New legislation would prevent old policies from undermining Newsom’s “Salmon Strategy” | Opinion

Salmon are a cornerstone of my Karuk culture and the loss of salmon for my people cannot be overstated.

Salmon are intertwined with our cultural identity and religion — what it means to be Karuk. Our ceremonies celebrate the annual migrations of salmon, and the harvest and preservation of salmon is central to community activities that have persisted for generations.

In late January, Gov. Gavin Newsom released a strategic plan aimed at helping restore California’s dwindling salmon population. For Tribal Nations like the Karuk, the “Salmon-Strategy for a Hotter, Drier Future” is a multi-year plan to help recover native salmon and steelhead. It includes removing obsolete dams, restoring riparian habitat and increasing flows to provide more water when fish need it most, and is a welcomed step toward species recovery.

But absent common-sense legislation that deters harmful water use, the strategy is likely to fail.

Opinion

We have worked tirelessly for years to restore and protect water quality and habitat in the Klamath Basin, where the Karuk calls home. Thanks in part to an outdated water rights system, this is an uphill battle: When California’s water rights framework was established in the early 1900s, new settlers in the basin stole land and water rights from Tribal nations, and over time, dramatically altered, poisoned, drained and dammed its free-flowing rivers.

For more than a century, two important cold-water Klamath River tributaries that provide critical spawning habitat for salmon — the Scott and Shasta Rivers — have been pumped dry during salmon migratory periods to grow alfalfa and graze cattle.

Salmon have paid the price: Pink and chum salmon no longer swim in the Klamath; spring-run Chinook and coho are on the edge of extinction; and coho and Chinook — the last remaining salmon runs on these rivers — are in danger of extirpation.

Despite these overwhelming challenges, the Karuk Tribe remains focused on restoring healthy salmon runs. But we can’t do it alone. In 2021, during a declared drought emergency, we filed a formal petition with the State Water Resources Control Board requesting it use temporary powers granted by the drought declaration to curtail water use in the Scott and Shasta Rivers to prevent the extinction of federally-listed coho and at-risk Chinook salmon. The Water Board ordered upstream users to temporarily stop diverting water to protect the flows for fish and people who depend on them.

The emergency drought declaration will expire this year, and a longer-term solution is urgently needed.

The Karuk have again petitioned the Water Board to issue flow protections in these rivers. Newsom’s salmon strategy acknowledges that adequate cold-water flows will help protect salmon when they are most at risk. The plan directs the Water Board to work with local partners to establish minimum regulatory in-stream flows in the Scott and Shasta rivers and to consider options for incentivizing reduced diversions and groundwater pumping.

These curtailments are essential, but only if they can be properly enforced. While the Water Board can levy fines to punish those who disregard curtailment orders, these fines are so low that they have become a cost of doing business rather than a deterrent to illegal activity. Two bills making their way through the State House in Sacramento aim to fix this.

Assembly Bill 460, by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, would grant the Water Board the ability to act more swiftly with respect to enforcement during periods of water shortage. It would also increase fines as to actually deter bad actors from violating curtailment orders.

Meanwhile, AB 1337, by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, would clarify that the Water Board has clear authority to curtail water use among senior (pre-1914) rights holders during times of shortage. When California doesn’t have enough water to go around, everyone should have to play their part.

California has a unique opportunity to reverse the downward trend in salmon populations and improve the health of our waterways. We’re calling on the legislature and the governor to provide the necessary funding to establish permanent flows on the Scott and Shasta Rivers and to pass AB 460 and AB 1337. They must act swiftly.

Russell “Buster” Attebery is chairman of the Karuk Tribal Council, a federally recognized Indian tribe with more than one million acres of aboriginal lands in Humboldt and Siskiyou Counties along the Klamath River.