Hoopa Valley Tribe Protests Westlands Water District Grab on Trinity River

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


HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE PROTESTS WESTLANDS WATER DISTRICT WATER GRAB ON TRINITY RIVER

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.”