Bill Meyer Guest Info and Show blog for 8/6 to 8/9/24

“Based upon numerous failures in the Klamath dam removal project, Klamath River Renewal Corporation is now desperately seeking any scapegoat for the results of their own poor judgement. Klamath River Renewal Corporation (‘KRRC’) and Resource Environmental Services (‘RES’) recklessly went off their own plan, and they are now trying to blame a cultural heritage herd of horses for their own failures and malfeasance”, said William E. Simpson II, a local researcher covering the story.

There is also an argument that both KRRC and RES are acting in a vindictive manner against me for making-public obfuscated scientific documents”, said William E. Simpson II, who is also the Founder and Executive Director of the all-volunteer 501-c-3 nonprofit public benefit corporation called ‘Wild Horse Fire Brigade’.

Simpson continued, “KRRC and their monetized supporter, RES, are unhinged because I have exposed the truths about their failures, malfeasance and obfuscation of relevent published science and studies that conflict with their spun-up narratives that all is ‘going as planned’ with their dam removal project”.

Simpson is a local rancher, trained-scientist-researcher and the Executive Director of ‘Wild Horse Fire Brigade’, an organization that along with Simpson and his partner Michelle Gough own and manage a cultural heritage herd of horses that is believed to have blood lines going back to time immemorial based upon local fossils and sightings by early explorers. Under law, because these horses are privately-owned, they are now jurisdictionally ‘livestock’ with Open Range grazing and water rights.

According to the doctoral dissertation of Native American scientist, Yvette ‘Running Horse’ Collin, the ancestors of some of these local horses were observed and documented by the British explorer Sir Francis Drake in 1580, here on what is today, the Oregon-California border.

This is the excerpt from Dr. Collin’s doctoral dissertation:
Page: 39
“The Spanish conquistadors were not the only European explorers to have noticed and recorded early sightings of horses in the Americas. In 1579, the Queen of England sent Sir Francis Drake to “The New World.” Drake also recorded having seen herds of horses in the Americas during his voyage off the coasts of what are now known as California and Oregon. An account given of Drake’s landing in the geographic areas now known as Northern California and Southern Oregon includes the English explorer’s description of the homes of the Native Peoples, as well as the animals that he encountered. “It related his wonder at seeing so many wild horses, because he had heard that the Spaniards had found no native horses in America, save those of the Arab breed which they had introduced.”

According to published articles at the area’s local Siskiyou News written by William Simpson, KRRC and RES have gone ‘off-plan’ which led to major failures and adverse ecological impacts, which were ignored by the San Francisco Chronicle and reporter Kurtis Alexander.

Is KRRC’s project going ‘as planned’? Not so much!

There’s a lot to say just about that in this Siskiyou News article: https://www.siskiyou.news/2024/07/09/is-the-klamath-dam-removal-going-as-planned/

1. Their circulated Plan (See attached graphic) detailed the timelines for dewatering the lakes over the course of several months. Instead, the lakes were drained in a matter of days leading to massive sedimentation of the entire Klamath River and the death of millions of NATIVE life forms and fish.

2. The Plan that KRRC promoted for years leading up to the present day removal of the dams included required fencing around the shoreline of the lake and providing alternative water sources for wildlife and livestock that have been in the area for centuries, including the cultural heritage horses. (See Siskiyou County References Below).

a. Fencing and alternative water were promised to be implemented prior to the dewatering (aka: drawdown) of the lakes. That did not happen, and hundreds of animals, including families of deer and elk, died slow painful deaths in the clay-mud that was exposed in plain sight of the citizens who live on the lakes and loved these animals.

