Klamath Water Issues
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HOOPA TRIBE CRITICIZES BUREAU OF RECLAMATION WATER MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR KLAMATH-TRINITY RIVERS
Hoopa, California- April 2nd, 2003
The Hoopa Valley Tribe today criticized the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's refusal to augment summer flows on the Klamath River. The tribe said the bureau's failure to plan for less water to agricultural users sets the stage for another massive fish kill similar to the one last year that destroyed 34,000 fish in the rivers.
"The bureau is playing a shell game with water," said Hoopa Tribal Chairman Clifford Marshall. "It's as if they are ignoring the realities of recent history. Last year they cut water flows to the fish and the fish eventually died. Now they are mixing politics with science again to ride roughshod over Indian fishing rights and the Endangered Species Act." He said the bureau proposes robbing water from the Trinity River to solve the water shortages in the Klamath. "This is wrong and unfair. The bureau should be working with the farmers on the upper Klamath River to reduce water demands for agriculture. Instead, they are trying to slosh water around in our basin in hopes that the fish won't die again. This represents an irresponsible lack of planning that will lead to another disaster for the fish."
The bureau's Klamath River plan was criticized internally last year when a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist ,Mike Kelly, blew the whistle on the bureau's plan. He claimed federal fish biologists were pressured to support inadequate water flows for the Klamath River, which runs through the Hoopa Valley and Yurok Indian Reservations. The Trinity River joins the Klamath River on the reservations.
Earth Justice filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Oakland with Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong, saying that the amount of water the bureau was going to release to the Klamath River was inadequate. Armstrong will hear arguments in that case on April 29. Both tribes and Northern California Congressman Mike Thompson are plaintiffs in that case.
"Northern California water is under siege from all sides," said Marshall. "The water in these rivers is part of our way of life. We don't have another homeland to move to. The fish don't have another river to swim in. We have no option but to fight for our way of life," he said.
PO Box 1348 ~ Hoopa, California 95546 ~ (530) 625.4211
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