| The Yurok Tribal Council
voted late last week to approve signing two agreements
that will remove four PacifiCorp-owned dams on the
Klamath River and bring a basin-wide approach to
ecological restoration.
An official signing by all the various parties
involved in the negotiations to dismantle dams,
including American Indian tribes, fishermen, farmers,
irrigators and government agencies, is expected later
this month.
“We’re ready to go to the signing,” Yurok Tribe
policy analyst Troy Fletcher said Tuesday. “We just need
to figure out where that’s going to be and when. And, of
course, the real work will start after the signing.”
It took several years to come to the terms to take
out the four dams on the Klamath River. There’s still a
lot of work left to be done, including ensuring all the
funding for the project is available, completing several
environmental impact analyses and passing key
legislation, before the 2020 target date for a free
flowing river.
Many groups have already supported signing the
agreements to take out the dams, including the Humboldt
County Board of Supervisors, Karuk Tribe, and Klamath
Tribe of Oregon.
The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors has not
made a decision on whether to sign the agreements, with
members saying last week that they needed more
information on the local impacts. |
