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Report says Klamath panel erred
From The Oregonian, Nov. 14, 2002, p B9
Report says Klamath panel erred Two OSU scientists criticize a national panel's finding that withholding water from farms was unjustified By MICHAEL MILSTEIN, The Oregonian A national science panel's finding that the 2001 federal decision to withhold water from Klamath Basin farms was unjustified is laden with errors and has mainly served to fuel resentment of environmental laws, two Oregon State University researchers say. The science panel chose data selectively to support its rushed conclusions, and in one instance its chairman referred to a species of fish that does not exist in the Klamath Basin, the Oregon researchers said in a paper submitted for publication in the journal Fisheries. "Politicians have assumed that (the review) has primacy in the scientific debate, when in fact its speedy construction contributed to multiple errors that detract from its scientific usefulness," say the researchers, fisheries professor Douglas Markle and graduate student Michael Cooperman. They are among the first outside scientists to scrutinize the work of the panel formed by the National Research Council at Interior Secretary Gale Norton's request after the Klamath Basin's bitter water struggles of 2001. The researchers said it is wrong to treat the panel's findings as the "definitive opinion for Klamath Basin water management," as federal agencies have done. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation used the findings to justify cutting back water for fish this year. That left less for salmon, which later suffered a massive die-off in the Klamath River. The Oregon State paper has undergone peer review. Markle and Cooperman declined to release it, but The Oregonian obtained a pre-publication copy. One of the 12 members of the National Research Council panel said the group would weight the Oregon researchers' criticism when compiling a final Klamath Basin report, due out in January. "It's like everything else; we'll read it, and we'll think about it," said Michael Pace of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. After three months of work, the national panel issued an interim report early this year. The panel concluded there was no scientific justification for last year's federal decision to hold water in Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath River for fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. The federal move had left little water for farms in the Klamath Project as they weathered a severe drought. Farmers and politicians welcomed the national panel's finding as proof that cutting off water to farms was not based on "sound science." They have used it nationally to argue for reform of the Endangered Species Act. But Markle and Cooperman said the National Research Council group looked for simple biological explanations that are rare in a complex ecosystem such as the Klamath Basin. It also discarded competing opinions that are routine within the science world, they said. "Unfortunately, the committee missed an opportunity to help the public understand the process of science," they wrote. "Instead, its staff, in a public forum, claimed infallibility in this debate, and its chair, in a congressional forum, dismissed dissenting peer reviews of their report as coming from people with 'obvious bias.'" The OSU researchers said "the primary impact has been to increase resentment of resource laws and agencies." Their paper was submitted to the journal Fisheries about two months ago an reviewed by seven anonymous scientists, who returned it with comments and criticisms. Markle and Cooperman revised the paper to address the comments and resubmitted it to the journal, where it is awaiting publication, they said. The paper also has circulated among Klamath basin farmers. Last week, Dan Keppen of the Klamath Water Users Association said the paper "appears to be more a political assessment instead of an objective look at the science." Markle and Cooperman cite a series of factual errors in the National Research Council panel's conclusions, such as giving incorrect years when water quality in Upper Klamath Lake was especially poor, using faulty fish population models and selecting data that supported "a conclusion they had already reached." Five months after the panel was formed, its chairman referred to problems involving longnose suckers - a fish species that does not exist in the Klamath Basin, they said. The scientific work of both federal agencies an the national panel has shortcomings, the two researchers said, but neither should be labeled "not sound science." Posted as a courtesy by Daniel B. Wheeler www.oregonwhitetruffles.com |
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