Water Wars in America's West

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"It's getting to the point where people are going to start shooting at each other," Klamath Falls, Oregon resident and farmer Rodney Cheyne said to Al Jazeera. As a child, Cheyne was part of an angry coalition of farmers from Klamath Falls, when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation first cut off the farmers' water in 2001, violating a de facto "promise" the U.S. federal government made to Klamath Falls residents more than a century ago. However the Klamath Tribes - Klamath-Modoc-Yahooskin have an earlier agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior based on an 1864 treaty, promising them exclusive rights to hunt, fish, and trap in their traditional territory.

Although the U.S. Congress passed the Klamath Termination Act in 1954, the Klamath Tribes kept their usury rights guaranteed by treaty, upheld by Article VI of the U.S. Constituion. The federal government violated these commitments in 2001, when the Bureau of Reclamation gave the white farmers of Klamath Falls "their" water promised by the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny" - HONOR THE TREATIES! Klamath Tribes Chairman Don Gentry paraphrased local white folks' sentiments: "The fish are worthless and the tribes are worthless because they care about the fish." 

The C'Waam (Lost River suckerfish) and its smaller cousin Koptu (shortnose suckerfish) are not only a food staple for the Klamath but part of their Creation story. The population of C'Waam and Koptu have been reduced from millions in the 19th-century to an estimated 25,000 and 3,400 respectively. Pesticides and agricultural run-off lead to poor water quality, cattle grazing destroys spawning habitats, and dams block traditional migration. C'waam and Koptu have not reproduced in a long time - But they are long-lived - The suckerfish found dead on the lake are 30-years-old from the last successful round of reproduction in the early 1990s!

Current water levels are only high enough to keep elderly fish on "life support", and suckerfish larvae now never reach maturity. Klamath Lake's water level is the bare minimum to prevent extinction. Until the mid-1900s, even white people loved eating C'Waam, with one Oregon newspaper reporting in 1959 how many "prefer the sweet meat of the [suckerfish] to any other fish" - However a 2001 NYT article described C'Waam and Koptu as "all-but-inedible". Even in 1959 when the suckerfish were still valued for taste, they were still described as "trash fish", and there was NO limit on catching them - So racist fishermen twisted the story the moment their tongues forgot the taste of C'Waam and Koptu - Once both suckerfish were placed on the "Endangered Species List" in 1988.

 "They didn't watch us. They didn't educate themselves on how to cut these fish," Klamath Tribes member Perry Chocktoot - A self-described suckerfish enthusiast. "Trash" or "rough fish" is a common term used historically for a vast set of large and bony species prized by Indigenous peoples but with little "value" to white sport-fishermen. The willfully ignorant Anglo-European fishermen never "bothered" to educate themselves how the suckerfish, unlike trout, should be filleted from the back to avoid rupturing the gallbladder, which spills yellow bile and ruins the flesh. The reputation of "rough fish" was so bad hundreds of miles of the Green River in Oregon was poisoned by the Department of Natural Resources in 1962 - To intentionally kill off suckerfish and clear the way for "introduced" rainbow trout. Each year Chocktoot oversees a ceremony in which a suckerfish is cremated - Before placing the C'Waam or Koptu into the fire, Chocktoot delicately removes the gallbladder, called beese in the Klamath language, and places it in the roaring Sprague River. 

"One hundred and seventy years, and they still never came and asked - How do you make them good?" Not only are the suckerfish treated like "trash" - During the first major water shutoff in 2001, three men drove into the tribal town of Chiloquin, OR firing shotguns - Yelling "sucker-lovers!" Chockroot points out Klamath people have and continue to be treated by the white community just like suckerfish for more than a century and a half: "They just put a label on them and walk away from them - Discredited them." 

Senior biologist of Klamath Tribes Alex Gonyaw also said, "These fish are surrogates for how people feel about Native Americans." Some farmers have no choice but to work on behalf of the C'Waam and Koptu - A real "can't live with 'em can't live without 'em" situation. "As far as the fish goes, there is no value to them whatsoever," said Tracey Liskey, a farmer who is behind one of the few projects that could forestall the species' extinction - "They're in my water and they control my water - That's my reason for being involved in this thing." 

*Photo credit: PBS 'American Grown: My Job Depends on Ag', Season 2 Episode 1 "Klamath Water Wars"

* Click here or on photo to read the feature-length Al Jazeera investigation "'If the fish die, the people die':Water wars in America's west'"!

Over a century of land-theft, unsustainable agricultural practices, and water depletion has poisoned Indigenous waterways by farmers in the Klamath Basin. Farmers argue they desperately need water from Upper Klamath Lake to irrigate their crops. They claim the water is their "right" - A promise the U.S. Department of Reclamation made to settlers in the early 20th century - When water was considered an "infinite" resource. Being an Indigenous person in Klamath Falls, Oregon has always been enough to make one a target of broken promises and racist attacks, but with the 2021 water shortages the streets of Klamath Falls have never been more unsafe. 

Klamath Tribes Chairman Don Gentry now has to walk around carrying a pistol because of recurring threats on his life. The "Klamath Bucket Brigade" of 2001 made its renaissance during the summer of 2021, when the federal government once again cut off irrigation canals from Upper Klamath Lake, an event best described as a "tent revival" of racism in Klamath Falls. The featured "Bucket" was a staunch reminder of racism in the community for over a decade, parked in front of City Hall for thirteen years - A statement of white settler "conquest" over the Klamath Tribes. 

Leroy Gienger asked a reporter from Al Jazeera: "Have you ever tried to work with a 'gimmie'? That's what it's like working with the tribe: 'Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie'!" Gienger is an elderly cattle farmer, who despite being remanded by the State of Oregon to fence his cattle off from Klamath Lake so they don't destroy it, refuses without consequences because he says he likes his view! Gienger encapsulates the privileged white sense of entitlement, who'd rather the Klamath Tribes disappear completely, than work alongside them - Unfortunately Gienger is not in the minority. 

Upper Klamath Lake is dying from blue and green algae blooms covering its surface every summer. Nearly all of the pollution comes from agricultural run-off originating from farms upstream. Most communities in the U.S. would rally to rescue an endangered species like the C'waam or Koptu suckerfish, but not in Klamath Falls where the indigenous fish are just another reminder of the tribes "unwanted" by much of the white community - The farmers and ranchers want the Klamath Tribes to feel unwelcome in their own 'Home'! "Erasure" is the name of the game in settler-colonialism - If there are no Native people left, then the "Doctrine of Discovery" and "manifest destiny" will be complete.

