The Excerpt podcast: Restoring the Klamath River and a way of life

On a special episode (first released on January 25, 2024) of The Excerpt podcast: According to a 1908 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as the Winters Doctrine, Native American reservations are entitled to enough water to meet their tribe's needs. That doctrine was recently invoked during a push by tribes to restore the Klamath River, which flows through Oregon and California. The goal, in part, is to restore the spawning grounds for fish for the first time in more than 100 years. Indigenous Affairs Reporter Debra Krol from the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, joins The Excerpt to discuss the ongoing battle over Indigenous water rights.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, January 25th, 2024, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt.

According to a 1908 US Supreme Court decision known as the Winters doctrine, Native American reservations are entitled to enough water to meet their Tribe's needs. That doctrine was recently invoked during a push by Tribes to restore the Klamath River, which flows through Oregon and California. The goal, in part, to restore the spawning grounds for fish for the first time in more than 100 years. Here with more on the ongoing battle over indigenous water rights, we're joined by an indigenous affairs reporter from The Arizona Republic, part of the Gannett network, Debra Krol. Thanks for joining us, Debra.

Debra Krol:

Thanks for having me.

Dana Taylor:

So let's start with the big picture here. Briefly, can you tell us why the Klamath River is so important to these Tribes who live along it?

Debra Krol:

The Klamath River is basically the basis of life for the seven Tribes and, not coincidentally, seven tribal cultures who have called the basin home for the last 15,000 years. It's a source of sustenance through fishing. It also sustains other wildlife like deer, and squirrels, and foxes. Virtually all the sites that are sacred to these Tribes are either right on the water or close to the water.

Dana Taylor:

So the last of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River will come down this year. You wrote that the dams created an unnatural system that left fish and people high and dry. How long have those dams been in place and how bad did it get?

Debra Krol:

The first dam was put in around 1913 to 1915. So for the last 110 years, salmon, steelhead and other fish that used the river above where the dams were for spawning, have been unable to get there. That has cut off up to 400 miles of their spawning territory. The entire Klamath basin is high in phosphorus, which is an essential nutrient for plant growth. When this phosphorus starts accumulating in these reservoirs, which are all pretty shallow, and the summer temperatures hit, toxic algae just proliferates in there. When we visited the reservoir one time, the stench was so bad that people were gagging and we just had to get away from it. Obviously this is not healthy for people, fish, pets, wildlife, and then when this water starts going downstream, down into the middle and lower Klamath, it is just bringing this toxic brew of basically deadly algae, which kills everything in sight, by the way.

Dana Taylor:

So how long have Tribes who live along the river been trying to have those dams removed? Was there a tipping point for the Tribe's arguments?

Debra Krol:

Yes, they've been asking to have the dams removed for decades, but the tipping point was in 2002 when the Klamath fish kill occurred. This resulted from the Bureau of Reclamation cutting off flow from the upper Klamath to satisfy some other Tribe's water rights to preserve their fish. And as the water goes down through those reservoirs, the toxic algae was extremely concentrated and extra deadly, and as it flowed through, it killed anywhere from, estimates range from, 30 up to 70,000 fish. That includes salmon, steelhead, lampreys, other fish that normally call that river home. It was a cultural and economic disaster for those Tribes, and that's when they said, "Enough is enough. The dams have to come down."

Dana Taylor:

Okay, and Debra, who's responsible for taking these dams out and then restoring the habitat?

Debra Krol:

The states of California and Oregon worked with the dam's owner at the time to create a nonprofit called the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. They have been given the responsibility to remove those dams and restore the flow of the Klamath. And another corporation, called RES for short, has been put in charge of restoring the land that's going to be exposed after the final dams were gone.

Dana Taylor:

And then how long might it take, after the river returns to full flow, for fish, specifically the salmon and steelhead you mentioned, to return?

Debra Krol:

There are some people who think it's going to take decades, but we saw what happened up in the Elwha River. It was about 10 years before the salmon numbers got high enough for people to actually start having a fishing season again. People are hopeful.

Dana Taylor:

So I want to circle back to talk about the Native Tribes who have ties to the Klamath River. I understand the river is a sacred place for Tribes in Northern California and southwestern Oregon.

Debra Krol:

There's seven Tribes, tribal governments, representing seven tribal cultures who have a cultural, and spiritual, and subsistence stake in the health of the Klamath River. For example, the Karuk Tribe recently got 1,200 acres returned to them to be put into trust, or in English, reservation land was created for them. Those 1,200 acres are right on the river, and they represent the Karuk people's most sacred areas. Basically, the center of the Karuk world is right there on those formations, right on the river.

