The Klamath Water War:
The effects of water scarcity are relatively new for irrigators in the Klamath Basin as decreasing summer and spring snow melts have brought a re-examination of water priorities in the region. In times of drought, irrigators received priority in water allocation because of the prevailing legal rights and normative values at the time. The Klamath Wildlife Refuges and the Salmon received the leftover water that which was not needed for irrigation (Tarlock 2007). In 2001, the USFWS issued biological opinion reports that stated that because of the severe drought, water levels in both the Upper Klamath and Lower Klamath must be maintained at higher levels to preserve the endangered Coho Salmon and the Short nose and Lost
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River Suckers. As a result of the mandate for increased water flows for fish, water to irrigators was cut off and the farming communities suffered economic damages. The political backlash against the federal government was considerable from the farming community. The cut offs were perceived as attacks not only on the Klamath project irrigators, but on irrigated agriculture in the United States as a whole. The Secretary of the Interior flew to the Klamath on the first day of irrigation season the following year to show his support for irrigators and to open the valves to the irrigation canal (Gosnell and Kelly 2010). That year was also a drought year and low river flow below the dams resulted in a fish die off of 80,000 adult salmon, including the endangered Coho (Gosnell and Kelly 2010). The environmental management that resulted in fish die offs were a consequence of politics and a lack of congruity between stakeholders and government agencies. The water war of the early 2000’s included different actors and concerns with the lower Klamath basin, but its effects are widespread and the decisions that resulted from this water war are important for the management of the refuges and surrounding lands. The water war changed the priority of water allocation in the basin, but also demonstrated the political power of irrigation interests. The Endangered Species Act gives precedence to Coho Salmon, Short nose and Lost River sucker, and a 1984 court case accords the most senior water allocation rights to the Klamath Tribes, which has recently gone into effect (Doremus and Tarlock 2010). In of drought years, when farmer’s are shorted on irrigation water, there is little left over for refuges. The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement As a result of the expiration of the PacifiCorp dam licenses in the Klamath Basin stakeholders were required to meet and discuss the possibility of re licensing the dams.
The process of collaboration began with these meetings which evolved into more formal discussions on water allocation (Gosnell and Kelly 2010) The KBRA does not establish water rights, but it is a formal agreement on how water will be allocated when there is sufficient flow to meet the terms of the agreement. As it pertains to the wildlife refuges; the KBRA requires 48,000 to 60,00 acre feet in the summer months and 35,000 acre feet to go to Lower Klamath NWR in the winter period which includes allocations to cooperative farmland. The agreement allocates 13,000 acres of wetlands and open water to Tule Lake NWR, which includes cooperative farming land on the refuge(Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement 2010).As the KBRA cannot legally create a water right, delivers are contingent upon the total available water in the basin. If there is a water deficit of more than 20,000 acre feet no water is allocated to the refuges during the summer months. In terms of refuge farming the KBRA refers to the Kuchel Act of 1964. If the KBRA is not renewed the refuges will not be given any water and both bird and farmers will live in uncertainty. It is likely that other more informal agreements may be negotiated between groups, but none as binding or inclusive as the
KBRA..
Going forward, the Court of Appeal’s decision in Garetson Brothers v. American Warrior will stand for the proposition that Kansas water laws mean what they say. Rather than consider any economic considerations, the only relevant factors will be who has the senior water right and whether an impairment has occurred. As groundwater becomes scarcer in Kansas, senior water users will likely find that Kansas laws will serve to protect their use over any junior water
Had refusing the treaty that America tried to force on them hurt the Plateau Indians severely? Did retaliation cause them to almost come to complete annihilation? My position is that yes, the Plateau Indians made a bad decision when they refused the treaty by the United States, and that more of the Indians would have survived if they’d just moved on to the reservation like they were asked. None of the Yakima Wars would have happened if the Indians would’ve just extinguished their pride, and went peacefully onto a reservation where their people did not have to worry about fighting the whites. The main cause of this conflict was the desire of the United States citizens to move west. If they hadn’t believed in Manifest Destiny, and had the pioneers and government not wanted Indian territory, the treaty would have never been made and the Indians wouldn’t have retaliated the way they did.
