Indigenous nations, farmers and ranchers throughout the Klamath Basin in the Pacific Northwest reached an agreement on Wednesday to work together on ecosystem restoration projects and to improve water supplies for agriculture.
The memorandum between the Klamath tribes, Yurok tribe, and Klamath Water Users Associationrepresenting agricultural producers across 17,000 acres in both California and Oregon, serves as a major step in a long-running battle over access to water as the Klamath River dries up and federal officials cut flows to tribes and producers.
Droughts in the region have often degenerated Indigenous peoples and endangered fish against more than 1,000 farms that rely on the same water for their crops. In 2001, the Bureau of Reclamation cut off irrigation water to farmers in the midst of a drought, leading to protests by farmers and illegal water releases. Two decades later, in the midst of another drought, the agency cut water to farmers to conserve endangered mammals, which in turn increases tension. “It’s not safe for natives to be in farmland during a drought year,” said Joey Gentry, a member of the Klamath Tribes. Inside Climate News after the water cuts in 2021.
In 2022, tribes won a protracted campaign to convince the federal government to remove four dams that stopped salmon from reaching their spawning grounds, marking a major victory for indigenous communities that rely on the Klamath. Now, Clayton Dumont, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, says the new agreement goes even further.
“We’re nowhere near done, but it’s a very strong start,” he said. “To get adversaries like this together in a room and have to sit through a lot of bitterness to get to a point where we are now, I think it’s not only commendable, it’s quite miraculous.”
Klamath Tribes were forced to cede 23 million hectares in Oregon and California to settlers in exchange for a reservation, but a 1864 treaty gave the tribe the right to hunt and fish forever on those ceded lands. However, fishing was not consistently possible with drought and conflicting demand for water.
“What is at stake is our own livelihood, our culture, our identities, our way of life,” said Dumont.
In the next month, tribes and agricultural producers will meet to decide on restoration projects that can be completed within the next two years and supported by existing federal or state programs. After the priorities are decided, U.S. Department of the Interior officials will identify both existing funding and new funding sources for the projects. The agency also plans to releasing more than $72 million to modernize agricultural infrastructure and restore the ecosystem in the Klamath Basin.
Klamath Water Users Association officials said in a press release that working with the tribes will make both parties more effective in obtaining state and federal funding to support the region.
“I hope this MOU will be the first step in bringing all the different entities together to work toward a solution to the conflicts over water that have bedeviled this region for decades,” said Tracey Liskey, president of the Klamath Water Users Association Council. said. of Directors. “The water users want fish in our rivers and lakes and water in our irrigation ditches. In this way, we can all have a prosperous way of life in the basin.”
Dumont says it helped that the local, statewide and federal administrations all supported this agreement. However, he added that there is no guarantee that the MOU will have any staying power after November.
“If the election goes wrong, it could all dry up very quickly,” Dumont said.
