An ongoing fish kill has been plaguing the Klamath River since
early May. The Klamath flows through Oregon and northern
California, and like many water sources in the West, has seen
water levels drop considerably due to extreme drought. A lower
river means a slower and warmer river, which is what some
parasites need to thrive. The parasite C.Shasta is expected to
kill off nearly all of this year’s juvenile Chinook salmon in
the Klamath.
California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes—more than
any other state—and several more are petitioning for federal
recognition. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is
responsible for regulating water quality on tribal lands, while
the State Water Board regulates water quality for other water
systems. According to USEPA’s ECHO database, 88 tribal water
systems in California serve more than 160,000 people.
Unfortunately, some Native American communities lack access to
safe drinking water.
As the federal government prepares to declare a first-ever
water shortage at Lake Mead, Arizona state leaders, Native
American tribes, and philanthropic and corporate foundations
are stepping up to help conserve water. This week, these
entities committed to funding an $8 million gap to complete a
landmark water conservation project with the Colorado River
Indian Tribes and the state of Arizona.
For decades, an agonizing war over [water] has divided
indigenous people and the descendants of settlers of [the
Klamath basin], which like much of the American West, is now
plagued by drought. Family farmers often describe the conflict
as one that pits them against federal bureaucrats who protect
the suckerfish, imperiled as the lake grows more inhospitable.
That portrayal, say members of the tribes, dismisses a tougher
truth … about race, equity and generational trauma to a
people whose history includes slaughter, forced removal of
children, federal termination of their tribal status and loss
of land …
In April of 2017, PGE began moving forward with its plans to
relicense the Potter Valley Project (PVP)—with, as of yet, no
designs to remove any of the infrastructure—and in August of
2019, Congressman Jared Huffman created the PVP Ad Hoc
Committee, a Two Basin Solution for the Eel and Russian River
basins, whose more than 20 members were tasked with the
relicensing process of the PVP to improve fisheries and fish
migration, minimize adverse impacts to water supply
reliability, respect tribal rights and minimize and mitigate
adverse impacts to Lake County including Lake Pillsbury.
Lake Powell’s water level is the lowest it’s been in decades,
and the latest 24-month projections from the Arizona and Utah
reservoir show that it’s likely to drop even further — below a
critical threshold of 3,525 feet by next
year. A 20-year megadrought and a hotter climate
has contributed to shrinking water supplies in the
Colorado River. If Lake Powell’s levels continue to dwindle, it
could set off litigation between the seven states and the 40
million people that all rely on the Colorado River.
[T]he problem goes way beyond grazing. Dozens of tributaries
and hundreds of springs feed Upper Klamath Lake, supplying
plenty of good, clean water. A century of mismanagement has
caused erosion of high phosphorus soils that accumulate in the
bottom of Upper Klamath Lake. Now, annual algae blooms kill
entire generations of young endangered fish every year.
… All the problems in the Upper Klamath Lake flow
downstream, affecting endangered salmon in the Klamath River as
it runs to the Pacific Ocean. The Karuk, a Klamath River tribe,
are worried that this could be another year marked by a
historic fish kill.
A proposal to bring down four hydroelectric dams near the
California-Oregon border cleared a major regulatory hurdle
Thursday, setting the stage for the largest dam demolition
project in U.S. history to save imperiled migratory salmon.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced that Carly Jerla will lead
the Department of the Interior’s efforts, as a senior water
resources program manager, to develop updated operating
rules for Colorado River reservoirs. The Colorado River
sustains ecosystems and economies across the southwestern
United States and northwestern Mexico. A number of operating
rules and agreements within the United States and with the
Republic of Mexico expire at the end of 2025.
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced
selections under two Clean Water Act (CWA) grant programs to
support leadership of Tribes in protecting and restoring water
resources. The agency anticipates awarding approximately $3
million to 18 Tribal nations and one Intertribal organization
under the Tribal Wetland Program Development Grant competition
and an additional $3 million in CWA Section 319 Tribal
Competitive Grants to 32 Tribal nations to support projects to
manage nonpoint source pollution.
Lucía Laguna carries her fate tattooed on her face — from the
corner of her mouth to her chin, black lines surf across her
coppery skin — the tribal art honoring her people will also
serve an important function later on. … But under the
merciless sun, Laguna, 51, worries about the fate of the river
and its impact on the Cucapá, her Indigenous people. A searing
drought is exacerbating the deadly heat in a region that long
ago saw its river flow diminished, after almost a century of
U.S. engineering projects, as well as a focus on water for
agriculture.
The water [that Utah] plans to tap for the Lake Powell pipeline
was previously promised to the Ute Indian Tribe, which is now
suing to get back its water and asserting that the
misappropriation is one of a decades-long string of racially
motivated schemes to deprive it of its rights and property.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland released a letter Friday to
the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee in support of Klamath
dam removal. … The four hydroelectric dams clogging the
Klamath River are slated to be removed in 2023 under an
agreement forged between the states of California and Oregon,
the dams’ owner PacifiCorp and the Karuk and Yurok tribes. And
Haaland’s letter comes as conditions in the Klamath River Basin
are the worst they’ve been in years due to drought conditions.
Tricia Hill tears up when she talks about the emotional toll
the water shut-off in southern Oregon has had on her family.
Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal
government in May shut down the water supply from the Upper
Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border to protect native
fish species on the verge of extinction. As a result, Hill and
other farmers like her in the region have been cut off from
water they have used for decades.
California’s drought highlights the importance of an
appointment sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk – filling the
final seat on the State Water Resources Control
Board. This is a critical agency appointment at a
critical time. The drought highlights many inequities in
California water policy. Disadvantaged communities in Stockton
face the prospect of a drought summer plagued by harmful algae
blooms in Delta rivers. Those algae outbreaks, which can
harm children and kill pets, are caused by excessive nutrients
and inadequate freshwater flow. -Written by Belinda Faustina, a strategic advisor
with Los Angeles Waterkeeper, and Barbara
Barrigan-Parilla, the executive director of Restore the
Delta.
The Klamath Basin is suffering the worst drought in the state.
Competing need for the water by local tribes seeking to sustain
endangered fish populations, farmers and ranchers, and
commercial and tribal fisheries has been a persistent issue,
and has led to conflicts in the past. The Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement, which took 10 years to plan, was a
turning point and a compromise for the parties needing access
to the water.
Fears of a confrontation between law enforcement and rightwing
militia supporters over the control of water in the
drought-stricken American west have been sparked by protests at
Klamath Falls in Oregon. Protesters affiliated with rightwing
anti-government activist Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights Network
are threatening to break a deadlock over water management in
the area by unilaterally opening the headgates of a reservoir.
Tribes and environmental advocates fear flows along the Klamath
River could be reduced to a trickle if the State Water
Resources Control Board doesn’t take action on water use
upstream on the Scott and Shasta rivers. Andy Marx, board
president of Friends of the Shasta River, said the river
“virtually dried up” over Memorial Day weekend as a result of
excessive irrigation diversions.
According to U.S. Congressman Jay Obernolte’s (R-Hesperia)
office, last Tuesday, June 1, he introduced a bill, HR 3649,
titled the Mono Lake Kutadika’a Paiute Tribal Recognition Act
that would grant federal recognition to the Mono Lake
Kutzadika’a tribe as a distinct Native American Tribe. The
legislation was originally introduced by former Rep. Paul Cook.
The bill would address the tribe’s decades-long struggle for
indigenous sovereignty and would afford them the services,
benefits, and rights provided to federally recognized tribes,
says the communique.
They were expert hunters, gatherers and basket weavers who
lived for thousands of years on a trade route over the Sierra
Nevada connecting them with the rest of California. The modern
history of the Mono Lake Kutzadika Paiute people is told mostly
through economic hardship, displacement and a 150-year fight
for federal recognition as a distinct Native American tribe — a
step needed to establish a sovereign land base to call home.
This May, while collecting live fish for their annual aquatic
pathogen assessment on the Klamath River in Northern
California, Yurok Tribe biologists made a shocking discovery:
over 70 percent of the young, ocean-bound Chinook salmon
captured in their traps were dead. Almost all of the fish
tested upstream were infected with Ceratonova shasta, a
parasite that relies on both fish and annelid worms as hosts.
Barry McCovey, senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe,
expects most of the infected fish to die.
In response to record low precipitation in the Klamath Basin,
the Karuk Tribe has declared a state of emergency. This
emergency declaration acknowledges the reality that climate
change is upon us, and the dangers that it poses to rivers,
forests, wildlife and communities.
Tensions have been building in Klamath Falls in recent weeks
over a drought that is devastating farmland, fish deemed sacred
to native tribes, and wildlife. The Klamath Basin, along the
Oregon-California border, has a complex history. Drought and
fights over water aren’t new. Here are five things to know
about the unfolding Klamath water crisis:
The brewing battle over the century-old Klamath Project is an
early window into the water shortfalls that are likely to
spread across the West as a widespread drought, associated with
a warming climate, parches watersheds throughout the
region. In Nevada, water levels have dropped so
drastically in Lake Mead that officials are preparing for a
serious shortage that could prompt major reductions in Colorado
River water deliveries next year. In California, Gov. Gavin
Newsom has placed 41 counties under a state of emergency.
Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,
NOAA funded 125 habitat restoration projects in coastal areas
throughout the country. Now, more than a decade later, we’re
taking a look back at some of the projects we funded. We’ll
explore the benefits this restoration work continues to bring
to communities and ecosystems across the country. … NOAA
partnered with the Yurok Tribe to restore habitat for
salmon and steelhead in Terwer Creek and McGarvey Creek,
tributaries to the Lower Klamath River.
In the summer of 2001, local farmers and other activists armed
with saws and blowtorches breached a chain-link fence and
opened the headgates of a federal canal that supplies farmland
in Oregon and far Northern California. Local farmer Grant Knoll
was among the activists there that year. The protesters forced
the gates open three times but were eventually blocked by U.S.
marshals. Now, with a drought just as severe as two decades ago
— and with farmers’ water again cut off — he’s prepared to
fight again.
A crippling drought — largely connected to climate change — is
gripping the Western United States, affecting over 70 million
people and around 40% of the U.S. … Farmers,
scientists, tribal officials, foresters and other groups
affected by the worsening drought testified at a House Natural
Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife hearing on
Tuesday, asking lawmakers for both short-term relief and
long-term solutions from the worsening conditions.
Twenty years after a shut-off of most irrigation water in the
parched Klamath Project brought the competing needs of farmers,
fishermen and tribes to a head, a new drought — and a fresh
federally-ordered water shut-off — is triggering a sense
of déjà vu. Now, two Klamath Project irrigators with
ties to radical activist Ammon Bundy have purchased private
property located next to the headgates of the “A” Canal in
Klamath Falls, which would normally deliver water to area
farms. And along with local members of the Oregon chapter of
People’s Rights, a group founded by Bundy in 2020, they’ve set
up an information center and gathering place to talk to the
public about the brewing water crisis in the Klamath Basin.
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off
irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said
they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or
to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of
migrating birds each year. In what is shaping up to be the
worst water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation said it will not release water this season into the
main canal that feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath
Reclamation Project, marking a first for the 114-year-old
irrigation system.
As it enters the Yurok Reservation, the Lower Klamath River is
as picturesque as it gets. Clear water rushes over gentle
rapids, framed by verdant hills and a cerulean sky. An
untrained eye would never notice the devastation beneath the
surface — save for the tiny fish floating lifeless in the
water. Over the past several weeks, an outbreak of the
parasite Ceratonova shasta has ripped through young
salmon throughout the lower reaches of the Klamath watershed.
Driven by high temperatures and low flows out of Iron Gate Dam,
the disease is resulting in what the Yurok Tribe is calling a
“catastrophic” fish kill.
What was already forecasted to be a historically bleak water
year in the Klamath Project has quickly become a living
nightmare for farms and ranches fighting for survival in the
drought-stricken basin. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation shut
down the Project’s A Canal for the entire irrigation season May
12 in response to worsening conditions — allotting zero surface
water from Upper Klamath Lake for thirsty crops and livestock.
It is the first time in more than a century the A Canal will
deliver no water. Meanwhile, irrigators are left to wonder how
they will pay the bills as fields turn to dust.
A group of protesters gathered at Sugarman’s Corner in downtown
Klamath Falls on Saturday, preparing to welcome a 25-car
caravan of mostly Klamath Tribal members calling for solutions
to the Klamath Basin’s water crisis. A man walked by the
demonstrators, eyeing their signs with statements like “Peace
and Healing in the Klamath Basin,” “Water Justice is Social
Justice” and “Undam the Klamath.”
A federal appeals court has rebuked the U.S. government for
failing to properly consider the interest of Native American
nations in developing allocation guidelines for the Colorado
River Basin’s waters and ordered it to prioritize obligations
assumed when it signed a treaty with the Navajo Nation in 1868.
The April 28 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
may boost Native American negotiating clout as the basin’s
states ponder how to address impacts of ongoing drought in the
region.
The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from
dire to catastrophic as federal regulators shut off irrigation
water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would
not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a
half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating
birds each year. In what is shaping up to be the worst water
crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it
will not release water this season into the main canal that
feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project,
marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system.
The Biden administration will defend controversial water
delivery contracts to California farmers issued in the Trump
era, according to a court filing Wednesday, rejecting pleas
from a tribe and environmentalists to rescind them.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday that
more than 1,000 farmers in the Klamath Basin will not receive
any reserved water from Upper Klamath Lake — a devastating
prospect for farmers who have already planted fields, hired
crews and made plans for the growing season ahead. … Farmers
in Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc counties were already reeling
over the prospect of receiving less than 10% of their
allotment, or a total of 33,000 acre-feet of water. The
latest announcement feels “like a punch to the gut,” farmers
said …
Ben Tobin has questions about the Grand Canyon’s caves. The
University of Kentucky geologist started learning about caves
as a young man, in part because his mother was a geologist, and
a childhood fascination grew over time. … When he was in
college, an internship in Arkansas doing cave tours got him
hooked, and eventually his work brought him out West, to Grand
Canyon National Park. Tobin specializes in what’s known as
karst hydrology. These are underground systems made up of
soluble rock such as limestone. To Tobin, caves are like
another world, with blind animals, fossils and archeological
finds.
Only one week remains to register for our May 20 virtual
Lower
Colorado River Tour where you can hear directly
from experts offering a range of perspectives on the most
contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Practically every drop of water in the
Colorado River is already allocated, but pressure on the
hard-working river continues to grow from myriad sources —
increasing population, declining habitat and climate
change.
A riverbed that has been parched since the end of the
19th century — a portion of the historic lifeblood of the
Gila River Indian Community — is now coursing again with water,
luring things like cattails and birds back to its
shores. … The revival of this small segment of the
649-mile (1045-kilometer) Gila River, which has served the
tribes that make up the Gila River Indian Community — the
Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the Pee-Posh (Maricopa) — for roughly
2,000 years, was an added benefit of a grassroots
infrastructure overhaul, known as “managed aquifer recharge,”
or MAR, which aimed to restore the local groundwater
basin.
Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson, along with prominent
North Coast water managers and politicians gathered at a
virtual summit yesterday morning to discuss the severe drought
facing the North Coast and the entire state. At the summit (a
recording of which is available on YouTube), State Senator Mike
McGuire stated that the state legislature is moving forward on
a several billion dollar drought relief package, which would
include $1 billion in grants to help ratepayers and utilities
pay off back bills and $500 million to help smaller low income
communities develop enhanced drinking water supplies, among
other things (read the full list below).
A conflict over access to water in the Klamath Basin is
signaling the way climate change could play out across the
western United States. After a drier-than-normal spring,
farmers and indigenous tribes in the Klamath Basin are at odds
over water in Upper Klamath Lake. According to the U.S. Drought
Monitor, the Klamath Basin is experiencing “extreme drought,”
… Centuries ago, the area was wetlands; but in the early
20th century, the land was opened up to agriculture. Members of
the Klamath Tribes say tree removal and drainage hastened
drying as the climate warmed.
On Friday, a coalition of conservation groups, fishing
organizations, stakeholders in the Delta, and the Winnemem
Wintu Tribe sent this letter to the Biden Administration,
urging the Administration not to endorse the so-called
“Voluntary Agreements” for the Bay-Delta watershed.
Unfortunately, the State of California continues to negotiate
backroom deals with the biggest water users in the State that
fail to protect and restore water quality in the
Bay-Delta, threatening thousands of fishing jobs, farms and
communities in the Delta, and the health of this watershed and
its native fish and wildlife.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a clear connection between
access to clean water and public health, according to Navajo
tribal member Bidtah Becker. Becker is part of a group called
the Water & Tribes Initiative that advocates for water access
in Indian Country. She said the pandemic has made it easier to
ask Congress for money to solve the problem.
At a rare joint meeting between all three of their leadership
boards, Klamath, Siskiyou and Modoc Counties discussed ways to
support agricultural communities during the Klamath Basin’s
historic drought this year. Farmers and ranchers in the Klamath
Project will receive 33,000 acre-feet of water, less than 10%
of their normal allocation, more than a month later than
normal. Irrigators on tributaries to the Lower Klamath River,
like the Scott River, are also expecting water deliveries to be
curtailed during the summer.
Hear directly from a range of experts offering a variety of
perspectives on our May 20 virtual Lower Colorado River Tour as
they put into context the 20-plus year drought on what is the
most contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Among the experts featured are farmers, tribal
representatives, and managers from wildlife agencies, water
districts, the Bureau of Reclamation and others who will
discuss drought impacts, habitat projects, farming and
restoration efforts at the Salton Sea.
The federal government is strictly curtailing irrigation this
year in an attempt to protect endangered fish important to
Indigenous tribes. Farmers say this will make it all but
impossible to farm, while tribal groups say the plan doesn’t go
far enough to save their fisheries. In mid-April, a farming
region in southern Oregon began to release water from the
Klamath River into its irrigation canals. … [A]ccording to
the federal government, it was an illegal maneuver that could
further jeopardize the survival of multiple endangered species
and food sources important to Indigenous tribes and fisheries
in the region.
Phase 3C of the Lower Clear Creek Floodway Rehabilitation
Project has been completed, attracting fish and wildlife to new
habitats and people to new recreation opportunities. This phase
concludes the extensive and decades-long effort to restore more
than 2 miles of stream channel on Bureau of Land Management
property below Whiskeytown Dam. It was led by the Clear Creek
Technical Team, which includes BLM, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, Yurok Tribe and other federal,
tribal, state, local agencies and stakeholders.
