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Date Posted: 17:41:08 05/17/08 Sat
Author: SS
Subject: Re: ******************ARIVERLOST2NDREPORT****************
In reply to: SS 's message, "Re: ******************ARIVERLOST2NDREPORT****************" on 15:19:07 05/17/08 Sat

Noah Eaton
May 11, 2008
Science 354U

A River Lost: Second Report


Chapter 6

1) What are the various “subsidies” that farmers in the Columbia River Irrigation Project have received?
- According to the Bureau of Reclamation‘s calculations, as Harden cites: “every 960-acre farm in the Columbia Basin Project has been blessed with at least $2.1 million in federal infrastructure subsidies.” (119) where more “than nine out of every ten dollars needed for profitable irrigated farming in the Columbia River” (119) being supplied by “federal taxpayers or electricity consumers who live somewhere else.” (119)
As is cited on the footnote on page 128, under the Reclamation Act of 1902: “money spent on irrigation projects was to be repaid within ten years---without any interest.” already giving them a 14% subsidy on project costs at that time. However, particularly for political reasons by incumbent members of Congress who recognized that farmers “never could come close to paying back the government for the real cost of their water.” Thus, the rules were revised continuously; from 1914 when Congress stretched the repayment period to twenty years which increased the interest subsidy to 42 percent, followed by a provision in 1939 that said that “all reclamation costs that exceeded a farmer’s ‘ability to pay’ could be borne by other water users, such as consumers of hydroelectricity.” (129) In 1963, the percentage of construction costs Basin farmers had to pay was again cut from 18 percent to 12 percent, and the repayment period was stretched to sixty years.
Thus, by the 1980’s, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, twelve of eighteen major irrigation projects in the region had 80 percent of their construction costs not being paid by farmers, including 96.7% on one of the twelve.
Despite that, “one of every four farmers went broke in the first four years of the Project.” (130) and more than half failed to profit. Thus, irrigators began demanding more federal subsidies, which included a $171 million program to correct a draining problem by the Bureau of Reclamation, as well as various construction costs including sprinkler technology and the right to sell electricity generated through turbines installed on their canals.

2) Who are the other stakeholders (other than irrigators) in the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, and how does the project affect their objectives?
- Other stakeholders in the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project include other farmers, the Bureau of Reclamation (who up until 1969 had primary management responsibilities of the Project, until farmers began taking over management, where they then “reduced the annual operating and maintenance fees they paid for delivery of water from thirty dollars per acre to twenty dollars.” (133), neighboring non-Project communities to who Project farmers sell their conserved water to, state and federal lawmakers, dam operators and engineers (especially the Grand Coulee Dam), mapmakers, hydrologists and soil experts. Native American tribal communities and environmentalists are also important challengers regarding the Project, who claim the increasing consumption of water from the Columbia River at lower prices are threatening the survival of salmon runs.
With Congress repeatedly decreasing the percentage of construction costs farmers had to pay, as well as stretching their repayment periods, the Bureau of Reclamation and other federal engineers have lost authority in the decision-making process over the past century, while farmers have gained. Therefore, as farmers and irrigators’ gross returns and profits continue to increase overall, and have immense muscle in terms of water-marketing, and state and federal officials continue to generally coax these constituencies for political reasons, federal engineers have been at an impasse, recognizing that under their original 1939 agreement it suggests that farmers have the right to reclaim water and sell the water that generates power at a deeply subsidized price, thus not getting the revenue they desire for projects the Bureau originally built and owned.
Harden also alludes to a “voluminous Dogma of Irrigation” beginning on page 123, rooted in the notion that “the only godly work a man can do is grow food.” and that “the American taxpayer has an obligation---economic, patriotic, and religious---to deliver cheap water to farmers so they can continue to do God’s work.” (123) which in result also has aggressive lobbying muscle behind it and an antagonistic stance towards environmentalists, Native Americans and salmon advocates, thus placing these three stakeholder constituencies in a constant defensive positioning regionally (note Osborne’s accusations of Native Americans documented on page 131, for instance)

