The agriculture interests are going along with various restoration projects. Basically, the way the government has portrayed this to them is that “Look, the government comes to town with pockets full of money–you’re used to this and we’re used to federal subsidies for agriculture–this is just another subsidy. It’s okay, we’re going to flood a couple of tules this time but don’t worry, you’ll get yours.” There was also a water resources committee that ONRC had a member on, which first proposed the Wood River Ranch development. In both cases–the water resources committee and the Hatfield Working Group–the agriculture interests withheld their support for the restoration unless they could get some other thing. In the case of the Wood River Ranch, the deal was, that in order to restore the marsh, old growth ponderosa pine was to be given away. I had to appeal that part of this land exchange [between BLM and private owners]. That was BLM1s dirty little secret. All their publicity talked about restoring the marsh, it didn’t tell you what they were giving away. With the Hatfield Working Group, the deal was that the farmers would support the Tulana Farms restoration provided they could get the pesticides back that we had blown the whistle on. [We felt] the review process had been subverted and wasn’t working to restrict the worst pesticides. We ended up, as the local paper put it, “having outsiders from Berkeley to Bellingham signing letters opposing the deal.
Hatfield amended an appropriations rider and basically eased the restrictions on those pesticides and made it more difficult for the Fish and Wildlife Service to object to them. We beat that rider, and they were going to renew it again, but that was finally withdrawn. I really felt that the battle over pesticides in the Klamath Basin [refuges], in terms of defeating Hatfield’s attempts to pass a rider on an appropriations bill, was a fight we had to have. The issue in my mind was never really over pesticides, I felt that what the agriculture interests were doing was an assault on the wildlife refuges. They wanted to see if the conservation community would notice and if we would act. Given other kinds of bills that were introduced in the 104th Congress which adversely affected wildlife refuges around the country, there was no doubt in my mind that had we not had that fight, Representative Cooley, now Bob Smith, would have been introducing legislation to privatize agricultural lands on the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath refuges. While I think Senator Wyden has not been a great help on the Klamath Basin issues, I feel that his office has at least conveyed to the working group that’s now set up by this [Hatfield’s] legislation, a sense of fair play. Hatfield’s legislation authorized what’s called the Upper Klamath Working Group, but Senator Wyden’s office–while I think they need to be watched, too–is in effect saying that if it’s legitimate restoration they’ll go along with it, but please don’t embarrass them by doing things that are not what supposedly what the goals of this group are supposed to be.
