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KBC Notes & Facts
Karuk
Spokesperson "Craig Tucker
received his B.S. in biochemistry from Clemson
University in 1993. He went on to get a Ph.D.
in biochemistry from Vanderbilt University in
1999. After graduate school he gave up
laboratory science for a career as an
environmental and social justice activist. In
2000 Craig
joined Green Corps, the field school for
environmental organizing. While in Green Corp,
Craig learned fundamental grassroots
organizing skills. After Green Corps he worked
as Outreach Director at
Friends of the River, developing
grassroots campaigns on a variety of
California water issues. Each campaign was
based on the connection between sustainable
environmental policy and social justice.
Currently Craig is the Campaign Coordinator
for the Karuk Tribe's 'Bring the Salmon Home'
campaign. The goal: removal of four dams on
the Klamath River which would represent the
largest dam removal project in history."
----------------------
Tucker: "Whatever we come up
with will have to pass the public approval
test..."
FERC Comments by John Mudre:
"These 'FERC negotiations' you mention are not
meetings held or attended by the Commission or
Commission staff. All of our meetings are open to
the public and, in most cases transcripts or
meeting summaries are made available to the
public...If settlement is reached, the settlement
would likely be filed with the Commission. At
that time, the Commission would issue public
notice of the settlement, invite public
comments on it, and subsequently act on those
issues under its jurisdiction."
---------------
History of Klamath Project partnership with
Copco Power company:Klamath River Basin Compact is 'The Law of the River', H&N by James
Ottoman 3/28/05.
Klamath River
Compact spelled out how water in river was to be used, H&N 3/21/05
by Lynn Long, Klamath Water Users power committee chairman.
----------------
PCFFA, Yuroks
and Hoopas along with the other environmental
groups filed against irrigators in the power
rate case, Yurok employee Felice Pace presently
has lawsuits against Scott Valley and Klamath
irrigators on water quality, PCFFA and Yuroks
and other groups sued irrigators saying they did
not have a right to water we stored for
irrigation in 2001 which, on our deeds, says
"water appurtenant to that land" and signed by
the President of the United States, ....NOW that
tribes and PCFFA and enviros succeeded in
winning the power rate case against irrigators
to downsize ag, now they say, ok, you get an
affordable power rate if the dams come out.
Was that a handy bargaining tool? Do they
truly want us to have
dependable water after they sued us so we would
not get water?
----------------------
2002 fish die-off
In 2002, the warm shallow water from the
Klamath Project was released into the Klamath
River. When the Trinity River fish reached the
Klamath they got sick and died. The National
Academy of Science, and fisheries biologist
David Vogel, found no causal connection
between flows and the fish die-off; more warm
water would not save these fish. There were
hundreds of news articles by environmentalists
and Indian Tribes all blaming the Klamath
Project irrigators. Never were the Klamath
dams mentioned as the cause of the die-off.
Photos of dead fish were seen across the
country blaming "low flows".
Major Problems with the Department of Fish and Game
(DFG) 'Fish Kill' Report. In 1988 there
were large salmon runs, 215,322 salmon, and
low flows 2,130 cfs, and no fishkills. In 2002
there were 132,600 salmon at 2,129 cfs, and
fish died. Therefore, the dams did not make
these fish extinct because there were record
runs, and with a higher 1988 run with the same
flow, fish survived just fine.
--------------
Secret talks, yes. Do we farmers support the
dam removal? 28 groups are at the table,
tribes, enviros, gov't agencies and Klamath
Water Users Association. But the meetings are
secret. How many endangered fish will be
planted in our lakes and ditches? Does this
involve retiring more ag land? Upper Basin has
already been made "unwilling sellers' for
100,000 acres of ag land into wetlands,
evaporating vast amounts of water and
decimating the cattle industry. When we are
not told what rights are being negotiated, we
have no way to be supportive. We just know
that the dams provide low-cost power for
70,000 customers per year, thanks to the free
regulated water provided by the Klamath
Project. We know there would be millions
of tons of sediment behind those dams which
could wipe out salmon habitat if they are
removed.
----------------
8 peer-reviewed
reasons for the decline in coho, according to the
USFWS studies.
VIDEO
of David Vogel describing the 8 peer-reviewed
reasons for the decline
in salmon.