In 2021, access to running water and clean drinking water is a
given for most Americans. The Census Bureau has even considered
dropping a question on plumbing access from the U.S. census
questionnaire. But many of the nation’s tribes still lack
running water, access to clean water, and even flushing
toilets. Native American households are 19 times more likely
than white households to lack indoor plumbing, according to the
U.S. Water Alliance, and more likely to lack piped water
services than any other racial group. That problem is at an
inflection point for the Navajo Nation and 29 other tribes in
the Colorado River Basin, which stretches from the Rocky
Mountains to Mexico.
Seven years ago, after the fish died, Sarah Ryan decided she
couldn’t wait any longer for help. California at the time
was in the depths of its worst drought in the last millennium
and its ecosystems were gasping. For Ryan, the fish kill in
Clear Lake, the state’s second largest and the centerpiece of
Lake County, was the last straw. Ryan is the environmental
director for Big Valley Rancheria, a territory of the Big
Valley Band of Pomo Indians that sits on the ancient
lake’s western shore. She and others raised alarms for several
years about increasingly dire blooms of toxic
cyanobacteria.
A recent report looked into why Indigenous communities within
the Colorado River Basin are struggling to get clean, reliable
running water. A household in tribal lands is 19 times more
likely than a white household to not have indoor plumbing, and
during the pandemic this had catastrophic effects on some
Indigenous communities. According a 2019 report outlining the
action plan for closing the water access gap throughout the
United States, “race is the strongest predictor of water and
sanitation access,” and it’s Indigenous people who face this
problem most.
While most irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin are enduring a
spring without surface water, canals in Klamath Drainage
District have been flowing since the middle of April. And KDD
says no laws were broken to make deliveries to its customers.
KDD opened the Ady and North canals on April 15, diverting
water from the Klamath River to serve its patrons. The Bureau
of Reclamation, whose operations plan for 2021 emphasized that
no water deliveries be made to the Klamath Project prior to May
15, sent a letter to KDD asking them to immediately cease the
diversions.
The Navajo Nation can pursue its lawsuit seeking to force the
federal government to secure water from the Colorado River for
the reservation, the Ninth Circuit said Wednesday, reversing a
lower court’s dismissal of the tribe’s breach of trust claim.
The tribe doesn’t seek a judge’s determination of its rights to
the river, which the Interior Department says would fall under
the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, according to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Instead, the tribe
seeks an order for Interior to determine the extent to which it
needs water, to develop a plan to secure…
In mid-April, a farming region in southern Oregon began to
release water from the Klamath River into its irrigation
canals. According to the local water authority, this was a
standard move to jumpstart the farming season during one of the
driest seasons in recent memory. But according to the federal
government, it was an illegal maneuver that could further
jeopardize the survival of multiple endangered species and food
sources important to Indigenous tribes and fisheries in the
region.
The competing needs of different protected fish species are
pitting the Klamath Tribes against the federal government in a
court battle with legal implications for Oregon irrigators. The
Klamath Tribes are seeking an injunction to scale back how much
water the federal government can release from Upper Klamath
Lake to the detriment of endangered sucker species that inhabit
it. … The bureau has prioritized flows in the Klamath
river to benefit threatened coho salmon, jeopardizing the
survival of the suckers by allowing the lake to fall below
levels needed to sustain them…
Along the Oregon-California border, the Klamath River Basin is
a crucial water source for Indigenous tribes, endangered
species, and farmers. This year, though, there is simply not
enough to go around. The Western US is enduring another
major drought, and the Klamath River Basin is at a historic
low. This resulted in different groups being forced to compete
and make their case for why water, now precious and scarce,
should be diverted to their needs. It’s a stark reminder of the
tough, no-win decisions that citizens will continue to face
amid the worsening climate crisis.
Humboldt State University’s Native American Studies Department
and Save California Salmon recently launched a spring webinar
series, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge,” a look at how
tribes’ traditional fisheries and fire management practices
could address environmental crises. As California prepares for
yet another year of drought, Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy,
department chair of Native American Studies at HSU, said local
tribes are concerned about the health of rivers.
Visit key infrastructure and environmental restoration
sites along the lower Colorado River during our online
tour May 20 of the iconic river as it weaves through the
Lower Basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona. Our
Lower Colorado
River Tour starts at Hoover Dam near Las Vegas and
stops at major agricultural regions, tourist
destinations and key wildlife areas such as the Salton Sea
and a wildlife refuge in Yuma, Ariz. resulting from a
tribal-city partnership.
Last Tuesday, American Rivers released its annual America’s
Most Endangered Rivers list for 2021. Because of a Trump-era
proposal to raise Shasta Dam, the group named northern
California’s McCloud River as the nation’s 7th most threatened
river. Over the past century, California has engineered the
structure of water capture and distribution in the state.
… During the Trump administration, then Secretary of the
Interior David Bernhardt advanced plans to increase the height
of Shasta Dam by 18.5 feet and to expand Shasta Lake by more
than 200 billion gallons.
The Klamath River Basin is in a dire situation this
year. The plan curtails irrigation diversions to less than
10% of demand while failing to meet the biological needs of
salmon and other fisheries downstream. … Reclamation also
announced $15 million in immediate aid to the Klamath Project
through the Klamath Project Drought Relief Agency, an
additional $3 million in technical assistance to Tribes for
ecosystem activities in the basin, as well as funding for
groundwater monitoring in the basin.
The Yurok Tribe has long faced state and federal policies meant
to eliminate its land base. Before American colonization and
conquest, the tribal territory stretched along what is now the
Northern California coast and inland within the Klamath River
watershed. The gold rush in the 1840s drew white
settlers West, where they killed tens of thousands of
Native people through forced displacement, enslavement, and
disease. In the 20th century, the Yurok continued to be denied
access to their land and water, leading to decades of
legal battles over fishing rights.
The Yurok Tribe said it’s sounding the alarm as culturally
invaluable salmon edge closer to extinction. The Yurok also
said it is canceling its commercial fishery for the fifth time
this year. Tribal officials said past water management
decisions and climate change have put Klamath river salmon
stocks at risk. The tribe said it’s gravely concerned about the
rapidly declining salmon stocks in the Klamath River
Basin … Tribal officials said [Reclamation's] plan
provides bare-minimum flows for imperiled Klamath salmon and
sucker fish populations.
Restoration flows will begin tomorrow, April 16, on the Trinity
River to help improve conditions after another critically dry
water year. A flow schedule based on the expected amount of
water available to support salmon restoration efforts on the
Trinity River is brought forward by the Trinity Management
Council each year. This week’s two-day schedule is slated to
increase daily average flows from 300 cubic feet per second to
1,300 cubic feet per second.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation delivered a gut-punch to Klamath
Project irrigators Wednesday, announcing a historically low
water allocation as the basin struggles with extreme drought.
Farms and ranches in the Project will receive an initial
allocation of just 33,000 acre-feet — the lowest total since
the shutdown of 2001 and barely 8% of historical demand. That
is dramatically lower than the bureau’s original estimate of
130,000 acre-feet based on hydrological conditions at the
beginning of March.
President Biden announced Wednesday that he will nominate Tommy
Beaudreau to be deputy secretary of the Interior Department,
ending a standoff between the White House and senators from
fossil-fuel-rich states who derailed the president’s first
choice. The selection of Beaudreau, an energy lawyer who was an
Obama administration official, came after Sens. Joe Manchin III
(D-W. V.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) objected to Elizabeth
Klein because of her past stance against fossil fuels.
Shasta Dam, which rises over 600 feet, flooded much of our
tribe’s homeland and inundated dozens of our sacred sites. It
stopped our salmon from reaching their spawning grounds. And by
holding back water when it is needed by the river, Shasta Dam
has driven our salmon to the brink of extinction. That threat
continues in the proposal to raise Shasta Dam. That project
would flood more of our sacred sites and further harm salmon.
The Trump administration made that project their top priority
water infrastructure project in the nation.
-Written by Caleen Sisk, the spiritual leader of the
Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Hundreds of farmers who rely on a massive irrigation project
that spans the Oregon-California border learned Wednesday they
will get a tiny fraction of the water they need amid the worst
drought in decades, as federal regulators attempt to balance
the needs of agriculture against federally threatened and
endangered fish species that are central to the heritage of
several tribes. Oregon’s governor said the prolonged drought in
the region has the “full attention of our offices,” and she is
working with congressional delegates, the White House and
federal agencies to find relief for those affected.
The White House announced the intent to nominate several
officials to serve at the Department of the Interior, including
Tanya Trujillo as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science.
Trujillo is a water lawyer with more than 20 years of
experience working on complex natural resources management
issues and interstate and transboundary water agreements. She
most recently worked as a project director with the Colorado
River Sustainability Campaign. Before then, she served as the
Executive Director of the Colorado River Board of California.
There’s just one week left to register for our Water 101
Workshop, which offers a primer on the things you need to know
to understand California water. One of our most popular events,
this once-a-year workshop will be held as an engaging online
event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday,
April 23.
While the federal government sees the prospect of raising the
height of Shasta Dam as a way to increase water storage for a
thirsty California, the Winnemem Wintu of Shasta County see it
as a threat to their culture. It was a theme picked up
this week by American Rivers, a conservation group that named
the McCloud River one of America’s 10 most endangered rivers
because of the proposal to raise the height of Shasta Dam.
