State senator claims removing Klamath dams will kill the region's cattle industry

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- State Sen. Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, says a Klamath River dam removal agreement would kill the cattle industry in Klamath County.

But those who worked on the agreement say they don’t understand where he’s coming from.

And a number of people are wondering why the agreement takes out four down-river dams, but leaves the upriver Keno dam in place.

Whitsett, when asked how he would explain the agreements to a Basin resident, said he believed “the agreements as written will pretty much destroy the cattle industry in the Basin and that is the No. 1 commodity in the Klamath Basin.”

Luther Horsley, president of Klamath Water Users Association, said that statement isn’t true. He is a cattleman and said half of the ranchers raising cattle in the county are on the Klamath Reclamation Project.

“I think it will give some certainty to pasture on the Project,” he said.

Horsley said he wasn’t familiar enough to comment on how cattlemen off the Project would be impacted, but Becky Hyde of the Upper Klamath Water Users Association said she doesn’t know where Whitsett gets his perspective.

She said there are some outstanding issues within the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, primarily affecting water settlements, that still are being addressed for off-Project irrigators.

“I think it’s going to take time,” Hyde said.

She’s otherwise comfortable with the other assurances the agreements provide for irrigators and said opponents have yet to offer viable alternatives with their complaints.

Whitsett replied that the agreements would substantially impact areas off the Project. About 100,000 acres of land above and around Upper Klamath Lake have been taken out of production, much of that pasture. The agreements call for another 30,000 acre-feet of water to be diverted to the lake, which could impact between 30,000 to 50,000 acres of land, he said.

Some pasture around Fort Klamath could still produce grass for cattle as there is some groundwater resource, but most areas would go dry, Whitsett said, and it currently isn’t economical for ranchers to not irrigate.

“These people are in a business to make a profit,” he said.

Dean Brockbank, vice president and general counsel of PacifiCorp Energy, said he thought Whitsett’s comments were directed mostly at the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, something the utility was not involved in.

However, he said ranchers and irrigators were involved in the dam removal agreement talks and “their issues have consistently been addressed at the settlement table.”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY IN THE HERALD AND NEWS