Guest Column

I am writing to address the errors and exaggerations found in the Perfect Balance paid ad on Feb. 5. That ad contains so many faults that it is hard to know where to begin listing them.

The ad’s chief point is that the Endangered Species Act is a bad thing that takes water away from poor struggling farmers. It goes on to predict that we will be left hungry without food if endangered species are protected. The ad uses the term “radical” describing the presumed evils of conservation groups. The thought that conservation biologists are trying to prevent things from extinction has apparently never entered the writers’ minds.

The ad says that “normally in summer months rivers tend to dry up” but the Deschutes River did not have that characteristic! Before the dams were built the Deschutes had a nearly constant year-round flow because it is mostly spring-fed. This changed when the dams were built — allowing the river to be turned off in the fall (filling the reservoirs) and then turned on again in the spring (to provide irrigation). Treating the river like a garden hose has terribly impacted the natural ecosystem in many ways… one of them being the endangerment of the Oregon spotted frog. Impacts to fish populations have also been severe.

When the Wickiup Dam was first built in 1949 many thousands of trout died when their river was turned off. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife brought a lawsuit to prevent this slaughter that eventually went to the Oregon Supreme Court. In 1952 the court found in favor of the irrigators and against ODFW and the slaughter continues to this day. Is this what the ad writers imagine as “balance?”

So let’s talk about how Deschutes water is used. By law, water is considered a public trust. It belongs to the citizens of Oregon who should have a say in how it is used. But in practice it is managed by a system of “water rights” established in the 19th century before any scientific understanding of water ecology existed. Today irrigators receive 80% of the river’s water for which they pay nothing. True, there are charges levied by irrigation districts, but the water itself is considered “free.” The sad truth is that a significant amount of irrigation water is lost to evaporation, long canal runs and lack of piping

I will not delve into who deserves more or less water. Suffice to say that there is plenty of water for town and country if it were portioned properly and carefully. But two factors complicate this. The first is that Deschutes River water is not metered. And without metering there is no way to portion it out impartially. The second fact is that climate change is upon us and will give us less precipitation and more frequent droughts. We may indeed face dry reservoirs and low flows, but they will not be caused by conservation biologists trying to protect species from extinction.

I have a Ph.D. in aquatic ecology and have worked for 40 years to protect the fabric of life; the ecosystems that give us the air we breathe and every molecule of food we eat. Blaming conservation biologists for the doom of farming is ridiculous. I fear for the health of our planet if people are foolish enough to believe the drivel in that “Perfect Balance” ad.

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