… Raising the height of the dam would raise the level of
the lake about 20 feet when full. It would also further
inundate about a third of a mile of the McCloud River …
Extreme drought conditions throughout the West are lowering
levels in the crucial water reservoir, Lake Mead. Scars of long
years of low precipitation are hard to go unnoticed at Lake
Mead, and the hot, dry summers have been felt for the last
several years in Arizona. 2020 was especially dry, with little
monsoon. Now, the West is in uncharted territory. Lake Mead is
projected to drop by several feet this year, from elevation
1,083 to about 1,068, according to officials with the Central
Arizona Project. The lake is hovering around 39 percent of its
full capacity.
[T]he 800 to 900 people in Tohatchi, and another 600 to 800 in
Mexican Springs, eight miles to the west, all depend on a
single well and single pump. If the pump running it fails,
or if the water level in it drops — both issues that have
troubled nearby Gallup this year — water will cut out for the
homes, the head-start center, the schools, the clinic, the
senior center, five churches, and the convenience store and gas
station. … [T]he Navajo Nation has waited more than a
century for pipes and water treatment plants that would bring
drinking water to all of its people while watching nearby
off-reservation cities and farms grow, swallowing up water from
the Colorado River Basin that the tribe has a claim to.
One of the worst droughts in memory in a massive agricultural
region straddling the California-Oregon border could mean steep
cuts to irrigation water for hundreds of farmers this summer to
sustain endangered fish species critical to local tribes. The
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water allocations in
the federally owned Klamath Project, is expected to announce
this week how the season’s water will be divvied up after
delaying the decision a month.
With a salmonella outbreak in eight states already under
investigation by the Centers for Disease Control, officials are
watching in California for another disease that impacts
waterfowl. Botulism killed thousands of waterfowl and other
birds last year on two national wildlife refuges near the
border of California and Oregon. Some estimates were as high as
60,000 dead birds. The Lower Klamath Basin and Tule Lake
national wildlife refuges were among the first created more
than 100 years ago. Millions of waterfowl and shore birds,
along with songbirds, migrated along the Pacific Flyway into
the two refuges and beyond. Today, between severe
restrictions on water flowing into and out of the refuges
and a crippling drought that shows no sign of letting up,
the refuge marshes are going dry.
Robert (Bob) Anderson’s nomination as Solicitor of the
Department of the Interior was formally transmitted by the
White House to the United States Senate today. Bob
has served as Interior’s Principal Deputy Solicitor
since January 20, 2021. … For 20 years, Bob was a
law professor at the University of Washington and directed its
Native American Law Center. He has been the Oneida Indian
Nation Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School for the
past twelve years. He is a co-author and editor of the leading
federal Indian Law treatise, Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian
Law, and is a co-author of a leading textbook on American
Indian Law. He has extensive expertise and has published many
articles in the fields of natural resources law, water law, and
American Indian law.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes will receive $209,000 for
irrigation canal projects, Congressman Paul Gosar announced
Tuesday. The federal funds were awarded by the U.S. Department
of the Interior to help CRIT pay for canal lining. The project
is intended to help stop water seepage from the canal. CRIT
relies on the Colorado River as its primary source of water,
and water conserved with help the Tribes meet existing demand
during times of drought, Gosar said. The project will line
nearly 4,000 feet of the earthen canal with a membrane covered
in sprayed concrete. The stretch of canal has been identified
as having the most significant seepage rate of all 232 miles of
canals in the Colorado River Irrigation Project, according to
the Bureau of Reclamation.
State officials are putting farmers in south-central Arizona on
notice that the continuing drought means a “substantial cut” in
deliveries of Colorado River water is expected next year. A
joint statement issued Friday by the state Department of Water
Resources and the Central Arizona Project said an expected
shortage declaration “will result in a substantial cut to
Arizona’s share of the river, with reductions falling largely
to central Arizona agricultural users.” The Central Arizona
Project is an aqueduct system that delivers Colorado River
water to users in central Arizona and southern Arizona,
including farmers, cities and tribes.
President Biden announced the first components of his proposed
$2 trillion national infrastructure plan to rebuild failing,
aging, and outdated water, energy, transportation, and
communications systems. While the current information provides
only the broadest outlines of his proposals, and the details
will have to be worked out in specific legislation to be
debated in Congress, it is clearly the most ambitious plan to
have been put forward in many years.
In recent years, the Wiyot Tribe in Northern California secured
ownership of its ancestral lands and is working to restore its
marine habitats; the nearby Yurok Tribe fought for the removal
of dams along the Klamath River and has plans to reconnect with
salmon, its traditional food source; and the Quapaw Nation in
Oklahoma has cleaned up contaminated land to make way for
agriculture and cattle businesses.
The Fort Yuma-Quechan Indian Tribe is situated at a nexus in
the Colorado River Basin. That’s true in a geographic sense.
The tribe’s reservation overlays the Arizona-California border
near Yuma, Arizona. The two states are heavily reliant on water
from the Colorado River. The reservation also abuts the
U.S.-Mexico border where the river flows into Mexico for use in
cities and on farms. One of the river’s largest irrigation
projects, the All-American Canal, was dug through the tribe’s
land, and flows from the reservation’s northeastern boundary to
its far southwestern corner, on its way to irrigate crops in
California’s Imperial Valley. The confluence of the Colorado
River and one of its historically important tributaries, the
Gila River, is nearby.
Updated water supply allocations announced last week would
still drain upstream reservoirs in order to deliver 4.5 million
acre feet of water to the contractors of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP), devastating
fish and wildlife. This week, the fisheries biologists at the
National Marine Fisheries Service projected that these planned
operations are likely to result in lethal water temperatures
that will kill 89% of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon
below Shasta Dam this year. This mortality estimate is even
worse than what was observed in 2014 and 2015, when salmon
populations were devastated by warm water in their spawning
grounds.
Arizona tribal officials told a Senate committee Wednesday that
the federal government can help address a crisis with water
infrastructure on their lands through more funding, and less
meddling. Navajo Department of Water Resources Director Jason
John and Colorado River Indian Tribes Chairwoman Amelia Flores
made the comments during a Senate Indian Affairs Committee
hearing on water infrastructure for Native communities. Leaders
of Oregon and Alaska tribes also testified at the
hearing.
A showdown is looming on the Colorado River. The river’s
existing management guidelines are set to expire in 2026. The
states that draw water from it are about to undertake a new
round of negotiations over the river’s future, while it’s
facing worsening dry conditions due in part to rising
temperatures. That means everyone with an interest in the
river’s future — tribes, environmentalists, developers,
business groups, recreation advocates — is hoping a new round
of talks will bring certainty to existing water supplies and
demands.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Dan Gibbs, executive
director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources, announced
recently the establishment of a Water Equity Task Force to
better understand existing equity, diversity and inclusivity
(EDI) challenges in Colorado water issues and inform the
Colorado Water Plan. … The 2005 Water for the 21st Century
Act (HB 05-1177) ushered in a new area of regionally inclusive
and collaborative water planning. That spirit was further
codified in the 2015 Colorado Water Plan, which ensured that
all water uses in Colorado are interconnected and of equal
value.
[I]t was with some surprise that last year Warren Buffett found
himself recently embroiled in a hugely important California
water issue – removal of the Klamath River dams. The
socioecological effects of dams on the Klamath River have been
massive, almost uniformly negative, and ongoing. The Klamath
watershed has been estimated as the third-most productive
drainage on the West Coast for salmon and steelhead. Yet salmon
runs declined substantially over the last century in part
because dams fragment and isolate salmon from their historical
upland spawning habitats. … Indigenous peoples have
disproportionately dealt with the brunt of ecological impacts
from dams on the Klamath River.
While water shortages and lack of access are usually associated
with developing countries, there were more than 2 million
people in the United States without running water or
basic indoor plumbing as of 2019, according to the U.S. Water
Alliance. Among them are members of the Navajo Nation who
drive 40 miles every few days to haul water to their homes;
communities in California dealing with contaminated wells; and
people across the country living with outdated water systems.
An Oregon judge has agreed to hear further legal arguments over
his ruling that tribal water rights in the Klamath basin must
be re-quantified. Because the judge’s legal opinion from last
month hasn’t yet been reduced to an order, that means the
Klamath tribes can enforce their water rights to shut off
irrigation in the meantime.
Tribal leaders see President Joe Biden’s administration as
an opportunity to increase tribal consultation regarding issues
like water management, oil and gas leasing, and land
conservation. Here, we look at four major projects … that the
new administration is tasked with advancing…. Negotiations
among federal, tribal and state governments on water flows and
allocations in the Colorado River Basin began last year and are
set to conclude by 2026…. After years of political,
social and regulatory barriers, the undamming of the Klamath
River is within sight….
Grain by grain, sandbars are ecologically important to the
Colorado River system for humans and wildlife, say scientists.
How sand, silt and clay move along and become deposited within
the river corridor in the Grand Canyon National Park,
downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, has become an important
question to a number of government agencies as well as to
Native American tribes. The answer impacts the entire Colorado
River ecosystem and will help scientists better understand how
the Colorado River system works.
