Opinion ID: 6500752
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Agriculture in the Refuges

Text: Portions of both the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Refuges are leased to individuals and private companies for agricultural use. In the Tule Lake Refuge, 14,800 acres are dedicated to lease-land farming of grains; alfalfa; and row crops, predominantly potatoes and onions. In the Lower Klamath Refuge, a 5,605-acre parcel is dedicated to leaseland farming of barley, oats, wheat, and hay. In both refuges, additional land is made available for agricultural use through a Cooperative Farmland Program that is managed by the 12 AUDUBON SOCIETY OF PORTLAND V. HAALAND Service. The Cooperative Program permits farmers to harvest three-quarters of the crop grown on these lands if they leave the remaining one-fourth standing in the field “for the benefit of wildlife.” Farming in the two refuges has a mixed impact on wildlife. Lease-land farming directly reduces land that might otherwise be available for waterfowl as wetlands. Most of the crops grown on lease land are harvested rather than left for wildlife. Some of the crops are left unharvested, but, according to the EIS/CCP, these crops alone “do not meet complete nutrition needs” for wildlife because they contain “lower amounts of proteins, minerals, and key amino acids than other natural foods.” However, some of the crops grown on lease land can provide nutritional benefits to wildlife that foods on natural wetlands do not. According to the EIS/CCP, “some agricultural crops, including standing grains[,] provide a rich source of carbohydrates and provide more food (kcal/acre) for less water than wetland plant crops, which is particularly important for migrating dabbling ducks and geese.” Further, assuming that the relative priority of water rights does not change in the future, lease land is, and will be, useful in drought years because of lease-land agricultural-use priority under the Service’s 1905 water rights. In those years, lease land “provide[s] some of the only food resources available to waterfowl on the Refuge.” The Cooperative Farmland Program of the Klamath Refuge Complex also provides benefits to waterfowl, guaranteeing that a minimum amount of unharvested crops will be preserved as food for wildlife. In the 1990s, the Service adopted a “walking wetlands” program for the Tule Lake Refuge, under which the Service AUDUBON SOCIETY OF PORTLAND V. HAALAND 13 rotationally floods agricultural fields for anywhere from one to four years to turn them into short-term wetlands before they are returned to agricultural production. This program has benefitted both waterfowl that use the flooded fields as wetland habitat and farmers who have experienced improved agricultural productivity and reduced costs after the flooding period. Additionally, the program is useful because, as noted above, although Oregon prevents use of 1905 irrigation water rights for purely wetlands purposes, the Service believes that such rights can be used to deliver water to the walking wetlands.