CA-02: Wally Herger and the Klamath Fish Kill

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

TJ at Loaded Orygun has been doing some great work gettig to the bottom of the 2002 Klamath River fish kill, an incident that recently gained more prominence when a recent Washington Post article detailed the influence of Vice President Fourthbranch in the decisionmaking process.

TJ has been filing Freedom of Information Act requests to determine what the level of involvement was for political officials in the region.  Most of his findings concern Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) and his inserting himself into the scientific debate over whether to hold water for river salmon and attempting to influence it on the behalf of self-interested farmers who wanted that water for irrigation.

But a California congressman also figured into this issue: Rep. Wally Herger of CA-02.  The "pages" in the blockquoted text that proceeds refer to TJ's FOIA page request.

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The last item on page one is a two-fer with Greg Walden to a "Science Advisor" in 2002, recommending "immediate review of study known as Hardy Study re Klamath River." The Hardy Phase II report was a set of flow measurement models that formed the basis of the federal biologists' opinion protecting the fish. Here you have two Members of Congress attempting to impugn the best available science, because they don't like what it says [...]

On page two we see the precursor to the last item on page one--a complaint from Smith, Walden and Wally Herger (R-CA2) sharing their "concern" about the Hardy study, amazingly all the way back to February 7, 2001. The summary isn't shy about the topic of the conversation. The authors

"question its science, credibility and the fact that our constituents (ie water users) have been excluded. Ask for an immediate suspension of the Hardy Study pending a complete review, audit by the IG, and scientific peer review."

This is an ongoing investigation on the citizen journalism model.  I'm anxious to see just how involved Herger has been in this environmental, ecological and economic disaster.