Tribe Sees U.S. Water Policy Bias

SACRAMENTO -- Ushering in what could be another long, hot summer of wrangling over the Klamath water crisis, 100 members of the Yurok tribe protested here Thursday what they consider the Bush administration’s embrace of farmers at the expense of endangered fish.

The impoverished tribe, which depends on salmon from the Klamath River in Northern California, marched with placards outside a hotel where a packed crowd of Western water managers met to discuss a new federal plan.

Susan Masten, Yurok tribal chairwoman, said she believes that federal officials are “doing everything in their means” to provide farmers with abundant water, while the river and its salmon get less than is needed, leaving her tribe to suffer. “It stinks of environmental racism, if you ask me.”

A top federal water official disagreed, saying the Klamath and the needs of fish -- two species of endangered suckers in Upper Klamath Lake and the threatened coho salmon downstream -- have been a top priority for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The severe drought in 2001 that prompted a water cutback to farmers in the Klamath Basin, which straddles the Oregon-California border, acted as “a wake-up call for all of us,” said Bennett Raley, assistant U.S. Interior secretary for water and science.

With the basin facing a third year of below-normal rainfall and river flows into Upper Klamath Lake, reclamation bureau officials announced Thursday that they were scaling back their water forecast for the year. It will drop from “below average” to the more severe “dry.” In response to the shortage, Klamath irrigators are working to cut water use 20% in the rest of July and August.

Raley said there were plans to have Indian representation at the conference. A Nevada tribe that has grappled for decades with water issues was invited, he said, but its representative could not attend.

Outside, Raley’s words didn’t assuage the Yurok, who hooted and cheered as they waved hand-made signs at passing motorists. “We’re here for the fish,” said Peter Lara, 45, a Yurok fisherman. “Someone has to be.”