[env-trinity] Hoopa Valley Tribe Press Release on Trinity as 7th Most Endangered River

[Tom Stokely]

 For Immediate Release
April 17, 2023
CONTACTS:
Everett Colegrove, Vice Chairman
530 739-2172 (mobile)
everett.colegrove at hoopa-nsn.gov
Michael Orcutt, Fisheries Director
707 499-6143 (mobile)
mworcutt at gmail.com
Trinity River Among Most Endangered American Rivers
Yesterday, American Rivers named the Trinty River to its top-ten list of endangered American rivers. https://www.americanrivers.org/media-item/trinity-river-named-among-americas-most-endangered-rivers-of-2024/
Last week, federal agencies called for closure of California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon fisheries for the second year in a row.
A generation ago, the Ninth Circuit called out the federal government for its devastation of the Trinity River, writing that “restoration of the Trinity River fishery, and the ESA-listed species that inhabit it, are unlawfully long overdue.”
Why has this happened? The answer is clear from Hoopa’s perspective. “Reclamation has failed to follow the law and has failed to implement the restoration agreement with the Hoopa Valley Tribe that the Secretary of the Interior signed on sacred ground of the Hoopa Valley Reservation in December 2000,” said Hoopa Valley Tribe Vice Chairman Everett Colegrove.
Making a bad situation worse, in 2020, the Trump administration unlawfully signed contracts with Central Valley Project industrial farm operations that effectively eviscerated Trinity River restoration. Moreover, as of today, the Trump contracts are costing the federal Treasury nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in uncollected California fishery restoration costs.
The Hoopa Valley Tribe sued the Trump Administration to set aside the Trump contracts and in early 2021 urged the Biden Administration to right that wrong.
Instead, the Biden Administration remains in court defending Trump Administration water contracts that the California Supreme Court affirmed last year are invalid.
Today, Reclamation is hell-bent on making decisions for California water management that will perpetuate the ongoing devastation of the Trinity River fishery that is the lifeblood of the Hupa people. “We call on our trustee, Secretary Haaland to uphold the Law of the Trinity River for the good of our people and all communities that depend on a healthy Trinity River fishery,” said Vice Chairman Colegrove.
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