Spurred by the rising price of gold, K2 Gold Corp., of
Vancouver, Canada, is drilling and trenching in hopes of
selling its findings or partnering with a bigger company that
would, perhaps, transform the public lands into an open pit
cyanide heap leach mine, just a few miles from Death Valley.
… Opponents … worry about air pollution … and
the water required for mining gold. Pumping out millions
of gallons from desert aquifers, or underground lakes, they
fear, could exhaust regional springs in valuable wildlife
habitat, and attract wildlife to ponds of cyanide-laced water.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering whether
the spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon that occupy the
rivers of Northern California and southern Oregon are
genetically distinct. The decision … would almost
certainly result in a listing under the Endangered Species Act
if seen as a separate species. … [T]he dams and
reservoirs that have been installed at various points
throughout the rivers of the West Coast create problems for
spring-run Chinook that are unique and separate from their
closely related cousins. It also allows the fall-run
species to outcompete the spring run since they both are able
to reach the same spots in the river to reproduce.
Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico made history on Monday
when the Senate confirmed her as President Biden’s secretary of
the Interior, making her the first Native American to lead a
cabinet agency. … Beyond the Interior Department’s
responsibility for the well-being of the nation’s 1.9 million
Native people, it oversees about 500 million acres of public
land, federal waters off the United States coastline, a huge
system of dams and reservoirs across the Western United States
and the protection of thousands of endangered species.
A unique deal between ranchers and wildlife advocates may at
long last bring a reliable water supply to Lower Klamath
National Wildlife Refuge — and the wetlands and birds that
depend on it. Since it was largely drained in the early 20th
Century, the mosaic of wetlands formerly known as Lower Klamath
Lake has relied on water from the Klamath Irrigation Project to
grow food and provide suitable habitat for millions of
migrating birds along the Pacific Flyway each year. Wetlands in
the Klamath Basin support nearly 80% of the Pacific Flyway’s
migratory waterfowl during the spring and fall.
Local tribes, schools and nonprofits have developed a new high
school curriculum that seeks to encourage environmental
advocacy through an Indigenous lens. The advocacy and water
protection curriculum meets state standards in science, social
studies, health, history and language arts and seeks to bolster
“culturally informed education” in the classroom. The
curriculum is based on the “Advocacy and Water Protection in
Native California” speaker series that was developed by Save
California Salmon …
As thousands of Native Americans watched online, Rep. Deb Haaland
(D-N.M.) was confirmed as secretary of the Interior Department by
a 51 to 40 vote in the Senate, making her the first American
Indian to lead an agency that manages a vast portfolio of
[water and] federal land and the oil and mineral wealth that
lies beneath it.
Dwindling Chinook salmon runs have forced the Pacific Fishery
Management Council to shorten the commercial salmon fishing
season. The Sacramento Valley fall-run Chinook salmon runs are
projected to be half as abundant as the 2020 season while the
Klamath River fall Chinook abundance forecast is slightly
higher than the 2020 but is still significantly lower than the
long-term average. During a press briefing on Friday morning,
John McManus President of the Golden State Salmon Association
said the added restrictions will deal a blow to commercial
fishermen.
Despite a February court opinion that vacated the quantified
water rights of the Klamath Tribes, the Oregon Water Resources
Department announced Friday that they will continue to enforce
the Tribes’ water calls until a judge orders
otherwise. The Klamath Tribes maintain senior water rights
in the Klamath Basin, which were affirmed by the Klamath
County Circuit Court last month, but Judge Cameron Wogan
wrote in his proposed order that those rights need to be
re-quantified.
Last year, tens of thousands of water birds became paralyzed
and died in a gruesome botulism outbreak caused by lack of
water at two wildlife refuges on California’s border with
Oregon. And it could happen again this summer. The crippling
drought that has plagued the region for years shows no sign of
ending, and there’s been little relief from the bureaucratic
gridlock and lawsuits over water that has slowly starved the
Klamath Basin refuges of their supplies over the past two
decades.
One of the largest undammed river systems in California, the
South Fork Trinity watershed supports vulnerable populations of
salmon and steelhead, and boasts dramatic scenery. The South
Fork National Recreation Trail parallels the river’s rapids and
pools through stands of pine, fir, and oak. Nearly 500 miles of
water, including parts of the South Fork Trinity River and its
tributaries, would be permanently protected by the Northwest
California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forests Act,
sponsored by Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), which was also included
in the Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act
that recently passed the House.
Today, [Tribes, Schools, and NGOs] released the Advocacy
and Water Protection in Native California High School
Curriculum and Teacher’s Resource Guide. The curriculum
… responds to California’s urgent water, climate and
educational crises, along with the need for Native American
culturally informed education and representation in
schools. The curriculum features online, classroom, and
nature-based learning and responds to reports that Humboldt,
Del Norte, and other counties are failing Native students, and
that Native youth are facing a mental health crisis due to
COVID-19 and the state’s water and climate crises.
Rep. Deb Haaland’s bid to become the first Native American
interior secretary was made more likely Thursday by an unlikely
Republican supporter, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of oil-rich Alaska,
who said she still had serious reservations about Haaland’s
past opposition to drilling. Murkowski was the only Republican
on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to approve
Haaland (D-N.M.) in the narrow 11-to-9 vote. Haaland’s
nomination now moves to the full Senate, where the entire
Democratic caucus and two Republicans, Murkowski and Susan
Collins (Maine), are expected to back her, cementing her
confirmation.
It was a Friday in late August when four jet boats made their
way up the Klamath River under a cloudless blue sky. The boats
carried three tribal chairs. From the Karuk Tribe, there was
Russell “Buster” Attebery, who’d found pride as a boy catching
salmon from the river and bringing them home to his family, and
later come to believe some tribal youth’s troubles — from
suicides to substance use — could be traced back to their never
having had that opportunity, growing up alongside a river now
choked with algae and diminishing fish populations.
When Malini Ranganathan, PhD, an associate professor at
American University and interim faculty director of the
Antiracist Research and Policy Center, conducted research in
Exeter, a flourishing agriculture town in California’s Central
Valley, she didn’t expect to see similar conditions to what
she’d witnessed in India’s low-income housing areas. Residents
in one of the world’s richest states were depending on bore
water and water tankers to drink because tap water was
unsafe.
One of the first two Native American women to be elected to
Congress, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) is well on her way to being
confirmed as the first Native American to serve as secretary of
the Interior. Last week, Haaland went before the U.S.
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for her
confirmation hearing in which she answered questions for two
days. Today the committee will host a business meeting to
consider the nomination of Haaland and members can vote in
person or by proxy.
The coal-fired power plant that sat on Navajo Nation land in
the northeastern corner of Arizona did not just generate
electricity. It also drew water from the Colorado River, an
essential input for cooling the plant’s machinery. What
happens to that water now that the plant is being
decommissioned? Who gets to decide how it is used? In a drying
region in which every drop of water is accounted for and
parceled out, the stakes are high and the legal claims are
unresolved.
Anyone who has hosted a good dinner party knows that the guest
list, table setting and topic of conversation play a big role
in determining whether the night is a hit or the guests leave
angry and unsatisfied. That concept is about to get a true test
on the Colorado River, where chairs are being pulled up to a
negotiating table to start a new round of talks that could
define how the river system adapts to a changing climate for
the next generation.
The US Green Building Council Central California (USGBC-CC) has
received a grant from the San Joaquin River Conservancy
(Conservancy) to commence planning for a Native American and
Environmental Resource Center at the San Joaquin River. The
project will enable public access and create an Indigenous and
Environmental Resource Center at the Circle V property located
on the San Joaquin River, outside of Fresno in Madera County.
The USGBC-CC received final approval for the grant funding as
part of the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe
Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Fund and the Safe
Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River
and Coastal Protection Fund of 2006 from the Wild Life
Conservation Board.
Though the nonprofit tasked with Klamath River dam removal is
about to submit its definite plan to federal regulators, Del
Norte County and the Crescent City Harbor District are still
worried about potential negative impacts. Harbor commissioners
on Thursday agreed to sign onto a memorandum of understanding
that includes the county and the Klamath River Renewal
Corporation. The MOU contains conditions that ensures the
harbor and county can recover potential damages to the port and
the fishing industry that occur as a result of dam removal and
reservoir drawdown on the Klamath River.
On Feb. 22, 2021, Lake Powell was 127.24 feet below ‘Full Pool’
or, by content, about 38% full. Based on water level
elevations, these measurements do not account for years of
sediment (clay, silt, and sand) accumulation—the millions of
metric tons on the bottom. Geologist James L. Powell said, “The
Colorado delivers enough sediment to Lake Powell to fill 1,400
ship cargo containers each day.” In other words, Lake
Powell is shrinking toward the middle from top and bottom. The
lake is down over 30 feet from one year ago, and estimates
suggest it could drop another 50 feet by 2026. The Bureau of
Reclamation estimated the lifespan of Glen Canyon Dam at
500–700 years. Other estimates aren’t as optimistic, including
some as low as 50 years.
Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties could play host to
part of the largest new designation of federal wilderness in a
decade if Democratic sponsors of the land-protection package
can find a way through the divided U.S. Senate. A bill
sponsored by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, would designate
257,797 of new acres of wilderness in Northern California while
placing 480 miles of river in the region under the nation’s
strictest environmental protections for waterways.
Michael Preston grew up in the old village site of the Winnemem
Wintu tribe, along the McCloud River in Northern California
where the Shasta Dam has flooded spiritual and cultural lands.
