Keepers Of The Flame

Keepers Of The Flame

Featured image: Resistance. Acrylic on canvas. 2008. By Travis London. “With the successful devastation of the Washougal River watershed through intense logging and mineral extraction, there was only one thing left to do: install hydroelectric dams. In the early 1920s, construction of a third dam began down river from the outlet of Cougar Creek. The night the dam had been completed it was blown up. Dynamite reduced the structure to rubble and once again the salmon, eels, and crayfish passed unhindered.”

To this day, the Washougal River remains free flowing and supports populations of chum, coho, and chinook salmon, steehead, and cutthroat trout.

Truth

By John McGrath, 2004

Who will be the keepers of the flame,
when shepherds shame their flock and mock
the truth with every new transgression?

Should we be surprised to find a fork in every tongue
of young and old, when those who lead us
feed us daily, lies of such a size
we barely blink at indiscretion any more
from rank deceivers rotten to the core.

Yet some would call them heroes, after all
they’ve said and done
with word and deed, the very need
to justify themselves long gone.

Who will be the guardians of the light?

When might is right and wrongs are sanctified,
when innocence is maimed and sacrificed
in Freedom’s name,

when none will take the blame,
when every lie is truth and truth is lie,
Who then will be the keepers of the flame,

save you and I?


imagee of a satellite dish pointed at the sky

No, we are not going to Mars

A poem about stupid ideas

By Monique Milne

Some philosophers say
You define a thing by the context it’s in.
So, what then … is a polar bear in a zoo?
Or a human on Mars?
Am I the sum of my parts? Something more? Something separate?

They say bacteria are us
Or we have bacteria.
A sterilised planet has no life
Has no bacteria
Bacteria are life.

What do you call a human on Mars, going to Mars, dreaming of Mars?

Is a machine alive?
When every machine and computer rusts
We’ll still be here!
If the Earth turned to rust
No more humans.
Can’t make humans from machines.

LA hipsters know all about machines.
Use them to ‘hack’ your body.
Watch out for cell towers
The illuminati hacking you
Our bodies are meat-suits
That our soul inhabits
Our beautiful natural bodies
Meat Suits!

What part of you is your soul?
What of us is and always will be our body?
Breathing, laughing, crying, blinking
Breathe.
Your feelings are the real you
What does the feeling?

No, your real physical body is immaterial
Better hack your meat suit
Be better looking
Live a lot longer
Your true identity … Martian
Such a spiritual experience.

What ever happened to seeing?
Rejecting our bodies
Rejecting our Earth
Put your meat suit
In a space suit
And fly to Mars
Where you belong.

But you are not an alien
You belong here
You deserve your body.


They

By Jeremiah Potter

They drug them
by their necks
away from the sacred
Fire
to the televisionThey murdered
the buffalo, deer
and bounty itself
to feed them Wonder Bread
and pork

They poisoned their
rivers, streams, lakes
and oceans
to force them to drink
swimming pool water and liquor

They beat them
with Bibles
and the cross
in fear of
the beauty of worshiping the earth

They stole all that
sustained them
to smudge out
their freedom
to tax them
on the land
that was loved and defended-
their land
that can never
be owned or divided

Sitting here by this smokey fire
under the winter dogwoods,
maples, birch and hemlocks,
in the vivid sun,
I divide myself.
As I always have.

Vowing to not be like
they-
colonist thieves, rapists and murderers

I vow not to
bury and squash
what has been,
and still is,
being done.

I vow,
to like them,
love the land and its
Inhabitants.

To turn my shoulder
to what they say
is right and wrong-
things so displaced
from actual honesty.

I vow to stand
against the utter
insanity of they-
in pure want of excess
and unchecked desecration.


Salmon

By Max Wilbert

Seen on a sign
at the Quileute reservation
“the salmon helped us for thousands of years
now it is time for us to help them”

Lummi Battle Atlantic Salmon Spill

Lummi Battle Atlantic Salmon Spill

Featured image: Still from video showing the broken pens of 300,000 Atlantic salmon that escaped from a fish farm off Cypress Island in Washington State. Vimeo/Wild Fish Conservancy

The Lummi Nation, the third largest tribe in Washington State, is in a state of emergency following the structural collapse of the Cooke Aquaculture open net-pen facility near Puget Sound. The breach released more than 300,000 farmed Atlantic salmon into Pacific waters, adjacent to Cypress Island, just east of the Canadian border near Victoria B.C.

