What a year.
We’re sure everyone will remember 2020 for a variety of reasons. The lockdowns and shutdown of businesses. AnitFa and BLM riots rocking cities across the US, coincidentally, right after our successful – and peaceful – tractor rally. And then for us of course was the tractor rally. Stretching nearly 30 miles with thousands of supporters, it was an incredible event that helped Klamath Basin agriculture get noticed.
But was it successful?
We think it was. Our goal was to try and get the attention of the Trump Administration to get help, to try and ensure we could keep a meager amount of water instead of sending it downriver, and then to push for an updated BiOp. And we were successful on all three points:
- Instead of cutting the Project’s already drastically cut water allotment of 140,000 acre/ft to 80,000 acre/ft, the Bureau of Reclamation recommitted to giving Klamath Project irrigators the original commitment.
- On July 19th, two representatives of the Trump Administration, Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt along with Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Berman, held stakeholder meetings in Klamath Falls and met with Shut Down & Fed Up supporter at our protest site after then Representative Greg Walden shared a photo of our protest with President Trump.
- How about taking a fresh look at the science behind the BiOp? Yep, the Bureau of Reclamation committed $1.2 million to update the science that dictates how water is used in the Klamath Project.
So yes, looking back at the summer of 2020, we feel good about everything we were able to accomplish with our tractor rally and getting the community to support us in our cause.
Standing on the precipice of 2021, we hope everything we accomplished will carry forward. But with Joe Biden winning the election and cleaning house, we’ll be dealing with new people in the Bureau of Reclamation and the Interior Department. We’re leaving 2020 with nearly normal snowpack, but as you may recall Klamath family farmers and ranchers still faced irrigation curtailments in 2019 though precipitation reached over 100% of normal.
Shut Down & Fed Up are hopeful, like everyone else, that 2021 won’t be the dumpster fire we’ve been through with 2020. At this time, we’re going to remain cautiously optimistic that 2021 will treat us better, but please pray for snow and a wet spring.
We’ll need it.