KEY LESSONS LEARNED FROM JOINT UNIVERSITY REPORT:

12-18-02

(These are excerpts from the report "Water Allocation in the Klamath Reclamation Project, 2001'')

The 2000-01 drought was neither the Klamath Basin's first nor its last. Likewise, similar natural resource conflicts face communities across the country. If sustainable and equitable methods of resource allocation are not found, the conflicts of 2001 are destined to be repeated in the Basin and elsewhere.

No single individual, group, law, agency, or natural event bears sole responsibility for natural resource conflicts. Nonetheless, human-created agencies, laws, and groups are imperfect, and their interactions usually do not yield optimal results. Thus, improvements might produce better results in the future. We offer several lessons from the Klamath Basin in the hope that they may aid in the search for solutions there and elsewhere.

Roots of the Conflict

• Assorted state and federal laws and treaties, established at various times under various circumstances, have laid the legal basis for conflicting claims to the Klamath Basin's limited water, mainly by three interests - irrigators, Native Americans, and at-risk species.

• As society's priorities change, the relative influence of various agencies, laws and groups also changes. In the Klamath Basin, tribal rights and species protection have become more influential than in the past, thus altering the ways in which resource-use conflicts are resolved.

• Many of the early symptoms of trouble in the Klamath Basin (collapse of fisheries, algal blooms, over-commitment of water, etc.) were observed more than a decade ago. Yet, the absence of timely and effective collaboration among diverse interests, and between upstream and downstream communities, has so far prevented development of solutions.

• The incomplete status of water rights adjudication in the Oregon portion of the Klamath Basin -establishing who has what rights to how much water - limits water users' ability to plan for and respond effectively to drought.

• Government agencies have different missions. When those missions conflict, the cumulative actions of many individuals working to achieve the mission of their particular agency can have unintended or undesirable consequences.

• Natural systems often lack definitive data about the potential risks and benefits of any particular action (or inaction). In the Klamath Basin, for example, uncertainty exists about precise relationships between fish survival and water level or stream flow. Decision-makers, thus, nearly always must act based on their best professional judgment and interpretation of incomplete and imperfect data.

• Resource managers typically can control only some of the actions that affect ecosystems. Irrigation on the Klamath Reclamation Project, although important, is only one of many land uses that affect the quality and quantity of water in the Klamath Basin. Other important variables are much more difficult to control.

• The 11th-hour nature of the decision to curtail irrigation allocations and the absence of compensation programs at the time of the decision contributed to its social and economic costs.

Consequences of the 2001 Irrigation Curtailment

• The story of 2001 in the Klamath Basin is partly one of shifting costs from one segment of society to another. Over the past century, Native American tribes and fishing communities have experienced economic, social, and cultural costs from the decline of fishery resources. In 2001, farming communities - at least initially - bore much of the cost of species recovery.

• The events of 2001 polarized many Upper Basin communities and created conflicts between government workers, tribal members, farmers, conservationists, businesses, farm workers and fishers.

• Both the agricultural sector and the regional economy fared better than most observers expected in 2001. Government responses such as groundwater pumping and emergency payments helped to shift the local economic impact of the irrigation curtailment to the larger public. Through these government actions, the larger public shared in the cost of species protection.

• Dollar measures of loss are inadequate to capture the full experiences of those affected by economic change. Disruption of personal relationships, the stress of uncertainty, and community discord are difficult to measure, but were large in many Basin communities in 2001.

• Regional economic measures mask the highly uneven experiences of individuals. Some firms, individuals, and agricultural producers experienced losses as a result of the irrigation curtailment, while others may have gained.

• Uneven eligibility for public emergency programs meant that some groups did not receive compensation for their losses. These groups - including farm workers, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and agricultural input suppliers - may have suffered the most as a result of the irrigation curtailment.

• This report focuses on short-term impacts of the 2001 irrigation curtailment on communities in the Upper Klamath Basin. Other potential consequences - benefits to at-risk species or downstream fishers, for example - are difficult to measure and were not addressed, but are no less important.

Looking for Solutions

• Regardless of one's view about the relative merits of various claims to the Klamath Basin's water, more cooperation, more flexibility, and greater certainty would be desirable traits of any future water allocation system.

• Greater flexibility in water allocation would have lowered the costs of the irrigation curtailment considerably. Transfers of irrigation water between non-Project and Project users, for example via water banks or water markets, could have reduced the overall cost to agriculture by 80 percent.

• Had there been prior agreement about how water would be shared in years of scarcity and what compensation could be expected by those who did not receive water, uncertainty and conflict could have been reduced.

• Completion of the Oregon water rights adjudication process is crucial to any long-term solution. Clarity with respect to water rights - including quantity of water - is needed before any water transfer and allocation system can function well.

• Continued scientific research is needed to provide decision-makers with more complete data on which to base natural resource management decisions.

• Solutions to water allocation questions in the Klamath Basin must consider the legitimate interests of Native Americans, irrigators, fishers, and at-risk species.

Key Components of Success Include

• Sufficient commitment of federal effort and resources to overcome the disparate directions of federal agencies and to mediate among competing interests.

• A governing principle that the effects of scarcity will be shared in drought years.

• A successful framework for water management might include:
  • A council of federal, state, and tribal governments to deal with broad policy and jurisdictional issues;

  • A subordinate mechanism for coordination among agencies;

  • A forum for negotiation and cooperation among agricultural, tribal, environmental, urban, and other water interests.

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