Klamath Project and dams are not listed.
--------------------
For more info and articles, see our Dam Page,
and other articles scattered throughout our
home page. |
Tribes take Klamath
dams woes to Buffett HQ
by TESSA JEFFERS
followed by
On the home front
Secretive settlement talks
and a surprise lawsuit
Above: Beneath Interstate 480,
tribal members perform the Brush Dance
to pray for the healing of the Klamath
River. Photo by Sean Welch/The Reader.
On the cover: Codi Donahue, a
Karuk tribal member and spiritual
leader, protests in front of
PacifiCorp's headquarters in Salt Lake
City, Utah. Photo by Matt Mais/Yurok
Tribe.
OMAHA, NEB.
Dressed
in traditional regalia, with woven baskets on
their heads and earthy symb ols of
renewal in hand, about 20 Native Americans
chanted, danced and prayed in a circle. They
surrounded Karuk tribe member Kathy McCovey, a
medicine woman, sitting next to a fire burning
angelica root, her eyes closed, meditating.
Their shell-encased skirts made the sound of
water.
The Klamath River Basin
coalition -- a group of Native Americans,
commercial fisherman and conservationists --
had arrived in Omaha Thursday, May 3, for a
salmon cookoff at Heartland of America Park.
The next day at the same spot under the
Interstate 480 bridge, the natives
demonstrated the aforementioned "brush
ceremony," an ancient, healing ritual.
Right: Brush Dancer Bryan
Colegrove. Photo by Sean Welch/The Reader.
Omaha tribe elder Richard
Barea, 59, attended the ceremony after hearing
about it through word of mouth, or "the
moccasin telegraph." A Karuk Tribe member
approached him with an offering, a dried
salmon stick, similar to jerky. "This is what
we're trying to save," he told Barea.
The coalition joined the
nearly 30,000 in town for Berkshire Hathaway's
annual meeting on May 5. Representatives of
the three largest Klamath Indian tribes from
the northern California/southern Oregon border
-- Karuk, Hoopa and Yurok -- aimed to educate
Berkshire Hathaway shareholders about the
destructive impact that the
Berkshire/MidAmerican Energy-owned utility
PacifiCorp's hydro-powered dams have had on
the ecosystem of the Klamath River Basin. The
dams have slowed salmon migration to an
alarming rate; commercial salmon fishing was
banned along 700 miles of California-Oregon
coast last year.
Salmon is the lifeline for
these people. Two handmade redwood canoes
symbolically followed the tribe on the journey
from Klamath; in the past nine days they had
traveled and demonstrated in San Francisco,
Sacramento and Salt Lake City (PacifiCorp's
headquarters). Bob McConnell, a Yurok tribal
member, fisherman and boat builder explained
to a small group the history of the boat's
significance. "A boat is considered a person,"
he said, pointing to its "body parts" -- nose,
heart, lungs, kidneys.
"The real thing we're here for
is to educate the powers that be in Berkshire
Hathaway about PacifiCorp," he said. "They are
strangling our cultures." The 57-year-old was
13 in 1962 when the last dam was built. Back
then, 10,000 salmon might have swam by in a
single day, he said. His people used to be
able to catch enough fish in one day to feed
their families for a year; now they're lucky
if they catch three.
As the "brush" ceremony
concluded, shareholder passes to the
convention were being accounted for in
preparation for the big day ahead (some were
acquired through shareholder friends, some for
$15 on eBay) -- asking Warren Buffett, in
front of thousands of people, if he's going to
do anything about his company that's ruining
their culture. After all, his sons, Howard and
Peter, are known as Native American advocates.
Peter composed music for Dances With Wolves
and 500 Nations, an eight-hour CBS
documentary about Indian heritage. In fact,
Karuk member Leaf Hillman was a finalist two
years ago for an American Indian leadership
award from the Buffett brothers for his role
in this very campaign. Hillman was in Omaha
leading the Klamath allies as part of the
dam-removal campaign, and is a plaintiff in a
pending lawsuit against PacifiCorp. So where
 were
the Buffett brothers this week? Repeated
attempts to contact them failed, and a
Berkshire spokeswoman said no one was
available for interviews. "Personally, I find
that [lack of response] offensive," said Karuk
coordinator Craig Tucker. "They should be
here."
