But a simmering conflict over water in the southwest of Oregon may soon test the network. Bundy and People’s Rights have teamed up with local irrigators in the Klamath Water Basin, where a severe drought led federal authorities to impose historic limitations on water used to irrigate crops. The irrigators are threatening to seize control of the federally-run water supply, turn it on, and stand off with federal authorities. Bundy originally made a name for himself through armed standoffs, first at his father’s ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014, when the Bureau of Land Management attempted to confiscate his cattle after he broke the rules by letting them graze on public land without a permit. Bundy led his own standoff in 2016, occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon to protest the treatment of two ranchers who’d been convicted of federal land arson.“We could have 20, 30, to a hundred people, within just a few minutes at my place protecting my rights.”
Farmers Grant Knoll and Dan Nielsen have set up a large tent on land they purchased adjacent to the headgates of the "A" Canal" that's fed by the Upper Klamath Lake, Tuesda, Juen 1, 2021, in Klamath Falls, Ore. The farmers, with ties to anti-government activist Ammon Bundy, purchased land by the shut-off irrigation canal in Oregon that would normally deliver water to a massive federal irrigation project along the California-Oregon border have set up an information center at the site along with local members of the Oregon chapter of People's Rights Network, a group founded by Bundy last year, the Jefferson Public Radio reported. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP)