Nevertheless, some other people took it more personally. A representative from Concerned Friends of the Winema went off that committee because she acknowledged deals were being made outside of the room and that she would learn about things [actions taking place not discussed previously] when she came to the meeting. She saw the deck was stacked, it was unfair and that it [the Working Group’s agenda] really wasn’t open as they were claiming it to be. And then a lot of the interest by the farmers in the upper basin was really [an attempt] to take power away from the Klamath River Fishery Task Force that had been set up ten years earlier for doing restoration projects on the river. This was a federally funded and authorized advisory group. They had concluded that to restore salmon in the Klamath River, you needed to restore the marshes in the Klamath Basin. The farmers were very much afraid of the commercial fishermen and the tribes who dominated that group telling them how to restore the marshes. So the Klamath Forest Alliance, which is a [conservation] group out of Etna [California], and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations were also unimpressed with the Hatfield Working Group and what they were doing. Basically, we spoke out against them [the working group] because we had some other allies in the broader conservation movement. Whether it’s the Hatfield Working Group or other things, we’re happy to sit down and work out solutions and so forth. As I’ve explained earlier, where we’ve compromised on the forest issues with the Clinton Administration, or tried to get along with the politicians by endorsing the Democrat who had the poorer environmental credentials, I feel that we’ve lost for doing so. I feel like there will always be somebody else out there who will be willing to negotiate, [that] they’ll be willing to give things up. What I think is harder is to say “no.” ONRC has been asked why we are so confrontational, [and] the answer is “I don’t wish to be confrontational, I just don’t know anybody else that is willing to do it.”
When I’ve had people come to me…some of these people want to be employed in the environmental movement … they say “What do I do?” I say “The hardest thing is to say no because there’s all these pressures on you.” I can feel it very much just in living in Klamath Falls. I’ve lived in rural areas before, but my social support mechanisms or whatever are not based in this county. I can see how [it is for] people whose living is tied to who they know, if they take a contrary position. These pressures that are brought to bear are just tremendous, and so there’s no way I can really expect somebody who works [here to deal with that]. One of the local Sierra Club members works for the Bureau of Reclamation, and outside of people who are retired or have some other income, the pressure to conform and to go along to get along is just incredible. There’s nothing wrong with going along and getting along, but if it means harming the environment to do so. I can’t remember it exactly, but one of David Brower1s quotes is something like “The only mark that reasonable conservationists leave are scars upon the land that wouldn’t be there if they’d only held their groundl1 (laughs) . [I think of it] combined with Brower’ s comment that “Everything I’ve compromised, I’ve lost.” You look at every single situation and wonder “What are the options here?” I mean it’s become easier and easier for me over time for my default setting to be against compromise because there will always be somebody else who will do it. It’s harder to find individuals or organizations who will take the stronger, purer stand.
