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<TD vAlign=top align=left width=294><SPAN class=text3lgb>SAN FRANCISCO
<BR>Tribes win Trinity flow fight <BR>Court gives green light to revival
of salmon population </SPAN><BR><SPAN class=text1md></SPAN><!-- END HEADLINE/DECK & SUBHEADLINE/SUBDECK -->
<P><!-- START WRITER CREDIT--><SPAN class=text1sm><A
href="mailto:hchiang@sfchronicle.com">Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Legal
Affairs Writer</A> </SPAN><!-- END WRITER CREDIT--></P></TD>
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<TD class=text2sm vAlign=top align=left width=314><!-- START DATE --><SPAN
id=red>Wednesday, July 14, 2004</SPAN><BR><!-- END DATE --><!-- START SOURCE LOGO --><A
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<P>Two Northern California Indian tribes scored a victory in their effort
to restore ancestral fisheries Tuesday when a federal appeals court gave
the go-ahead for a plan to revive the Trinity River's once-thriving salmon
population.
<P>The Hoopa Valley and Yurok tribes have been waging a decades-long
battle to increase the flow of water from a dam on the Trinity and boost
the river's salmon population. On Tuesday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in San Francisco said a deal the tribes reached with government
agencies could be put in place, rejecting objections from a Central Valley
water agency that benefits from diverted Trinity flows.
<P>Since the Trinity River Dam was built in 1964, 90 percent of the
Trinity's water has been diverted to the Sacramento River for farmers and
other water users. The result was an 85 percent drop in the Trinity's
population of chinook salmon, which local Indians had fished for
generations.
<P>In 2000 the Hoopa Valley Tribe, taking the lead in negotiations for the
two tribes, devised a plan with the U.S. Interior Department and other
federal and state agencies to try to restore the Trinity River fishery by
reducing the amount of water diverted to 50 percent.
<P>The plan was immediately challenged by the Westlands Water District, a
600,000-acre agricultural tract on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley
that gets some of the water diverted from the Trinity. In a federal
lawsuit, the district and other irrigation and power companies charged
that the plan did not comply with federal environmental laws.
<P>But a unanimous federal appeals court rejected most of those challenges
Tuesday and ordered the restoration plan to be implemented.
<P>"Twenty years have passed since Congress passed the first major act
calling for restoration of the Trinity River and rehabilitation of its
fish populations,'' Judge Alfred Goodwin wrote in the court's opinion.
"And almost another decade has elapsed since Congress set a minimal flow
level for the river to force rehabilitative action.''
<P>Having disposed of the issues raised by the district and others,
Goodwin concluded, "nothing remains to prevent the full implementation of
the (2000 agreement), including its complete flow plan for the Trinity
River.''
<P>The decision reverses most of a ruling in January by U.S. District
Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno. He had found that the 2000 plan did not
take into account the effect that increased flows in the Trinity would
have on endangered species in the Sacramento River and the Delta.
<P>"This opinion is a clear victory for the anadromous fishery of the
Trinity River and the future of our people,'' said Lyle Marshall, chairman
of the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
<P>Robert Franklin, senior hydrologist for the Hoopa Valley Fisheries
Department, called the decision "a home run.''
<P>"Budgeteers and administrators will see how quickly we can move forward
to restoration,'' he said.
<P>Tupper Hull, a spokesman for the Westlands Water District, said there
were some "mixed decisions'' in the ruling that could be interpreted in
favor of his client. "We're evaluating them carefully, and we're
evaluating all our options,'' he said.
<P>But he acknowledged that the decision "certainly is not good news'' for
the district.
<P>The Yurok Tribe, which historically fished the Klamath River, became
involved in the negotiations because it gave up hundreds of acres of
aboriginal land in the late 1800s in return for fishing rights on the
Trinity.
<P>"That promise has not been kept," said Scott Williams, a Berkeley
lawyer who represented the tribe.
<P>He called the restoration plan and Tuesday's court decision "a good
step toward repairing that broken promise.''
<P><I>E-mail Harriet Chiang at <A
href="mailto:hchiang@sfchronicle.com">hchiang@sfchronicle.com</A>.</I>
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