Since the 1940s, the creation of the dam has also blocked the
usual migration of winter-run salmon, effectively endangering
the species. Now, there are proposals to raise the dam by an
additional 18.5 feet, which will cause further destruction.
“Our tribal goal is to bring the salmon back … ” he said,
adding that it’s more than just the fish. With the lack of
salmon, which is a keystone species, other animals, such as
bears, eagles and mountain lions are being starved.
This month, the comment period for a potentially landmark piece
of legislation ended. Since California v. Arizona in 2000, the
Colorado River Indian Tribes have the sole rights to more than
600,000 acres-feet of water from the Colorado River, but they
are barred from selling or leasing any of this water to outside
communities. The proposed federal legislation, led by
the tribes themselves, would allow them to lease some of this
water as long as they reduce their own water consumption by an
equivalent amount.
-Written by Isaac Humrich, a senior at Sunnyslope High
School in Phoenix and a member of American Conservation
Coalition.
Arizona, California, and Nevada will need to cut their use of
Colorado River water by nearly 40 percent by 2050. A
study by researchers at Utah State University, which
the Arizona Daily Star reported this past Sunday, noted
that Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming—the Upper Basin
states—will have to reduce their usage, as well, though not by
as much as those pulling water from the Lower Basin.
From California’s perspective, the view upriver is not
encouraging. More than half of the upper part of the river
basin is in “exceptional drought,” according to the U.S.
Drought Monitor, while the Lower Basin is even worse off: More
than 60% of it is in the highest drought level. In January,
water levels in Lake Powell, the river’s second-largest
reservoir, dropped to unprecedented depths, triggering a
drought contingency plan for the first time for the Upper Basin
states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. Since
2000, the Colorado River Basin has seen a sustained period of
less water and hotter days. This is, as climate scientists like
to say, the “new normal.”
The state’s Ocean Protection Council has awarded $1.3 million
to preserving and safeguarding estuary habitat at Elkhorn
Slough, which boasts the second-largest tidal salt marsh in
California. The wetland, once degraded by farming activities
such as diking, is at risk of impacts from climate change —
particularly rising sea levels.
Climate change will continue to impact the West, and
particularly its water supply—the many impacts include longer
and more damaging wildfire seasons as well as prolonged
drought. Federal leadership and action are needed to address
the climate crisis. With the 117th Congress now in session,
Audubon is advocating at the federal level for funding and
policy priorities that restore habitat, protect communities,
and support birds through proactive water management and
conservation.
Tuolumne Utilities District provided an update on Thursday
regarding negotiations to acquire Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
assets in the South Fork Stanislaus River watershed and rights
to water in New Melones Reservoir, though the possible costs
remain unclear due to a confidentiality agreement. The TUD
Board of Directors hosted a rare joint meeting via video with
the county Board of Supervisors, Sonora City Council, local
Me-Wuk Indian tribes, and other stakeholders, during which
members spoke about the need for community-wide cooperation and
collaboration due to the scope of the undertaking.
“Basic climate science reveals that Lake Powell is not a
reliable water source for this ill-conceived project.” The
reference to ‘basic climate science’ refers to recent computer
models that show a drier climate throughout the American
Southwest over the next few decades, allegedly due to the
continued use of fossil fuels all around the globe. But even
without access to clever computer models, we have all seen Lake
Powell and Lake Mead — America’s two largest water reservoirs —
struggle to remain even half full, as we watch water users
extract more water than nature can replace.
The largest dam removal in United States history is set to take
place along the Klamath River by 2023, but getting to this
point was neither easy nor quick. Water management, especially
in densely populated and water-scarce places like California,
is a challenge from practically every aspect: ownership and
operations of water infrastructure, local politics, maintenance
costs, and sustainability concerns.
The Department of the Interior today announced additional
members of the agency leadership team working to steward
America’s natural, cultural and historic resources, and honor
our nation-to-nation relationship with Tribes. Among those
named is Daniel Cordalis of Arcata, Calif., who was appointed
Deputy Solicitor, Water.
The Tuolumne Utilities District hosted a joint meeting to
provide local stakeholders an update on efforts to acquire
PG&E assets like Pinecrest Reservoir and Lyons Dam, and
water rights from New Melones. The informational meeting
included the Tuolumne County Supervisors, Sonora City Council
and local tribal representatives.
Following a disappointing 2019 adult fall run on the Klamath,
2020 proved to be only slightly better. Unfortunately, the
numbers weren’t enough to get us out of the “overfished”
category, and it’s likely we’ll have some severe
restrictions both in the ocean and in the Klamath and Trinity
rivers in 2021. … According to CDFW, the number of returning
fall run kings in 2020 was 45,407, about half the long-term
average. In 2019 only 37,270 adult kings returned. The return
of fall Chinook jacks was 9,037 fish, which is also below the
long-term average of 17,740.
Many of today’s under-resourced communities have no more access
to blue gold (scarce water) than the under-resourced white
residents of the Owens Valley have had since the 1920s. In 1924
greedy public and private water interests transformed the lush
Owen’s Lake into a noxious dust bowl. One of the guilty
parties LADWP (Department of Water and Power), recently
celebrated partial restoration of Owens Lake by constructing a
ghostly monument of granite and sculpted earth in the long
desiccated lake bed. … For many indigenous peoples denied
their rights to water for a century, partial restoration of the
lake without full restoration of their water rights is too
little, too late.
Last month in an announcement on Business Wire, the Klamath
River Renewal Corporation (KRRC) and Resource Environmental
Solutions (RES) announced they have signed a contract for RES
to provide restoration services in connection with the removal
of four dams on the Klamath River. The agreement between RES
and KRRC finalizes habitat restoration, maintenance, and
liability transfer responsibilities for a fixed price, opening
the door to a successful restoration of native vegetation and
anadromous fish habitat along the historical, pre-dam path of
the Klamath River.
The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District and the Trinidad
Rancheria are moving forward with a feasibility study to
investigate the possibility of extending water service from
McKinleyville up to the Rancheria. The Trinidad City Council
and the Westhaven Community Services District declined to
participate in the study last month, citing risks of
overdevelopment.
Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson says the state needs to do
everything it can to protect its share of water in the
drought-challenged Colorado River, and the creation of a new
entity would foster that protection. … He and Senate
President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, are sponsors of the Colorado
River Amendments, HB297, which would set up the Colorado River
Authority of Utah with $9 million in one-time money and
$600,000 of ongoing money.
A Northern California water users’ association has filed a
motion against a $450 million plan to tear down four dams on
the Klamath River they claim irrevocably hurts local
homeowners. The motion was filed with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) last Wednesday by the Murphy and
Buchal Law firm on behalf of the Siskiyou County Water Users
Association. It claims the interstate agreement reached by
Oregon and California last year to remove the dams has incurred
“irreparable damage” to lakefront home values in the COPCO Lake
area as water levels are feared to decline.
Two decades ago, Nicole Horseherder, a member of the Navajo
Nation, coordinated a community meeting. Beneath the shade of
Juniper trees at her late grandmother’s house, several dozen
people gathered to find a way to protect their pristine water.
The springs and wells along Black Mesa, a semi-arid, rocky mesa
that overlies the Navajo Aquifer, were increasingly drying up,
as tens of billions of gallons of potable water were used to
extract, clean, and transport coal mined in the region. This
meeting was the start of a long struggle to safeguard the
community from coal projects, which threatened the drinking
water supply of both the Navajo and Hopi people.
The Colorado River supports over 40 million people spread
across seven southwestern states, 29 tribal nations, and
Mexico. It’s responsible for the irrigation of roughly 5.5
million acres of land marked for agricultural use. Local and
regional headlines show the river is in crisis. The nation
mostly isn’t listening.
With Democratic New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland poised to become
the first Native American Interior secretary, tribal
governments historically marginalized by the agency expect not
only a greater respect for their autonomy, but also a more
significant role in the nation’s land and water management
decisions.
New federal legislation that will enable the Colorado River
Indian Tribes to lease a portion of its federal water
allocation is gaining broad support from Arizona stakeholders.
Following the conclusion of a listening session held by the
Arizona Department of Water Resources in December, 2020,
interested parties were invited to submit public comment on the
proposal.
The Klamath River Renewal Corporation last week signed an
agreement with Resource Environmental Solutions, a Texas-based
ecological restoration company, to provide restoration services
following the removal of four dams on the Klamath River. The
agreement with RES brings North Coast tribes one step closer to
their decades-long goal of dam removal.
In an act of cultural appreciation, two open spaces in Redding
are being renamed using the native Wintu language. What has
been known as the Henderson Open Space along the bank of the
Sacramento River in the heart of the city will now be known as
“Nur Pon Open Space.” About $5-million have been spent in the
area in the last 10 years, including the construction of a
salmon spawning channel.
The organization tasked with removing four dams on the Klamath
River has contracted with Resource Environmental Solutions to
spearhead habitat restoration work. The Bellaire, Texas firm
will be the lead restoration contractor for the project led by
the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. In hiring RES, KRRC
meets federal and state permitting requirements, according to a
Friday news release from Business Wire.
[T]he decades-long effort to remove four hydroelectric dams
that clog the upper Klamath River should be seen not simply
through an environmental and economic lens but also a social
justice one, according to Craig Tucker, a natural resources
consultant for the Karuk Tribe.
