Press release from the Hoopa Valley Tribe: 

A large group of Hoopa Valley Tribal members will be attending a hearing in Fresno, California regarding a Temporary Restraining Order against a government decision to release water from Lewiston Dam on Trinity River to avert a Klamath River fish kill.

Tribal members will be demonstrating in front of the building in hopes of conveying the impacts that a large-scale fish kill would have on the people of the Klamath and Trinity River. They hope that federal judge Lawrence J. O’Neill will lift a restraining order that has been keeping Trinity River water from being released. The water is desperately needed to advert a large-scale fish kill in the Klamath River. Tribal members also plan to make public comments at the Westlands Water District Board meeting today in Fresno, CA.

The Trinity River is the only out of basin diversion into the Central Valley Project, and is also the Klamath River’s largest tributary. Central Valley Irrigation interests, Westlands Water District and the San Luis & Mendota Water District filed a lawsuit against a government decision to release water for fish on August 7th. The irrigators were given a restraining order pending hearing on August 14th. The Hoopa Valley Tribe and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations have intervened in the case on the side of the government.

“Central Valley water users have made untold billions of dollars at the expense of Trinity River salmon and communities. The greed and aggression represented by this lawsuit and the hypocrisy of the plaintiff’s exploitation of environmental protection laws both stuns and saddens us,” said Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairwoman Danielle Vigil-Masten in a statement.

WHAT: Court hearing and demonstration regarding the Temporary Restraining Order blocking a government decision to release water to avoid a large scale fish kill in the Klamath River

WHEN: August 21th, 8:30 am

WHERE: U.S. Courthouse, 2500 Tulare St., 7th floor, Courtroom 4, Fresno, CA

For more information contact Danielle Vigil-Masten, Chairwoman, Hoopa Valley Tribe, 530 784-8118 and/or Regina Chichizola, Hoopa Valley Tribe, 541 951-0126.