Left: En route to Omaha,
Yurok Tribal members Frankie Myers and Bob
McConnell stand in front of the PacifiCorp
business offices outside of Salt Lake City.
Photo by Matt Mais/Yurok Tribe.
Words of wisdom
People absolutely adore
Warren Buffett. Maybe it's because though he's
the second-richest man in the world, he'll
dedicate five hours to offering advice and
answering about 60 questions from shareholders
at his annual "Woodstock of Capitalism."
Events ran from Friday through
Saturday at Omaha's Qwest Convention Center.
There was a pavillion set up to display and
market products manufactured by Berkshire
Hathaway's many companies. Buffett himself
pitched, for a bit: The candid and outspoken
76-year-old Berkshire Hathaway president
played the ukulele and sang with the Quebe
Sisters Band at the Justin Boots booth, and
did the can-can with Fruit of the Loom mascots
dressed in tights, all while searching for a
successor to handle his more than $40 billion.
It was the face of big
business -- really big; shareholders from New
York to Germany to China to Kuwait to Kansas
City combined for a record 27,000 in
attendance.
Buffet and his partner Charlie
Munger fielded questions and talked shop while
shareholders took advantage of discounts in
the adjacent convention market. A 17-year-old
told the duo that this was his 10th
convention. The boy asked his idols what he
should do to become an investor, while others
asked about intrinsic value, derivatives and
other intricate business strategy.
This event was huge, too, for
the group of 40 Native Americans, commercial
fisherman and conservationists representing
the Klamath. It was raining and cold outside
the Qwest Center Omaha this Saturday morning
as they held up signs: "PacifiCorp = Poverty,"
"Save Our Native Culture," "Un-dam the
Klamath" and "PacifiCorp = Salmon Kill." One
sign even catered to terms appropriate of the
day: "Dam Removal Good Business."
It'd been a long week for
Karuk tribe member Kenneth Brink and the
coalition. As he peacefully distributed
brochures, an elderly woman flipped him the
bird as others smirked or walked by without a
glance.
 "Most
shareholders don't know who PacifiCorp is,"
Brink said outside the Qwest at about noon
after the signs had been packed up. For every
500 passers-by, probably 20 were receptive to
the protesters. Some told them to "get a life
... get a job." The advocates were preparing
for the culmination of their journey to
Nebraska. They came here to ask Buffett some
questions. "Warren's going to be our hero,"
Brink said.
Right and below: Standing
in the rain on a brisk Saturday morning,
tribal members protested in front of the Qwest
Center to raise awareness of the
destructiveness of PacifiCorp's dams on the
Klamath River fishery. Photos by Sean
Welch/The Reader.
'Bad business'
Craig Tucker's eyes carry
heavy baggage; the Karuk spokesman has been
doing interviews nonstop. Even CNN called.
He's been trying to get the word out about the
health and environmental disaster PacifiCorp's
dams have created.
Not only have the dams
threatened and in some cases caused extinction
to indigenous species, they've caused toxic
liver-damaging algae blooms at levels nearly
4,000-times higher than World Health
Organization guidelines.
Brink said his people -- 3,600
Karuks live in the middle Klamath -- caught
200 fish for the entire year in 2006. "Our
children can't even swim in the river
anymore," he added. Federal agencies have
noticed: For the past four years PacifiCorp
has been trying to secure a 50-year license
renewal from the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) to operate the dams; the
commission mandated PacifiCorp to install fish
ladders, estimated to cost between $300-$350
million. Several lawsuits have been filed,
including one last week by Yurok and Karuk
tribal leaders regarding the algae's toxic
hazards.
The four dams the Klamath
coalition target produce about 150 megawatts
of power, accounting for about 2 percent of
the company's electricity, or enough to power
70,000 homes. Tucker said the major
liabilities associated with keeping the dams
operative more than outweigh their practical
application.
"Eventually someone is going
to get sick from the algae," Tucker said.
PacifiCorp's had chances to resolve the issue,
but continues to "drag its feet" and is making
"bad business" moves, he said. The Klamath
coalition thought Buffett would be interested
to hear about it.