Another result of the 2001 drainage of Klamath Lake during the severe drought was an epidemic of fish disease downstream in 2002 - More than 70,000 salmon died. The Yurok Tribe, which has been dependent on the Klamath River since time immemorial, have seen their original salmon runs reduced to 5%. "I remember the smell," said Yurok tribal member and fisherman Sammy Genshaw - "It was the smell of genocide because you could smell so much death, and this place has offered nothing but life-giving opportunities." 

As a result of counter-protests led by Klamath tribal member Joey Gentry, the "Bucket" was eventually removed, and the farmers of Klamath Falls had their 2021 appeal to the federal government for more water denied - A small victory for the Klamath Tribes who continue efforts to save their critically endangered suckerfish.

*Photo credit: Samantha Tipler/AP

* Click here or on photo to watch "Is racism to blame for Oregon's water crisis?" on The Stream, a discussion featuring water protector Joey Gentry, on Al Jazeera

"We have no more time to waste - We're on fire - We're covered in a blanket of smoke," said Klamath Tribes member Joey Gentry, during the introduction to the Fault Lines documentary "When the Water Stopped: An Oregon town at its breaking point". Meanwhile Bootleg Fire, which displaced 2,000 in Oregon, raged along with 70 other wildfires between Oregon and California during mid-July 2021 - "The whole West is in drought," said Gentry.

2021 has been a year of record-breaking heat and drought across the American West. Every year since the Klamath Project first began operating on May 22, 1907, farmers in the Klamath Basin have irrigated their farms with water from Upper Klamath Lake - Until the 2021 drought. "That water's ours," Klamath Falls resident and farmer Rodney Cheyne said to Al Jazeera, drawing a "line in the sand" against the Klamath Tribes. Farmers in Klamath Falls will eventually have to leave, unless the community works together to improve the more than century-old irrigation system, which means "burying the hatchet".

Klamath Basin residents - Both white farmers and Indigenous people - Are facing inevitable "displacement" if agricultural practices do not change immediately. "We're looking at 50 to 60 harvests until full 'desertification'," Joey Gentry said in a discussion on The Stream presented by Al Jazeera, holding up a jar of healthy soil - Don't treat your soil like DIRT! All Indigenous peoples say they are the land. For centuries Native people have been treated like "dirt" and walked all over by land-thieving European-American settlers. How can a white farmer like Cheyne tell his children not to steal, when his grand-parents and great-grand-parents openly benefited from land-theft? First came the Dawes Act of 1887, when the federal government decided to carve up on-reservation tribal lands, selling "allotments" to predominantly non-Native farmers - 98% of agricultural land in the United States is owned by WHITE people!

Klamath Falls residents prayed for rain all summer, but it never came, and by July the Bureau of Reclamation had shut off the water for the first time in two decades. "The tribes are saying it's all their water," said Robert Cheyne. "It is all about them having the power over us - And that power is water." This "us-versus-them" mentality promoted by the majority white community of Klamath Falls has led to a lawsuit between the farmers and Klamath Tribes, whom courts in Oregon recognize as the "first-in-time" recipients of the water - Plus release of the water from Upper Klamath Lake during a severe drought would certainly have made the endangered C'Waam and Koptu suckerfish go extinct!

Instead of working with the Klamath to retrofit their antique, wasteful, and extremely polluting irrigation system, the white farmers have yet another "bone to pick" with the tribe - They argue the Klamath Tribes' 1864 treaty with the federal government no longer applies because the tribe was "terminated" in 1954 by an act of Congress, known as the Klamath Termination Act. This law further stole "undeveloped" tribal land in the name of "progress", opening up thousands of acres to white settlers to "improve" for ranching and farming.

Klamath land-theft began in 1864, when their reservation was first formed, and they ceded nearly 22 MILLION acres of their traditional territory, while the Klamath Tribes were supposed to retain their homelands on 1.5 million acres "in perpetuity". Of course this was never the intention of the United States Congress, with its long and tainted history of violating Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which states "all treaties made[...] under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land[...] Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding"! Indigenous men and women in the United States serve in the U.S. military at the highest rate of any ethnic group - American Indian people are only 1.4% of the total U.S. population - Yet those who disclosed their identities as American Indian represent 1.7% of the military! A non-Native person may ask: Why are American Indian people fighting for the regime which has committed genocide against them for centuries? Answer: Because they're protecting their treaties - And because they want to keep their friends close but their enemies closer!

The Klamath's "War at Home" never quite ceased, even after the treaty-signing in 1864, which was ratified in 1870 by Congress. Seven years later many of those same members of Congress voted to pass the Dawes Act, taking a razor-blade to the Klamath's 1.5 million acre reservation, while the State of Oregon began to establish "illegal" settlements on unceded Klamath territory. These initial settlers were known as "homesteaders", the original European-American colonist folk of the Klamath Basin, whose descendants' families arrogantly and ignorantly say they've "been around a long time" - How does 150 years compare to millennia? 

War on the Klamath continued in the 1950s, when their remaining land was rich in natural resources, including the largest Ponderosa Pine forests in the western United States. As a result of lobbying by the logging industry, the Klamath Tribes were "terminated", meaning they lost their federal recognition. "Termination" is an exhaustive process, which requires an act of Congress to strip an American Indian nation of its sovereignty, and Public Law 587 removed all federal supervision over Klamath lands, as well as federal aid provided to the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin - Because their special status as "legal" Indians was stripped by the Klamath Termination Act - So the reservation became a "free-for-all" for illegally-occupying settlements - All because Congress passed an inherently unconstitutional law to steal their land for a god-d*mned new-age Oregon Trail! 

People have multiplied exponentially in the modern area, and time and time again since the "second-sons" of the Pilgrims began colonial expansion in the mid-17th century, Anglo-American governments have expanded relentlessly - Always in search of more land to seize either by law or force from Indigenous peoples. There seems to be a likely intentional or at the very least subconscious effort by farmers upstream from Upper Klamath Lake to endanger the lives of indigenous C'Waam and Koptu suckerfish. They are just two of one MILLION species the "man-made" climate crisis is driving to extinction. White farmers and ranchers just cannot wrap their head around the importance of these fish, nor the idea of the American Indian people's identities through their "genocidal lens". 

There were many state, federal, and folk-imperial genocide campaigns against Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest throughout the 19th-century. The mentality of contemporary settlers has changed little if at all - Many white folks in Klamath deny the land rightly belongs to the Klamath, saying they don't think giving Natives their land back will "improve" the situation - Instead some who feel colonial guilt may say: "It's terrible what happened to them," deflecting their ancestors' complicity, avoiding the acknowledgement of their inherent systematic privileges as descendants of settlers, and dismissing any links between the U.S. federal government and the genocide of American Indian peoples!

