Dianne Feinstein: “Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, almost 20 years ago, I traveled to Pendleton, OR, to hold a hearing on longstanding water…”

“Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, almost 20 years ago, I traveled to Pendleton, OR, to hold a hearing on longstanding water disputes in the Umatilla River Basin. These disputes were somewhat typical of other water conflicts throughout the western United States, in that, I was lucky to get out of that hearing room alive. The tension between all sides at that 1977 hearing was so high, I was almost certain that a small war would break out right there in the room. Fortunately, that meeting was the low point in the effort to resolve water conflicts in that northeast Oregon river basin. Since that time, we have experienced many high points. In the ensuing 11 years since that fateful meeting of 1977, local leaders were successful in bringing irrigators, Indian tribes, environmentalists, elected officials and government bureaucrats together on one of the most successful fishery restoration projects this Nation has ever seen, the Umatilla Basin project.”