 PacifiCorp
and the parties who support dam removal have
been negotiating the issue for quite some
time. The Klamath allies traveled to Scotland
in 2004 and '05 for similar demonstrations to
PacifiCorp's former owner, Scottish Power.
Berkshire acquired the utility about a year
ago.
"I think the Scottish people
were embarrassed of this impact on Native
Americans," Tucker said, "and they sold the
problem to Warren Buffett."
PacifiCorp spokesman Dave
Kvamme said the company would "continue to
work through the settlement process. It's our
preference to find a settlement outcome." If
one cannot be found, the utility would
continue to pursue the federal licensing
process.
Kvamme said "nobody knows what
removal of the dams would cost," but the
California Energy Commission and other
regulatory agencies have concluded that
removing the dams would actually save the
utility more than $100 million. Michael Bowen,
project manager for the California Coastal
Conservancy, said PacifiCorp has offered
dam-removal cost estimates as large as $1
billion, with no evidence to support them.
Kvamme said the 20-million cubic yards of
sediment that lie behind the dams may need to
be treated. Bowen's organization conducted a
study of the sediment and found it to be
non-toxic. "Our assertion is that [dam
removal] would cost $100 million," Bowen said,
an option much cheaper than installing fish
ladders.
Kvamme said the CCC's study
was only a "preliminary look."
Tucker's response to Kvamme:
"Where's your study?"
Big screen, smoke screen
The day of the convention, the
canoes were parked outside the Qwest at 6 a.m.
Many of the tribe members were
on the eighth day of a nine-day fast,
operating on little to no sleep. Kelly
Catlett, a Friends of the River policy
advocate from Sacramento, reported that the
situation became even more stressful when
people on the street started saying nasty
things to the protesters.
"They were really hurt by
that, given that they came with good hearts
and good spirit, and simply wanted to educate
and tell people what's happening to them,"
said Catlett.
Inside the Qwest, the crowd
mixed of suits and laymen buzzed with
excitement. A group of five Klamath Indian
women dressed in full regalia waited in line
in the hallway to address the beloved
billionaire, long heralded as a man of
integrity. Could he be swayed? It was the
hope. Finally, after almost seven hours,
Ronnie Pellegrini, accompanied by her
14-year-old daughter, explained how her
husband, Paul, is a fourth-generation
fisherman from Eureka and how the four
PacifiCorp hydro dams had resulted in 95
percent salmon loss. She told Buffett this was
ruining livelihoods on the Pacific coast. "You
are a great businessman who's built an
incredible empire," she said. "The coastal
communities are awaiting your response. What
can I tell them is your position on removing
the four Klamath dams?"
FERC has 27 different groups
involved in the negotiations, Buffett said.
"We are a public utility responding to public
policy. We will do exactly what they say. We
are responsive to the people who regulate us.
That is entirely a question for FERC."
As shareholders' shopped for
$5 underwear, Dairy Queen Dilly Bars and
bargain peanut brittle (this is business,
after all), big screens were set up in the
middle of it all so the question-and-answer
session next door could be heard. Shareholders
seemed uneducated but curious about the
Klamath dams.
"I don't know enough about it,
but it's a big deal up there," said Karen
Asche, who moved from Lincoln, Neb. to
Medford, Ore., four years ago. Shareholder
Lori Gensch, from Milwaukee, said she'd been
discussing the issue with some Omahans. "Buffett
seems to be very conscious about nature
issues; he's not going to do something
destructive," she said. "Who better to buy a
company like that than him?"
About 30 minutes later,
another member of the Klamath coalition had
her turn to ask Buffett a question. Wendy
George, a council member with the Hoopa tribe,
asked if Buffett would meet with the tribes so
they could further educate him on the
situation.
Again Buffett said FERC would
make the final determination. "The world wants
electricity ... all of the arguments will be
presented. It takes a lot of time. I'm in a
peculiar situation on this," Buffett
responded. He went on to explain that when he
bought PacifiCorp, he signed an affidavit --
which he held up as proof -- agreeing that he
would not execute PacifiCorp decisions.
 Right:
Ron Reed, Cultural Biologist for the Karuk
Tribe, is interviewed by Bloomberg about the
impact of the dams at Heartland of America
Park, as Ronnie Pellegrini looks on. The
tribes had a traditional salmon bake at the
park on Thursday. Photo by Matt Mais/Yurok
Tribe.
