PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: October 5, 2004

For More Information Contact:
Steve Pedery (503) 283-6343 ext. 212, sp@onrc.org
Carrie Collins (301) 951-8019, carriehcollins@aol.com
Sandra Marquardt (301) 512-4781, smarquardt@igc.org

For complete report click here. (pdf, 212Kb)

Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges Make Nation’s Most Endangered Refuges List

2004 List of Ten Most Endangered Wildlife Refuges Released Today by Defenders of Wildlife

Washington, D.C. - Commercial agriculture operations which siphon water away from wildlife and pollute the surrounding area with pesticides threaten the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex, placing it on this year’s list of the nation’s ten most endangered refuges, according to a report released today by Defenders of Wildlife.

Entitled, “Refuges at Risk: America’s Ten Most Endangered National Wildlife Refuges 2004,” the report identifies ten refuges facing the most serious and immediate environmental abuses this year.

Large commercial agricultural operators in the Klamath Basin Refuge Complex, comprised of six individual refuges, lease tens of thousands of acres of land, plant cash crops that require pesticides, and manage the farms without regard to wildlife needs, especially water. This refuge complex is the only one in the country that permits this kind of farming. All other farms on refuges throughout the country are run by small local farmers who manage their operations to benefit both them and the area’s wildlife.

“The Department of Interior has allowed unsustainable farming in this refuge complex to go on for far too long,” stated Rodger Schlickeisen, President of Defenders of Wildlife. “Commercial agriculture just doesn’t belong within national wildlife refuges - these are supposed to be places for wildlife not sugar beets.”

Straddling the Oregon-California border, the Klamath refuges are a vital stop-over point for 80% of the birds migrating on the Pacific Flyway. They are all that remain of a once-vast wetland area that has been largely drained and filled for agriculture and development.

A reliable supply of clean water is another major factor in the woes of the Klamath Refuges. Over the last 10 years Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge has been plagued by water shortages, and by late summer irrigation water diversions that lower water levels in Upper Klamath Lake usually leave the marshes of Upper Klamath NWR bone dry. Low water levels can harm endangered fish in the lake, and irrigation diversions also reduce the amount of water available for threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River. In 2002, the federal Department of Interior allowed farms to divert so much water from the Klamath River that the water levels dropped dramatically and temperatures jumped up, killing as many as 35,000 steelhead, chinook and coho salmon attempting to reach their spawning grounds. Conservationists argue that the best way to solve the Klamath water crisis is for the federal government to establish a voluntary program to work with irrigation interests to buy back water rights and retire them, allowing more water to be left in area lakes and streams for fish and wildlife.

"The federal government has promised too much water to too many different interests in the Klamath Basin, and even in good years there isn't enough to go around," said Steve Pedery, Wildlife Advocate with the Oregon Natural Resources Council. "The only way to solve the Klamath water crisis is to bring the demand for water back into balance with supply."

“The world and this nation are facing an accelerating loss of habitat and species,” said Schlickeisen. “These losses are tearing holes in the web of life that sustains us all. As witnessed in this report, the national wildlife refuge system as a whole is facing a daily barrage of threats. If we can’t protect wildlife and habitat on our wildlife refuges, where can we protect it?”

The first in a series, the refuge report, “Refuges at Risk,” spotlights the threats facing the wildlife refuge system in order to build public support for saving wildlife by safeguarding and nourishing the places where they live.