In Oregon, Myth Mixes With Anger
By NANCY LANGSTON
JAN. 6, 2016
... locals told an interesting version of this history. Before the federal agencies came, they said, we lived in paradise. The grass was thick, the water was abundant and the towns were thriving. We were independent, working out our problems. When the feds came, they stole our resources, and our economies collapsed ...
This version of history bears little resemblance to the actual past. Before the federal agencies came to eastern Oregon, large ranching operations from California had monopolized hundreds of thousands of acres of rangeland. Irrigation developers controlled water, cattle barons controlled the grass, and settlers were essentially locked out. Tensions were high ...
Mr. Finley did his best to publicize Malheur’s remaining bounty of waterfowl, shorebirds, egrets, herons, cranes and ibises. In 1908, he persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to designate Malheur Lake a wildlife refuge. But Congress denied any funding for its management, water rights were not granted and, as droughts hit and lake levels dropped, settlers squatted on the lake bed. By the 1930s, after four decades of overgrazing, irrigation withdrawals, grain agriculture, dredging and channelization, followed by several years of drought, Malheur had become a dust bowl.
Ranches failed, livestock starved, homesteaders went bust and the primary occupation in the valley became suing one’s neighbor over water rights ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/opinion/in-oregon-myth-mixes-with-anger.html?_r=0