Opinion: California pause of water rules violates tribal rights
There has been a lot of attention for Gov. Gavin Newson’s executive order encouraging California agencies to waive environmental laws to deliver more water to powerful agricultural interests. There have also been hearings about modernizing California’s outdated water rights system. Largely missing from this discussion is the fact that California still lets race decide who has access to its most precious resource – water.
-Written by Kasil Willie, staff attorney for Save California Salmon and a member of Walker River Paiute Tribe, and Regina Chichizola, executive director of Save California Salmon. She is based on Karuk land on the Klamath River.