3) What were the political role of Senators Magnuson and Jackson?
- Considered by Harden “perhaps the most successful pair of irrigation boosters in American history.” (132), they frequently “bullied” the Bureau of Reclamation over a span of four decades to provide for their farming constituents.
Some of their primary accomplishments included a 1956 law that lifted limits on land ownership for the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project that were at the time strictly enforced under the Bureau of Reclamation, a 1961 reversal for complete financial responsibility regarding the irrigation draining issue from the farmers to the Bureau, and having Washington State become the state with the highest percentage of irrigated land (54 percent).


Chapter 7

4) How does the use of water by the Columbia River Irrigation Project affect utility customers and salmon?
- When irrigators attempted in the 1980s to double the size of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project to the one million acres they aspired during the New Deal, and the Bureau of Reclamation’s budget had diminished to the point they were no longer capable of meeting the expenses, farmers began to pressure the Washington State legislature aggressively.
It was at this point that, as Harden explains, even some irrigators like Norm Whittlesey began dissenting, claiming that such an expansion would harm both the economy and ecology of the Pacific Northwest in that, while more water than ever is diverted from the rivers annually to benefit several thousand farmers and their harvests, millions more would feel the pinch because of the demand for electricity regionally, which the river provides a majority of the region’s electricity.
Specifically, he calculated that “each thousand-acre farm added to the Project would cost the Northwest about $200,000 a year in higher utility bills.” (137), equivalent to the amount needed to replace electricity lost through water diverting. It was also calculated that, while any expansion of the Project would cost about $5,000 an acre, and farmers only paying $115, Washington State residents would have to pay roughly $1,000 each, electricity customers $192 each and federal taxpayers $3,693 per acre.
Also concluded in his research were the detrimental effects on salmon, where the Interior estimated as much as 53,000 acres of ineligible acres had received water that could have been used to increase stream flows for migrating salmon.

5) What possible step towards meeting the needs of the different stakeholders is suggested at the end of the chapter?
- Firstly, it is cited on page 144 that, despite the irrigators’ constant insistence that they’re doing God’s work and are a bulwark against hunger nationally, more “than 60 percent of the Columbia River water consumed in the Project, and nearly half of the land under cultivation, does not produce food for human consumption” but rather is used to grow “low-value forage and pasture crops” and hay which is formed into cubes and shipped to Japan for cattle to feed upon. In addition, the Bureau of Reclamation has estimated “about four of every ten acres of federally irrigated land produce food crops that are surplus to national needs.” (144) while many cost-benefit analyses have found that “most federal irrigation schemes devour rather than create wealth.” (144)
Despite this claim, many Project irrigators insist that what they do is necessary for providing food and jobs to many Americans, and argue that “elected officials are catering to cities” (145) and that rural communities no longer have a say in the legislative processes.
Thus, any future decision-making processes ought to pivot around a pragmatic ground in terms of water allocation; that the water that must be diverted from the Columbia River does not go towards alfalfa cultivation but rather strictly to cash crops that are not at a surplus and directly go towards human consumption. Also, it is cited on Page 144 that much of the food that is grown on irrigated land “could be grown more efficiently on rain-fed farms.” (144) so perhaps an initiative can be formed where each of these stakeholders much more equally shoulders a small cost in funding to develop new technology similar to that of Portland State University’s Epler Hall model, where a Stormwater Management Plan is adopted on the state level, as well as the promotion of bioswales and ecoroofs to significantly conserve and store water resources.
However, before such a plan is adopted at the state level, it is essential that each of these stakeholder groups have an equal say in the decision-making process, rather than entirely from urban centers, so irrigators don’t feel alienated and so not to encourage a disproportional piece of legislation.

