As the state reckons with a fast-changing climate and water cycle, tribal leaders are calling on California to stand with them as they assert their water rights.
Yurok Tribal Chairman Joe James joined several other tribal leaders from across California at a joint session of the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee and the Assembly Select Committee on Native American Affairs on Tuesday morning for an informational hearing. James and the other tribal leaders spoke about the water issues their communities are facing, as well as how the government’s long history of marginalizing their concerns has fostered these problems.
“The federal government promised to preserve the good health of the Klamath River and its plentiful natural resources to support our people,” James said. “But our river has been destroyed for the last 107 years with the development of the Klamath Basin, including dams.”
When the Yurok Reservation was established as a permanent homeland for Yurok people in 1855, James said the federal government recognized their fishing, hunting and water rights, entitling the tribe to the water and fish needed to support their way of life.
In addition to the dams, water diversions and overallocation of water from the Klamath, Trinity, Scott and Shasta rivers have also been degrading water quality and jeopardizing the health of the river ecosystem, he said.
“Our river is sick,” James said, “its species, along with us, will die if we don’t change the way we manage the Klamath River.”
Fossil fuel-driven climate change is exacerbating the situation further by intensifying periods of drought and rainfall. That’s causing the state to rethink its water infrastructure, which currently relies on ever-dwindling amounts of snowfall and snowmelt.
The changing water cycle has implications beyond water storage. Periods of concentrated, heavy rain can cause flash floods and massive debris slides if the soil is too dry to absorb the water. That’s what happened during the past week when the Karuk Tribe reported that heavy rain led to a massive debris slide in the Klamath, dropping dissolved oxygen levels to zero for two nights and creating a kill zone for fish.
This isn’t the first fish kill the North Coast tribes have experienced either. In 2002, 70,000 adult salmon died.
“In the past seven years, we’ve lost most of our runs, lots of baby salmons and juveniles,” James said. “The fish are dying because of fish disease outbreaks caused by poor water quality, high water temperatures and significant water in-streams. Making matters worse, toxic blue-green algae blooms make the water hazardous to even touch.”
The solution, in part, James said is for the state to support and enforce its own laws, such as the public trust doctrine, which preserves natural and cultural resources for public use, and emergency in-stream flow requirements in the Shasta, Scott, Trinity and Klamath rivers during drought conditions to keep fish alive.
“Ensure there’s clean cold water available for fish in the Trinity River,” he said.
Habitat restoration and water quality improvement projects on the Klamath need appropriate funding from the state, as do tribal programs, James said.
Currently, the tribe is partnering with the federal government to resolve its water rights claims, James said, and it’s important that the state also stands with them.
“We respectfully request the state support the Yurok Tribe in this effort,” James said.
Sonia Waraich can be reached at 707-441-0504.
