Ecosystem Management Model What happens with water rights issues? Klamath Tribes Nez Perce Tribe Native American tribes, Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk tribes Confederation of the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin people known as The Klamath Tribes Klamath The river is considered a prime habitat for Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, steelhead trout, and rainbow trout. Native Sucker species Shortnose and Lost River Suckers Only a fraction of its historic runs since the construction of six dams built between 1908 and 1962. The possible removal of the dams has been a controversial issue in the region in recent years.
Despite intense lobbying by local Native American tribes, conservationists, and fishermen, the 2004 renewal application by PacifiCorp for another 50-year federal operating licence for the dams did not include any provisions for allowing salmon to return to over 300 miles of former habitat above the dams. Controversy on the river surrounds the removal of water from Upper Klamath Lake for irrigated agriculture, which was temporarily halted in 2001 to protect endangered salmon and lake fish during a record-breaking drought. The federal government, under Interior Secretary Gale Norton, reversed this decision in 2002, and provided full water deliveries to irrigators as the drought continued. Klamath area tribes have treaty rights that predate the settlement of the farmers. Norton argued for a "free market" approach by allowing farmers to sell the water to the Native Americans downstream. According to biologists from the state of California and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the resulting low flows in the river sparked a massive kill of over 68,000 salmon in September 2002, who died before they could reproduce.
News Clips http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/july-dec01/fish_8-20.html# http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june06/salmon_4-3.html# Water Rights Issues Native American Program--Pacific Northwest Region- BOR
Nez Perce Water Rights Claims March 23, 2005, State of Idaho's Snake River Basin Adjudication (SRBA) Nez Perce Tribe has agreed to: 50,000 acre feet of water decreed to the Tribe for on-reservation uses; Instream flows decreed on almost 200 Tribal priority streams to be held by the state of Idaho; 600 springs claims decreed on about 6 million acres of Federal land in the Tribe's 1863 ceded area; Over 11,000 acres of on-reservation Bureau of Land Management land transferred to the Tribe in trust; $96 million in three separate funds, for Tribal drinking water and sewer projects, water development projects, in addition to various Tribal projects including cultural preservation and fishery habitat improvements.
Litigation and settlement phases -- for over 16 years. Congress enacted the Snake River Settlement Act of 2004 last November, and President Bush signed it into law on December 8, 2004. The Idaho Legislature approved the agreement and Governor Kempthorne signed the approval legislation in March 2005. The approval by NPTEC represented the final sign-off by the three sovereigns. The Idaho water court will now undertake the final approval of the settlement and the entry of decrees to the water rights for the Tribe. Nez Perce Tribe was able to have a voice in the decision making in the final determination of water right claims, and they stated this proposed settlement was in the best interest of the long term future of the Tribe This settlement represents the merging of traditional Indian water rights settlement elements with other major environmental issues confronting people of Idaho. It could well be looked at by other states and tribes and federal land management agencies in the west seeking to sort out Indian water claims and other challenges presented by the federal Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.
Assignment 2 Discussion of current tribal issues, and beginning discussion of fishing down food web