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'This land is our life' Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Jess Prosser, 85, sifts through the dry dirt on his homestead outside Tulelake, Calif. Prosser won the homestead on the site in 1946; the deed states that Prosser and his heirs are forever assigned the homestead and water rights. But this year the water is being diverted to save fish protected under the Endangered Species Act, leaving farms like Prosser's high and dry. The Prossers turned bare ground in the Klamath Basin into a farm and a home. They thought the U.S. had guaranteed them water forever. They were wrong. TULELAKE, Calif. - The nearly 60-foot-tall blue spruce stands like an old-growth tree in the green yard of the Prosser family farmhouse in the Klamath Basin. Joining it in mute testimony to the deep Prosser family roots in this fertile ground is a weeping willow with a gnarled trunk, along with an old hawthorn and two aging birch trees with bark as white as the snow glistening on Mount Shasta some 50 miles southwest. "It was just bare ground when we moved to the homestead in '47," said Jess Prosser, 85, the family patriarch. "There were no roads to speak of, no trees. We planted all these trees." He was one of more than 600 World War I and World War II veterans with farm experience offered a chance in a lottery to win a homestead in the basin. The lotteries began in 1922 and continued periodically through 1948 as land became available. Much of the basin was submerged before the lake was drained by what is now the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Klamath Project, on which construction began in 1906. Water from Upper Klamath Lake was diverted through a series of canals to irrigate the land, which became famous for producing potatoes nearly as long as a farmer's foot. "I got assigned water rights - forever, it said," Prosser said as he looked out at a sea of dusty farmland surrounding the tiny island of green. "Forever" turned out not to be. This spring, the federal government decided that all the Klamath Project water was needed for endangered fish. The Prossers and other farmers would get none. "We didn't have any idea our water would ever get shut off like this. It was quite a surprise after 54 years." It was also a surprise that shook Klamath veterans' faith in Uncle Sam, said his son John Prosser, 50, who, with his brother, Frank Prosser, 47, now operate the family farm. "The government promised the veterans water and a homestead if they built a house and farmed the land," John said. "Well, they did their part. I feel they've really been betrayed. "They put their life's work into this land, into this community," he added. "They built the community here." Visitors who enter Tulelake, population 1,000, from the north are greeted by homemade signs along Highway 139 reflecting how the community has rallied around its farmers. One reads, "Call 911. Some sucker stole our water." Others are less humorous. "Community destroyed. Compliments of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," reads a prominent billboard on the north end of this hamlet. "FDR would be turning over in his grave now if he knew this was happening," said Jerry Maxwell, 70, a neighbor who lives on the homestead his father, a World War I veteran, settled in 1938. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the document awarding the 80-acre homestead to the Maxwells, who live within a mile of the Prosser place. Maxwell, who was 8 when his parents moved to the site, now leases out his family's land for farming. But that won't happen this year, he said. "We need water," he said. "We can't do much without it." Like the deeds granted to other veterans, Jess Prosser's, dated Feb. 28, 1952, states in black and white that Prosser and his heirs are forever assigned the homestead and water rights. By that time, the Prossers had worked the homestead for five years. A family farm had taken root. Hailing from Kansas, where he was reared on a wheat farm, Jess Prosser joined the Army, serving 51 months. On July 23, 1943, the enlisted man was wounded in action in the jungles of New Guinea. Shrapnel ripped into his stomach and left arm. Flying shards of metal grazed his forehead. "I lucked out," he said. "We had a lot of boys who weren't so lucky." His luck held upon his discharge at the end of the war. While working on a ranch near Alturas, Calif., he won an 80-acre homestead in the lottery on Dec. 19, 1946. He and his young wife, Margaret, moved to the site the following spring with their daughter, Judy, then 1 year old. Like many World War II veterans awarded homesteads, Prosser was given half of a barracks building from the then-vacated internment camp that housed some 16,000 Japanese-Americans during the war. The camp was just three miles south of the Prosser farm near the base of Castle Rock. Jutting several hundred feet up from the basin floor, the rock was called the "Peninsula" by locals. The name recalls the days when a lake covered the basin floor. Two metal buildings on the farm also came from the internment camp. The large farm shop was built out of what was the old Tulelake High School gymnasium. "Dad was recycling before recycling was popular," John said. Life on the homestead included milk cows, chickens, pigs and a vegetable garden watered from a low-producing shallow well. It's