Pascua Yaqui Council members called it “a blessing” Tuesday.
They were talking about $900,000 in federal funds that will be
used to bring water to the tribe’s lands for irrigation, the
first fruits of a successful effort last year by members of the
state’s congressional delegation to win $150 million in federal
funding for water projects around the state. … The money
comes from an Army Corps of Engineers fund dedicated to water
infrastructure projects in Arizona. Under the bill, local
governments can enter into agreements with the corps for water,
wastewater treatment, environmental restoration and other
projects.
Guardians of the River, produced by American
Rivers and Swiftwater Films, focuses on the hard-won
efforts of leaders of the Yuroks. Frankie Joe Myers, vice
chair of the tribe; Sammy Gensaw, director of
the Ancestral Guard; Barry McCovey, fisheries
biologist with the tribe; and members of the Ancestral
Guard and Klamath Justice Coalition share why removing
four dams across southern Oregon and Northern California is
vital to restoring clean water, food
sovereignty, and justice for the Klamath River.
The Trinidad City Council on Tuesday will consider whether to
participate in a feasibility study for a project that would
bring a steady flow of water to the city from the Mad River via
a new pipeline. The Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District
(HBMWD), which supplies water to Eureka, Arcata, McKinleyville,
Blue Lake and other area communities, is in the early stages of
researching the possibility of expanding its service area north
via a waterline extension at least as far north as the Trinidad
Rancheria…
In Oregon, the Klamath Basin wildlife refuges have fallen into
their winter silence now. The huge, clamorous flocks of geese
that fill the sky during migration have moved south. This
summer, a different silence gripped the basin. A dead silence.
The 90,000 acres of marshes and open water that make up the
Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges are a
small remnant of vast wetlands that once filled this region on
the Oregon-California border. -Written by Pepper Trail, a contributor to Writers on the
Range and a conservation biologist in Ashland, Ore.
California is enveloped in balmy weather that’s more like
spring than mid-winter — and that’s not a good thing. We have
seen only scant rain and snow this winter, indicating that the
state may be experiencing one of its periodic droughts and
adding another layer of crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic and
economic recession. The all-important Sierra snowpack,
California’s primary source of water, is scarcely half of what
is deemed a normal depth. -Written by Dan Walters, CalMatters columnist.
Lorelei Cloud is a member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, a
relatively small tribe of 1,500 members, 1,000 of which live on
the tribe’s reservation covering a little more than 1,000
square miles south of Durango abutting the border with New
Mexico. Cloud’s experience is not uncommon in tribal homes
across the country, as nearly 48% of them — representing more
than half a million people — do not have “access to reliable
water sources, clean drinking water or basic sanitation,”
according to a 2017 congressional report.
Three people were appointed Thursday to the California Water
Commission by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The three are Amy Cordalis,
40, of McKinleyville, Kimberly Gallagher, 45, of Davis,
and Fern Steiner, 71, of San Diego.
After years of negotiations and agreements, roadblocks,
renegotiations, and new agreements, dam removal on the Klamath
river is closer than ever to becoming a reality. With almost
all of the bureaucratic hurdles overcome, four of the six dams
on the Klamath are slated to be removed by 2024, restoring fish
access to the entire river. If carried out as planned, it will
be the largest dam removal project in the history of the United
States, opening up 400 river-miles of habitat to
salmon, trout, and eels, for the first time in decades. The
Yurok Tribe and Klamath River Renewal Corporation hope it will
also mean a return to a healthy river…
The Yurok people have lived in the 15,700 square miles Klamath
River Basin, in what is now called Northern California, for
millennia. They are among the key organizers in a coalition of
Indigenous groups, environmentalists, concerned citizens and
commercial fishers that have joined forces in a decades-long
movement to Un-dam the Klamath.
The $227 billion budget proposed on Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom
includes $4.1 billion in spending on a suite of environmental
initiatives meant to fight climate change, gird California
against devastating wildfires, reduce smog, and bolster the
adoption of clean vehicles on the state’s roads.
Now that the calendar has flipped to January 2021, it’s time to
say goodbye to the mess of the past year, yes? … The
pandemic’s economic dislocation continues to reverberate among
those who lost work. Severe weather boosted by a warming
climate is leaving its mark in the watersheds of the Southwest
[including the Colorado River]. And President-elect Biden will
take office looking to undo much of his predecessor’s legacy of
environmental deregulation while also writing his own narrative
on issues of climate, infrastructure, and social
justice….Litigation over toxic PFAS compounds found in
rivers, lakes, and groundwater is already active. Lawsuits are
likely to continue at a brisk pace…
Even as research touted the benefits of prescribed fire more
than a half-century ago, the practice was long held back by
misguided forest management policies, a legacy of injustice
toward Native Americans and a more nebulous, deep-seated
cultural resistance to flames and smoke. Finally, the tide is
turning — slowly. California took a huge step forward this year
when it reached a landmark deal with the federal government to
reduce fire risk on 1 million acres of forest and wildlands
annually, including through prescribed fire.
A decade ago, a diverse coalition of tribes, farmers and
conservationists hashed out water-sharing settlements that
would have given the [Klamath basin] refuges a steady supply of
water each year, and in the process stopped years of lawsuits,
protests and acrimony. But Congress killed their efforts. Now
the refuges — and Lower Klamath in particular — are at risk of
drying up. And the fighting over water will only continue as
the watershed grows increasingly dry from climate change.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt started off 2020 empowering
his most controversial public lands deputy, a move that a
federal judge later deemed “unlawful.” He’s ending the year in
quarantine, having tested positive for COVID-19. In between
these bleak-sounding bookends, the 51-year-old Bernhardt
rewrote how the Interior Department works. While the results
get mixed reviews, and in some cases may get erased by the
incoming Biden administration, 2020 was undeniably
consequential for the department.
President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Deb Haaland, the
freshman representative from New Mexico, to lead the Interior
Department, making history by selecting the first Native
American to oversee the agency that manages millions of acres
of federal land and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to
a person familiar with the decision.
In August, the Hoopa Valley Tribe filed a lawsuit in a
Eureka-based Federal court against the U.S. Department of
Interior to block execution of a permanent repayment contracts
for Central Valley Project users. What’s at stake? Stable water
resources secured by a bevy of other water agencies across the
Golden State by converting short-term water service contracts
into permanent repayment contracts with the United States
Bureau of Reclamation. The suit almost exclusively targets the
powerful Westlands Water District. The problem? The nation’s
largest water district isn’t even a party to the suit, nor is
it the only player involved in contract conversions.
President-elect Joe Biden has tapped Deb Haaland, a Democratic
congresswoman from New Mexico, to serve as the first Native
American interior secretary in a historic pick for a department
that oversees the country’s vast natural resources, including
tribal lands.
The Hoopa Valley Tribe in Humboldt County argued before a
federal judge that no Trinity River water can be sent to
the Central Valley at the expense of the tribe’s fishery. The
main dispute is over whether to block the U.S. Department
of Interior from signing permanent water delivery contracts
with Valley agribusiness interests, including Westlands Water
District. Opponents say the real agenda is being driven by
environmental groups that don’t want extra money going towards
water storage projects, and they’re singling out Westlands
because of its name recognition.
The only hope for salmon to return to the Klamath River, which
runs though southern Oregon and northern California before
emptying into the Pacific Ocean, is to remove some of those
river-blocking dams because they have interfered with the
breeding habits of the fish, experts say.
The Hopi have long lacked adequate drinking water. In
parts of the reservation, the water that flows from
taps is contaminated with toxic arsenic
at levels that exceed the federal standard. And
in homes without running water, many families get by using what
little they haul from communal faucets, which can amount to
less than 2 gallons a day per person.
Defending the decision to give farm irrigation districts
permanent access to low-cost, federally pumped water in
California, a Justice Department lawyer urged a federal judge
to flush a Native American tribe’s lawsuit against the endless
entitlements. The Hoopa Valley Tribe sued the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation in August, claiming the Trump administration’s
conversion of 14 time-limited contracts for Central Valley
Project water into permanent deals violated a host of federal
laws.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes near Parker is proposing a
federal law to allow it to lease water rights in Arizona, a
move that could aid the state’s response to the drought. The
tribe said in public hearings on Dec. 7 and Dec. 10 that it
would use the money raised from leasing Colorado River water to
bolster services to its members, including for health care,
education, elder programs and law enforcement.
A new national study of public water systems found that arsenic
levels were not uniform across the U.S., even after
implementation of the latest national regulatory standard. In
the first study to assess differences in public drinking water
arsenic exposures by geographic subgroups, researchers at
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health confirmed
there are inequalities in drinking water arsenic
exposure…. Community water systems reliant on
groundwater, serving smaller populations located in the
Southwest, and Hispanic communities were more likely to
continue exceeding the national maximum containment level,
raising environmental justice concerns.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes are proposing federal
legislation that would allow CRIT to lease a portion of its
first priority Colorado River water rights in Arizona to
outside interests within the state. The Tribe says the
legislation would help drought relief efforts in Arizona while
presenting economic opportunities for tribal members.
The Hopi have lived for thousands of years on the mesas of the
Colorado Plateau. Flowing springs and seeps have sustained
them, providing sources where they have collected drinking
water, grown corn and beans, and maintained a spiritual
connection to life-giving water. But the springs are
dwindling. Some are completely dry.
