Wednesday November 2, 2022
The Sacramento Bee —
The Hoopa Valley Tribe alleged in a lawsuit Monday that the federal government is violating its sovereignty and failing to collect money from California farms that rely on federally supplied water to pay for damages to tribal fisheries.
The tribe, which has a reservation in northwest California, says in its lawsuit against the Biden administration that the Trinity River that it relies on for food and cultural purposes has been decimated by decades of the federal government diverting water.
The suit alleges the U.S. Department of the Interior has failed to follow laws that require the contractors who use that water to pay money for habitat restoration projects. It says those contractors owe $340 million for environmental restoration work along the Trinity River and other places damaged by water diversions.
“The river has become a place that is no longer a healing place, but a place that is a sick place,” said Jill Sherman-Warne, a member of the Hoopa tribal council.