Several members of the Karuk Tribe say a Forest Service fuels-reduction project is damaging sacred sites near the Klamath River in Oregon. So they blocked a road being used by the logging contractor working on the site, according to this Associated Press story.

We’re not saying don’t cut any trees,” says tribal spokesman Craig Tucker. “We are saying just do what you agreed to that we spent three years working out, and stressed every step of the way how important this place is from the tribe’s religious perspective.”

The logging occurred near a site where the tribe conducts world renewal ceremonies.

Six Rivers National Forest Supervisor Tyrone Kelley tells the AP’s Jeff Barnard that it was an oversight, and that the agency is working with the tribe to mitigate the impacts.

But Tucker takes exception to that explanation:

“That is like saying, ‘Oops, we’re sorry, we didn’t mean to bomb the wedding, it was collateral damage.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Karuk, Klamath River, Native American news, Six Rivers National Forest, U.S. Forest Service

In what is being touted as the world’s biggest dam-removal project, an agreement has been reached to remove four dams on the Klamath River and restore a 300-mile migratory route for California’s beleaguered salmon, the San Francisco Chronicle reports here.

The agreement took a decade of negotiations among tribes, farmers, fishermen and the hydroelectric company that operates the dams and distributes the water.

The dams would be dismantled beginning in 2020.

The dams have blocked salmon migration for a century along the California-Oregon border and have been blamed for much of the historic decline of chinook and coho salmon and steelhead trout in the Klamath, the Chronicle’s Pete Fimrite writes.

The push to take the dams down gained momentum in 2002 after a federally ordered change in water flow led to the death of 33,000 salmon in the river.

Chinook once swam all the way up to Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, providing crucial sustenance to American Indians, including the Yurok, Karuk, Klamath and Hoopa Valley tribes.

“I cannot adequately say how impressed I am by everyone’s ability to put aside their differences,” says Craig Tucker, spokesman for the Karuk Tribe. “There is a long history of not getting along, of fighting over water rights. Now we are optimistic.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Dam removal, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Klamath River, Klamath Tribe, Native American news, Yurok Tribe