By JEFF BARNARD, Associated
Press Writer
GRANTS PASS,
Ore. (AP) - A federal judge denied a desperate plea for water
from farmers in the Klamath Basin, citing treaty obligations to
two tribes and the Endangered Species Act's protection of endangered
fish.
Angry farmers
said they would continue to fight, despite the judge's advice
to give up lawsuits and seek a long-term solution through negotiations
with the government, Indian tribes, salmon fishermen and conservationists.
``This is
far too big to let it ride and let it go,'' said Don Russell,
chairman of the Klamath Water Users Association. ``We're talking
human lives here.''
U.S. District
Judge Ann L. Aiken, ruling in Eugene, on Monday denied a request
for an injunction restoring irrigation flows. She said the Klamath
Water Users Association and others were unlikely to prevail in
their lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which controls
the major irrigation project in the Klamath Basin.
The lawsuit
sought to reverse the Bureau of Reclamation decision April 7 to
allocate nearly all water in the Klamath Project to endangered
sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake, the project's primary reservoir,
and to threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River, which drains
the basin.
With mountain
snowpacks at only 29 percent of normal, the bureau had no water
left for 90 percent of the 200,000 acres of farmland irrigated
by the Klamath Project. The estimated 1,400 farms produce primarily
hay, potatoes and cattle.
The judge
wrote that while it is clear that the farmers face severe economic
hardship, the threat to the survival of the fish is greater.
And under
treaty obligations to the Klamath and Yurok tribes, which have
cultural and economic ties to the fish, and the Endangered Species
Act, the bureau had no choice, she said.
Bureau of
Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said he hoped mediation would
lead to a solution.
The Yurok
Tribe sympathizes with the farmers, but their use of the limited
water available in the basin needs to be reduced, said Troy Fletcher,
the tribe's executive director in Eureka, Calif.
``There is
not enough water to go around,'' Fletcher said.
``The project
has been getting water at the expense of all the other users and
economic interests for quite a long time,'' said Glen Spain of
the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
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