Op-Ed Commentary by, Scott Seus

It was epic. Two mint harvesters working into the sunset, with Mt. Shasta on the horizon and a fiery orange haze in the air. The photographer from the San Francisco Chronicle jumped at the invitation to get on the cab of Terryn’s combine. Combine surfing wasn’t what I had in mind, but I guess when you’re in the moment and you love your job, you go to great measures to achieve your goals.

It’s a lot like being a Klamath Basin farmer in 2018. Heck, it’s a lot like being a farmer here for the past 18 years! But this year, especially. Since 2001, farmers have worked to get water to as many acres as possible, navigating warring interests in this community of conflicting needs. Between 2006 and 2016, farmers, the Government, NGOs, the Karuk, Yurok and Klamath Tribes worked to resolve watershed issues, which included dam removal and certainty in a water supply for irrigators, among many other negotiated benefits and concessions. During the settlement negotiations, a cease on litigation was respected by all parties at the table. Klamath Project Irrigators had never dreamed that could happen, given the constant onslaught of litigation that had plagued irrigators since 1992. At the final bell – as the deadline for Congressional authorization to implement the agreements expired at the end of 2015 - a portion of the deal fell into default because of the lack of Republican support from Congressional members in CA and OR, in spite of the process that was started and encouraged by George W. Bush.

Now, the dam removal component survived the process and decommissioning is inevitable. The party that was denied its negotiated benefits was the irrigation community. Bravo to those Congressmen that threw the baby out with the bath water. This year the wrath of their inaction will be felt by their martyred constituents.

Earlier this year, with dam removal 90% certain and no ceasefire on litigation in place, the downstream tribes brought the fight to our doorsteps again, in the name of the salmon via dilution flows. The lawsuit they filed asked for water to flush the C Shasta disease out of the river with elevated flows. San Francisco based Federal Judge William Orrick ruled in favor of the Tribes, citing the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as the law of the land to protect the species (not the human species), in effect barring irrigators from taking Klamath Lake water until after the flows had been met. Samples taken in the river by biologists during and after this frivolous waste of water proved that the flows did not accomplish their goal of reducing the C Shasta spores.

Yet another failed experiment at agriculture’s expense.

The thirsty Tribes and river were being quenched with water originally developed and stored for Klamath Project irrigators over a century ago. The Judge’s ruling pushed the irrigation delivery start date for the project back 50 days from the normal start date to protect artificial river and lake levels. The negative effects of the delay of irrigation and reduction in available water have ripped through our irrigation community. Deliveries made prior to June 1st were mostly possible because of groundwater and neighbors working together to save perennial and fall-planted crops that were in jeopardy. A small release from Clear Lake Reservoir, and a shift in what I would call “pool management” by Pacific Corp that was “repaid” by the project helped to get us to the first of June, but not without casualties. Fields were being selected for idling by farmers facing risk and financial ruin.

On May 23rd, before water started to flow from Upper Klamath Lake through the A canal headgates, the Klamath Tribes filed a lawsuit in Federal Court using the ESA in the name of protecting ESA-listed suckers. A court date for the hearing that could put an injunction in place to stop water deliveries for irrigators to protect the suckers was set for July 20th. Today, Federal Judge William Orrick once again holds our fate in his hands.

Farmers - frustrated with the Government, the court decision, and the Tribes aggression - were out of time. Frantic to get our crops in the ground as the growing days we have here in the Basin ticked away, we were forced to make hard decisions. Banks and customers who contract with growers were anxious to see progress on farms. Employees were getting nervous about their jobs, and farmers were nervous about losing long time employees or not being able to fill their crews with the already short labor force that might move out of the area. Farm auctions were already occurring, with farmers in a place of weakness because of low prices. Farmers took another punch to the gut as the realities of the precipitous net worth of their own equipment fleets became apparent, due to the uncertainty here in the Basin. Predators had eyed a weak farming community, and started taking flesh from our bones at bargain prices.

June 1st arrived, and farmers wearily gave a sigh of relief as water began to flow in the ditches. We felt disappointed and resentful as we watched water pass by dry, idled fields that were sidelined for fear of not having a full irrigation. However, we were also elated at being able to irrigate thirsty crops that had survived the scarcity of water for the 50-day delay in irrigation, which had also delayed planting and nearly strangled the vibrant green out of our perennial crops.

Every day since the 1st of June has been a blessing of waking up to water flowing and crops growing. Everyone has been focused on making the most of what season is left, trying to make up for lost growing days. Talk in the coffee shop and lunch counter is about the spuds that froze and how good they look now, or how the peas and garbanzo plantings look. Someone’s neighbor is cutting hay, so you might keep an eye out for rain!

What isn’t talked about is today - July 20, 2018. The date that the fate of the Klamath Reclamation Project and our communities may be decided. Everyone is vulnerable. It’s not just the farmer, or his employees. A decision that halts irrigation mid-season would kick the last leg out from under our small towns and take the life out of main street in Klamath Falls. It’s not talked about because we are tired of being the whipping post of the Klamath River Basin, and tired of bad news. We just want to farm and raise our families. We want to appreciate our surroundings, celebrate our heritage and have the fruits of our labor be appreciated. We want to go home from the fields and feel good about tomorrow. And we want to sleep, soundly, without middle of the night contemplations.

Today we will be in a fishbowl. The focus of people for and against farmers, for and against ESA. Reporters, legal and political pundits, property rights advocates, water managers, farmers from across the West will be watching to see what the fate of the Klamath Farmer is in this new, potentially final chapter. We will be pleading our defense to avoid the destruction of a community and the dismantling of our heritage. You’d better believe that there is going to be a lot of combine surfing going on.

We ain’t done yet!

Scott Seus
Tulelake, California
July 20, 2018

Op-Ed Commentary, are professionally written pieces of approximatly 750 words, which present an argument and use research to support the stated opinion. Writers are sharing their own personal opinion and not staff of Klamath Falls News. To submit an editorial click here.

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