Laguna Pueblo author Paula Gunn Allen wrote in Genocide of the Mind: "White culture employs the mechanism it identifies as projection to avoid facing itself around the fact, history, and current situation of Native people and communities. Though in this instance it functions on a global scale, projection is all too clearly operative in the white world's version of Native America[...] split-off fragments of the Anglo-European psyche take on an energetic life of their own, appearing to non-Indians as actual people, ideas, systems, attitudes, and values the Western collective mind dubs 'Indian.'" This mind-altering perspective of genocide has led to subsequent generations of "destoryers", who've deforested, defiled, and "desertified" the Klamath Basin - Since the colonizers won't take any responsibility for themselves, who else is there to blame besides the Klamath Tribes?

"We destroyed their habitat for agriculture, for irrigation, for colonization, for profit," said Joey Gentry, seeing for the first time a dead suckerfish, which rise to the surface of Klamath Lake every year due to all-encompassing blue and green algae blooms. "Our [Klamath] Creation story tells us that if the fish die, the people die," said Gentry, "but before that happens we will fight - Because it's in our blood." Klamath people feel like they're already living in a state of war, as if the so-called "Indians Wars" of the 19th-century never ended, and they have only been intensified by the severe water shortage. In less than 120 years, agriculture has pushed the sacred C'Waam and Koptu suckerfish to the brink of extinction in Upper Klamath Lake, as farmers drain the wetlands to grow potatoes for potato chips and hay for dairy cows - Deprived of its natural filter, the lake turns toxic every year, with a thick cloud of blue and green algae blooms.

"It's always extraction, extraction, extraction," said Joey Gentry, "Extraction at the expense of our people, at the expense of our tribes, at the expense of what little resources we have left." Without the water available from Upper Klamath Lake, some farmers are pumping water from underground, and the water in the canals this summer came from local wells. Local farmers with no access to water like Robert Cheyne talk about their neighbors sharing well-water out of "the goodness of their hearts" - If their hearts are so "good", then why haven't these same farmers been willing to share their previous abundance with the Klamath Tribes, even after the federal government stole all of their natural resources? The concerted effort by many agriculturalists in Klamath Falls to "displace" the remaining Indigenous people has back-fired - Now the farmers themselves face potentially becoming "climate refugees" within the next three decades - Yet some residents continue to ignorantly "toot their own horn" about how their families seized land from the Klamath peoples.

"I was here since 'termination'," elderly cattle rancher Larry Gienger told Al Jazeera. "The Indian land was broke up and sold - We occupied it just like the Romans did," Gienger said proudly. "That's the way it's been since time began - The strong take it from the weak." Apparently Mr. Gienger is not as "good" of a Christian as he postures himself to be, nor can he appreciate the irony of his opinion - "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" - Matthew 5:5. 

After 1954 the Klamath were deprived from any federal management of natural resources, and with insanely wasteful irrigation canals diverting and polluting essential water downstream, the agricultural industry has run amok! The Klamath Basin has been going to "hell in a hand-basket" for over 50 years - Klamath Falls the "City of Sunshine" became a "sun-baked" desert during the summer of 2021 - Yet instead of the Klamath farmers taking responsibility, the farmers publicly attack Indigenous communities, even though science has proven the Klamath Project irrigation canals are the main cause of the water crisis!

Indigenous Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin people refuse to surrender to their ongoing oppression and destruction of natural resources. "Our people have survived disease, war, and genocide," said Klamath member Joey Gentry, "but the one thing we didn't lose was our rights to hunt, fish, trap, and gather on these lands." Sadly there isn't much left now that the sacred C'Waam and Koptu are on "life-support" and haven't reproduced in 30 years! All the Klamath were left with after the unconstitutional land-theft in 1954 was the water, which has proven to be the final stage of colonization for the most recent wave of Oregonian "pioneers", and their unspoken assault on life in Upper Klamath Lake has been ongoing for more than half a century. 

There are only around 24 thousand suckerfish remaining in Upper Klamath Lake, with no babies to replace them since the last successful spawning in the early 1990s - The dead suckerfish rising to the surface every summer are at least 30 years-old. For an animal to drink the contaminated water from Upper Klamath Lake would make it extremely ill, if not kill it - And the poor quality of the lake-water is all the result of "irresponsible agricultural practices" - "I think of my dad when I see this [dead suckerfish]," Gentry said with a sob caught in her throat, upon seeing the devastation of Upper Klamath Lake up-close for the first time.

The Klamath Treaty of 1864 has proven to be a real "thorn in the side" of white farmers in the Klamath Basin, who've been losing lawsuits against the Klamath Tribes in federal court, because their "first dibs" are blocked by constitutionally-guaranteed Klamath usury rights which supersede theirs. The Klamath Irrigation Project was first built in the early 20th-century, when European-Americans still assumed water was an "infinite" resource, and that the hydrology of the early 1900s would continue until the "end of Time" - Now there's not enough water to go around.

The ethnic divide in Klamath has deeply affected the life of Joey Gentry, whose white mother married her Klamath father, and her discriminatory European-American family has rejected Gentry since before she was born. Joey Gentry got out of Klamath Falls as soon as she could after graduating high school, and when she returned in 2016, she felt uncomfortable about the revival of white supremacy emboldened by the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. "[I was] hearing this repeated sense of entitlement from fifth and sixth-generation farmers - That their grandparents told them there would always be water," said Gentry. "Well there's the problem - Your grandfather told you there would always be water, but my dad was telling me we gotta throw these fish back because there's not enough."

Many Klamath farmers like Rodney Cheyne "play the victim" and complain about how they feel like the "entire world is against them" - Cheyne outright denies any culpability for the expulsion of Klamath peoples from their own lands. "I Rodeny Cheyne did not kick anybody off his own ground for his own benefit. I wasn't the one here physically killing them and taking them off their land - The fish are the only way the tribes can get retribution the 'white man'." Cheyne along with thousands of other European-American descendants cannot adopt a perspective of "co-existence" with Klamath tribal people, nor can they recognize their dehumanizing perspective of Indigenous people and their sacred fish as the "Enemy" - And the farmers have little to no awareness of their racist "self-righteousness"!

Local agriculturalists and cattle ranchers were already full of angst, so when the federal government said "No" to their desperate pleas for water in 2021, white Klamath residents got organized and the fundamentally racist "Klamath Bucket Brigade" was revitalized. The "Bucket Brigade" was formed during the first water shut-off in 2001, when thousands of farmers filled the streets of Klamath Falls, symbolically transferring water from Upper Klamath Lake to the irrigation canals. "Everybody was there - We were united," said Rodney Cheyne, intentionally excluding the local Klamath people in his defininition of "everybody". Tensions rose and members of the Klamath Tribes faced harassment in town, most severely when during  the 2001 "shut-off", the majority American Indian town of Chiloquin, OR was targeted by shotgun-toting "Bucket brigadiers" - Who fired their weapons and yelled "sucker-lovers!" Under pressure from the media, the Bureau of Reclamation turned the water back on - "The federal government came and gave us our water," said Cheyne - Once again depicting Indigenous Klamath people as the "Others".

