It felt good, and it showed pride, but it’s time to move on. It’s time to collaborate.
The community — this one here and all the long and winding community along the Klamath River Basin — should support the Restoration Agreement.
Supporters: we want them to be successful. We want them to continue reaching out to those who still protest it; but we want them to move ahead.
Lawmakers: we want them to
take up the cause. Those who have slammed the door shut,
such as our state senator and representative, should crack
it open and take another look at the constituency involved
in support of the agreement. It’s substantial, reasonable,
and deserves to be listened to.
State and federal officials: we want them to go all out in
gaining the needed funding, ironing out the wrinkles,
working to make PacifiCorp whole, and making sure agencies
use the spirit of the agreement as a guide in application
of the law, be it turning water on or off or enforcing
Endangered Species Act rules.
The world will be watching; we want this to go well.
This is our opportunity to lock arms and say that farms
matter; and that tribes matter; and that small towns and
rural America deserves a positive outcome; and that the
environment is important to us, too, and not just to the
gentrified. We want that expressed.
We want it known that it doesn’t take a hard-handed
secretary, or marshals, hands-tied regulators, robed
judges or suited lawyers to bring us to progress. We want
them to see that we can do it ourselves, that we are
rational, reasonable, forward-thinking.
Steve Kandra says that in the past it was about litigation
and leverage.
“Now, we want to invest in collaboration,” he says. “It’s
just like a cost-of-energy issue: We’d rather invest in
resolution than in litigation.”
The process that was used to come to the agreement was
meaningful in itself — based on trust and dialogue,
consensus with some compromise.
We need to support this.