The Dire Situation in the Klamath Basin

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENTZ. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman LaMalfa for his years of work on the extraordinary problems in the Klamath.

Let me, again, by talking briefly about drought and what it means. I select this as a starting place because many out here in the East have the opposite problem--too much water.

Sadly, to those of us in the West, the term drought is all too familiar. We know what the word means because we have lived in drought conditions for years. Drought means no water. It means bankruptcy. It means catastrophe. It means the death of trees, plants, animals, and dreams. In anticipation of drought, out in the West, we have developed means of surviving when droughts occur. We have built reservoirs, dams, canals, pipelines, drains, wells, and legal systems to deal with the supply and allocation, legally and practically, of water--this most precious, essential, and life-giving resource.

These systems, legal and hydraulic, provided the essential and irreplaceable foundation of communities in the West. These laws, and the water divided under them, provided a reliable and dependable system upon which futures were planned, families were raised, and rural towns with churches, schools, and hospitals were built. Droughts were expected, but Western communities were prepared--or at least they thought they were. But change has come. Change has come in the form of the Endangered Species Act and in the form of even hotter and drier weather. This law and these warmer, hotter conditions have upset--some would say, destroyed--the systems that entire communities have relied upon for well over a century.

Let me be clear: The Endangered Species Act is the law, and I am not suggesting we break or violate it. Recently, I called for unity in the Klamath basin urging calm and cooperation in the face of this incredible and damaging challenge. But if ever there was an example of the need to refine and better implement the Endangered Species Act, what is happening to the Klamath basin this year is that reason.

But it is simply not possible to change the way the ESA is implemented in time to help this year. As I mentioned, and all of us know, there is another thing happening: it is getting hotter and drier, and all of our systems, manmade and natural, are under stress--the stress of severe drought and an ever-increasing demand for water: demand from fish, demand from wildlife, demand from agriculture, and demand, soon, from rural homes which rely on wells for their water.

What can we do?

First, we must do our best to tell the Nation that some 60 to 70 million people across the Western United States will be suffering this year from the cost and the loss of severe drought. The Klamath basin in Oregon and California unfortunately is the poster child for this disaster.

Secondly, we must call out clearly and loudly that our laws, as written and enforced, when faced with the choice of instream use for ESA purposes on one hand or the community on the other, will allocate all of the water to instream use, letting other needs go begging.

It must be noted that the water being given by the law and the means of enforcing it operates to give all of the water to the instream interests, even though this allocation is in excess of that which would have naturally flowed down the river during summer months.

Once again, I want to be clear that this allocation of stored water for instream purposes is a choice of what to save and what to let go. That choice has costs--incredible costs.

Now, it is not my goal today to attack the administration, the Department of the Interior, or the Bureau of Reclamation. It is my goal to call out that this country has, through its government and its laws--the Endangered Species Act--made a decision to take water from a community and to use it for another purpose, placing the burden of that choice on people and other less fortunate creatures not protected by the ESA.

What is that cost?

Some have said at least $400 million will be lost in the Klamath community this year. But that hardly tells the story. So let me elaborate.

The average farmer has mortgage payments, property taxes, irrigation district assessments, equipment payments, and most important of all, the need to house and take care of his or her family. Without water, there are no crops, no income, and no ability to pay the bills all families have.

Many producers in the basin have supply contracts that they have worked for years and years to achieve and retain. If producers cannot deliver on those contracts, for example, with Safeway and Whole Foods Market, those contracts are lost to other competitors, and many times to other countries, such as Mexico, Chile, Australia, and Brazil. Oftentimes, these contracts can never be recovered.

Beef and dairy producers lack grass for cattle because there has been no rain and they cannot irrigate. Hay is in short supply and prices for hay have increased dramatically. Beef and dairy producers are forced to sell their cattle because they cannot afford the cost of buying hay. Rebuilding these herds will require years and years and much more debt. In addition, the increased supply of cattle to market causes immediate reduction in prices, adding insult to injury.

