K.I.D. Executive Director shares his analysis: 2025-2029 Irrigation Seasons

Already known to be significantly worse than 2023 and 2024

Previous K.I.D. newsletters have provided a summary of Reclamation’s proposed action scheduled to go into effect on 1 October 2024, likely with additional restrictions placed on Reclamation in the agency’s separate biological opinions by the federal employees who developed REclamation’s model.

In reading Reclamation’s 2025-2029 proposed action, specifically Appendix C, and relying upon my interaction with the federal officers since 2019, I believe the following observation is true and accurate:

Select Members of the U.S. Government Joyfully Place the Following On the Menu for 2025-2029:

• Anticipate foreclosures on many family farms in Klamath Irrigation District’s service area through 2030
• Promotion of the growth of invasive weeds across former meadows and wetlands will negatively impact the remaining farms costs and productivity
• Significant loss of Klamath, Modoc, and Siskiyou County tax budgets for various social programs to include:
• Cuts to schools
• Cuts to feed the kids programs
• Cuts to youth sports
• Cuts to parks
• Cuts to public works (sidewalks, roads, bridges)
• Cuts to Public Safety (Sherriff’s office)
• Cuts to elderly care
• Cuts to drug and alcohol services
• K.I.D. likely required to abandon modernization efforts for water efficiencies
• Ecosystem decimation by arrogance not science
• No restoration of endangered or threatened fish
• No new births of endangered whales or whale habitat
• No new or enhanced coho habitat in the mainstem of the Klamath River
• A waste of $10M in taxpayer funds is used to study the Keno Dam instead of preparing to remove it and replace the natural reef.

…and on Jim Simondet’s special menu

• Farmer Fresh Fillet of Soul
• Roasted Rancher Oysters
• Dehydrated Water

My research indicates that the thanks for this action are directly tied to the Department of Interiors Senior Solicitor, Robert (Bob) Anderson, who has been involved in Klamath issues since at least the Clinton Administration, Scott Bergstrom, also with the Department of Interior and is directly responsible for the processing of payment for heavily biased flow models between 1996 and 2006 which has further promoted the destruction of agriculture since the mid-1990s, Department of Justice’s natural resources attorney Todd Snoddgrass who continues to misrepresent and mislead judges as to the water-right issues at hand which are outside the discretion of Reclamation’s obligations under the Endangered Species Act, and his partner in crime Robert Williams. In addition, the federal government refuses to challenge Jim Simondet or his team, to make them produce evidence of their opinions, nor to hold them accountable for the losses he is directly inflicting.

It also bears mentioning that our beloved State of Oregon created this situation by not appealing Judge Orrick’s decision and withdrawing its order upholding Oregon Law (after letting itself be sued in an out-of-state federal court) and agreeing to undermine the results of the Klamath Adjudication.