Klamath Basin Irrigators continue to challenge the right of the federal government to use water stored in Upper Klamath Lake to benefit threatened Klamath River salmon (see this link). They will likely take their challenge to the Supreme Court. Upper Klamath Lake is the Klamath River's source. As shown on the map below, the River begins at Upper Klamath Lake's outlet.
The ongoing irrigator challenge to the rights of Salmon and the Tribes and fishermen
who depend on them is a clear sign that the campaign to provide Klamath River flows adequate for a healthy River will
continue to be fiercely opposed by Irrigation interests.
The
same will prove true in the Scott and Shasta River Basins. Get-along rhetoric not withstanding, Irrigators will not relinquish their hold on the water our rivers need unless and until they are forced to do so. This means
that those
of us who want a healthy Klamath River will need to sustain the
struggle to overcome irrigator opposition and political power.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is either wrong or intentionally trying
to get you to go along with the "program", that is, to buy into the lie
that we can have a healthy River by doing "restoration projects" without
providing adequate river flows.
Algal mat in the Klamath River near Seiad Valley.
These mats indicating water quality too poor to sustain salmonids.
The
Yurok Tribe has declared that the Klamath River has the rights of a
person. If Yurok leaders sacrifice the River's interest for
political gains we will need to go into Yurok Tribal Court to defend our
relation, the Klamath River.
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