Then there are jobs. Thousands of agriculture-related jobs will be lost. People who have been employed in the farming area for years will move away, and many will never return.

Then there are farms. This is the second consecutive year of what may be many years of too little water to meet the many needs of the community. As the level of uncertainty regarding the future becomes ever more pronounced, more and more young people raised on farms lose faith in the future of farming and ranching and choose other careers. The average age of the American farmer is now late fifties, and it keeps going up. This trend means that we will become more and more dependent upon foreign countries to sell us food. But everyone agrees, in principle, we should grow our food here at home. The pandemic and more recently the shipping crisis have shown us that a global supply chain is not always dependable.

This choice, along with many others, to treat farmers and ranchers as though they are expendable, is bad for our Nation and bad for our future.

When we talk about infrastructure, let's not forget that those who know how to operate farms and ranches are part of the essential infrastructure of our Nation. These choices that don't balance the needs of our environment and the community are driving food production into other countries, putting us all at risk.

In addition, this drought will create and is creating extraordinarily negative environmental, public health, and safety impacts. The waterfowl, reptile, and amphibians mentioned by Congressman LaMalfa that rely on our canal system, ditch banks, and irrigated fields will simply not be there. They will die, as there is no water in the canals or on the fields for them.

There have been and will continue to be dust storms--think dust bowl. And this is no exaggeration. Two national wildlife refuges rely exclusively on the Klamath Project for water. They will receive no water for those wetlands and habitats this year. They will dry up. The waterfowl that use them will be hurt.

There are 1,800 domestic water wells in Oregon within the geographic area served by the project. These will be affected.

The drought comes with another side effect, increased wildfire risks. Last summer, my district was devastated by once-in-a-generation, supposedly, fires that burned over a million acres in Oregon, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, wiped away two entire towns, and killed 11 people. Dry vegetation and forests, combined with poor management, are the perfect storm for out-of-control wildfires. Those fires will damage the Klamath watersheds, making this bad situation worse.

What can we do? In the short term, Representative LaMalfa and I are proposing a $47 million critical aid package to help those hit hardest by the drought in the Klamath. Congressman LaMalfa will go through it in more detail.

Long term, we strongly believe there are critical legal issues that need to be addressed. Farmers in irrigation districts have strong objections to the reallocation of stored water. Dams and reservoirs were built to capture water during the wet time of year to have water available during the dry time of year. We have done that in the Klamath Project, and irrigation districts pay for the infrastructure that provides that storage. But now the government is requiring that we direct the release of stored water away from farms to artificially increase the amount and flow in the Klamath River.

During the irrigation season, the Klamath Project will be providing much more flow in the Klamath River than ever would have occurred naturally before the project existed. This is a legal problem, and it needs to be addressed.

More water storage is needed. A future of hotter, drier summers means this problem is not going to go away. In the Klamath and across the West, we need better infrastructure and a long-term plan so we have enough water for farms, cities, fish, and refuges. As snowpack decreases, and it is, water storage is critical, to have a reliable store of water when these droughts occur.

For long-term stability, we need the community to come together and figure out how to escape the zero-sum game that gives all the water to one use, ignoring others. There are critical parties to make this happen, and we need support of that work from the State, the Federal Government, and our community. Agreement can be reached. This has been done elsewhere.

As mentioned earlier, we need to protect and improve our watersheds. This means our forests. Each year, all stakeholders face uncertainty and risk. This fight over water has fractured the Klamath community and will fracture others.

To address these extraordinarily difficult problems, we must work together toward a long-term solution because this situation is not sustainable.

Next year's weather may well be worse than what we are facing now. Everybody is being harmed. There are no winners in this situation. Fish populations are not recovering; farms are not receiving enough water; refuges are going dry.

In the short run, perhaps, we can get through this year with the government's help. But in the long run, the Klamath community will have to decide what kind of future they want.

Congressman LaMalfa and I stand ready to work with everyone in the Klamath Basin to come up with real long-term solutions. It is time to sit down together and figure this out.

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