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Norton to consider returning Klamath tribal lands By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press Interior Secretary Gale Norton told the Klamath Tribes on Tuesday she will consider giving back reservation lands that are now included in national forests as part of her strategy to provide water for farms as well as fish in the Klamath Basin. Meetings between the tribes and senior Interior Department officials will begin "in the near future" as part of a Cabinet-level task force's effort to assure water for farmers as well as fish and wildlife, Interior spokesman Mark Pfeifle said. Topics will include discussions of the tribes' long-standing desire to get back 692,000 acres of reservation lands liquidated by the federal government in the 1960s and 1970s that are now part of the Winema and Fremont national forests, and the tribes' claims to the most senior water rights in the basin, recently affirmed by a federal court. "We have an opportunity to work toward a vision for the basin that includes clear waters, abundant fisheries, increased waterfowl, a vibrant agricultural community, and an end to the legal fighting among the various interests," Norton said in a statement from Washington, D.C. "Klamath Tribes have property rights that must be respected and interests that must be honored as we develop solutions." Tribal Chairman Allen Foreman, who has been critical of legislative efforts to assure irrigation water for farmers without including the tribes, pledged full cooperation to Norton and the task force. "For the most part it has been the federal government that overpromised the limited waters of the Klamath Basin," Foreman said from tribal offices in Chiloquin. "This is the first time I've seen the federal executive branch, at the very highest level, step up to its responsibilities and take actions that could heal the land and water while helping the tribes and all people in the Klamath Basin." When drought made water supplies tight last spring, the Endangered Species Act required the federal government to hold back water from the Klamath Reclamation Project, a federal irrigation system serving 220,000 acres of farmland straddling the Oregon-California border. The water was dedicated to endangered suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, which the tribes consider a sacred gift of their creator, and threatened salmon in the Klamath River. The irrigation shutoff produced a long summer of confrontations between farmers, the tribes, conservationists and the federal government over how to allocate the basin's waters, which have been turned upside down for nearly a century by the Klamath Project. The Klamath Tribes, made up of Klamath, Modoc and Paiute people, had a reservation covering 1.2 million acres and a thriving timber economy when the federal government terminated them in 1954 as part of a nationwide policy pushing Indians into society. Recognizing the tribes hold the most senior water rights in the upper basin, and allowing them to control a large chunk of land, would go a long way towards accomplishing the ecosystem restoration needed to resolve the water conflict, said Bob Hunter of WaterWatch of Oregon. Once the tribes can exercise their treaty rights to enough clean water to maintain traditional fisheries, there will be less water drawn off to irrigate about 130,000 acres of pasture land in the upper basin, allowing more water to flow into Upper Klamath Lake, the primary reservoir of the Klamath Project as well as home to endangered suckers, Hunter said. The Klamath Water Users Association, representing farmers and businesses dependent on the Klamath Project, gave grudging support to the talks. "We are supportive that the secretary is willing to sit down with folks," said Executive Director Dan Keppen. "She is sitting down with us on other issues." ___ On the Net: Interior Department: http://www.doi.gov/ Klamath Tribes: http://www.klamathtribes.org/ Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.