State officials announced over the weekend that no new permits would be issued for fish farm operations until the cause of the incident was determined. Lummi Nation Fisheries have been catching thousands of Atlantic salmon alongside wild Pacific salmon for several days, but officials still believe many of the invasive fish are already on their way to spawn in local streams and rivers. Tribal fishermen have hauled in at least 200,000 pounds of invasive Atlantic salmon since the emergency declaration, the Lummi said on Monday August 28.

“This disaster could have devastating effects and could potentially decimate this year’s run of Chinook salmon,” said Lummi Natural Resources Director Merle Jefferson. “This is unacceptable for all residents of the Puget Sound. We are doing what we can to help limit the damage, but as far as we know, containment is indefinite. These invasive fish are going to find our rivers.”

Kurt Beardslee, director of the Wild Fish Conservancy Northwest (WFCN) called the incident an environmental disaster and is preparing to file a civil suit against Cooke Aquaculture under section 505 of the Clean Water Act.

“This dangerous and reckless industry not only threatens the recovery of our native salmon and orca populations but also threatens the health of Puget Sound and the Northwest’s cultural identity,” Beardslee said in a WFCN press release.

Following the failure of the net-pen that contained 305,000 Atlantic salmon, Cooke Aquaculture cited the “exceptionally high tides” caused by the August 21 solar eclipse as the reason for the breech at its facility. In a statement, Cooke Aquaculture said its Cypress Farm #2, which contained the Atlantic salmon, had been in operation for almost 30 years without incident. In addition the company cited its “solid track record” in modern marine farming at several locations across the globe, including facilities in Maine, Scotland, Spain and Chile.

“It is estimated that several thousand Atlantic salmon escaped following a structural failure of part of the net-pen structure on the Cypress Site 2 farm,” Cooke Aquaculture said in the statement. “It appears that many fish are still contained within the nets. It will not be possible to confirm exact numbers of fish losses until harvesting is completed and an inventory of fish in the pens has been conducted.”

However, tides were almost a foot higher last January than on the evening of the solar eclipse, NPR reported. This left Beardslee “bewildered by the company’s claim that the solar eclipse presented a tidal occurrence that they could not have prepared for,” he said.

Emergency maintenance was performed on the Cypress Island net-pens on July 27, which further calls into question the company’s claim that high tides during the solar eclipse were the cause of the facility’s structural failure. Washington State officials released a guide to help fishermen identify the Atlantic salmon and how to contain them if caught. In addition, Governor Jay Inslee put a hold on new net-pen permits “until a thorough investigation of this incident is completed,” he said in a statement.

“Tribes and others who fish Washington waters deserve a comprehensive response to this incident, including answers to what happened and assurances that it won’t happen again,” Inslee said. “I believe the company must do everything it can to stop any additional escapes and to recover as many fish as possible, including adequate compensation for those working to remove Atlantic salmon from our waters.”

The Quinault Indian Nation said this was a good start, but did not do enough to recognize the threat posed by farmed Atlantic salmon, which is being done with profit rather than health in mind.

“We have been objecting to the open-water farming of Atlantic salmon for years,” said Quinault Nation President Fawn Sharp in a statement. “The disaster near Cypress Island seems to have finally generated a strong response from the state. We’re glad about that. But we want the state and the public to know it’s a serious problem here, too.”

North of the U.S.–Canada border, environmental groups in British Columbia are sounding the alarm once again over the farming of non-native Atlantic salmon in Pacific waters, which could potentially devastate an area that still sees some of the largest wild Pacific salmon runs in the world. Watershed Watch Salmon Society, an environmental organization based out of Coquitlam B.C., called the incident “an epic disaster.” They’re asking anglers to be on the lookout for Atlantic salmon in streams and rivers on the southern edge of Vancouver Island and have renewed calls to end the use of fish farms on the Pacific Coast.

Canada’s federal Department of Fisheries and Ocean (DFO) said the Liberal government is taking the case very seriously and is closely monitoring the situation.

“We will be working to understand the potential impacts of this incident and prevent any damage to Canada’s marine ecosystems, said Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Dominic LeBlanc in a statement. “DFO is communicating with its U.S. counterparts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other U.S. regulators to help ensure impacts from the incident are minimized.”

The recently formed British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) government said in an e-mail it was aware of the situation and would be working closely with DFO. So far no Atlantic salmon have been recovered in Canadian waters. However, government officials are asking B.C. residents to report any and all Atlantic salmon caught in Canadian waters through its Atlantic Salmon Watch Program.

British Columbians have been debating the risk of fish farms for decades. Due to conservation efforts and lobbying in the early 2000s, no fish farms are currently operating along B.C.’s North Coast. However, the Cooke Aquaculture breech is renewing calls to shut down all fish farms along the province’s south coast, which have long been opposed by local First Nations.

Over the years First Nations along the south coast of Vancouver Island have repeatedly called for an end to open net-pen fish farms, claiming they breed diseased, unnatural salmon that can transmit viruses to wild populations and hinder First Nations’ ability to operate food fisheries. Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Vice President Bob Chamberlin said First Nations have a legal right to practice their traditional ways to gather sustenance from the land, including wild salmon.

“If the government of B.C. and Canada continue to ignore the impacts of open net-pen aquaculture on wild salmon, then we are looking to an imminent future without the constitutionally protected wild salmon food source critical to First Nations in B.C., and without a once proud economic driver that our wild salmon fisheries provide to indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike,” he said.

Following the release to the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) of video showing deformed and diseased Atlantic salmon in open net-pens operated by Grieg Seafood, Hereditary Chief Ernest Alfred of the Nagmis, Lawit’sis and Mamalilikala Nations began occupying a facility near Swanson Island near Vancouver Island, planning to stay until the operation is shut down indefinitely.

“This place is ours, and we’re not moving,” Alfred wrote in a Facebook post. “We must stop open-net fish farms in our waters. It’s time to stand up and take a stand.”

The issue undermines attempts at reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian government, Alfred continued.

“You can’t ignore the issue of rights and title, which are clearly being violated here,” said Alfred. “You have politicians traveling the country talking about reconciliation. How can we have reconciliation when we have this disease running through our territory?”

Winnemen Wintu, Fishing Groups Sue to Block Ecosystem-Killing Delta Tunnels

Winnemen Wintu, Fishing Groups Sue to Block Ecosystem-Killing Delta Tunnels

Featured image: Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, speaks at the Oil Money Out, People Power In rally in Sacramento on May 20. Photo by Dan Bacher.

     by  / Intercontinental Cry

On August 17, a California Indian Tribe, two fishing groups, and two environmental organizations joined a growing number of organizations, cities and counties suing the Jerry Brown and Donald Trump administrations to block the construction of the Delta Tunnels.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, North Coast Rivers Alliance (NCRA), Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) and the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association filed suit against the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) in Sacramento Superior Court to overturn DWR’s approval of the Twin Tunnels, also know as the California WaterFix Project, on July 21, 2017

”The Winnemem Wintu Tribe has lived on the banks of the McCloud River for thousands of years and our culture is centered on protection and careful, sustainable use of its salmon,” said Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe near Mt. Shasta. “Our salmon were stolen from us when Shasta Dam was built in 1944. “

”Since that dark time, we have worked tirelessly to restore this vital salmon run through construction of a fishway around Shasta Dam connecting the Sacramento River to its upper tributaries including the McCloud River.  The Twin Tunnels and its companion proposal to raise Shasta Dam by 18 feet would push the remaining salmon runs toward extinction and inundate our ancestral and sacred homeland along the McCloud River,” Chief Sisk stated.

The Trump and Brown administrations and project proponents claim the tunnels would fulfill the “coequal goals” of water supply reliability and ecosystem restoration, but opponents point out that project would create no new water while hastening the extinction of winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other imperiled fish species

The project would also imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers that have played a central role in the culture, religion and livelihood of the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley Tribes for thousands of years.

The tunnels would divert 9,000 cubic feet per second of water from the Sacramento River near Clarksburg and transport it 35 miles via two tunnels 40-feet in diameter for export to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests and Southern California, according to lawsuit documents. The project would divert approximately 6.5 million acre-feet of water per year, a quantity sufficient to flood the entire state of Rhode Island under nearly 7 feet of water.

The groups pointed out that this “staggering” quantity of water – equal to most of the Sacramento River’s flow during the summer and fall – would “exacerbate the Delta’s severe ecological decline,” pushing several imperiled species of salmon and steelhead closer to extinction.

Stephan Volker, attorney  for the Tribe and organizations, filed the suit.  The suit alleges that DWR’s approval of the California WaterFix Project and certification of its Environmental Impact Report violates the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”), the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009, and the Public Trust Doctrine.

“The Public Trust Doctrine protects the Delta’s imperiled fish and wildlife from avoidable harm whenever it is feasible to do so,” according to lawsuit documents. “Contrary to this mandate, the Project proposes unsustainable increases in Delta exports that will needlessly harm public trust resources, and its FEIR dismisses from consideration feasible alternatives and mitigation measures that would protect and restore the Delta’s  ecological functions. Because the Project sacrifices rather than saves the Delta’s fish and wildlife, it violates the Public Trust Doctrine.”

