance and beauty. That accomplishment should naturally flow from a restoration of the rule of law inherent in the Wildlife Refuge mandate set out by Roosevelt. Anything less is criminal, a betrayal of our duty to be stewards of the earth.
Then what actions should we take? Right now we can call Oregon and California politicians to tell them to repeal the Kuchel Act's allowance of for-profit enterprises on a wildlife refuge. Dianne Feinstein could use some progressive friends right now, following her backing of Big Ag in the Delta water fight. Remind her that she voted to keep a portion of the Mojave desert in a preserved state, because that area was set aside for conservation. Tule Lake is in even a higher class of government protection.
The agreements, the KHSA (Klamath Hydro Settlement Agreement) and the KBRA (Klamath Basin Recovery Agreement) are a vast skein of agreements involving the entire watershed including the details of dismantling of salmon-blocking dams and water allocation. This diary only deals with Tule Lake and the Kuchel Act.
There are some good watchdog groups keeping abreast of the Agreement and of Tule Lake's status, one is Oregon Wild, who refused to go along with the agreement. Think: Senate Health Bill.
The Klamath Conservation Partners is advocating for specific fixes to both the KHSa and KBRA that would solve some of the glaring problems that currently threaten basin-wide restoration, including:
* A plan to phase out the harmful practice of leasing 32,000 acres of National Wildlife Refuge land for commercial agriculture.
The North Coast Environmental Center wrote a report in 2009 very critical of the agreements.
Currently, commercial agriculture dominates fully one-third (22,000 acres of the 64,000 acres in the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lake refuges. A provision of the KBRA would make this pesticide-intensive farming a permanent feature for the next 50 years, despite the fact that several of the organizations and tribes involved in KBRA negotiations have long opposed refuge farming.
KBRA section 15.4.3 states: "The Parties support continued lease land farming on TLNWR [Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge] and LKNWR [Lower Klamath Lake National Wildlife Refuge]. ..." That is, signatories would be prevented from ever again opposing farming on the refuges, despite whatever damage agriculture causes to the wetlands, wildlife and the Klamath River. Further preventing such action is KBRA section 15.1.3, which states, "The fish and wildlife and National Wildlife Refuge shall not adversely affect the irrigation...
This one stems from another period of obnoxious ignorance of the values of conservation, the time of the Kuchel Act.