Your article on the Klamath Basin (HCN, 10/17/05:
‘Water bank’ drags river basin deeper into debt), leaves out the
beginning of the story.
Tule Lake once covered 100,000
acres in Northern California and southern Oregon. This natural body
of water provided the tule reed that the Modoc people used for
shelter, clothing, and boats for thousands of years, until they
were rounded up in the mid-1870s and sent off to reservations.
The lake was pumped dry by the U.S. government to
“reclaim” the fertile lake bottom for farming. Only a small part of
the original lake remains. Now, the Klamath Basin water wars are
waged as the Bureau of Reclamation pays $60,000 of our tax dollars
per farmer for water wells, but NOT to irrigate. We dry up a
natural lake and now people are fighting for water that was once
plentiful.
Forget tearing down Glen Canyon Dam.
It’s much easier to tear down the dikes and restore Tule
Lake. Unsustainable farming should never have been established
there in the first place!
Michael
Aune
Lynden, Washington
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Klamath’s true story.
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