Tribes protest over Klamath Basin water

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) - Displaying dead and decaying salmon, members of a downstream Klamath River tribe demonstrated Friday against the federal government's decision to cut back on emergency water flows in the river.

Two pickups carrying counterprotesters drove by the rally. Someone in one of the trucks yelled, ``You guys poisoned the fish ... you guys poisoned the fish.''

The Bureau of Reclamation authorized an emergency, two-week pulse of water on Sept. 27 after up to 30,000 adult chinook salmon died in the lower Klamath River. The emergency release from the Upper Klamath Lake will end Saturday to leave enough water for endangered sucker fish that live there.

Tribes and state biologists in California link low flows, warm weather and crowding salmon to a disease outbreak that killed the fish, but Bush administration officials have not connected the river flows to the fish kill.

About 150 people rallied Friday outside the Bureau of Reclamation offices, mostly Yurok along with representatives from the Kurok and Hoopa tribes of California.

``We are here to send a clear message,'' said Sue Masten, chair of the Yurok tribe. ``We have felt pain, anger and frustration that the Bureau of Reclamation does not hear our words.''

``America needs to wake up. We've lost one species on the Klamath River, and we've had a massive hit on the coho during the last fish kill. If we lose the coho we'll have five more species on the Klamath Basin that will come up next as threatened,'' she said.

Dave Sabo, area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, answered questions at the conclusion of the protest, dealing mostly with the specifics of the water flow reduction.

Sabo said the water to farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Reclamation Project will be cut off Oct. 15 after a summer of full irrigation.

The Bureau of Reclamation had shut off all water deliveries in 2001 in order to conserve water for endangered and threatened coho and sucker fish. Farmers were allowed full water deliveries this summer.

Environmentalists and tribal members said they blamed full irrigation deliveries in southwestern Oregon for the salmon kill nearly 200 miles downstream in California.

Dave Solem, manager of the Klamath Irrigation District, urged caution in assigning blame for the fish kill.

``The jury is still out on what all the issues were,'' he said. ``It's a complex set of issues that set up that fish kill.''

The Yurok Tribe asked California Gov. Gray Davis to ``issue a state of emergency'' for the tribe's reservation because of the fish kill.

The fun part is that these "Tribes" were nonexistant or small communities of marginally related yobos until it became profitable to be "native american" (mongoloid immigrants) and before lawyers (mongreloid opportunists) became available to work for a cut of the profits.

The "Yuroc Tribe"????
Cm'on....

"``We have felt pain, anger and frustration that the Bureau of Reclamation does not hear our words.'...and...'America needs to wake up. We've lost one species on the Klamath River..."

Not only lampoons Tonto, it sort of ignores the fact that "Yuroc" ain't a 'nation' (like Navajo/'Odam) and the thousands of Americans of all races who inhabit the basin are also at risk tue to politically correct distribution of rights.
(But they CAN operate a casino like respectible savages.)

I personally don't like fish.
If I did I think I could survive quite well on trout or tuna...the Coho salmon can by God fend for itself.

Oh!
Oh!

I have to add that the statement:

"Tribes and state biologists in California link low flows, warm weather and crowding salmon to a disease outbreak that killed the fish..."

Brings up huge visions of mythical lynx and spotted owls dying in droves because they saw a white man, or any non tribal or state-sponsored ecologist, wandering through the pristine woods.

The tribes let the fish die. A hundred commercial Tribal
gillnetters pulled their nets 2 weeks before fish died.
They could have caught enough to stop the over crowding
which cased diseases to flare up killing fish.That was half of their fisherman that stopped.And now they are suing farmers.!!The flows on lower river were about the same as last year, and the amount added by the temporary pulse flow only added 4 to 10 inches in lower river,depending on width, so the huge return
being so crowded would have had the disease flareup anyway
with only inches of extra debth.The gov provided huge overflowing fish return using hatcheries. and the tribes didn't take them to thin them out.To use them. What a waste.
Ed Hubel.

News Flash. Before there where ANY dams, the Klamath River would be a series of mud puddles during the early part of the fall,especially in dry years like this one. All the rivers without dams in western Oregon will be like that till we get big rain.

As to the noble tribes stopping gill netting, the stopped because there are so many salmon, the price has gone south.

``We are here to send a clear message,'' said Sue Masten, chair of the Yurok tribe. ``We have felt pain, anger and frustration that the Bureau of Reclamation does not hear our words.''

Does anyone really talk like that, or is this "spokesperson" just some white liberal with a small amount of Native American blood trying to sound like an Indian they've heard in Lone Ranger reruns and other similar crap?

Yep the price went down.The gov should have picked them up
like they do farm surpluses, to use for food banks. or
store until winter to feed eagles.30,000 or more rotting fish
could have been caught easily before death with those gillnets those 100 fishermen pulled out and gov pay 50 cents a lb and got them for about 300,000. And the die off wouldn't be there to cause 20-30 million in economic losses to the area(guided fishing, tourism, fishing supply bus,etc). Said losses made a whole bunch of folks non taxpayers, who might have paid a couple million in taxes.And there was no salmon fishery in the middle and upper Klamath before dams as
the river went completely dry in any dry year.One out of three were dry.Salmon didn't get there until man stored water and planted them.Ed Hubel.

There are plenty of fish...what the hell do you think hatchery's are for...!!

Keep firewater away from those who can't handle it !!

Let's Roll !!

The RATS are in disarray...eradicate the rodents !!

Fire Democrats, Hire Republicans !!

GWB Is The Man !!

Snuff Saddam, NOW !!

Death To all Tyrant's !!

The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

Judges,Tribes,Gov does it again.Screwup that is.ACTUALLY THEY DID IT LAST WINTER I GUESS.Gov has cut the flow from Lewiston and Trinity reservoirs by 150cfs that feeds to Trinity river.This is according to the judges
and tribes agreement of last winter.At that time they got an extra 100,000 acre ft to put down Trinity in spring.And that was on top of a big bump in flows they already had for spring.So now we have Trinity slowing down in record fish return year, in a dry weather year. This is a big scam folks, by the tribes, judge. and S Cal diverters going along
with it.
The upper basin is already being blamed for fish kills that
the tribes and greenies say will happen soon, because upper basin can't send any more pulse flows without getting sucker people mad at them.They had to slow down the pulse flow from upper basin.This reduction on the Trinity is to last for
over 5 months and here we have a dry fall, so no rain is available to build up flows for fish in Trinity branch.
And a news report of last week decried the fact that fish returns on Trinity were only 25%, So tribes agrreing to lower water when fish are coming, pulling nets when fish are coming, and so on, smells like a scam.Most of the dead fish were Trinity fish that got crowded and diseased.They had just enough cooler Trinity water to get them in , but not enough to keep them moving and thinned out.And the flows should have raised on the Trinity, but they are dropping them, with more record runs of fish coming...Folks...
WE ALL HAVE TO RAISE HELL . And change this.They don't need
the super huge bump in spring.The water is needed now.
Southern Califonia has to let loose a little water.Half of Trinity is enough for them. Upper basin just doesn't have the water to make up for these screwball ideas, even if half the farms are gone.I don't want to hear from greens about dropping Irongate flows back a little when they just did the same on Trinity of the same percentage....Pissed in MI-Ed Hubel

Screw the tribes, cut off their firewater...