Common Ground, With More Work Ahead

For years, farmers and conservationists in the Klamath Basin have been assumed to hold opposing views around how best to manage water in this region. A new study out of Oregon State University's College of Liberal Arts set out to test that assumption directly, with researchers sitting down with 55 people from both groups to ask how they think basin resources should be managed, and why.

The agricultural group included 30 multi-generational farmers and ranchers in Klamath County, Oregon and Siskiyou County, California. The conservation group included 25 scientists and policy experts in state and federal agencies or non-profit organizations that are focused on conservation and river restoration.

Individuals in each of these groups participated in one-on-one interviews that lasted for an hour or two. In one conversation, a rancher in Siskiyou County talked about water rights his family has held for generations, reflecting on a summer when regulators cut his deliveries for the first time ever. A state fisheries biologist talked about algal blooms, fish kills, and what a healthy river needs. Different places, different vocabularies, but the same basic question driving their perspectives: What does it mean to take care of this very special place?

It's worth noting that the study focused on farmers and conservationists specifically, and researchers were careful not to fold the basin's tribal nations into that comparison. Even so, the role of local tribes surfaced regularly in what farmers and ranchers and conservationists themselves said. Ranchers cited tribal senior water rights as a source of their own uncertainty over supply, and conservationists pointed to tribal leadership in fisheries restoration and cultural fire management as something the whole basin depends on. 

The study made news in May, and the headlines told a hopeful story: farmers and conservationists, longtime opponents in the region's water wars, actually agree on quite a bit. Both groups worry about an uncertain future shaped by drought and climate change. Both want more trust and collaboration after past agreements fell apart. Both are frustrated by management that fixates on a single species instead of the whole landscape. And both are open to trying new approaches, from land swaps that return farmland to wetlands to releasing flushing flows into the Klamath River, timed to protect salmon from parasites.

These areas of common ground are worth celebrating. But lead researcher Professor Bryan Tilt has noted that the coverage overlooked the real, unresolved differences that persist between these groups.

For example, farmers and ranchers ranked fair representation as their top concern. The idea of fair representation is the sense that decisions about their water are often made far away and by people who don't live with the consequences. One rancher argued that whoever regulates water allocations needs to "get a paycheck from nature." Conservation professionals, on the other hand, identified restoration and conservation as the top priority, often describing their goal as returning the river to something closer to its natural state. Those perspectives aren't inherently incompatible, but they are different starting points, and they illustrate the competing priorities at play during increasingly common dry times in the basin.

Similarly, many agricultural producers said they wanted data-informed decisions, but several described feeling that science in the basin has, for years, served predetermined outcomes rather than genuinely open questions. Meanwhile, conservationists pointed to declining fish populations and degraded water quality as clear, well-documented problems that require action regardless of how any one group feels about the science. Trust in decision-making processes will take time to develop, but it can be fostered through focusing on the common vision held by many basin residents who want to see healthy landscapes that can support future generations.

These challenges are an indication that the work of turning shared values into collaboration is ongoing, and getting there will take patience, experimentation, and a willingness to trust. Tilt's team collected some anecdotes that show what that work looks like.

For example, a rancher near Klamath Lake is taking part in a temporary land swap, returning some acreage to wetland in exchange for compensation, while still using the rest of his ground for production. Projects like these give people a way to work together while taking small steps toward a more sustainable future.

The need for more cross-sector experiments may be one lesson to take from this research. The Klamath Basin's farmers and conservationists are not going to stop seeing things from their own perspectives, which are rooted in their own life experiences. But they are increasingly willing to try new ways of managing water and land that neither side might have proposed a decade ago.

 The OSU team isn't done. Researchers are now inviting anyone who lives, works, or spends time in the Klamath Basin to share their own perspective through a short community survey. They are especially hoping to hear from people involved in agriculture, ranching, irrigation, and water management to help ensure these perspectives are well represented in the study. You can take the survey here. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete, responses are anonymous, and results will be shared back with the community in plain language. You can find more information about this project and related research at an OSU website that highlights the interdisciplinary work underway in the post-dam removal Klamath Basin.