The victory of farmers led to an epidemic of fish disease downstream - An estimated 70 thousand thousand salmon washed up dead in 2002 as a result of the irrigation canals being turned back on! Not only were the Klamath Tribes devastated but the Yurok as well, who depend on the Klamath River for their livelihood and cultural survival - Today the Yurok estimate that less than 5% of the salmon run remains. Despite the fish-kill, white protesters memorialized the "Bucket", placing it in front of City Hall for more than a decade, a staunch reminder of their "victory" over both the Klamath Tribes and the federal government - The ten-foot tall bucket sent the message "loud and clear" that Klamath Falls supports the farmers.

"I use the 'Bucket Brigade' as the tipping point," said Joey Gentry. "That bucket is our racist monument." When the white community experienced their water shut-off during the summer of 2021, the "Bucket" returned, with its slogan of "Let the water flow" written in red ink - For Klamath people the metaphorical bucket symbolized the blood of their ancestors who lost their lives resisting the colonial occupation. Farmers and "far-right" self-appointed "militiamen" once again made national news when they set up next to the head-gates of the irrigation canal, an implicit threat they would take the water "by force" if necessary.

"You gotta either stand up and take it, or you're never gonna have water here again," said Dan Nielsen, founder and organizer of the "Klamath Bucket Brigade". Nielsen categorically denies any racist depictions the "Bucket" implies: "[The Klamath Tribes] complain the bucket right here is racist - 'White people are racist, if you're Christian you're racist, if you believe in the constitution you're racist.'" This last statement about Indigenous people opposing the U.S. Constitution shows how fundamentally ignorant people like Dan Nielsen really are - All the Klamath Tribes want are to exercise and restore their traditional lands and treaty rights - Which are supposed to be "protected" by the constitution!

According to Rodney Cheyne, Dan Nielsen is "a very good friend - A very good neighbor" - But if Nielsen is so "good", then why does he want to remove the indigenous Klamath suckerfish from the "Endangered Species List"? Klamath Falls' "Welcome" sign says "Supporting Wildlife & Agriculture", even though the white community has made clear that only the latter matters in the "City of Sunshine" - Despite the salmon on their sign. The Klamath Tribes say the hostility goes far beyond the "Bucket Brigade" - Tribal members say it's "baked" into the way white ranchers and farmers manage their land, and that some refuse to make even small changes that could save the fish just to "spite" the tribes. 

As Paula Gunn Allen continued to write  in Genocide of the Mind: "For as matters stand presently, Native people are uneasy knowing that if we fail to line in accordance with the false identity foisted off on us to the satisfaction of the powerful white world, we will again be consigned to the outer darkness of poverty, disease, and hopelessness. The threat is very real, and the mindlessness, the culturewide delusion that occasions it, is very dangerous to those of us who live in accordance with another view of the nature of reality and the role of human consciousness within it."

Even when the Oregon Department of Agriculture demands ranchers like Leroy Gienger protect the Upper Klamath Lake from destruction of cattle, they refuse without consequences. "[It happened] because one Indian complained," said Gienger, who will not build a fence along his property which borders the lake - The same area suckerfish need to breed! Even though one of Gienger's "favorite" spots is host to 14 of what he calls "Indian bowls", he won't recognize the humanity of Indigenous people, instead calling them "gimmies". The colonialism which brought settlers to Klamath in the first place has become the biggest "stumbling block", which will ultimately result in the downfall of agriculture in the Klamath Basin - The entire problem is that many white people think that they "won" and should be able to "run the place" as they "see fit".

Racism in Klamath Falls reared its ugly head in 2020 during #BlackLivesMatter protests, when several hundred "far-right" militants armed themselves against friends, neighbors, and tribal members - So-called "Right-wingers" who talk about "civil war" don't want to admit there is already a war going on against black and brown people, who are gunned down in the streets by police and militant racists, and they are the real instigators. Instead these "de facto" racists prey on the collective mass "paranoia" of many white folks to uphold systematic and institutionalized "white think" in the United States.

During the #BlackLivesMatter protests there was a face-off on Main Street in Klamath Falls between protesters carrying nothing besides signs, and the heavily-armed "militia" who said they were there to prevent "looting" - Showing the underlying notion among so-called "gun-rights" advocates in the U.S. that private property is more valuable than human life. A sign on Cheyne's property serves as a perfect example - An image of a pistol and underneath is written the slogan 'We Don't Call 911' - Talk about "shoot first and ask questions later"!

"These people were yelling at us 'Go back home!'" Joey Gentry said, "but when you tell that to an Indigenous person - Where are we supposed to go? It's just a 'snippet' of the hatred and disdain against our tribal members." After the divisive incident in 2020, the City of Klamath Falls formed the "Equity Task-force". As a member of the task-force, Joey Gentry presented the final results of the task-force's investigation into the apparent racism in Klamath Falls. "Klamath has a history of racism which continues to be handed down from generation to generation. Our water crisis still continues today because of racism against the [Klamath Tribes], and racism against the tribe exists in part today because of our water crisis."

Joey Gentry rattled off a number of statements from community members in Klamath Falls: "N-words and Indians - Could it get any worse? This is a 'Cowbys and Indians' fight - Too bad we didn't finish the job the first time." Gentry then made a humble request: "We're asking [Klamath Falls City Council] to issue a formal proclamation acknowledging that a long history of anti-Indigenous racism has worsened disagreements over water." Gentry began to get emotional as she confronted her inter-generational trauma as an Indigenous person: "How I knew I was a Native - How I knew I was a 'Klamath Indian' was because I fished with my dad." 

The fate of Klamath peoples is intrinsically tied to that of the C'Waam and Koptu suckerfish. "We're asking for our fish to be preserved - To prevent them from going extinct," said Gentry in front of the Klamath Falls City Council - Of course the city council "disbanded" the task force without acting on its recommendations. Joey Gentry "stuck a nerve", but the leadership and community of Klamath Falls continue to avoid recognizing their racist past, present, and almost certainly future.