that water that continues to keep the lawn and landscaping around the house green. In all, the Prossers had four children, including daughters Judy, 55, and Betty, 49, both of whom are married and live in Redding. "It's been a good life - we raised up the kids here," said the family patriarch. His wife died in 1998. The family plans to pay their respects at her grave in Alturas this Memorial Day weekend. "At least she didn't have to see this," John said of the dry fields. During the more than half a century when they had water, the Prossers raised clover, barley and potatoes. Like other homesteaders, they flood-irrigated in the early years, later switching to the more efficient sprinkler system. The farm family has overcome plenty of obstacles. Markets tended to fluctuate as much as the temperature here, where the mercury can plummet to 30 degrees below zero come winter. Summers often bring triple-degree heat and wind that'll strip land without a cover crop. In those early years, dirt roads to Tulelake some six miles north turned to muddy paths during the rainy season. "We would travel into town by tractor because cars and pickups couldn't make it," Jess said. But the Prossers persevered. In 1965, they purchased a neighboring farm. Now the brothers, who rent the homestead from their father, farm about 700 acres. "The boys can't pay me rent when they don't get water," Jess said. When wet, the soil is dark, filled with promise. When dry, it becomes as lifeless as the dust blown by the continual wind sweeping across the wide basin. It's dry as parchment now. Weeds are drying up in the bottom of the irrigation ditch some 200 feet from the farmhouse. The ditch would normally be full of water, ducks, muskrats and turtles, John said. The Prosser brothers, who normally plant 110 acres of potatoes each year, grow russet Burbank potatoes, a large brown potato favored by many restaurants. They typically prepare the soil in the fall by tilling, fumigating and fertilizing. "It took about $300 an acre getting that field prepared for this year's spring planting," John said. "Right here we had rows straight as a string for half a mile, ready for potatoes. Full of fertilizer, nutrients. It was ready to go." But they were notified on April 6 that they would receive no irrigation water from the Klamath Project this year. They knew that potatoes planted in the dry dirt wouldn't produce. Instead, they planted brew barley, a cover crop that takes much less water but also means less cash come harvest time. The brothers did plant 18 acres of potatoes, banking on the use of water from a neighbor's well. "We're sticking our necks out a little bit," John said. "But even that won't cut the mustard for us to make a living. How we are going to make a living, I don't know." The barley is already stressing out because of a lack of water, he said. Although they have well water for domestic uses, it doesn't provide nearly enough water to irrigate crops, the Prossers said. And an irrigation well would have to be drilled in excess of 2,000 feet at a cost of some $200,000, John said. "We don't have the money to put into something like that," he said. "Besides, you never know if you are going to get water." Basin farmers have survived other short water years, John said, citing the summer of 1992 as an example. "But common sense prevailed then," he said. "All the farmers cut back. We shared. We survived. So did the fish." Farmers may not survive this year, he said. "It's not fair to devastate this whole community," he said. "It's not just farmers. It's store owners. It's families. "The Endangered Species Act, the way it worked here, doesn't make any sense," he added. "The farmers have never asked for 100 percent of the water. All we ask for is a share of the water to get by. This is a manmade disaster." The Prossers reject the characterization that it's farmers against the environment. "Deer come in here," Jess said. "We have wild ducks and geese and quail. I like to see 'em around. They don't take enough of the crops to do any damage." "This land is our life," John interjected. "We take the absolute best care of it we can. If we don't, we're out of business." Now they fear they may soon be run out of business by something beyond their control. John and his wife, who live about three miles from the family homestead, have two children, Katie, 11, and James, 6. "I want to think my children's future is here," he said. "But I don't know now." His wife is a former school teacher who now stays home to be with the children. "She may have to go teach school," he said, adding that having two working parents is not what they wanted for their children. While this year will be difficult, next year could be worse, he predicted. "It's really going to hit hard next year," John said. "Right now, we are getting income from last year's crop. We're still paying the bills today." Standing in the shade of the tall trees in the farmyard, the family patriarch doesn't plan to see the family farm dry up. "We'll survive one way or another," Jess Prosser said. His son agreed. "Yeah, we're fighters," John said. "We came from good stock. We're not going to roll over and play dead. "We're going to do what we can to survive," he added. "Our roots run pretty deep here." Like the roots of the old-growth blue spruce on the old Prosser place. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.