Representatives of the fishing and environmental groups explained their reasons for filing the lawsuit.

“The…Twin Tunnels is a hugely expensive boondoggle that could pound the final nail in the coffin of Northern California’s salmon and steelhead fishery,” stated Noah Oppenheim, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA). “There is still time to protect these declining stocks from extinction, but taking more water from their habitat will make matters far worse.”

Larry Collins, President of the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association, stated, “Our organization of small, family-owned fishing boats has been engaged in the sustainable harvest of salmon and other commercial fisheries for over 100 years.  By diverting most of the Sacramento River’s flow away from the Delta and San Francisco Bay, the Twin Tunnels would deliver a mortal blow to our industry and way of life.”

Frank Egger, President of the North Coast Rivers Alliance, stated that “the imperiled salmon and steelhead of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers are one of Northern California’s most precious natural resources.  They must not be squandered so that Southern California can avoid taking the water conservation measures that many of us adopted decades ago.”

Chief Sisk summed up the folly of Brown’s “legacy project,” the Delta Tunnels, at her speech at the “March for Science” on Earth Day 2017 before a crowd of 15,000 people at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

“The California Water Fix is the biggest water problem, the most devastating project, that Californians have ever faced,” said Chief Sisk. “Just ask the people in the farmworker communities of Seville and Alpaugh, where they can’t drink clean water from the tap.”

“The twin tunnels won’t fix this problem. All this project does is channel Delta water to water brokers at prices the people in the towns can’t afford,” she stated.

To read the full story, go to: www.sandersinstitute.com/…

The lawsuit filed by Volkers joins an avalanche of lawsuits against the Delta Tunnels. Sacramento, San Joaquin and Butte Counties have already filed lawsuits against the California WaterFix — and more lawsuits are expected to join these on Monday, August 21.

On June 29, fishing and environmental groups filed two lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s biological opinions permitting the construction of the controversial Delta Tunnels.

Four groups — the Golden Gate Salmon Association (GGSA), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Defenders of Wildlife, and the Bay Institute — charged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service for violating the Endangered Species (ESA), a landmark federal law that projects endangered salmon, steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt and other fish species. The lawsuits said the biological opinions are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion.”

On June 26, the Trump administration released a no-jeopardy finding in their biological opinions regarding the construction of the Delta Tunnels, claiming that the California WaterFix “will not jeopardize threatened or endangered species or adversely modify their critical habitat.” The biological opinions are available here: www.fws.gov/…

Over the past few weeks, the Brown administration has incurred the wrath of environmental justice advocates, conservationists and increasing numbers of Californians by ramrodding Big Oil’s environmentally unjust cap-and-trade bill, AB 398, through the legislature; approving the reopening of the dangerous SoCalGas natural gas storage facility at Porter Ranch; green lighting the flawed EIS/EIR documents permitting the construction of the California WaterFix; and issuing a “take” permit to kill endangered salmon and Delta smelt in the Delta Tunnels.

First Nation Serves Eviction Notices to BC Fish Farms

First Nation Serves Eviction Notices to BC Fish Farms

Featured image: Leaders from Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw First Nation recently boarded a BC fish farm to serve an eviction notice. Photo by Alexandra Morton.

By Andrew Nikiforuk / The Tyee

The Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw, whose traditional lands includes much of the Broughton Archipelago, have boarded two Japanese-owned fish farms and delivered eviction orders to remove their operations from unceded territories over the last six days.

On Aug. 15, three Dzawada’enuxw traditional leaders served an eviction notice to a Cermaq/Mitsubishi salmon farm on the Burdwood Islands, and on Aug. 18 boats from the communities of Gwayasdums (Gilford Island), U’kwa’nalis (Kingcome Inlet) and Alert Bay arrived at the Sir Edmund Bay fish farms run by Cermaq/Mitsubishi to conduct a cleansing ceremony.

Melissa Willie, an elected councillor for the nation, said about 40 people participated in the cleansing ceremony and that more demonstrations are planned later this week.

Willie said a cleansing ceremony was necessary because fish farms have been clouded by a lot of “negativity” and environmental impacts, and her people wanted to do something positive.
“We will do a cleansing of our waters once we get these fish farms out,” Willie told The Tyee.

The Martin Sheen, a research vessel loaned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to biologist and anti-fish farm activist Alexandra Morton, witnessed and filmed the delivery of the eviction notice as well as the cleansing ceremony.

