By Ric Costales

I'm one of those people who live in the moment. I tend to focus so intently on the situation at hand that it is only later that I realize the import of things. I'm not one of those who can stand outside himself, view the unfolding drama in all its glory and drink deeply of it, savoring each instant as if it were the nectar of the Gods. Nope, I just chug it and reach for the next one.

So it was a rare occasion the other day when I was able to grasp for a short while the full stage upon which my bit part was played.

Up until the moment this epiphany struck, I had been blithely traveling on a tour bus with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel that has been convened to assess the science and make recommendations on the tragic situation in Klamath Falls. The tour followed a day in which I found myself absorbed in a series of detailed scientific presentations on the minutiae of suckers, salmon, and statistics. As one of my fellow "amateurs" put it in his brief public comment, "If only my 8th grade science teacher could see me now!"

Not being content with a mere eight hours of such pleasantry, I signed up for a trip the next day with the NAS panel on its tour of places along the Klamath and Shasta rivers that would give them insight into the matters under their purview. We toured the powerhouse and hatchery at Irongate dam, stopped at a couple places designed to typify important conditions along the Klamath River, and inspected the California Fish and Game fish trap on the Shasta River.

As we turned onto Ager Road heading toward Montague, I was enjoying the scenery. The old farmsteads, new houses, greening pastures, grazing critters and Mt. Shasta's ever-looming presence on one of those wonderful sparkling clear days, combined to give me a bemused sense of contentment.

Perhaps it was the stark contrast this once-familiar serenity suddenly had with my current stress over Siskiyou County's future. Perhaps it was an effect of the adrenaline from two days of trying to understand technical information far beyond my training, yet having to discuss these issues intelligently with some of the finest minds in the nation in these scientific fields. Perhaps it was just exhaustion.

Whatever it was, I was suddenly keenly aware of the magnitude of the situation and the relationship it had to my surroundings. The men and women on this bus are essentially charged with the fate of the communities of the Klamath watershed---my home! Upon them falls the tortuous task of refereeing a brawling batch of belligerents who see the contest as a struggle to the death. The panel's challenge is not unlike the Herculean chore of mucking out the Augean Stables.

Sitting across the isle from me is Rick Lemos who, with his parents, brother, aunts, uncles, and cousins, is rooted in this land through blood, toil and hardship dating to the earliest homesteaders in the area. Marshall Staunton, sitting in front of me, shares a similar attachment to his family's land in Tulelake. They have everything to lose and little to gain from this affair other than the opportunity to bust their butts wresting a living from the land.

As the bus travels past Churchill Lumber, I recollect the Churchill family. When I first moved to Siskiyou County 27 years ago, they staked me to the building materials for my home on nothing but my word, not knowing me from a hole in the ground, being content to know where I lived in case I didn't pay. For what it has been worth to them, every building project I've embarked on since has been with materials from their establishment. I later came to find this relationship typical in the region that has come to be my home: we'll gladly lend a hand....until it' s bitten. And the same goes for loyalty.

As we travel toward Rick's parents' ranch above the bridge on the Shasta River on Hwy 3, I take in the surrounding mountains of the Shasta Valley, most of which I cut timber on at one time or another. As we disembark from the bus and some of the passengers take pictures of the anxious, newly-weaned calves of the Lemos herd, I am suddenly over-awed by the fragility of a culture once considered an impregnable bastion of the American spirit. From my eminent, congenial, almost casual travelling companions will come an edict that will reward or erode the faith in fairness, honesty and justice common to our region.

At this time, much of rural America, Congress and the Executive Branch are focused on the outcome in the Klamath watershed. Will our nation's government act justly toward its citizens? Will its actions be based on truth or will they succumb to political ideology? No other incident has riveted the nation's attention on the injustices of the Endangered Species Act as has the travesty in the Klamath Basin. The manner of the resolution of this crisis will serve as a bellwether for our ability to escape from the grip of radical ideology or continue on the path to self-destruction that has been cynically laid out before us.

In the glow of the setting sun on a beautiful March day in the Shasta Valley and among friends, neighbors, scholars, and scientists of great ability and determination, it was impossible not to feel hope. It is easy to imagine that it was the strength of such hope that nourished the homesteaders whose spirit still lives in this part of the country. In this endangered spirit and the struggle against great odds to preserve it, we have a lot in common with the salmon.

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Ric Costales is the Scott Valley Chapter president of the newly formed FOF-PFUSA organization as well as Pacific Region president and Chairman of the National Policy Board. (www.ff.org), a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans and restoring constitutional limits on the extent and power of government.