Federal legislators have announced the location of a U.S. Congressional Committee field hearing to be held in Klamath Falls in July.

The meeting will be at 9 a.m. July 17 at the Ross Ragland Theater and will cover the Endangered Species Act's impacts on the Klamath Reclamation Project, said Rep. Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee, in a Monday press release.

"The water shut-off in the Klamath Basin is a dramatic example of how, after 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has failed the species it was designed to recover," said Pombo, a California Republican, in the release. "... This hearing is specifically designed to discuss the abuse of this law and to find a scientific solution to updating and improving the ESA so that further generations will not have to suffer as the Klamath farmers have."

Other members of Congress expected to be at the hearing include Reps. Ken Calvert, John Doolittle and Wally Herger, all of California, and Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon. All are Republicans.

Walden, whose district includes Klamath and Lake counties, is trying to get legislation through Congress that would add layers of peer review to the science on which ESA decisions are based.

"Hopefully by studying the Klamath Basin water crisis and similar situations across the United States, we can develop a blueprint for making common sense improvements to the ESA that benefit both species and property owners," Walden said in the release.

- by Dylan Darling