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�9 <br />pt.Ul U `Y', {/IJ( �l D /��' 1 i 1n <br />3. "Congressman Walden Letter To Colleagues" <br />(Source: Press Release from the office of Oregon <br />Congressman Greg Walden. February 5, 2002.) <br />February 5, 2002 <br />Sound Science Needed in ESA <br />Dear Colleague: <br />While the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has the laudable <br />goal of preventing the extinction of species, without a <br />requirement for sound science it can fail to effectively <br />protect species while causing severe harm to communities. <br />The ESA is broken and needs fixing. <br />The hard - working community of the Klamath Basin in Oregon <br />that I represent knows all too well the social and economic <br />upheaval that can result from the rigid application of the <br />current ESA. Last year, farmers and ranchers in the <br />Klamath Basin experienced the sharp pain of the ESA's <br />shortcomings. They had their water abruptly shut off - the <br />economic backbone of a family farm or ranch - in the name <br />of saving the endangered sucker fish and threatened coho <br />salmon. Over the past nine -plus months, farmers and <br />ranchers have gone bankrupt, the entire community has <br />suffered extensive social and economic harm, and national <br />wildlife refuges have struggled from lack of water and lack <br />of grain that farmers. voluntarily grow for millions of <br />birds in the Pacific Flyway (incidentally, these refuges <br />are home to the largest population of wintering bald eagles <br />in our country- another endangered species). All of this <br />hardship was driven by the rigid requirements of the ESA, <br />but this devastation could have been stopped if the E <br />Yesterday afternoon I attended a water forum at the <br />Klamath County Fairgrounds where over 500 people showed up <br />on short notice to learn about the powerful conclusions in <br />the new National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report entitled <br />"Scientific Evaluation of Biological Opinions on Endangered <br />and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River,Basin." <br />The NAS report concluded that there is no scientific basis <br />for maintaining higher water levels in Upper Klamath Lake <br />or higher minimum flows in the Klamath River for threatened <br />species as recommended in a biological opinion released <br />last year that led to the dramatic water shut off to <br />farmers and ranchers on April 6, 2001. The crisis in the <br />Klamath Basin is yet another example of why we need to <br />