Running out of water and hope

Growing numbers of Klamath Basin farmers are asking the U.S. government to buy them out before they lose everything. By stepping forward, however, they risk community censure and even death threats.

KLAMATH FALLS -- Growing numbers of Klamath Basin farmers are asking the U.S.
government to buy them out before they lose everything. By stepping forward,
however, they risk community censure and even death threats.

Yet the biggest cost may be in admitting publicly and privately that their
long-held dreams are forever gone.

"I always believed food was life. If I stayed connected to agriculture, I
would be doing a good thing," said Beth Deaver, 45, whose farm joined more
than 1,000 others this summer when the irrigation water was shut off.

Down to a hobbled crop of alfalfa, Deaver felt she had no choice but to
leave her farm and move to Portland to take an office job.

She is one of more than 70 farmers in Oregon and California who have offered
to sell their land as part of a broad plan to reduce the thirsty footprint
of farming in the basin, where water and emotions have stretched to their
limits this drought year. Many see a buyout as the only way off the farms
that the government itself left nearly worthless by taking away their water
for the sake of endangered suckers and coho salmon.

Six years ago, Deaver invested her divorce settlement on 173 acres of
irrigated land 10 miles south of Klamath Falls. The arid landscape was
different from what she had known as a girl in central California's cotton
country. But she figured she could make a good home for her two teen-age
boys in the white ranch house with the red roof and red shutters.

With the help of her sister and brother-in-law, Deaver raised alfalfa and
leased acreage for sugar beets -- earning enough to make payments and
remodel the house. She took a day job at a bank in town to cover the
family's other expenses.

By 1999, however, Deaver realized her two boys saw no future in the farm.

"They saw me struggle," she said. "They didn't want to farm, because they
see farmers becoming a lost item."

So Deaver listed her land for sale. She'd paid $2,900 an acre and hoped to
get $3,635 an acre to recoup her investments in the land, house and
outbuildings. Just a few potential buyers came through. The bank told Deaver
to find new financing.

Then she lost both her job and the irrigation water she always thought was a
sure thing. This summer's severe drought had led federal agencies to keep
that water in Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River.

With the farm producing almost nothing, her bank is now foreclosing on her
property. And Deaver believes her only hope is a federal government buyout.

She has signed on with the American Land Conservancy, a San Francisco-based
conservation organization that has secured options to purchase 32,000 acres
-- more than 10 percent of the land in the Klamath Reclamation Project.
Farmers would get about $3,000 an acre for land plus appraised value for any
improvements. The federal government would pay the approximately $300
million total price.

The American Land Conservancy would get 5 percent to cover its costs, and
two local real estate agents who inked the options would each get 3 percent.
A spokesman for the American Land Conservancy said last week that the
organization would consider reducing its 5 percent cut.

A coalition of conservation groups, led by the Oregon Natural Resources
Council, also has floated a federally financed plan promising farmers $4,000
an acre, with a price tag of $800 million.

Both proposals would take some agricultural land out of production, freeing
up water for other farmers. The plans also call for more reservoirs to tide
over farmers through dry spells such as this one and the restoration of
wetlands so critical to imperiled fish and wildlife.

The Bush administration is expected, in ongoing court-led mediation
sessions, to soon advance its own proposal that includes the government
purchase of farmland.

But in the Klamath Basin, many consider the buyout proposals nothing more
than a federal land grab at farmers' most vulnerable hour.

Farmer Keith Buckingham, former president of the Tulelake Growers
Association, endured those bitter feelings at a recent association meeting
convened after he backed buyouts in the local paper.

"I had my head handed to me on a plate," Buckingham said. "A lot of it has
to do with fear of change. Fear of the government."

Buckingham resigned his position as president but stayed on the board of
directors. He is still considering selling some of his water rights as part
of a government-backed buyout proposal.

After another Tulelake farmer raised the idea of buyouts at a community
meeting, he received threats to his life, family and property. Though he
hates the idea of selling his land -- especially to the government -- he
said he's still interested in a solution that could include buyouts. But
he's no longer willing to talk about it openly.

