- Federal authorities are bracing for a new round of
confrontations
in the Klamath basin, as thousands of anti-government activists and farm
supporters converge on Klamath Falls next week for a long-planned
protest.
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- The Klamath Convoy -- billed as the largest anti-federal
rally in years -- is slowly moving from places such as Elko, Nev., and
Kalispell, Mont., to the California-Oregon border, where federal officials
cut off most irrigation water to farmers in April. Once there, the
demonstrators
plan to parade through Klamath Falls with a pair of 12-foot-high metal
buckets, trucks full of supplies for farmers and a band of mounted horsemen
that dub themselves the Klamath Calvary.
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- Federal authorities say the rally wouldn't concern them
-- except that it will happen two days before federal water managers are
scheduled to shut off a last-ditch allotment of water to farmers.
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- "Hopefully, these folks will listen to cooler heads
and maintain a peaceful demonstration," said Jeff McCracken, a
spokesman
for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the Klamath irrigation
project.
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- But protest organizers say they can't guarantee what
will happen if federal officials try to close the irrigation head gates,
after farmers exhaust their allotted 2.4 billion gallons of water by next
Thursday. Currently, nine federal officers are guarding the head
gates.
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- "They would be foolish or silly to shut that water
off," said Jon Hall, a Klamath Falls rancher and leader of the Klamath
Calvary. "They are just asking for trouble."
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- Widely viewed as the West's most volatile water war,
the Klamath clash has been building for years. It exploded in April when
reclamation officials cut off water for nine out of 10 farmers who grow
crops in the 240,000-acre Klamath Project.
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- Federal officials say that -- following a dry spring
and a set of endangered species rulings -- they had no choice but to reduce
irrigation and reserve water for coho salmon and a pair of imperiled lake
fish. But farmers say the cutbacks have devastated their livelihoods, and
their parched fields have galvanized a range of anti-government groups
in the West, especially those who have tangled previously with federal
land managers.
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- Three times in June and July, vandals crowded around
the head gates of Upper Klamath Lake and broke them open in a symbolic
show of defiance.
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- Finally, on July 15, the Bush administration sent in
federal marshals to guard the head gates.
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- Later that month, Interior Secretary Gale Norton tried
to calm the situation by allocating an extra 2.4 billion gallons from Upper
Klamath Lake for farmers. It didn't last long. By Aug. 7, Klamath farmers
had used up about half of that late supply to replenish their wells and
green up pastures. McCracken says the remaining amount will be used up
by next Thursday.
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- Now, federal officials fear a repeat of the June and
July confrontations, and Hall, for one, says they should be worried.
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- "If they try to cut off our water, I can't say what
will happen," Hall said.
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- One of dozens of activists who have devoted their summer
to the Klamath crisis, Hall is a leader of the "U.S. Freedom Cavalry,
Headgate Detachment" and has stitched together a battle flag.
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- Altogether, Hall expects up to 18,000 people to show
up for Tuesday's rally in Klamath Falls, including hundreds of his Freedom
Cavalry.
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- Meanwhile, in Utah and Elko, blacksmiths have welded
together a pair of 12 foot-high buckets that are being trucked to Klamath
Falls. Convoys of trucks with supplies for the farmers are also leaving
from Montana, Washington, Idaho and other areas.
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- As they prepare for the demonstration, convoy organizers
are paying close attention to their public image. Volunteers are being
urged to leave their weapons at home, or at least out of sight.
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- "Visually, this should be an unarmed event,"
said a posting to the Klamath Convoy on a Web site of the Sierra Times,
an anti-federal group. "Leave the AKs, etc., in the vehicles. Glocks
and .45s have no business on the hip. This type of visual sends the wrong
message to the rest of the nation."
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- Another Web site, operated by the Washington State
Tyranny
Response Team, urged readers "to get out the troops."
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- "Call your churches, Boy Scout troops and any other
civic-minded groups you can think of, and encourage them to support the
people of Klamath Falls," the Web site says.
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- On Wednesday, several Elko organizers gathered in Malibu
with members of the Los Angeles Farm Bureau and the Blue Ribbon Coalition
(an off-road vehicle group) to start a California leg of the convoy. Many
were members of the Jarbridge Shovel Brigade, an Elko group that confronted
U.S. Forest Service rangers when they tried to close a popular road for
jeep enthusiasts that was washing sediment into a trout stream.
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- "We are linked by one thing: The federal government
is violating its trust with the American people," said Grant Gerber,
a lawyer from Elko. "They are violating it with miners, ranchers,
farmers and recreationists, and we are fighting back."
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- Gerber said his group's fight will be waged by getting
its message out. But he, too, said there could be trouble if the feds try
to cut off water again.
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- "Farmers and ranchers are peace-loving and want
to go about our business," Gerber said. "But we have reached
a point where we can't do it anymore."
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- _____________
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- The Bee's Stuart Leavenworth can be reached at
(916) 321-1185 or
sleavenworth@sacbee.com.
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