Only a fraction of that misery and death was captured on film because most animals go to drink water at dawn and at dusk, and sunk into the muck before they were seen. Nevertheless, entire families of dead and dying deer and elk were seen and photographed.

b. Recorded ZOOM interview given to the S.F. Chronicle for continuity and context.
Watch and listen to the ZOOM interview given to SF. Chronicle reporter Kurtis Alexander here at YouTube: https://youtu.be/iu0OaJztnCI

“In the recorded interview I gave to reporter Kurtis Alexander of the San Francisco Chronicle (Tuesday July 30th, 2024), I granted the interview with terms and conditions that Mr. Alexander agreed-to in the recording. Mr. Alexander, a paid reporter for the S.F. Chronicle, then violated the terms when Mr. Alexander arguably printed statements outside the continuity of context made by me”, said Simpson.

2. In the interview, Simpson made it clear that the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (‘KRRC’) and Resource Environmental Solutions (‘RES’) had publicly and extensively promoted their ‘Plan’ to fence-off the lake front and provide alternative water sources for livestock and wildlife prior to de-watering (draining) the dams and exposing the deadly 78% clay-mud sediments during the winter of 2023-2024. They did not do what they promised the public and the County, resulting in ecological disaster.

3. Simpson told Mr. Alexander during the interview that ‘based upon’ the Plan publicly promoted by both KRRC and RES to fence-off the lake shore and provide alternative water for wildlife and livestock prior to draining the lakes and exposing the deadly clay-mud, that he expected them to do exactly that.

4. Simpson explained to Mr. Alexander the long 440-year cultural and ecological heritage of wild horses in the area of the Klamath River and the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument, which was documented by the indigenous scholar, Dr. Yvette ‘Running Horse’ Collin. And how their wildfire fuels (grass & brush) management aided CALFIRE’s suppression efforts during the Klamathon Fire.

Prior to Mr. Alexander submitting his manuscript of the Simpson interview to his editor at the S.F. Chronicle, Simpson also provided Mr. Alexander with numerous prima-facia examples of evidence supporting the points made in the interview recorded using Zoom, including but not limited to the legal Letter (see below) from Siskiyou County’s attorney, Nossaman (dated April 2024) addressed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) citing the arguable malfeasance by KRRC and RES, including the ‘large-scale fencing project’, which has finally begun in July of 2024, after the failures with the revegetation project. It’s a plain fact that the revegetation project was doomed from the start according to public testimony by Siskiyou County’s Agricultural Commission because helicopter seeding the surface has a low rate of germination. Visual recordings of the revegetation effort shows less than 30% coverage (See Images).

According to the Siskiyou County Agricultural Commissioner, the revegetation plan has been heavily impacted by these factors:

a. Aerial distribution of seeds has a known poor rate of germination, as stated by Agricultural Commissioner James Smith during a Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors meeting.
b. The soils are 79% clay and are alkaline.
c. Drought
d. Recent days-long heat wave in the range of 110-degrees to 115-degrees Fahrenheit
e. Herbivory by birds, rabbits, deer, elk, heavy grasshopper infestation
f. And finally horses legally browsing the legal Open Range on their way to the only water source, the Klamath River and creeks that are still flowing within the footprint of the lakebed.

In Siskiyou County, all landowners who do not want livestock or other large herbivores on their lands have a legal duty and bear all costs to fence them out. That is the law in Siskiyou County, which is an Open Range county.

It is a fact that Simpson (and Siskiyou County officials) had a legal right to rely upon the written and verbal promises made for the fencing and alternative water in the Plan by KRRC and RES and by Dave Coffman speaking for RES to Simpson in April-May of 2023, before the loss of extensive wildlife due to a failure to fence out, and more recently, the loss of a dear baby horse owned by Simpson and his nonprofit.

More about that baby horse here: https://www.siskiyou.news/…/more-needless-tragedy

According to Shannon Watt, horse expert and Secretary of Wild Horse Fire Brigade, “KRRC and RES are arguably speaking through the San Francisco Chronicle, and using innuendo, to scapegoat the cultural heritage horses for the failures of KRRC and RES, and demonizing the horses for doing what all herbivores do naturally, seeking water”.