For many years, leasing water has simply been a “what if”
scenario for the Colorado River Indian Tribes, which unlike
many other tribes in Arizona with water rights, do not
have the ability to lease, exchange or store it underground.
But that could soon change if their proposal makes its way
through Congress. And it could have profound impacts on
how water is bought, sold and moved in this state. -Written by Joanna Allhands, digital opinions editor for
the Arizona Republic.
The West is in a drought that’s only getting worse, and drought
is an even bigger problem in places that have uneven access to
water to start with. In the Navajo Nation, in the southwestern
U.S., many homes have no running water at all. The tribe is
working with the startup Source, which makes Hydropanels —
solar-powered panels that pull water vapor from the air and
condense it into clean drinking water.
Federal and state officials signed nearly 400 treaties with
tribal nations in the 18th and 19th centuries….In recent
years, some courts, political leaders and regulators have
decided it’s time to start honoring those treaty
obligations….“The notion that tribal treaty rights should be
factored into government decision-making is gaining increasing
currency,” [said Riyaz Kanji, a leading Indian law attorney.]
The strength of that argument was on display again last month,
when leaders in Oregon and California announced plans to remove
four dams on the Klamath River.
The West has endured three decades of deepening hardship as
ailing forests, climate change, and unrestrained development
force a reckoning with wildfires gaining in scale and
intensity. Five of the six largest wildfires in California’s
history have occurred this year… A national strategy to
reform wildland fire management … identifies wildfire and
prescribed fire as essential to the resilience of forests,
grasslands, and watersheds.
While Republican members of Congress praised the most recent
step toward approving raising the height of Shasta Dam, fishing
and environmental groups criticized it as the illegal actions
of a “lame duck federal agency.”
By burning and brushing, nurturing important plants and
keeping lands around their homes clear of dead brush and
debris, Native peoples carefully stewarded the lands to sustain
the biodiverse ecologies California is known for. Their
work resulted in a richly productive landscape that provided
food and habitat for not only humans but many land, air and
water animals. That included the salmon, a staple of tribes in
the West for millennia. All that changed when California became
a U.S. state in 1850.
The history of our city is one of oil, land and water scandals,
of genocide and segregation. … Should we change the names of
any buildings, streets or charities bearing the names Chandler,
Huntington, Mulholland or Hellman?
With its Séka Hills olive oil, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation [in
Northern California’s Capay Valley] is reclaiming its ancestral
land with a crop for the future. … Wherever possible, the
tribe uses sustainable farming practices, and has received
several grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Natural Resource Conservation Service for water and rangeland
conservation…
Karuk Tribe natural resources spokesperson Craig Tucker joined
John Howard to talk about the historic agreement, its impact on
the region’s Salmon fisheries, and the potential for
replication in other places where dams are contested.
Twenty years ago, the Colorado River’s hydrology began tumbling
into a historically bad stretch. … So key players across
seven states, including California, came together in 2005 to
attack the problem. The result was a set of Interim Guidelines
adopted in 2007… Stressing flexibility instead of rigidity,
the guidelines stabilized water deliveries in a
drought-stressed system and prevented a dreaded shortage
declaration by the federal government that would have forced
water supply cuts.
On Nov. 17, California, Oregon, PacifiCorp, and the Yurok and
Karuk Tribes announced a new agreement with the Klamath River
Renewal Corporation to reaffirm KRRC’s status as dam removal
entity and provide additional funding for the removal of four
hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The agreement is the
latest development in a decade-long effort…
The Trump Administration Thursday released the Shasta Lake
Water Resources Investigation Final Supplemental Environmental
Impact Statement to increase water storage capacity in the
Shasta Lake reservoir by 634,000 acre-feet,
America’s largest dam removal project has been brought back to
life with a new agreement among California, Oregon, tribes and
a utility owned by billionaire Warren Buffett. The decadeslong
effort to remove four dams on the Klamath River in Northern
California that have had a devastating impact on salmon runs
had appeared in danger following an unexpected July regulatory
order.
How did two of the most important waterfowl refuges in the
United States reach such a sad state? The decline of the Tule
Lake and Lower Klamath refuges was a hundred years in the
making. There are no villains here; rather it is simply a tale
of too little water to go around on an arid landscape.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Oregon counterpart signed a landmark
deal Tuesday to take control of four aging dams targeted for
removal on the Lower Klamath River, an agreement designed to
push the controversial $450 million plan over the finish line.
… The agreement “ensures that we have sufficient backing” to
get the four dams demolished, said Chuck Bonham, director of
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his Oregon counterpart signed a landmark
deal Tuesday to take control of four aging dams targeted for
removal on the Lower Klamath River, an agreement designed to
push the controversial $450 million plan over the finish line.
The U.S. Geological Survey is in the beginning stages of
learning more about this river via an expanded and more
sophisticated monitoring system that aims to study details
about the snowpack that feeds the river basin, droughts and
flooding, and how streamflow supports groundwater, or vice
versa.
The last three administrations have been active in Klamath
Basin issues regardless of political party. Negotiations for a
basin-wide agreement began under the Bush Administration and
continued under the Obama Administration until faltering in the
House of Representatives — though each president’s approach has
varied. Dan Keppen, executive director of the Family Farm
Alliance, said Biden’s experience in the Obama Administration
could prove an asset, if he brings a similar approach.
For over a century, one of the most important salmon runs in
the United States has had to contend with historic dams – and
now four of them are set to be taken down….The dams built on
the Klamath River have been identified as one cause of the
drop in salmon numbers.
Why are our food producers, including many century-old family
farms with 100-year-old water rights, facing a shortage of
water? Because we drain Oregon’s largest lake to artificially
increase water supply in California.
Managing water resources in the Colorado River Basin is not for
the timid or those unaccustomed to big challenges. … For more
than 30 years, Terry Fulp, director of the Bureau of
Reclamation’s Lower Colorado Basin Region, has been in the
thick of it, applying his knowledge, expertise and calm
demeanor to inform and broker key decisions that have helped
stabilize the Southwest’s major water artery.
A 2007 deal creating guidelines governing how Lake Powell and
Lake Mead are operated in coordination isn’t scheduled to
expire until 2026. But water officials in Colorado River Basin
states are already beginning to talk about the renegotiations
that will be undertaken to decide what succeeds the 2007
criteria.
Recent legal testimonies assert that the Oregon Water Resources
Department has not taken exclusive charge of stored water in
Upper Klamath Lake, despite court orders requiring it do so.
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved
applications to develop water quality standards by the Cabazon
Band of Mission Indians, the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck
Valley Indian Reservation, Karuk Tribe, Quartz Valley Indian
Reservation, San Carlos Apache Tribe, and Yerington Paiute
Tribe. This decision comes in the form of approvals of requests
by the tribes for “treatment in a similar manner as a state”
(TAS) under the federal Clean Water Act.
Members of local tribes, fishermen and conservationists are
calling on Warren Buffett to undam the Klamath. People across
the country joined members of the Karuk, Yurok, Klamath and
Hoopa Valley tribes on Friday for a day of action to get the
attention of Buffett, the owner of Pacific Power and the
Klamath River dams…
With California’s worst wildfire season on record still raging,
experts from across the state are calling for a $2 billion
investment in the next year on prevention tactics like
prescribed burns and more year-round forest management
jobs.
Virtual rallies will be held Friday at the utility’s
headquarters in Portland and in Buffett’s hometown of Omaha,
Neb., according to a Save California Salmon news release. A
rally will also be held in Seattle, home of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, the top shareholder in Buffett’s
Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. Berkshire Hathaway Energy is
PacifiCorp’s parent company.
Despite that reduction in flow, total storage behind Glen
Canyon and Hoover dams has dropped only 2.6 million acre feet.
That is far less than you’d expect from 12 years of 1.2 maf per
year flow reductions alone. That kind of a flow reduction
should have been enough to nearly empty the reservoirs. Why
hasn’t that happened? Because we also have been using less
water.
House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Rob Bishop
wants the House to fast-track legislation that would pave the
way for hundreds of millions of dollars for water and
sanitation development across Indian Country.
U.S. and tribal officials are celebrating completion of a $34
million fish bypass system at a Nevada dam that will allow a
threatened trout species to return to some of its native
spawning grounds for the first time in more than a century.
Construction of the side channel with fish-friendly screens is
a major step toward someday enabling Lahontan cutthroat trout
to make the same 100-mile journey — from a desert lake
northeast of Reno to Lake Tahoe atop the Sierra — that they did
before the dam was built in 1905.
According to river flow data, there is currently almost no
water flowing into Walker Lake, a common condition. Today,
where the riverbed meets the lake is an ooze of mud. The lake
is all but biologically dead. But a decades-old public trust
lawsuit made a move forward in its glacial process through
federal courts last week, and advocates are hopeful Walker
Lake, a cornerstone of the regional economy and ecology, can
one day be revived.
The day after Congress passed a bill that included potential
consequences to PacifiCorp if it reneged on an agreement to
remove four Klamath River dams, the Yurok Tribe’s senior water
policy analyst urged people to “make noise in anyway that you
can.”
The Klamath Basin used to be the third most important
salmon-bearing watershed in the Pacific Northwest. Now, only a
fraction of those runs remain. The multiple reasons for their
decline are complex and interconnected, but they all have to do
with how water moves through the system.