Morton, a long-term foe of the controversial industry, is on a two-month mission to investigate the state of corporate fish farms, do research on virus prevalence, and provide a platform for First Nations.

Some nations support fish farms on their territory, while others such as Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw have been fighting them and their impacts on wild fish for 30 years.

The eviction notice follows a number of developments, including the federal government’s decision to extend fish farm licences from one to six years despite recent evidence found by federal scientists of a “potential” heart disease in farmed Atlantic salmon samples collected from one B.C. fish farm.

Members of the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw were also shocked earlier this month when Melissa Willie visited a Cermaq farm and opened the lid of a blue-coloured tote containing dead fish netted from the facility.

Both Willie and Morton identified what they said looked like several wild salmon and other native fish (possibly herring and eulachon) in the pile. Fish farms do not have a licence to feed or harvest wild fish.

But in an Aug. 18 press release, Cermaq denied the dead fish were wild and said they were young farmed salmon.

“The small salmon carcasses found in the mort totes are Atlantic salmon grown from our own broodstock, not Pacific wild salmon as alleged. In fact, the tote in question was at our broodstock site, where we grow salmon that are several years apart in age. The age difference results in both small and large fish that, if they die, go into the same tote,” explained their press release.

Willie disagreed with Cermaq’s view of things.

“Wherever you have fish farms, there will be wild fish entering those pens. It is common sense. We all know that the herring stay by some of the farms and feed there.”

In the same press release, Cermaq accused the Sea Shepherd Society of trespassing on private property, making unsubstantiated claims, and having “taken samples of dead fish without permission and without following any proper scientific procedures.”

In contrast, Willie said her people would like to thank Sea Shepherd for joining them in their fight.

Notice gives three months to pack up

The eviction notice gives the corporate farms three months to pack up their operations.

It also demands that no more farmed fish be transferred into the First Nation’s traditional territory and that the nation be allowed to take fish samples from the farms anytime it wants to determine what types of disease or parasites might be present.

“The people who are benefiting from these farms are benefiting over the suffering of our people,” said Dzawada’enuxw hereditary leader Farron Soukochoff in a press release.

The Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations have opposed corporate salmon farming on the grounds that open-net feedlots invite diseases and waste that have had a deleterious impact on wild fish, including herring and five varieties of Pacific salmon.

“We, the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw view the destruction of wild fish by the fish farming industry as part of the long history of genocide forced on our people by the governments of Canada,” reads an Aug. 18 press release. “Salmon are essential to our well-being and the well-being of our world.”
According to a recent report, the number of young wild salmon leaving Dzawada’enuxw territory in the spring of 2015 could have been reduced by nine to 39 per cent due to sea lice from salmon farms.

Along with the eviction notice, the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw have set up a website called “cleansing our waters.”

Approximately one-third of the corporate feedlots growing Atlantic salmon along B.C.’s coast are located on Dzawada’enuxw territory.

A 2008 scientific study found that wild salmon populations declined wherever corporations have set up industrial fish farms in the ocean including Norway, Scotland, Ireland and Canada.

“We have heard the words of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that honouring the rights of First Nations are a ‘sacred obligation’ to the Liberal Government of Canada,” said Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw hereditary leader and chief councillor Willie Moon at a cleansing ceremony at the Sir Edmund salmon farm at the entrance to Kingcome Inlet.

“Our people have spoken: we want salmon farms out of our territory.”

In a prepared statement, Jeremy Dunn, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, said that the industry has 20 agreements with First Nations that cover “78 per cent of the annual harvest of farmed salmon.”

“Our members are always open to meeting and discussing issues with First Nations and would like to develop agreements in areas where they do not exist today,” added the statement.

Dunn told The Tyee that many First Nations have tried to evict corporate farms in the past but later signed financial agreements with the industry.

Hoopa Valley Tribe: San Luis Settlement Agreement will “Condemn Tribe to Poverty”

Hoopa Valley Tribe: San Luis Settlement Agreement will “Condemn Tribe to Poverty”

By  / Intercontinental Cry

On May 24, the Hoopa Valley Tribe from Northern California filed its objection to two bills proposed in the House of Representatives to implement the controversial San Luis Settlement Agreement, saying the agreement would “forever condemn the Tribe to poverty.”

The Tribe filed its complaint prior to a hearing on the two bills, H.R. 4366 (Rep. David Valadao) and H.R. 5217 (Rep. Jim Costa, D-CA), held by the U.S. House of Representative Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans.