“In the Chronicle article, Alexander even he went so far as to dig up a retired ‘botanist’, who has no authentic documented experience with horses, wild or otherwise, who falsely demonized the cultural heritage horses for browsing and attempting to access water in areas that were historically part of their habitat, but nevertheless were supposed to be fenced back in 2023”, said Kelsey Stangebye, J.D. – Vice President of Wild Horse Fire Brigade.

However, Simpson is widely acclaimed as an expert on wild horse ecology & ethology. Two teaching professor-PhDs at major universities who studied wild horses and wrote dissertations on wild horses along with numerous local and state elected officials value Simpson’s expertise, as read here: https://www.wildhorsefirebrigade.org/_files/ugd/b50928_d4424087009e4d319c0915981ebcbf25.pdf

Additional Important Relevant Information provided to Mr. Alexander on July 30th, but not referenced in the S.F. Chronicle article:

Excerpt from County Reporter’s Minutes of the Feb. 13th 2024 Public Meeting with KRRC presentations and misrepresentations:

“Ms. Brownell continued the powerpoint, advising that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expected the water quality to not adversely impact human health and summarized the current and anticipated restoration/revegetation activities (hand seeding and helicopter broadcasting) that would be conducted by Resource Environmental Solutions, LLC (RES) on the land behind the dams following release of the water. Ms. Brownell additionally summarized the plans associated with fencing to minimize wildlife and livestock impacts and summarized the restoration portion of the drawdown and dam removal timeline.”

“Hornbrook resident William Simpson appeared before the Board and voiced concerns the possible high levels of various heavy metals, including Chromium, in the sediment left behind following water releases, possible negative impacts associated with livestock attempting to access the water left in the reservoirs and the need for alternative water sources for deer and livestock”

April 18, 2024 Page 10 IV.
Large-Scale Fencing In January 2024, the County was made aware of a proposal by Trout Unlimited in coordination with KRRC and Resource Environmental Solutions (RES, KRRC’s restoration contractor) to install a permanent large-scale (nearly 50-mile long) fence around both Copco and Iron Gate reservoirs. Trout Unlimited reached out to the County’s Public Works Department inquiring about an encroachment permit, as the proposed fence would intersect with County rights-of-way. KRRC and CDFW informed the County that the fence is indeed related to the Project and would be funded through a state grant or other funding source, not through the Project’s funds. The County was also informed that the fence’s purpose would be to stop ungulates from disturbing the planting and revegetation efforts within the reservoir footprints. The County expressed its concerns to both KRRC and CDFW that analysis of a largescale fence as part of the Project did not occur through either the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or through the California Environmental Policy Act (CEQA). In both environmental documents (the Environmental Impact Study [EIS] – NEPA and the Environmental Impact Report [EIR] – CEQA) the only fencing that was analyzed as part of the Project was temporary in nature (removed after project implementation) and for contractor safety (i.e., placing fences around the project trailers and equipment), archaeological site treatment measures as a result of cultural resource monitoring, reservoir-independent wetland protection (a 20-foot buffer fence), smallscale wildlife construction entrapment protection, and small-scale fencing around riparian areas only. As stated in the FEIS, KRRC plans to “strategically place fencing around high-priority tributary restoration areas to prevent livestock grazing” (FEIS 2.1.2.11). In addition, the FEIS notes that the Reservoir Area Management Plan (RAMP 2022) “includes strategic use of temporary fencing to exclude livestock at priority tributary restoration sites to prevent browsing of newly planted vegetation. While fencing is constrained by construction access, flooding, and cost-effectiveness, exclusion zones would be created around each of the proposed restoration areas rather than protecting individual plants with tubes. Fencing of stream crossing areas would be minimized” (FEIS 2.1.2.11). The final RAMP confirms this statement, as any fencing related to ungulate management is specific to high priority tributary work areas and is classified as temporary. Temporary fencing is also noted as being an adaptive management practice for exclusion of deer, but only if KRRC “observes unacceptable levels of herbivory by deer” (RAMP 5.3.2.2.1).