Jill K. Duffy, an environmental analyst for the Humboldt County Public Works Department assigned to the Klamath Restoration Agreements, is responding to Dan Walters' Nov. 25 column "A huge gift to Buffett, Oregon." The column stated, "the bottom line is that, with interest on the bonds, it's a half-billion-dollar gift from California taxpayers to Oregon farmers and (Warren) Buffett."

Dan Walters' column fails to appreciate benefits to Californians offered by the Klamath Restoration Agreements. Completing the agreements is one of the most cost-effective ways for California to improve water supply reliability and protect rural jobs.

The agreements would benefit Oregon farmers and farmers in Siskiyou County who are most directly affected by water wars on the Klamath, and so would downstream coastal communities of California like Humboldt County.

California fishermen, recreational and commercial, will greatly benefit from revived fisheries in the Klamath River. Repeated fishing closures up and down the California coast have cost millions of taxpayer dollars in economic bailouts that do not address the root causes of the problem as these agreements do. Make no mistake: Taxpayers already foot the bill for disaster costs that over time will far exceed the costs of restoration.

Walters misrepresents how the agreements will be financed. Dam removal is estimated to cost $290 million for full dam removal, not $1 billion. PacifiCorp and Oregon ratepayers agreed to pay $200 million, with California paying the remainder. The restoration agreement proposes to redirect existing federal allocated funds within the Klamath basin. The dams are privately owned by PacifiCorp and the utility supports removal rather than relicensing because removal will save their Oregon and California customers money. The California Public Utilities Commission has ruled that dam removal will cost at least half of associated relicensing costs and is in the best interest of ratepayers.

Other benefits include an end to decades of ongoing and costly litigation. Walters failed to mention benefits that Native American tribes will see from a restored Klamath, and that is a big oversight given the cultural, economic and health problems tribes have faced from loss of salmon and impaired water quality.

Walters states that the "semiofficial rationale" in removing the dams would be "improving fish runs on the Klamath would offset losses of habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta." This is simply not accurate. The Klamath settlement process is the result of a bipartisan, broad-based coalition effort to create a viable and durable solution to what has been the West's poster child for environmental and economic disasters, and it deserves support. It is a model for bottom-up, inclusive water policy that Californians desperately need.

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Jill K. Duffy, an environmental analyst for the Humboldt County Public Works Department assigned to the Klamath Restoration Agreements, is responding to Dan Walters' Nov. 25 column "A huge gift to Buffett, Oregon." The column stated, "the bottom line is that, with interest on the bonds, it's a half-billion-dollar gift from California taxpayers to Oregon farmers and (Warren) Buffett."

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