Trinity River decision pleases California tribe, not farmers

Tribal members canoe along the Trinity River in Hoopa Valley, California

In this story: Hopes for a revived fishery Farmers go to court RELATED STORIES, SITES

From Don Knapp CNN Correspondent

HOOPA VALLEY, California -- A December decision by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has angered farmers in California's Central Valley but thrilled Native American Hoopa tribe members on the state's northern coast.

For much of the past half-century, the once-wild Trinity River has been dammed and diverted to bring cheaper electric power and promote farming on once-arid land. But that brought economic and spiritual pain to the Hoopa tribe, whose land and culture center around the river. Babbitt, saying he was fulfilling a promise made to the tribe in 1993, ordered the diversions cut by half.

Tribal Chief Duane Sherman kneels in the bow of a dugout redwood canoe as he paddles down the Trinity past village lands.

"This was the mode of transportation for 10,000 years, and it doesn't get any better than this," Sherman said.

Restoring the river will help restore prosperity and dignity to his people, Sherman said, "and this is what gives that person a self-esteem, the sense of knowing who he is. It really comes from this."

Only a relative trickle of the Trinity flowed through the Hoopa Valley tribal lands after the federal water project siphoned off as much as 90 percent of the water for farms.

Salmon and steelhead runs suffered. And so, ultimately, did tribal culture.

Sherman points out a well-preserved cedar Xonta (pronounced "HOON ta"), a Hoopa house near a spiritual building and a sweat lodge on the river's bank.

"It was just a part of every day to go down and bathe," he says. "Restoring this river will bring life back to the Hoopa people."

Hopes for a revived fishery

In a shed at the tribal hatchery, three workers sat in front of microscopes, preparing thousands of fish scales and mounting them for study. Biologists use the scales to determine fish species and age. Over the years, they've tracked the demise of a once plentiful fishery. Soon they hope to begin tracking the recovery.

"By putting water back in the basin, we'll be putting fish back in the basin," says tribal fisheries biologist George Kautsky. "It's just that simple."

Hoopa Tribal Chairman Sherman says, "This has been the mode of transportation for the Hoopa people for 10,000 years"

In winter, high, fast water can clear overgrowth from hardened gravel bars and reshape the riverbed.

Hydrologist Daniel Newberry works with the tribe. "The higher the flow, the more power," he said. "The more gravel is going to move. And you need a certain amount of movement every year, or over a series of years, in order to make it a healthy river system."

And, they hope, a recovered fishery.

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Department of the Interior - Secretary Babbitt

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