"Our Creation story tells us if the fish die, the people die," said Gentry, "so we have to hear the message that our fish are telling us." The misinformation, racism, and distrust of Native people in the Klamath Basin will eventually lead to water taps running dry if nothing changes - Which it probably won't until it's "too late". With their perception of the land, water, and Klamath people twisted and perverted by centuries of historical discrimination, land-theft, and genocide of Indigenous peoples in the region, the white farmers' proposed "solution" continues to be denying any fault, refusing to adapt and adjust agricultural and irrigation practices to minimize the destruction of the "man-made" climate crisis, meanwhile pitying themselves, and "pointing fingers" at the Klamath Tribes, whom they accuse of "Rural Cleansing" - Whatever that means. How about the "rednecks" be honest and for once admit European-American people have been responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous peoples for over five centuries?!?

Despite the widespread wildfires, massive hurricanes, and the 2021 water shut-off, "climate denial" among "far-right" farmers and ranchers remains staunch, and they refuse to change and continue to blame the Klamath and their sacred fish. It's an "existential crisis", which can only be solved through cooperation between agriculturalists and the tribes - Unfortunately this seems highly unlikely to happen in the Klamath Basin. By refusing to come to terms with its genocidal past and reconcile with the tribes, working alongside them to fix the environmental devastation, the "Bucket Brigade" lost its 2021 "battle" against the Klamath Tribes and federal government. The organization's slogans are full of hypocrisy - "Save your Home! Stop Rural Cleansing" and "Help Amend the Endangered Species Act" - "Bucket brigadiers" still want to prevent the tribe from "cleansing" their stolen land and removing toxins from their water - Deflecting the reality farmers are responsible for its destruction - Plus the "idiots" want to remove the critically endangered suckerfish from the "Endangered Species List"! 

Their behavior is the definition of "insanity" - Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. "They're gone - The 'Bucket' is gone too - How awesome is that?" Joey Gentry said, upon first viewing the space "cleansed" of its occupying settlers. "This distraction is gone," said Gentry. "I guess that we're doing some work. I guess that it's starting to make a difference - So now the real work begins."

*Photo credit Eliyahu Kamisher/The Guardian

* Click here or on photo for link to for the Fault Lines documentary "When the Water Stopped: An Oregon Town at its Breaking Point" presented by Al Jazeera!

In 1996 the coho salmon were listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. For the Yurok Tribe fishing on the Klamath River is a deeply spiritual and life-sustaining practice - The coho salmon has been the center of the Yurok's culture and economy since time immemorial. In recent decades the Klamath River's salmon population has plummeted to 5% of its pre-colonial levels. Negepek' nepuy means "I always eat salmon" in the Yurok language, but to preserve their sacred coho salmon, the fish weren't able to be served for two years at the 54th and 55th annual Klamath Salmon Festivals. "To protect the overall fish population, the Yurok Tribe severely restricted or completely curtailed all fishing for two consecutive seasons [2016-2017]," said Amy Cordalis, Yurok Tribe's General Counsel.

In a segment on The Stream, Brook Thompson of the Yurok Tribe and organization Save California Salmon said, "As Indigenous people the Klamath River is everything to us. When the river is doing poorly, we do poorly - When we can't get food from the water because our salmon populations are dying - Because of the drought and water being allocated to other places - Then our diabetes and obesity rates go up - It's physically killing people." Thompson continued to talk about the familial impacts of the salmon die-off as well: "Our families can't be together - All of our family time is spent on the [Klamath-Trinity River]. When there's no economic income, when there are no practices culturally where we can go on the river anymore, then those families get split up and have to spend time other places."

The annual summer algal blooms - Massive outbreaks of blue and green algae from agricultural run-off upstream - Weigh down the nets of Yurok fishermen and make catching salmon almost impossible. When the algae dies, it releases an outbreak of deadly toxins into the water, making it unsafe for humans and animals. For the past several decades irresponsible agricultural practices and the resultant pollution, combined with unnaturally warm water, have reduced one of the highest salmon-producing rivers on the West Coast by 95%.

Adding to the problem is a sprawling network of dams and irrigation canals managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, built in the early 20th-century to attract "homesteaders" to an area that otherwise couldn't support agriculture, but the unprecedented drought of 2021 led to the first major shut-off of the Klamath Project's irrigation canals in U.S. history. More than 700 miles of canals, 7 dams, and 28 pumping stations make up the Klamath Irrigation Project, which annually drains as much as HALF of the water from the Klamath River! The lower the river gets, the harder adult salmon must work their way upstream to spawn, while the warmer water proliferates fatal diseases that attack baby salmon or 'smolt' - As they attempt to migrate from their spawning grounds to the Pacific Ocean, low water levels in the Klamath cause infection rates to soar among smolt, and during those years the Yurok are forced to wholly cease commercial fishing.

After the Bureau of Reclamation refused to shut off the Klamath Irrigation Project during 2001, due to resistance from disgruntled farmers, at least 70,000 adult salmon were killed in 2002 from a disease that infected the fish's gills as they made their way upstream to spawn - Yurok people could smell the river and the stench of rotting fish carcasses for miles around - The smell of genocide. "In the past two decades, the Klamath River's juvenile and adult salmon populations have experienced numerous disease-driven die-offs, including the largest pre-spawn mortality event in American history," wrote Yurok Fisheries Department Director Dave Hillemeier. "Excessive water diversions, nutrient loading, modified sediment budgets, and dams create the ideal ecological conditions for fish pathogens to populate the river at elevated rates - Indiscriminately killing thousands of chinook and threatened coho salmon, the disease organisms responsible for these recurring fish losses flourish in the river's artificially warm, algae-filled and altered ecosystem."

The Yurok nation's struggle to protect the Klamath River goes back nearly two centuries to the California Gold Rush, when unregulated mining and logging operations decimated the salmon spawning habitats, bringing settlers and Yurok into frequent conflict. By 1855 75% of ALL Yurok tribal members had been killed by either germ warfare, starvation, or armed conflict with settlers. The "California Genocide" killed thousands of Indigenous peoples, with U.S. government agents and folk-imperial Anglo-American settlers massacring between an estimated 10 to 20 thousand California Natives - In addition to attacking their food sources such as the salmon.

Originally the Yurok were spread out along the Klamath River in 50 villages throughout what is now Northern California. The Yurok Indian Reservation has been reduced to a 44-mile stretch of the Klamath River - 85 square miles of land but ONLY 3.35 sq mi of water! "Yurok" is in fact a word from the Karuk language for "downriver" used to simplify a complex society spread between the 'Oohl', meaning Indian people in the Yurok's native Algic language family, consisting of the Down-River people (Pue-lik-lo'), Up-River people (Pey-cheek-lo'), and the Coast people (Ner-'er-ner'). The Klamath-Trinity River is the lifeline of the Oohl (Yurok), because it is the source of the majority of their food supply, including the ney-puy (salmon), Kaa-ka (sturgeon), and kwor-ror (candlefish) - They are essential to people's health, wellness, and religious ceremonies.

