The issue of water inequality in California is not new. California’s water rights system is a holdover from the California gold rush, a time when neither women nor people of color could own land or vote. During this time, Native people were not citizens. In fact, California’s first governor informed the legislature that “a war of extermination will continue to be waged between races, until the Indian race becomes extinct.” Now even though Tribal water rights are encoded in the law, California largely ignores these rights.
-Written by Regina Chichizola, co-director of Save California Salmon and a resident of the Klamath River.

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