During the summer of 1874, the U. S. Army launched a campaign to remove the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indian tribes from the Southern Plains and enforce their relocation to reservations in Indian Territory. The actions of 1874 were unlike any prior attempts by the Army to pacify this area of the western frontier. The Red River War led to the end of an entire way of life for the Southern Plains tribes and brought about a new chapter in Texas history.
Water. It comprises sixty-six percent of our bodies and aids almost every cell process in the body (100 Amazing Water Facts You Should Know, 2014). The manifold uses of water ranges from life, recreation, to religious needs. The issue is that billion-dollar companies privatized water, are leeching the world’s most abundant resource, and are slowly killing the earth in the process. Blue Gold: World Water Wars gives a glimpse into privatized water companies and the destruction being brought on by them because they believe is a private good. Poor people are left with no clean water or water at all. This film shows how the over mining of groundwater could harm the environment. Another aspect that this film shows is the activism from citizens. It showed how a young teen decided he was going to address Africa’s water sanitation, Bolivian citizens protested against Bechtel’s exorbitant water rates, and Midwestern citizens taking a stand against water companies.
This pristine environment also provided habitat for great diversity of plants and wildlife. Hundreds of species of native plants thrived in forest, marsh, and meadow. But now, in scarcely a century, an equilibrium that endured for thousands of years is rapidly being lost due to environmental degredation and resource values are steadily deteriorating because of human activities. While there is an appearent lose of wildlife and environment that exists in The Lake Tahoe Basin, there is also an insurgance of environmental conservation that has become increasingly powerful in the attempt at stopping these adverse affects on the environment from happening in the hope that the beauty of Lake Tahoe will continue to exist for generations and generations more.
The Battle of the Chosin Reservoir was a pivotal battle in the Korean War. The battle was a brutal 17 day fight in bitterly cold weather fought from 27 November to 13 December 1950. During the battle the United States X Corps was attacked by the Chinese 9th Army in the vicinity of the Chosin reservoir. The Chinese forces quickly surrounded the US troops and forced them to fight a retrograde attack in order to fight their way out to friendly lines to the south. Due to poor Chinese intelligence on UN forces and logistical shortcomings the UN forces were able to evade total annihilation and were able to retreat to safety with the majority of their men and equipment intact.
In the documentary, Blue Gold: World Water Wars, it follows several people and countries world-wide in their fight for fresh water. The film exposes giant corporations as they bully poorer developing countries to privatize their own supply of fresh water. As a result of the privatization, corporations make a hefty profit while the developing countries remain poor. Blue Gold: World Water Wars also highlights the fact that Wall Street investors are going after the desalination process and mass water export schemes. This documentary also shows how people in more developed nations are treating the water with much disregard, and not taking care of our finite supply. We are polluting, damming, and simply wasting our restricted supply of fresh water at an alarming speed. The movie also recognizes that our quick overdevelopment of housing and agriculture puts a large strain on our water supply and it results in desertification throughout the entire earth. The film shows how people in more industrialized nations typically take water for granted, while others in less industrialized nations have to fight for every drop.
The Colorado River is the principal water source in the US Southwest. Spanning 246,000 square miles and providing water to over 30 million people, it is clear to see the importance of maintaining and preserving the Colorado River’s water. In 1923, the Colorado River Compact was signed by six of the seven basin states. The Upper Basin states include portions of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and northern Arizona. The Lower Basin covers parts of Nevada, Arizona, California, southwestern Utah, and western New Mexico. The Colorado River also supplies water to parts of the states of Baja California and Sonora in northwestern Mexico. The Colorado River is considered an exotic stream because it flows mainly through arid lands despite its headwaters being located in a region of water surpluses.
