[env-trinity] Hoopa Valley Tribe/Westlands Water District

[Byron Leydecker]

Hoopa Valley Tribe Protests Westlands Water District Grab on Trinity 
River

May. 17, 2006 at 9:27 AM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Clifford Lyle Marshall (530) 625-4211
Mike Orcutt (530) 625-4267 ext. 13
Tod Bedrosian (916) 421-5121

Hoopa, Calif. - The Hoopa Valley Tribe has asked the Bureau of 
Reclamation (BOR) to not renew the long-term contracts with the 
largest consumers of irrigation water in the Central Valley until 
those contracts are revised to protect the Trinity River. The tribe 
also has called on the contractors to stop trying to take water and 
money from the restoration of the Trinity River.

The Westlands Water District and San Luis & Delta Water Authority in 
the Central Valley have shown a "persistent antagonism," towards 
plans for restoration of the river, which bisects the reservation, 
according to Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall.

In an April 24 letter to the U.S. Department of Interior Marshall 
asserted the proposed water contract language contradicts laws and 
court decisions guaranteeing enough water be left in the Trinity 
River to support the river's fishery.

"For decades the BOR has allowed these water districts to pillage and 
ruin the natural fishery of the Trinity River. Now, after 
Congressional action and litigation ordering the restoration of the 
river these contractors are trying to drill a water line in the back 
door of the bureaucracy to circumvent the law," said Marshall.

"The fish populations in the Trinity and Klamath rivers are at such a 
crisis low level this year's commercial fishing season had been 
almost been eliminated. This year's small salmon run is because of 
the devastating after effects of the 2002 fish kill," said Marshall. 
"Now we have enough water in an obviously extremely wet year and 
these water contractors want to take water away from the fish that 
survived. "

In an April 19 letter Westlands attorneys ask the BOR to classify 
this year's water forecast as a "wet year," not an "extremely wet 
year," thus creating a formula reducing the Trinity River water some 
80,000 to 100,000 acre feet this year. The same letter ends with a 
threat of litigation. "We would prefer that this matter be addressed 
without renewed litigation," writes Westlands attorney Dan O'Hanlon. 
"However, we reserve the right to seek injunctive relief against the 
proposed unlawful released if there is no prompt corrective action." 
Westlands is also disputing their obligation to pay for environmental 
restoration under the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA).

Marshall said Westlands litigious strategy, "unreasonably consumes 
time and resources of both the Tribe and the United States, and 
threatens the fishery resources that the United States holds in trust 
for our Tribe." He said the water contractors should accept the will 
of Congress and the courts and stop trying to intimidate the BOR with 
threats of litigation.

The degradation of the Trinity River fishery began in 1955 when 
Congress authorized diversions of the river's water to the Central 
Valley. The act said enough water would be left in the river to 
support the fishery, but spawning runs have diminished since the 
diversions began. The BOR began diversion in l964, taking up to 90 
percent of the river's water in some years. In the l992 Congress 
passed the CVPIA, which included cooperative restoration studies by 
the tribe and the Department of Interior. The studies culminated in a 
Record of Decision (ROD) signed by Department of Interior Secretary 
Bruce Babbitt in 2000 agreeing to a river restoration plan. Westlands 
and Central Valley hydropower users sued to stop the river 
restoration work.

Conditions worsened until 2002 when some 68,000 fish died in the 
linked Trinity and Klamath rivers. In 2004 the U.S. Court of Appeals 
ruled in favor of the Department of Interior and the tribe to allow 
the implementation of the ROD.

"The Hoopa Valley Tribe will not stop fighting those who are trying 
to destroy this river and the fish. We have no choice. We do not have 
another river that flows though our ancestral land and blood. The 
fish do not have another river to spawn in," said Marshall. "If the 
BOR approves these water contracts they will be ignoring the will of 
Congress and the rulings of courts calling for the restoration of the 
Trinity River."

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Friends of Trinity River, Chair

California Trout,Inc., Advisor

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 383 9562 fx

 <mailto:bwl3 at comcast.net> bwl3 at comcast.net

 <mailto:bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org> bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org
(secondary)

http:// <http://www.fotr.org> www.fotr.org

http:// <http://www.caltrout.org> www.caltrout.org 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20070125/d38c423d/attachment.html>