That's not to say that the entire river, or the entire basin, or the entire Earth is not sacred. It's just that there are spots that are particular significance. And there's something else that I need to make sure that people understand that the Tribes are not going to be the only people that benefit from restoring the Klamath. There's a lot of people who live along the Klamath who have also been there for five, six generations, and they're going to benefit from having a clean river. They're going to benefit from being able to fish. They're going to benefit from having restored lands, and not coincidentally, the commercial salmon fishers in Northern California and Southern Oregon will be able to resume their livelihood. So there's a lot of good for basically everybody on the river.

Dana Taylor:

Well, the Klamath River dispute is just one of many between Native American Tribes and the US government involving water rights. Do you think the government's authorization to remove these dams is a sign that its agencies are ready to address Native American water rights issues elsewhere?

Debra Krol:

Well, we've seen that here in Arizona, the Bureau of Reclamation, which is the US agency charged with maintaining rivers and dams here in the west. And other governmental entities are realizing that Tribes really do have the most senior rights to water on rivers and water that lies underneath their tribal lands. From what I was hearing at the last big conference, it can't just be, this is my water and you can't have it. It's, everybody needs to come together to ensure that everybody has sufficient water.

Dana Taylor:

And I'm going to ask which conference was that? And also, are there specific current water rights policies being put forth to address the evolving water needs and challenges faced by Tribes across the country?

Debra Krol:

Well, that would be the Colorado River Water Users Association. The big push right now seems to be here in Arizona with the Colorado River situation. And Tribes hold senior water rights to 40% of the Colorado River flow in Arizona, and anywhere between 20 to 25% of the entire Colorado River, both the lower and upper basin. So they're realizing that Tribes have to be part of the solution. And so a lot of these policies are starting to become more inclusive and make sure, although Tribes are still fighting for a place at the table in some places, the movement is in a positive direction.

Dana Taylor:

When water's diverted from reservation, who reaps the benefits? How closely is this ongoing battle tied to commercial agriculture and landscaping?

Debra Krol:

A lot of it has to do with commercial agriculture. Back in 1922, when they negotiated the Colorado River Compact and divvied up the river between different states, they included the tribal water in that, and they didn't really give much thought to, oh, well, we can go put the straw in here and the Tribes won't really notice. Well, the Tribes did notice, and they have been fighting for their fair share of water ever since. Several pivotal decisions, including the Arizona v. California decision in 1963, the Gila River Water Settlement in 2004, and even this recent bill that allowed the Colorado River Indian Tribes, the Tribe that has the largest allocation of water in the entire basin, now has the ability to take its extra water and lease it to other people. Whereas before, if that water flowed out of the reservation, it was free for the taking. Now it's not. Now if somebody wants that extra water, they have to go lease it from the Tribe.

Dana Taylor:

So how do environmental challenges, created by global warming, impact the availability of water, and how have Tribes responded to those challenges?

Debra Krol:

Well, we all know that climate change doesn't necessarily cause less water. Climate change makes droughts worse, and it makes them longer. And eventually, it creates hotter, drier conditions, which are going to persist for a long time. So the Colorado River is trending down. It depends of course on the weather, but there is a downward trend, climate induced longer droughts and a lot more demand on the river. More people move here, they want golf courses, they want lawns, they want water features. Tribes realize that, just as Las Vegas outlawed non-functional grass, that they're thinking along those types of lines too, of what more can we do than banking water, and following fields, and more innovative, and water saving irrigation technologies?

Dana Taylor:

And finally, Debra, what would you like our listeners to understand about the current state of water rights and basic access to water by Native Tribes?

Debra Krol:

Tribes have the most senior rights to water. I think everybody is understanding that accessing those water rights has been an issue in the past and continues to be an issue now. Once a Tribe gets its water rights quantified, that is they and the government, and sometimes the court, and sometimes Congress says, "Okay, Tribe, we know that you are entitled to a hundred thousand acre-feet of water a year." And so it's written into the law, it's written into policy, but if the Tribe doesn't have the infrastructure to use that hundred thousand acre-feet, then it just flows down the river free for use for somebody else.

So in order to be able to use that water, they need to be able to build pipelines. They need to be able to build water treatment plants, run water to homes, wastewater treatment facilities, and it all costs money. Sometimes in the past, they get the rights, but they don't get the funding to use those rights, and that money needs to come from Congress. There has been some movement lately, during the Biden administration, which has allocated somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and it's helping, but they're going to need more, which means they're probably going to go back to Congress and ask for more.

Dana Taylor:

Debra, thanks so much for being on The Excerpt.

Debra Krol:

Thank you for having me.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producer, Shannon Rae Green, for production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening, I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.