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Bureau adds specialist in endangered species
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| Christine Karas will use her expertise with the Endangered Species Act to help the Bureau balance the needs of sucker fish and coho salmon with the needs of Klamath Reclamation Project water users. |
published April 7, 2003
By DYLAN DARLING
As a kid growing up in Illinois, Christine Karas would go on road trips with her family.
They were classic American vacations to places like Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Canyon national parks.
Karas fell in love with the West.
"From the time I was 6, I said, 'I'm going to live in the West and ride my horses in the mountains,' " she said.
Karas is now a veteran of a decade and a half with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and has moved to Klamath Falls to use her expertise with the Endangered Species Act to help the Bureau balance the needs of sucker fish and coho salmon with the needs of Klamath Reclamation Project water users.
She's also here to ride her two horses in the mountains.
Karas is the new deputy manager at the Bureau's Klamath Basin Area Office. She earned a zoology degree from Southern Illinois University in 1983 and is one paper away from a master's degree in public administration from the University of Utah. She started in Klamath Falls on March 17.
Her position is new, but the issues Karas will be working with are not.
Karas will help with the pilot water bank, the operations plan, the project's meeting ESA requirements, legal hearings, the adjudication of Basin water rights and day-to-day operations.
In particular, she will be working on a Basinwide conservation program aimed the long-term recovery of suckers in Upper Klamath Lake and salmon downstream in the Klamath River. She said she hopes to have something for the public to see about the program by the end of April.
The project is modeled after the Upper Colorado Recovery Implementation Program, which Karas worked on for eight years during her time in Utah. Karas worked in the Bureau's Upper Colorado Regional Office in Salt Lake City from 1989 until about 16 months ago, when she moved to the Bureau's main office in Washington, D.C.
Karas said the goal of the Klamath program is to recover the endangered species while continuing the development and use of water resources. The needs of fish and of farmers are of equal importance to Karas.
"We have to take care of both of those things to be successful," she said.
Larry Crist, assistant field supervisor for Utah for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, worked with Karas on the project on a daily basis from 1991 to 2001.
"I would call her, for reclamation, an expert in the ESA," he said.
He said her expertise is not so much in the details of how a species gets listed, but rather in the details of how such listings affect the Bureau and the parties who depend on it.
And, he said, Karas is good at communicating with all of those parties.
"She can see both sides of the issue, and she can often identify that common ground as a result," he said.
Karas said key to finding a common thread is understanding where people are coming from.
"They may be telling each other things, but not understanding," she said.
Tom Pitts, a consulting engineer in Loveland, Colo., who represents water users on the Upper Colorado, said Karas is good at getting people to understand each other.
What makes Karas good is that she is honest, he said. "She puts her cards on the table."
Last November, Pitts and Karas came to the Basin to take part in a presentation about the Upper Colorado Recovery Implementation Program.
"I think she'll be a big help to those trying to solve problems in the Klamath," he said.
Dave Sabo, Bureau manager at the office, said having Karas as his deputy will take some of the pressure off him. He said he has had quite a workload.
"The best way to describe it is it's like drinking out of a fire hose," he said.
Karas said she looks forward to the challenges of balancing needs in the Basin.
"Hopefully, over the years we will find better ways to make resources go farther," she said.
Though she said she learned a lot in her time back East, she's happy to be back out West.
"I really enjoy being at the field level," she said. "I prefer to be at an area office, where it is more roll your sleeves up and get down to work."
The wide open spaces give her horses, Kayinta and Rudy, room to run.
As a kid growing up in the partly rural town Tinley Park, now part of Chicago's metropolitan area, she had horses, and she continues to be be horse crazy. "It's been in my blood since I was a little kid," she said.
These days she likes to take her two horses camping with her, so she doesn't roam as far as her family did on its road trips.
"There is no reason to go a long way away," she said, "when you got it in your back yard."
By DYLAN DARLING
As a kid growing up in Illinois, Christine Karas would go on road trips with her family.
They were classic American vacations to places like Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Canyon national parks.
Karas fell in love with the West.
"From the time I was 6, I said, 'I'm going to live in the West and ride my horses in the mountains,' " she said.
Karas is now a veteran of a decade and a half with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and has moved to Klamath Falls to use her expertise with the Endangered Species Act to help the Bureau balance the needs of sucker fish and coho salmon with the needs of Klamath Reclamation Project water users.
She's also here to ride her two horses in the mountains.
Karas is the new deputy manager at the Bureau's Klamath Basin Area Office. She earned a zoology degree from Southern Illinois University in 1983 and is one paper away from a master's degree in public administration from the University of Utah. She started in Klamath Falls on March 17.
Her position is new, but the issues Karas will be working with are not.
Karas will help with the pilot water bank, the operations plan, the project's meeting ESA requirements, legal hearings, the adjudication of Basin water rights and day-to-day operations.
In particular, she will be working on a Basinwide conservation program aimed the long-term recovery of suckers in Upper Klamath Lake and salmon downstream in the Klamath River. She said she hopes to have something for the public to see about the program by the end of April.
The project is modeled after the Upper Colorado Recovery Implementation Program, which Karas worked on for eight years during her time in Utah. Karas worked in the Bureau's Upper Colorado Regional Office in Salt Lake City from 1989 until about 16 months ago, when she moved to the Bureau's main office in Washington, D.C.
Karas said the goal of the Klamath program is to recover the endangered species while continuing the development and use of water resources. The needs of fish and of farmers are of equal importance to Karas.
"We have to take care of both of those things to be successful," she said.
Larry Crist, assistant field supervisor for Utah for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, worked with Karas on the project on a daily basis from 1991 to 2001.
"I would call her, for reclamation, an expert in the ESA," he said.
He said her expertise is not so much in the details of how a species gets listed, but rather in the details of how such listings affect the Bureau and the parties who depend on it.
And, he said, Karas is good at communicating with all of those parties.
"She can see both sides of the issue, and she can often identify that common ground as a result," he said.
Karas said key to finding a common thread is understanding where people are coming from.
"They may be telling each other things, but not understanding," she said.
Tom Pitts, a consulting engineer in Loveland, Colo., who represents water users on the Upper Colorado, said Karas is good at getting people to understand each other.
What makes Karas good is that she is honest, he said. "She puts her cards on the table."
Last November, Pitts and Karas came to the Basin to take part in a presentation about the Upper Colorado Recovery Implementation Program.
"I think she'll be a big help to those trying to solve problems in the Klamath," he said.
Dave Sabo, Bureau manager at the office, said having Karas as his deputy will take some of the pressure off him. He said he has had quite a workload.
"The best way to describe it is it's like drinking out of a fire hose," he said.
Karas said she looks forward to the challenges of balancing needs in the Basin.
"Hopefully, over the years we will find better ways to make resources go farther," she said.
Though she said she learned a lot in her time back East, she's happy to be back out West.
"I really enjoy being at the field level," she said. "I prefer to be at an area office, where it is more roll your sleeves up and get down to work."
The wide open spaces give her horses, Kayinta and Rudy, room to run.
As a kid growing up in the partly rural town Tinley Park, now part of Chicago's metropolitan area, she had horses, and she continues to be be horse crazy. "It's been in my blood since I was a little kid," she said.
These days she likes to take her two horses camping with her, so she doesn't roam as far as her family did on its road trips.
"There is no reason to go a long way away," she said, "when you got it in your back yard."
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| Security effects small at area parks, monuments |
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