[env-trinity] Karuk, Yurok and Klamath Tribes Oppose Pacific Connector Pipeline

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/14/1598980/-Karuk-Yurok-and-Klamath-Tribes-Oppose-Pacific-Connector-Pipeline
https://intercontinentalcry.org/karuk-yurok-klamath-tribes-oppose-pacific-connector-pipeline/

Karuk, Yurok and Klamath Tribes Oppose Pacific Connector Pipeline

by Dan Bacher

The Karuk Tribe, located on the Klamath River in Northern California,  
today announced its opposition to the Jordan Cove LNG terminal and  
Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline projects, joining the Yurok and Klamath  
Tribes in officially opposing the controversial project.


“The proposed pipeline would carry fracked natural gas across or under  
400 bodies of water in the Klamath, Rogue, Umpqua, Coquille and Coos  
watersheds,” according to a statement from the Karuk Tribe. “The 36- 
inch underground pipeline would travel from Malin, OR to a proposed  
terminal in Coos Bay and require a permanent 232-mile long and  
approximately 100-foot wide clear cut through these already impaired  
watersheds. The terminal, built in the tsunami zone, would export  
liquefied natural gas abroad.”

“With our fisheries and water quality already compromised, we simply  
cannot afford the risks associated with running a natural gas pipeline  
beneath the Klamath River,” said Karuk Chairman Russell ‘Buster’  
Attebery.

Area Tribes and conservation groups see this issue as very similar to  
the Dakota Access Pipe Line (DAPL) struggle in North Dakota, where the  
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies have been faced with police  
brutality, rubber bullets, dog attacks and other violence as they  
fight to protect their land, sacred sites and nation’s second longest  
river, the Missouri.

Many in the Karuk Tribal community will join members of the Yurok  
Tribe, Klamath Tribes, Klamath Riverkeeper and the Klamath Justice  
Coalition at the capitol building in Salem, OR today, Monday, November  
14 at 1 pm to demand that the Oregon Department of State Lands put an  
end to the project.

The Yurok Tribe announced its opposition to the terminal and pipeline  
in a statement issued on November 9.

“The impacts to salmon, other fish and native wildlife, in combination  
with the inherent risks to human populations, are unacceptable,” the  
Tribe stated.

You can expect to see campaigns against fracking, the construction of  
oil and natural gas pipelines and the expansion of offshore drilling  
to build momentum as incoming President Trump promotes increased  
fossil fuel extraction across the nation.

On Friday, Trump’s  transition team released their “energy” plan that  
proclaims their plans to expand onshore and offshore oil drilling on  
federal lands and waters — and to “streamline” the permitting process  
for all energy projects. Their statement is absolutely chilling for  
anybody who cares about fish and wildlife, people, water, the  
environment and the public trust:

‘Rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block  
America's fossil fuel producers, the Trump Administration will  
encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and  
offshore leasing on federal lands and waters. We will streamline the  
permitting process for all energy projects, including the billions of  
dollars in projects held up by President Obama, and rescind the job- 
destroying executive actions under his Administration. We will end the  
war on coal, and rescind the coal mining lease moratorium, the  
excessive Interior Department stream rule, and conduct a top-down  
review of all anti-coal regulations issued by the Obama  
Administration. We will eliminate the highly invasive "Waters of the  
US" rule, and scrap the $5 trillion dollar Obama-Clinton Climate  
Action Plan and the Clean Power Plan and prevent these unilateral  
plans from increasing monthly electric bills by double-digits without  
any measurable effect on Earth's climate.’

Also on Friday, Representative Devin Nunes (CA-22), one of the most  
extreme Congressional opponents of fish and wildlife restoration in  
California, the West and the nation and one of the strongest backers  
of increasing Delta water exports to corporate agribusiness, joined  
the 16-member executive committee of Donald Trump’s transition team.

“Today I was honored to have been named to the executive committee of  
President-elect Donald Trump's transition team,” said Nunes. “In this  
role, I will advise President-elect Trump on the appointments of his  
Cabinet members and on appointments to other top positions in the new  
administration. I look forward to helping to assemble an energetic and  
forward-looking team that will capably lead our country toward more  
economic growth, greater opportunity, and a safer homeland for all  
Americans.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Politico reported Wednesday that David  
Bernhardt, a lawyer who co-chaired the natural resources department at  
the firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and served as a George W.  
Bush Interior Department official, is leading the transition's  
Interior Department team.

According to Congressional disclosures, his current lobbying clients  
include the Westlands Water District, considered the Darth Vader of  
California politics by Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists, and  
one of the biggest proponents of exporting more Delta water. Bernhart   
represented the Westlands Water District on litigation involving the  
Delta and the Endangered Species Act. (www.politico.com)

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