Instead of buyouts, many Klamath residents want the Endangered Species Act
revised to pay more heed to local people and economies. Larry Jespersen
does, too, but believes that will take too long to help Klamath farmers.

"If you're going to take five years and fight for that conclusion, these
guys will all be broke and be crawling off their land," he said. "The banks
will take their places."

Jespersen, 55, also wants to sell his land under the American Land
Conservancy proposal. He sees the 8,000 acres he farms with his partners in
the 20,000-acre Swan Lake Valley east of Klamath Falls as part of the
solution to the basin's larger water crisis.

Pine-covered ridges isolate the valley from the rest of the basin. Its
half-dozen farms were largely untouched by the cutoff of water, because they
rely on 15 wells for irrigation. But they are not untouched by decades of
changes in the way the water flows through the basin; like much of the other
farmland here, they are mostly reclaimed wetlands, created when dikes kept
Swan Lake from filling the valley as it once did.

Jespersen and his neighbors would like to sell their land to the government,
take out the dikes and use their wells to refill the lake until it reclaims
its original ground. This way the valley could store nearly 100,000
acre-feet of water, nearly a fourth of what Klamath Project farmers use in a
normal year, as well as provide vast new wetlands for wildlife.

Like Deaver, Jespersen realizes selling would end his way of life.

He started the farm in 1973, clearing sagebrush to make way for crops. He
built 30 miles of canals and drain ditches to support fields of alfalfa and
timothy hay. He built his home -- it boasts a broad valley view -- with
large beams from a railroad bridge.

But Jespersen was thinking about selling even before the water crisis. One
of his partners has health problems and wants to get out. Jespersen's four
children don't want to pursue farming. And Jespersen himself doesn't see a
bright future in it. As it is, his farm has been struggling the last four or
five years just to break even.

"I'd like to keep going, but I'm ready for a change," he said.

He and his partners stand to make roughly $24 million if they sell out.

"It's on the high side," he said. "But if you're going to give up farmland,
you're giving it up forever."

The success of any buyout proposal depends upon Congress to supply the
money.

When he first heard about the plans, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., likened
them to "someone offering to sell you air, when their hands are around your
neck, choking you to death."

Last week, Walden had tempered his views.

"My biggest concern is that buyouts shouldn't be the first step," he said.
"But by the end of the day, there will be some changes in ownership there
because there isn't enough water to go around."

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., also has advanced the idea of buying out
farmers whom he calls "distressed sellers."

"There's some desperation, certainly," said Fred Fahner, 64, who farms 1,000
acres and saw his water cut off this year.

"You're looking at five years of poor market conditions, and slap on top of
that the water issue, and it is desperate. But it's a desperate situation
that's been caused by the federal government, and they've got to help us get
out of it."

Fahner tried to sell his land. But he got no takers, probably because of
declining farm markets and the uncertainty over water. Federal biological
opinions protecting suckers and coho make irrigation water iffy seven of
every 10 years.

He's signed onto the American Land Conservancy buyout proposal because he
considers it a "land exchange." Farmers who now lease fields on nearby
national wildlife refuges could move onto the newly purchased lands, freeing
up the refuge lands to store water for wildlife. In 10 years, they would get
an option to buy it -- ensuring that the land returns to private owners.

Deaver's farm is scheduled to be auctioned by the bank Nov. 16.

She's praying a buyout plan would keep the auction from occurring. Whatever
money she gets for the farm will go to pay off her debts.

Deaver, who majored in agricultural economics in college and who was one of
the first female chapter presidents of Future Farmers of America, swears
she's finished with farming. Where home was once 173 acres in the Klamath
Basin, now it's a 1,000-square-foot apartment in Portland.

"I've come to realize," she said, "that the farm life as I knew it just
isn't there anymore."

You can reach Michael Milstein at 503-294-7689 or
michaelmilstein@news.oregonian.com. You can reach Michelle Cole at
503-294-5143 or michellecole@news.oregonian.com.