"Who we are as Indigenous people is directly tied to the river[...] The Klamath River literally encompasses everything - Who we are - What it means to be 'Indigenous' - For me the issue of the Klamath River is a fight for life or death," said Brook Thompson of Save California Salmon. Despite negotiating with the federal government to establish the Yurok Reservation in 1855, the nation was effectively reduced to its 88 square miles of land and water, yet still settlers complained about the Yurok having "excess". Since then each subsequent generation of Yurok has had to fight for their usury rights to hunt, fish, and gather. The strength of the Oohl can be seen from how the Yurok are the only tribal nation in California who have never been removed from their ancestral homelands, despite the inter-generational struggle, but now the "man-made" climate crisis has only worsened the situation.

Since the California Gold Rush and complete devastation of redwood forests, the Klamath Irrigation Project became the greatest threat to Yurok people's way of life, after it was first completed in 1906 and began flowing in 1907. The State of California recognized in the 1930s that the humongous Bureau of Reclamation irrigation project threatened California's fish populations, so the state government "outlawed" ALL commercial fishing for salmon - Including the Yurok! 

Four decades of struggle and legal action eventually led the Yurok to win back their right to fish the river, but tribal members were only able to enjoy the salmon for a few years, until the California Supreme Court once again banned the Yurok from fishing in the Klamath River in 1978. The 1970s were an era of Indigenous militancy, including the occupations of Alcatraz by Indians of All Tribes and Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement, while the Yurok also took up arms in what became known as the "Klamath Salmon Wars".

"Our Creator gave us the right to sustainably harvest salmon from the Klamath River. In return, we have a sacred duty to be a strong steward of the river and all of the life it supports," wrote Chairman of the Yurok Tribe Joseph L. James. "Since time immemorial, this reciprocal relationship has ensured the prosperity of uncountable generations of Yurok people. That is why we fought so hard in the Salmon Wars and will continue to fight to preserve our salmon runs for all future generations." Now the Yurok Tribe has once again mobilized, along with the Hoopa Valley Tribe and Klamath Tribes - This time to fight unsustainable agriculture and the farmers upstream who knowingly threaten their way of life.

In 2017 a U.S. district judge found that the Bureau of Reclamation's operation of the Klamath Irrigation Project is "causing irreparable harm" to the salmon, the Yurok Tribe, and its families who depend on the Klamath River for subsistence. The court ordered federal agencies to immediately take steps to protect juvenile coho salmon after several years of deadly disease outbreaks in the Klamath River. Farmers and the Bureau of Reclamation challenged the decision, which upheld the water rights of Yurok, Hoopa Valley, and Klamath Tribes as "first-in-time" and predating the Klamath Irrigation Project, but the farmers' appeal failed in 2019, ending the decades-long Baley v. United States legal case over who has the first "right" to the water of the Klamath River.

"We will fight any move to weaken protections for juvenile salmon from deadly parasites and lay the groundwork for safeguards that will protect the fish that sustain the Tribe," said Stephanie Tsosie, a Diné (Navajo) national and attorney working for Earthjustice on behalf of the Yurok. "Earthjustice is resolved to fight for the survival of Klamath salmon and stand with the Yurok Tribe as they defend their cultural heritage and economic well-being." In March 2020 the Klamath Basin tribes secured a three-year plan from the Bureau of Reclamation for additional springtime water flows to support the Klamath River salmon population. However in May of the same year the federal government once again broke its "promise", when the Bureau of Reclamation withheld their commitments to the salmon without warning due to drought predictions. Despite challenging the water shut-off, citing potential for catastrophic loss of salmon, the courts "refused to weigh in further" - Same old story - The federal government was once again staying out of "Indian business".

Yet there remains much to be celebrated. Indigenous peoples' way of life is based on giving thanks to the Creator for life-sustaining opportunities every day, a gift from Wonoye-eeks 'o'l - 'God' in the Yurok language. 2018 saw sufficient restoration of salmon in the Klamath-Trinity River to begin harvesting again, and after two years without salmon, the fish were once again served at the 56th Annual Klamath Salmon Festival. 2021 may have been the hardest year for the coho salmon since time began, which is why the Yurok Tribe continues to fight, ensuring there will be salmon in the Klamath River for future generations.

*Photo via Earthjustice

* Click here or on photo to learn more about the Yurok Tribe's battle to protect the salmon in Klamath River from EarthJustice!

Water injustice is rampant in the Klamath-Trinity River Basin extending from southern Oregon to northern California, where beyond the lush redwood forests and the river valley, arid plains surround the region. This area was unavailable for agriculture until the early 20th-century, when the federal U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began diverting water from the Klamath and Trinity Rivers with its Klamath Irrigation Project beginning in 1907. During an extreme drought in 2021, when once snow-peaked mountains stood bare and parched, decision-makers from the Bureau were faced with a difficult choice - Farms or fish.

Spring and winter runs of chinook and coho salmon have already been nearing extinction, yet the State of California was doing little to nothing to preserve water for the state's salmon runs, which were quickly becoming casualties of the state and federal governments' destructive water infrastructure. Chief Caleen Audry Sisk, elder and spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu nation, referred to the State of California's water commitments to farmers as "paper-water" - There is simply not enough water to go around! More water has been pledged to Oregon and California farmers than flows in the Klamath-Trinity River each year, and if nothing changes with pollution levels or the receding water table, the salmon will either go extinct or at the very least be extirpated from the Klamath.

The State of California was prepared to break its own laws during the first major drought of summer 2001, avoiding their legally-binding responsibility to protect reservoir storage and river flows, while both salmon reproduction AND drinking water supplies were threatened - Talk about "robbing Peter to pay Paul"! Indigenous land and and water theft have been the under-handed, unspoken, and unmentionable policy of state and federal governments throughout U.S. history. In fact the genocidal policies of early CA were institutionalized in 1851 by its first Governor Peter Hardeman Burnett, when he wrote: "a war of extermination will continue to be waged between races, until the Indian race becomes extinct."

The California Gold Rush of the mid-19th century sparked a series of genocide campaigns by federal agents and folk-imperial settlers, reducing the population of the Hoopa Valley Tribe from 1,000 to 500 between the years 1770 to 1910. "Extermination" has continued well into the 21st-century - Except now salmon are the targets. Even though tribal water rights are encoded into state and federal law, the State of California largely ignores these, and CA's federal Central Valley Water Project diverts water extensively from the Shasta and Trinity Reservoirs - Headwaters of the state's largest rivers - Built exclusively to benefit large-scale industrial farming in the desert of CA's southern Central Valley.