Terrell (2015) states that the three inch delta smelt was decided to be in danger of going extinct a little more than twenty years ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has claimed that systems used by farmers to retrieve water from the delta have added to the dropping number of delta smelt. Conservationists think it is necessary for people and farmers to take their water from sources other than the delta in order to preserve the characteristics of the delta (Terrell, 2015). Dr. Peter Moyle of UC Davis stated in an interview,“We have 80 fish species in California, like the delta smelt, that are in trouble” (Cited in Terrell, 2015, p.12). Moyle insists that it is more than just the three inch delta smelt that is in danger, it is at least seventy-nine other species that need protecting as well. As interviewed by Siegler (2015), senior water rights farmer, Rudy Mussi knows the importance of the delta and preserving it, not just so he can use its water on his fields, but also to keep it alive for the future. It has been suggested that water be taken out of the delta and moved to farmers in the lower portion of California who have junior water rights (Siegler, 2015). The delta cannot be overused because it is important that the ratio of saltwater to freshwater stays the same in order to preserve the fish population. In 2014 the excess water that came from the delta, the environment in which the fish live, added up to almost two hundred fifty billion gallons of water or enough for over six and a half million people each year (“Water wars”, 2015) While these people cannot easily access this water source, some farmers are able to use limited amounts of water if they farm on the delta, creating an issue between the junior water rights farmers
Without Minute 319 of the International Boundary and Water Commission, where Mexico deferred delivery of their portion of the water [6], the US Bureau of Reclamation would have declared a shortage on the Colorado River in August of 2016 [7]. While the declaration was declined this past summer, Minute 319 only serves as a temporary fix to a water shortage that would wreak havoc on the resource supply and the economy of the basin. To fully understand the problem facing the Colorado River Basin, more research focusing on areas already experiencing shortages, areas that are vulnerable to shortages, and the impacts of those shortages will have to be
And with the Coho salmon close to endangerment. Several organizations are starting and planning to restore and recovery of waterways in California. One organization which is helping for the recovery of Coho salmon is NMFS. What this group is doing to help Coho salmon as well as other species is to recovery plan to focus on twenty-eight watersheds and habitats. While NMFS is focused on recovering watersheds, there focus is also on restoring floodplains, preserving forested areas along creek sides, and placing woody debris in streams to provide shelter for fish (Science magazine 2010). During the final days of their project in Laguintas Creek through Point Reyes, The National Park Service knocked down levees at the beginning of the creek and restored one-hundred hectares from cattle pasture into a tidal wetland (Science magazine 2010). Organizations such as NMFS, The National Park Reserve are helping various species to not come endangered and stay in their habitat. These organizations help to preserve our parks, rivers, mountains and lakes. In order to keep our wildlife animals a place to
“The Great Bear Rainforest is home to over 2,500 salmon runs.” (Temple, 2005) At the moment, the Pacific salmon is the evident species inhabiting the forest. Salmon are keystone species. This means that they play a vital part towards the ecosystem together as a “critical food source for many wildlife species and as an upstream vector in the distribution of marine-deprived nutrients through the forest.” (David Suzuki Foundation, 2005) When this forest gets cut down, the entire ecology of the nearby water bodies drastically changes in a negative m...
There National Water act No.36 of 1998 recognises the allowance of distribution of an ecological reserve and for a reserve for basic human needs. Water resources should first be categorized according to a National Water Resource Classification System (NWRCS or Classification System), to determine the future level of protection and define specific objectives for the resource (Resource Quality Objectives), and this will be used to determine the
Freshwater in the world makes up only a small portion of water on the planet. While the percentage of water in the world is nearly 70%, only 2.5% is consumable. Even further, only <1% is easily accessible to basic human needs. According to National Geographic, “by 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world's population living in water-stressed regions as a result of use, growth, and climate change.” With this current trend, water will become more immersed in environmental, economic, political, and social changes. Many of these in later years shall need to be addressed as tension rises:
Rogers, Peter. 2008. "Facing the Freshwater CRISIS. (Cover story)." Scientific American 299, no. 2: 46-53. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 4, 2010).