Chapter 8

6) What decisions resulted in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation’s being good for salmon and wildlife?
- Architects and proponents of the Manhattan Project argued that the Hanford Reach was “eminently expendable” (148) with Army lieutenant colonel Franklin T. Matthias considering Hanford ideal because it was “an area with almost no people” (148)
Much of the project was unknown to virtually everyone for many years,

7) Why have radioactive leaks into groundwater on Hanford not resulted in contamination of the Columbia River waters?
- Despite a third of the site’s 177 underground tanks being known to have leaked and contaminated as much as 1.2 million cubic yards of soil with plutonium, uranium and other chemicals, a process known as “in-situ vitrification” (162) is described briefly, which works when “electrodes are jabbed deep into the ground” and intense heat destroys “some dangerous chemicals and immobilizing radioactive waste so it will not leach into groundwater.” (162) (It must be noted, as an aside, that much of this soil is said to have been “lost” for reasons presently unknown.)
There are also an estimated 250 feet of sandy soil and gravel beneath Hanford’s chemical plants, which have been studied to be able to provide “a natural barrier between dangerous waste liquid and the groundwater.” (163) Again, it must be noted, however, that radioactive tritium was detected near the Columbia seven years after it penetrated the soil at Hanford, contradicting the original builders’ guesses that it would take up to 180 years for contaminated groundwater to reach the Columbia.

Chapter 9

8) What are the results of scientific studies of the potential risk of radioactive iodine released from Hanford?
- Studies have shown conflicting results regarding the effects of radioactive iodine-131 on human and ecological health. Following the publicity of Tom Bailie’s conspiracy charges and staunch activism, scientists, including specialists in radiation dosimetry, found that while the doses of iodine he may have received are “high enough to warrant study” (177), some of the effects Bailie had described, including babies without eyes or hips, “have not been observed in the children of people who have been exposed to even very high doses of radiation in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.” (178)
Congress and the Hanford Health Information network have also collaborated on two massive long-term health studies, including a $26 million, seven-year dose reconstruction survey that “plotted the spread of all the radiation released to the air and the river from Hanford between 1945 and 1992.” (181) that allowed “downwinders to calculate their probable radiation dose depending on where they lived, how much milk they drank from a backyard cow, and how much time they spend out of doors.” (181) as well as a $10 million secondary study that tracked three-thousand random downwinders for thyroid disease examinations, which the studies found that “downwinders may have an increased likelihood of developing thyroid disease, benign thyroid cysts, or thyroid cancer.” (182) Despite this, those studies too found no evidence related to birth defects from radiation, although the same researchers confirmed elevated rates of birth defects around Hanford between 1968 and 1980 (they claim pesticides, rather than radiation, is more likely to be blamed for it)

9) How do “downwinders” respond to the studies?
Both studies have been dismissed by many downwinders as government-run “cover-ups”, with Tom Bailie claiming the studies and the multibillion-dollar Hanford cleanup as “a joke”. (183) intended to hush citizens and confuse everyone. Many have prominently appeared at public hearings and the results of various surveys, with sentiments unanimously laced with anger and despair, ranging from the revealing of scars they have received from thyroid surgery to even accusing Hanford employees as “war criminals”.

10) What do you think about the relationship between the releases and the health of the “downwinders”?
- I’m not entirely convinced of Tom Bailie’s claims of newborns being so chronically ill that they are born without hips or eyes. However, when considering the immense secrecy surrounding the Pentagon’s Green Run program, which was the single largest release of atmospheric contamination in the history of Hanford, and how the entire operation remained secret for thirty-seven years despite releasing more than 700 times the amount of radiation than what was released during the Three Mile Island crisis, I’m most convinced that downstream residents are far more likely to develop at least preliminary signs of cancer, and certainly more likely to have respiratory ailments in particular.

Chapter 10

11) When John Kerry visited the Portland area during his presidential campaign he went windsurfing, a sport he had enjoyed

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