California's "state rights" to water came into play through "urban development", such as the Los Angeles Aqueduct which began construction in 1908, when there was state-wide damming tributaries of the Sierra Mountains to build cities. To give a sense for the scale of its construction, upon completion in 1913 the 233-mile long LA Aqueduct was the largest hydro-engineering project in North America, second in the world only to the Panama Canal. This is where California's "paper-water" system came from - Now CA finds itself in a crisis of its own making - Where they've allocated FIVE times as much water than actually exists!

These unjust water "rights" aren't only affecting Indigenous people - A hypothetical rice farmer in Death Valley, CA can use 4 times as much water as LA residents, even as the "man-made" climate crisis is making droughts common. Of course at the bottom of the pyramid are Indigenous peoples such as the Hoopa Valley Tribe and their salmon - The fish are a cornerstone for ceremony, spirituality, sustenance, and physical existence - Even Western scientists have linked compromised mental health, as well as increased diabetes, heart disease, and obesity to dwindling salmon populations - California salmon and Indigenous people are literally in "dire straits". 

In addition to quickly dwindling reservoir storage, the State of California has a proven track-record of choosing to let entire migratory groups of salmon die, rather than challenge the powerful federally-funded agriculture industry or update its outdated irrigation system in the state. Hoopa Valley Tribe, along with the rest of Klamath Basin tribes and other northern California tribal nations such as Winnemem Wintu in Shasta, suffered greatly from the state's "bad" decisions on water during the 2014-2015 drought. For instance OVER 90% of the Sacramento River's winter run salmon baby 'smolt' and eggs were killed, while nearly ALL of the Klamath River's juvenile fall chinook salmon were killed for 3 consecutive years between 2015-2017. Hoopa Valley tribal members and their neighbors were forced to suspend tribal fishing rights to preserve their decimated populations.

Of course this amounted to another one of former U.S. president Donald J. Trump's "crimes against to humanity". Indigenous people in the river valleys of northern CA consider their fates intrinsically tied to that of their life-sustaining salmon - However the federal Bureau of Reclamation proposed to keep Trump's 2020 "plan" for managing the Central Valley Water project. History will give Trump an "F" for the water distribution project on his presidential report card, beginning in spring 2020, when almost 90% of "endangered" winter-run chinook salmon died! Despite the area's tribal nations and environmental groups' confrontations and lawsuits against the state, the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) continued with its designs to further drain the Shasta Reservoir, knowingly violating the Endangered Species Act. The Indigenous-led coalition even turned in an "alternate plan" to compromise on the management of water diversions from the Shasta and Trinity reservoirs, but the SWRCB ignored them, instead continuing with their "business as usual".

"What many don't understand is that California is a salmon state, and what happens to the salmon happens to us," said Winnemem Wintu Chief Caleen Audrey Sisk. "What happens to the people if salmon runs are nearing extinction, and if the rivers are dangerously low and full of algae?" Chief Sisk asked. "Not only did [California Governor Gavin] Newsom and the state fail to take any actions to protect the [Shasta] reservoir's storage or river flows in Northern California this year - They actually tried to say that actions like building Sites Reservoir and voluntary agreements for water withdrawals are 'drought measures'. These proposals benefit industrial agriculture which uses 80% of the state's water, NOT the North State or Tribal communities - Salmon benefit us." Of course the State of California has yet to take any action for their violations, and is currently considering yet another plan to violate state water quality laws, as well as the Endangered Species Act.

Save California Salmon, a grassroots group dedicated to regenerating rivers by restoring water flows and salmon habitat, demands the removal of dams and improving water quality throughout northern CA. Thanks to efforts of Save California Salmon and their allies, the company PacifiCorp which owns the dams on the Klamath agreed to remove four of its six dams along the Klamath River by 2020 - PacifiCorp missed its "deadline" and has not yet removed a single one. The company complained they "hit a snag" during July 2020, and they are "anticipated" to begin dam removal by early 2023 - Yet as of now PacifiCorp has no legal obligation and will likely push back the date again, considering the inevitable droughts caused by a "man-made" climate crisis.

Attorney for the Yurok Tribe Amy Cordalis explained: "Our salmon are in the poorest condition they've ever been in and that's hard as a tribal person to even say, to even acknowledge because that hurts us to our core. Many people know that the Klamath River was once the third-largest salmon-producing river in the whole west[...] Now it's very hard to acknowledge that there are so few fish left." The region-wide drought beginning in spring 2021 only worsened the situation - Almost all of the juvenile Klamath salmon died from a disease called Ceratonova shasta, which spread by a host parasite that thrives in the low water conditions in dammed watersheds.

Scientists have backed southern Oregon and northern California tribal nations, saying that the promised Klamath dam removal would "greatly" reduce C. shasta, yet during the summer of 2021 the Bureau of Reclamation denied the Yurok Tribe's request for water releases - Another "broken promise" which left many tribal biologists with the morbid job of counting dead salmon. "I have worked for Yurok fisheries for 23 years and extinction was never part of the conversation, but over the last five to seven years, there's been an overall decline within the lower basin," Yurok tribal biologist Jamie Holt said. "We have seen increased water temperatures, longer durations of high temperatures, and lack of river flow leading to disease distribution. These factors led to the large-scale fish-kill we witnessed in the spring [of 2021]. If we have another die-off of this level, we will be discussing extinction."

Holt explained how the Yurok Tribe has seen at least a 2/3 reduction in juvenile fish in just a few years due to the fish-kill, stating the C. shasta "hot-zone" has gone from a small section of the river to over a hundred mile stretch - Through the middle of the Yurok reservation. Tribal biologists are emotionally exhausted from coping with the die-offs. "My feelings are equal parts anger and sadness - As a scientist this is so frustrating, as so many people have called out the mismanagement of the river and said what needs to happen for so long," said Jamie Holt. "As a Yurok person, I was put here to take care of these fish - I feel like we are really sinking here."

Meanwhile alfalfa farmers downriver from the two major salmon tributaries of the Klamath River were unconcerned - They started irrigating their fields in early spring 2021 - Without the restrictions that the Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Irrigation Project beneficiaries were supposed to face. The Shasta River is the only spring-fed tributary of the Klamath below the dams, creating the main reproduction sites for fall-run Chinook salmon, but river flows dropped quickly and salmon were threatened. Meanwhile the Scott River, a main spawning ground in the Upper Klamath region for the endangered coho salmon, along with the Shasta runs dry by fall due to pell-mell water diversions - In 2021 both rivers began to dry up by early summer.

