[env-trinity] Hoopa Valley Tribes Presses for Trinity Restoration

[TBedros765 at aol.com]

Editors - Pasted and attached is a press release from the Hoopa Valley Tribe. 
Call me if you have questions or would like my help in setting up an 
interview. 
Thank you, 

Tod Bedrosian
Bedrosian & Associates
835 Klein Way
Sacramento, CA 95831
(916)421-5121
Media Contacts:     Clifford Lyle Marshall     (530) 625-4211 ext. 161
               Mike Orcutt               (530) 625-4267 ext. 13
               Tod Bedrosian           (916) 421-5121

HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE FEARS SAN JOAQUIN RIVER RESTORATION LEGISLATION COULD 
CRIPPLE TRINITIY RIVER RESTORATION EFFORTS

Hoopa, Calif. – Clifford Lyle Marshall, Chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe of 
northern California told the House Natural Resources subcommittee the passage 
of Rep. Mike Thompson’s H.R. 2733 is needed to prop up the sagging efforts of 
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) to restore the Trinity River during his 
testimony before the subcommittee Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

“Our strong support for H.R. 2733 should not be construed as opposition to 
the efforts to restore the San Joaquin River,” said Marshall. “We support river 
restoration throughout California, but we hope that Congress takes into 
consideration that the San Joaquin restoration legislation will become a 
billion-dollar vortex that will suck up all of the river restoration funding provided by 
the Central Valley Project Improvement Act.   The Trinity River restoration 
project is currently under funded by eight million dollars annually and is 
seven years behind schedule. Shifting the limited restoration funds in the CVPIA 
to San Joaquin will reduce funding for Trinity River restoration further.   
Funding for the Trinity needs to be identified now.” 

Marshall said the Hoopa Valley Tribe will continue talks with Sen. Dianne 
Feinstein’s staff about supplemental funding for restoration of the Trinity 
River. “The Senator has been a friend to the Trinity River in the past. I think she 
is concerned that the Bureau of Reclamation is only committing half of the 
money it should on the government’s promise to restore the Trinity River.   
Congressman Thompson’s Bill will fix the annual funding shortfall.   We hope she 
will introduce the same bill in the Senate.”

During the months the San Joaquin River legislation was being written by 
environmentalists and commercial water users in the Central Valley the Hoopa 
Valley Tribe expressed concerns, said Marshall. “We felt like the rug is being 
pulled out from under us.   We are not opposed the San Joaquin River restoration 
in principle but are concerned about funding and priority.   In the coming 
years of restoration of both rivers we hope the Congress remembers the decades of 
promises and work on the Trinity River which should be protected as a tribal 
trust by the U.S. Department of Interior.” 

Marshall said the Trinity River is the only tributary to the Klamath River 
producing harvestable quantities of endangered species of salmon for local 
harvest. “If the Trinity River goes down, so goes fishing for native people, sports 
fishermen and the commercial fishing industry for 900 miles of the Northern 
California and Oregon coastline.   The San Joaquin will take decades to 
restore.   Funding for the Trinity will produce immediate returns on investment and 
immediate benefit to the coastal communities that rely on the salmon industry.”

The San Joaquin legislation settles a lawsuit that has been in the courts for 
18 years, but Marshall said the Tribe's effort to restore the Trinity River 
has been underway for nearly 35 years. Legislation is sought because of the 
federal government's failure to comply with a 2002 court decision from the U.S. 
Ninth Circuit Court that reinforced the BOR’s duty to restore the Trinity River 
by noting, “The federal government has a trust obligation to the Hoopa and 
Yurok Indian Tribes and Congress expressed its intent this obligation be finally 
fulfilled more than four years ago.”

                    - 30 -                              





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