“Our Tribe is an indispensable party to this settlement,” said Chairman Ryan Jackson, in a press release. “We notified Congress and the Bush and Obama Administrations on numerous occasions over the past several years of our concerns. Though we have been mostly ignored, rest assured, this legislation will not advance in absence of protection of our interests.”

The invited witnesses were John Bezdek , Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior; Tom Birmingham, General Manager, Westlands Water District; Jerry Brown, General Manager, Contra Costa Water District; Steve Ellis, Vice-President, Taxpayers for Common Sense; and Dennis Falaschi, General Manager, Panoche Water District.

Notably, the Committee did not invite those most directly impacted by the deal. These include the leaders of the Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Karuk, Winnemem Wintu and other Tribes, commercial and recreational fishermen, family farmers and others whose livelihoods have been imperiled by decades of exports of Trinity, Sacramento and San Joaquin River water to corporate agribusiness interests irrigating drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

Jackson said the Settlement Agreement contains Central Valley Project (CVP) water supply assurances for 895,000 acre feet of water for the Westlands Water District that originate from the Trinity River, a watershed that the Tribe “has depended for its fishery, economy and culture since time immemorial.”

Michael Orcutt, Hoopa Tribal Fisheries Director, said, “It is a travesty that the pristine waters of the Trinity Alps that have nurtured our people have been diverted from their natural course, sent 400 miles from our homeland and converted into toxic industrial waste by agribusiness in the Central Valley.”

“What makes this worse is that the destruction of our water quality was aided and abetted by our Federal Trustee, the Department of the Interior,” said Self-Governance Coordinater Daniel Jordan.

Instead of ensuring that existing law is enforced for the Tribe’s benefit, the Tribe said the United States government has “focused its energy on escaping federal liability for the generations of mismanagement of the reclamation program.”

The Tribe said it has the first right of use of Trinity River water under the 1955 federal statute that authorized the Trinity River Division of the CVP, but the San Luis Unit settlement and legislation as proposed ignores this priority right held by the Tribe.

“The Secretary of the Interior and Attorney General are blatantly ignoring our rights and the Congressionally-mandated responsibility of the Bureau of Reclamation to furnish the water necessary for fish and wildlife and economic development in the Trinity River Basin,” stated Orcutt.

The Tribe’s testimony includes a proposal for settlement of the drainage issue that also provides for long overdue fair treatment of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. “If Congress approves our proposals, the Hupa people would finally get a long overdue measure of justice,” according to the Tribe.

“Our culture and economy have been devastated by the federal government’s mismanagement of the Central Valley Project and the San Luis Unit contractors’ ongoing assaults on our rights to Trinity River water,” said Jackson, “Now is the time to end the fighting and begin the long process of recovery.”

A coalition of fishing groups, conservation organizations, Delta farmers, Tribal leaders and environmental justice advocates is opposing the bills. Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, said U.S. taxpayers, and Californians in particular, should be “alarmed” that H.R. 4366 and H.R. 5217 (Rep. Jim Costa, D-CA) are moving forward.

“The settlement agreement reached in September 2015 between the Obama Administration and these large industrial agricultural, special-interest water districts, will result in a $300 million taxpayer giveaway without addressing or solving the extreme water pollution these irrigation districts discharge into the San Joaquin River, and ultimately, the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary. It is exactly these types of taxpayer giveaways to corporations that have incensed voters in both parties this election year,” said Barrigan-Parrilla in a statement.

The objections filed by the Hoopa Valley Tribe on May 24 come just a week after the Tribe filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and NOAA Fisheries for violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by failing to adequately protect salmon on the Trinity and Klamath rivers.

“Failure by these federal agencies to reinitiate consultation on the flawed 2013 Klamath Project Biological Opinion (BiOp) will simply add to the millions of sick and dead juvenile salmon already lost due to the Klamath Irrigation Project. High infection prevalence of the deadly salmon parasite Ceratomyxa nova has been directly linked to the Project and its effect upon natural flows in the river,” according to a statement from the Tribe.

“The juvenile fish kills in 2014 and 2015, while not as noticeable to the naked eye as dead adults on the banks, are as devastating to Hupa people as the 2002 adult fish kill,” said Chairman Ryan Jackson.

Meanwhile, the Brown and Obama administrations are pushing a plan that threatens the San Francisco Bay-Delta and Klamath and Trinity rivers, the California Water Fix to build the Delta Tunnels. The plan would hasten the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River winter run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt and green sturgeon, as well as imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers.