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Oregon Farmers Defy Federal Order by Associated Press Environmental News Network, July 16, 2001

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - Farmers rigged an irrigation line into a canal Sunday in defiance of a federal order that has blocked water for crops to save endangered fish.

In April, the government shut down an irrigation canal serving land in the Klamath Project to protect endangered sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River.

Farmers with no other source of water have been forced to sell off cattle, let pastures and hay fields go brown and forgo annual plantings of potatoes, grain and other crops.

In protest Sunday, farmers were siphoning between 5 and 10 cubic feet of water per second from the canal, said Jeff McCracken, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

"This is symbolic," McCracken said. "There's no way that amount of water could be used for the crops at this time of the year."

Pat Foulk, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said authorities intended to ensure farmers do not violate the federal Endangered Species Act, which prohibits acts jeopardizing the survival of protected species.

No farmers had been arrested because no fish were being sucked through the head gate and the lake's water level had not dropped, she said.

Dozens of farmers, camped out at the canal head gate for several days, placed a pump in Upper Klamath Lake and ran a 200-yard irrigation pipe along a fence into the canal, officials said.

In the past four months, irate farmers have also pried open the canal head gates four times allowing water to flow into the parched canal.

"We're paying these people to starve us out," said Bob King, a 71-year-old alfalfa farmer. "If they leave, we'll go back and open it up."

More than 240,000 acres of ranches and farms rely on water from the federal irrigation project in southern Oregon's Klamath Basin.

The federal action is the first time the Klamath Tribes and salmon fishermen have won a battle with farmers over water since the irrigation project opened in 1907.