The Klamath regional Karuk Tribe filed a legal petition demanding that the SWRBC take immediate action to restrict irrigation deliveries in the Scott River Valley. "The worst water conditions in history led federal agencies to shut off 1,300 farms in the Upper Basin, but in the Scott Valley water users continue 'business as usual'," said Karuk Tribe Chairman Russell "Buster" Attebery. "They are 'de-watering' the last stronghold of coho salmon in the Klamath Basin, driving them to extinction."

The Trinity River was no better off - The Klamath River's largest tributary is diverted into CA's Central Valley Water Project - The Hoopa Valley Tribe warned the Bureau of Reclamation that the river was suffering unusually high temperatures and experiencing a toxic algae bloom. Trinity River has since time immemorial been a cool water source salmon have relied on, yet in 2021 adult spring-run chinook salmon had few places to go where water temperatures were not lethal - The salmon were over-crowded and vulnerable to disease. Klamath-Trinity spring-run chinook salmon, which needed a petition from the Karuk Tribe to list the fish as "endangered" under state law, began to be affected by "gill rot" or Columnaris which had already killed more than 64,000 adult salmon in 2002.

Klamath tribal nations were only allowed a three-day water release to help "springers" in 2021 move before they ALL died - However as the flows were being released, a "comment period" (meaning "influential" white farmers complained) saw another 36,000 acre-feet of water from the Trinity reservoirs diverted due to the Sacramento River being "closed". The devastating plan threatened future water releases for the Trinity and Klamath salmon as well as drinking water sources. "Sending water out of the Trinity River system is bad enough, but to send additional water out-of-basin during an extreme drought leaves our salmon even more vulnerable," said Hoopa Valley tribal member and advisory board member of Save California Salmon Allie Hostler. "To make it through this dry season, we needed to fight to retain at LEAST 600,000 acre-feed behind Trinity Dam - We were lucky we didn't not see another catastrophic fish-kill. Continuing to deplete water storage in which BIG-ag gets water deliveries for non-essential crops is NOT acceptable."

During summer 2021 the Klamath tribal nations met with the Bureau of Reclamation on a weekly basis to discuss water conditions and check temperature levels and water quality to no avail. "Although we've won several landmark cases, the pressure continues to rise as we see our salmon's health dwindling and more demand for our cold, clean water - We are prepared to continue our fight and keep Trinity River water in the Trinity River system [forever]," said Hoopa Valley Tribe Chairman Joe Davis. By the end of 2021's battles over water between willfully ignorant and predominantly racist white farmers, the Trinity River reservoirs' carry-over shortage was drained to less than 29%!

During the height of California's water wars in 2021, the Winnemem Wintu prepared a 300-mile spiritual Run4Salmon from the McCloud River above the Shasta Reservoir to San Francisco Bay, drawing attention to the salmon crisis among CA's "progressives". Winemmem Wintu Chief Caleen Audrey Sisk explained: "Run4Salmon is a way to get people onto the water, to see how the water is treated, where it is exported, and to help people think 'outside the box' about water. Many people think the water is exported for drinking water, but it is not - It is mainly diverted to industrial agriculture, which continues to expand [despite the droughts]. These are not farmers feeding Americans - It is BIG-ag exporting crops like almonds - Our salmon, a healthy food source, are facing extinction - Almonds and pistachios are not."

Trinity and Klamath river tribal nation members ran and prayed with the Winnemem Wintu, running along the route that brings Trinity River water into the Sacramento River, then down to industrial farms in the Central CA Valley. Further down the 300-mile route, members of Sacramento River, Bay Delta, and other San Francisco Bay Area tribal communities joined Run4Salmon who ran, rode on horseback, boated, and biked - All of them praying for the salmon during the massive adult fish-kill of chinook salmon, which was occurring on Butte Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River.

Spring salmon had actually been recovering in Butte Creek, spawning in 2021 when they began to die from the outbreak of two fish diseases, ich and columnaris. By the end of the summer at LEAST 16,000 adult spring chinook salmon had died in Butte Creek - Local advocates blamed Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) dams and water diversions for the fish-kill. "We have to allow fish to swim into the upper-watershed [of Butte Creek] and  make sure that the water is cold by NOT diverting it out of the stream," said Allen Harthorn, executive director of Friends of Butte Creek. "What a tragedy it is to lose so many fish when there's available habitat and available water and a failing PG&E hydroelectric system is the only thing in the way."

In addition to providing water for large-scale irrigation projects, dams provide hydroelectricity, which amounts to just around 7% of U.S. electrical output, claiming to be the source of more than half of the country's "renewable" energy - Again this is based on the assumption that water will always "renew" itself, an assumption which has proven to be "false" within the past decade. However the increasing availability of solar, wind, and especially tidal energy in California could quickly minimize and eventually phase-out the national reliance on hydro-power - The consequences for endangered species such as the chinook and coho salmon certainly outweigh the advantages of this "easy" form of energy. For instance the 2021 annual Salmon River Spring Chinook Cooperative Dive provided bleak news - Only 100 wild adult spring salmon had returned!

"The cultural significance of the spring salmon is beyond Euro-American conception. It's more than just a policy trying to get passed through," said Hoopa Valley tribal member and Karuk Spring Salmon Ceremonial Priest Ryan Reed. "The spring salmon are our relatives who are facing extinction, and a part of our lifestyle, cultural longevity, and the survival of my [Klamath Basin] people." Reed was one of many tribal members from the area who testified at a state Endangered Species Act hearing in CA during spring 2021, saying what they dreaded was for such an important food source to be listed as "threatened" - Extinction of the salmon was an unthinkable scenario.

Under pressure from a growing number of Californians, right after the Run4Salmon concluded with its intertribal ceremony north of San Francisco, the California SWRCB ceased its water diversions to Bay Delta farmers and "junior" water rights holders in the Scott and Shasta rivers - Yet by that point the Scott River was limited to a series of pools full of trapped salmon. Save California Salmon testified in favor of the irrigation restrictions, explaining to the CA State Water Board: "These curtailments are vital and [too] little too late - Fishermen and tribes are facing incredibly HUGE losses over and over again."

The "man-made" climate crisis is only exacerbating "Water Wars" in the American West, which have until now seen white industrial farmers with the upper-hand, violating constitutionally-guaranteed treaty rights for tribal nations to hunt, fish, and gather in their homelands - Clearly the "California Genocide" never stopped. "Who gets clean clean water in California is a social justice issue," said Save California Salmon in a letter to the editor of the LA Times. "The climate crisis highlights the fact that California has to reassess its antiquated rater-rights system. Cities, native people, and rivers should not continue to be without water, while farmers flood their land."

*Photo via Redhead Blackbelt

* Click here or on photo to read more from Save California Salmon via truth-out.org!