Talk:Klamath Falls, Oregon/Archive 1

Let's talk
There is some good work going on here, and the article shows a lot of improvement. As the clean-up continues let's make a point of using edit summaries to explain our changes, and this Talkpage to discuss some of the issues. I'm going to get started by trying to tweak some of the cites and links, but I'll keep my individual edits small so they can be easily changed if neccessary. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Applegate Trail
I had moved the link to "external links", but now wonder if it shouldn't appear at the end of the sentence as a ref. Any thoughts? --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 20:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think since Applegate Trail has its own article, if the link isn't on that page, it could be put there instead. Katr67 16:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

History
Regarding the next-to-last paragraph (which begins "During WW2..."): If kept, this needs at least one cite (for the balloon bomb incident); what appears there now is an internal link rather than an actual citation. However, given that none of the topics mentioned in that paragraph actually occured in KF itself maybe it should just be removed. If no one objects in a reasonable period of time I will probably delete it. In the meantime I will just tweak the links. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 20:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Since balloon bomb incident was actually near Bly, I'm not sure it belongs in the K Falls article at all. I haven't spent much time in K Falls--does it get mentioned as a piece of "local lore"? In other words, when people speak of K Falls, does that encompass the surrounding area including Bly? Katr67 16:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
 * From what I can tell, it was closer to Bly than K Falls, and the Bly article covers the incident in more detail. It might also be reasonable to include that tidbit in the Klamath County, Oregon article, but we should probably pull it from this one. I think the same applies to the internment camp mentions; they have more to do with the county than the city. Sound reasonable? --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 16:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

"Local"
Klamath County is about 4 times the size of Rhode Island, and only 60K people live here. About 45k are in Klamath Falls. Klamath Falls serves as a shopping hub (and County seat)for a radius of maybe 50 miles around, so for that geographical area, (the Klamath Basin) all things are local. Somebody's house burns down in Chiloquin or Bly, and it is local news. The water shut off to the farmers was not a Klamath Falls issue, but a Klamath Basin issue. But ask anybody around here, and they'll tell you all about it.

The Lava Beds Nat'l Monument is only about 20 miles away and is a popular local haunt to go spelunking. Most locals know of Captain Jack and have hiked the stonghold. Captain Jack was hanged about 25 miles north of here in Fort Klamath, (on the Klamath Reservation) so Klamath Falls is in the geographical center of the Modoc War.

Bly is close to the eastern extent of the timberlands that the mills of Klamath Falls harvested. The Oregon California & Eastern railroad was started in Klamath Falls to bring timber to the local mills. People in Bly come to Klamath Falls for shopping, and most locals know of the advantages of fishing the Sycan (Near Bly) The Balloon Bomb, homesteading the project, the Newell Relocation center, Fort Klamath, The Applegate Trail, and Crater Lake are all local lore.

Oh, and Tule Lake is the body of water, Tulelake (one word) is the town.

Holden123 07:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Heh heh, thanks for clarifying. I'm in a metro area with population around 8 million and "local" definitely means something different here. Thanks also for the "Tulelake" correction, it really looked like a typo to me :) --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 07:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes thanks--it is all becoming clear. I tried to fix up the Tule Lake stuff. People mix that up all the time. Katr67 08:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Modoc
Again, the Modoc War has its own article. Is this also considered part of local lore? I know the Klamath and Modoc currently share a tribal government based in Chiloquin, but historically were the Modoc connected with the K Falls area? Is 20 miles south still "local"? I'm thinking maybe some of the info in the history section could be listed in a "see also" section, since it is interestng but doesn't seem to relate directly to the history of the city of Klamath Falls. Or perhaps it belongs in the Klamath County article. Thoughts? Katr67 16:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I notice that Holden123 added a good cite to that sentence so I wouldn't remove it, but I think that a "see also" section would be a good idea. That could be used for links to both the county article and the Modoc articles; possibly others as well. I'd also encourage Holden to add that cite into the Modoc War article directly. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 17:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Klamath Basin
Speaking of the Klamath Basin, I started an article on it earlier this month, in preparation for tackling an article on the water rights issues. If there is anything more that can be done with it I would appreciate it. Right now it's got sort of a random selection of communities and the watershed section is a mess. If you click on "edit this page" you can see the addtional sections it needs that I "noted out." I tagged it as unsourced because I pretty much gleaned all the info from other WP articles and the map. Katr67 08:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Water rights controversy
I changed the entry of the Klamath River flow / irrigation vs fish discussion, because the first time we made the news on this issue was 2001, not 2002. The Court shut off irrigation water due to the 2 sucker species and the salmon down river. Then in 2002, the irrigation was allowed to flow. That same year a fish die off caused a large problem at the mouth of the river among the fishing communities.

The irrigation has flowed to basin farmers every year since, and no massive 2002 style fish die off has occured.

As water flowing from the Upper Basin is only about 10% of the flow at the mouth, there is no way to be encyclopedically sure that 2002 was due to Klamath Project irrigation, so I softened the language discussing this. This discussion should probably not be in the Klamath Falls entry anyway, it should more properly be in the Klamath River entry, but if it is here, it should at least be accurate as fact and not opinion.Holden1234 12:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm glad to see this mentioned anywhere, because for a while there was very little on the controversy anywhere in Wikipedia. I think there is enough material on this for a separate article because it touches on K Falls, the Klamath River, the Klamath Basin, the Klamath Reclamation Project, and Upper Klamath Lake, as well the Klamath people and the Klamath Tribes and bits of the story are spread out over all those articles. Not to mention Department of Interior v. Klamath Water Users Protective Assn. It would be good to have all the information about this issue/incident in one place. I once had a draft started called Klamath Basin water rights dispute--if I ever start it, I'll let you know, or feel free to create it. Obviously opinions differ on what caused the fish die-off, so we'll have to be very careful to present both (or all: tribes/farmers/fishermen/environmentalists) sides of the issue. Katr67 16:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Geography section
I am pretty sure this isn't correct: "Upper Klamath Lake is the largest natural body of fresh water west of the Great Lakes." Great Slave Lake, Lake Winnipeg and Lake Tahoe are all larger by volume, if not by surface area. 67.98.142.242 (talk) 20:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)