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KlamathAngler's comments:

on Jane Lubchenco and Richard Alley

It's great to hear Lubchenko talking about Gold Rey dam removal, and how restoration projects like this can both enhance economically valuable salmon and steelhead runs while also creating jobs.

The Gold Rey dam removal is a "clean" project, with not nasty trade-offs.  It is in stark contrast to the Bush-initiated negotiations over Klamath River dam removal, where folks are talking about reducing water flows for salmon and locking in private agricultural development on two National Wildlife Refuges for another 50 years.

NOAA is the government agency in charge of protecting salmon in the Klamath River and ensuring they get the water they need to survive.  The Klamath settlement cannot go forward without her agency's support.  Is she going to support a Klamath settlement that gives salmon less water than called for by the best available science?

posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on Protecting Public Lands

What's up with the guest list today? Seems a little strange to have a show on Mount Hood Wilderness and no speaker from Oregon Wild.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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on Agreement on the Klamath River

Perhaps a future show could examine the question "What does allowing commercial agricultural development on two of the nation's most important National Wildlife Refuges have to do with removing dams from the Klamath River?"

Buried in the fine print of the "deal" announced today is that it can only go forward if Congress passes a $1 billion Bush administration plan for the Klamath Basin. In addition to money for lots of special interests, it also locks in an agreement to leave salmon with less water in drought years than they currently receive, an locks in Bush administration policies allowing commercial agriculture to be the top priority for land management on Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges. These are vitally important resting, feeding, and nesting areas for migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway.

So why does this dam deal require us to put agribusiness ahead of wildlife on a National Wildlife Refuge? And why would anyone want to cut this deal now, with just a couple of months left before Bush leaves office?

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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on Candidate Conversation: U.S. Congress 5th District

Also on the environment, Sen. Wyden and Smith, and Rep. Blumenauer and DeFazio, have been trying to protect more areas around Mount Hood and else where in Oregon as Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers. Rep. Hooley has supported this, but I have not heard Shrader take a position. Will Shrader support more Wilderness in Oregon?

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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on Spotty Recovery

They have been demonized by politicians and the logging industry for 20 years, but the reality is that the northern spotted owl was the canary in the coal mine telling us we had logged too much old-growth. People forget that many of the salmon ESA listings flowed out of the same problems that led to the decline of the owl--too much reckless logging. Though some in Oregon like to talk about "the good old days" before the owl and declines in logging on federal land, the reality is that in the good old days we were squandering the Oregon's wildlife, clean water, and natural heritage through logging practices that just were not sustainable.

The Bush administration has spent millions in tax dollars trying to re-write the science on owls to say more old-growth logging is ok. The latest is the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, which tries to pull over 2 million acres of Bureau of Land Management forestlands out from under the Northwest Forest Plan.

The real question we should be asking is not "what's the big deal about owls" but rather why, in this day and age, there is still an effort by some politicians and the logging industry to get back into the business of old-growth logging.

posted 4 years, 11 months ago
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on Primary Conversations: 5th Congressional District (D)

One of the biggest environmental issues in the 5th is the Bush administration's "Western Oregon Plan Revisions" that would remove BLM lands from the Northwest Forest Plan and increase old-growth logging by 700% over current levels. It has been criticized by scientists for the harm it would cause to salmon and clean water, and has created a lot of conflict and acrimony in rural communities.

Where do the candidates stand on the WOPR? Do they support it?

posted 5 years ago
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on The Klamath Example: How to Tear Down a Dam

Hi Scott,

Thanks for responding to the concerns people are posting here. I think you are still misinformed about the Klamath and the settlement however when you say "What we do have is a proposed agreement from a large group of interests that have traditionally been at odds with one another in the basin."

The reality is that the environmental groups that support the settlement have not been involved in the Klamath water issues before, they got involved in the basin over the dam relicensing. From the get-go this has created a lot of tension, as they have never been advocates issues like river flows and the National Wildlife Refuges, and have not been willing to oppose the agreement over the harm it causes to those values (like Oregon conservation groups did).

A more accurate description of this is that it is an agreement that gets the Bush administration and agricultural interests to support dam removal by agreeing to subordinate the water requirements of endangered fish, the needs of the wildlife refuges, etc... to their demands. That isn't a balanced compromise.

I'm glad to hear you will be exploring the issue of what groups oppose the deal and why. What spokesperson for Oregon Wild or WaterWatch will you have on the show?

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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on The Klamath Example: How to Tear Down a Dam

I am really disappointed in OPB. The blurb above and the teaser on the radio today are both wildly inaccurate. This isn?t the standard of journalism I?ve come to expect from public broadcasting.

First, there is no Klamath ?How to Tear Down a Dam? plan. There is no deal on dam removal in the Klamath, period. Pacificorp, the owner of the dams on the river, hasn?t been engaged in the Klamath ?settlement? talks for over a year.

What has been produced instead is a plan to guarantee agribusiness in the Klamath Basin generous water deliveries, without providing a similar guarantee for salmon that are listed under the Endangered Species Act. That isn?t going to recover the fish, and is it illegal. The ?settlement? also includes a plan to lock in Bush administration policies promoting commercial agricultural development on over 22,000 acres of land on Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges. And it would divvy up nearly $1 billion US tax dollars among every special interest group in the Klamath Basin.

That is why the Hoopa Valley Tribe and several environmental groups involved in the talks have rejected the ?settlement.? And the two major Oregon groups that were kicked out of the talks by the Bush administration (Oregon Wild and WaterWatch) continue to oppose the deal.
Please research beyond that New York Times story and the hype and spin being put out by backers of the ?settlement?. The Hoopa Valley Tribe opposes the deal because they do not believe it will recover salmon runs:

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/699376.html

An accurate analysis of what is in the ?settlement? and what isn?t:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-klamath16jan16,1,6366227.story?coll=la-headlines-california

A Sacramento Bee story on two scientific analyses showing the ?settlement? won?t recover salmon:

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/553847.html

Finally, please do some research on the ?ten fold increase? in Klamath irrigators? electricity power rates. Klamath irrigators enjoyed a massive subsidy for their electricity rates for nearly a century, paid for by families throughout Oregon. The ?ten fold increase? brought them up to the same rate paid by every other farmer in Oregon.

http://rgweb.registerguard.com/news/2006/04/17/ed.edit.klamath.phn.0417.p1.php?section=opinion

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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