Omahan Carol McBryant, a
National Park Service employee who attended
both the salmon feeding and brush ceremony,
attended the Berkshire convention because she
was intrigued by the issue. "From the sounds
of it, Buffett's diverted it all to the
regulatory board. At the same time, he owns
the company -- he's got to have an opinion,"
said McBryant, an American Indian liaison and
the chief of interpretation for Omaha's Lewis
and Clark National Historic Trail. She noted
that musician Peter Buffett's Spirit --
the Seventh Fire -- a musical about a
Native American wrestling with his identity in
contemporary America that was performed on the
Omaha Riverfront in 2004 -- was for sale in
the convention's bookstore. She said "it's
very good."
Although the Klamath River
Basin allies were sure they made an
impression, they were disappointed.
"We felt that Buffett missed
the point and that his responses to us and our
demonstrations are that he doesn't understand
the issue," Tucker said. "After being polished
in his responses all afternoon, he fumbled
with us." Buffett's response that there were
27 other entities involved was almost true:
There are 28. But, the main thing, Tucker
said, is there are only two opinions:
"PacifiCorp's and everybody else's."
Tucker called Buffett's
referral to FERC a "smoke screen."
"In America, dam removal
doesn't come through federal orders, it comes
through a settlement agreement," he said, "so
leaving it up to FERC is passing the buck off.
"Saying that he has no influence is crazy." .
In the MidAmerican Energy
convention booth, PacifiCorp representatives
said the protests and questions had "put a
twist" on the meeting this year, and that
shareholders wanted to learn more about it.
Berkshire's ownership of
PetroChina, which reportedly supports the
Sudanese government and its genocide in Darfur,
was given much attention in the media. When a
shareholder criticized Planned Parenthood,
Buffett defended what he called "a terrific
organization" and ended his response with "I
hope you'll respect my opinion as I respect
yours." In fact, the Klamath River dam removal
was the only issue the oracle appeared not to
have an opinion on.
"It's ridiculous," Hillman
said. "What he doesn't know is killing us."
On forbes.com just hours after
the convention wrapped up, Forbes'
National Editor Robert Lenzner quipped, "
we all know the immense influence Buffett has;
he personally saved Salomon Bros. from
liquidation. It would have been more heroic to
agree to meet with the people affected and to
put his weight behind a fair and proper
solution."
After it was all said and
done, was it worth it? On Saturday Buffett
produced official affidavits to prove that it
wasn't his battle. His awareness was raised --
just not enough for Tucker and his group, who
still have hope that Buffett will come around.
"Warren and Munger stood up
all day long and preached the virtue of
researching the issues of businesses you
invest in. It's very clear he's not up to
speed on this issue. We need him to call Bill
Fehrman [PacifiCorp president and former
Nebraska Public Power District employee] on
the phone and tell him, 'PacifiCorp is being
irresponsible,'" Tucker said. "This is going
to cost these shareholders money, and I can
tell by being there at the convention, losing
money is something they don't like."
The trip wasn't a bust; at
least now they know to approach PacifiCorp's
patriarch in terms he can understand:
business, as usual.
Tessa Jeffers is assistant
managing editor of The Reader, Omaha's
alternative newsweekly (www.thereader.com).
This story is appearing simultaneously in
The Reader and the North Coast Journal.
TOP
On the home front
Secretive settlement talks
and a surprise lawsuit
by HEIDI WALTERS
For the
past two years, up to 28 stakeholders have
been meeting behind closed doors to negotiate
a settlement that will provide a framework for
a host of Klamath River projects aimed at
fixing water quality and quantity problems
throughout the entire river basin. The
meetings have been secretive -- the better to
allow the oft-at-loggerheads parties to be
open with each other -- and the issues
complicated.
These negotiations were
embarked on as a parallel course to the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's
traditional approach to relicensing
PacifiCorp's Klamath dams. The dams' 50-year
license expired in 2006, but has been extended
while FERC completes its final environmental
impact statement. Parties to the talks, which
are covering territory and issues that go
beyond the scope of FERC, say they could be
ready to present a package to FERC by
November. FERC then has the option to
incorporate into the new license the parts of
the settlement that pertain specifically to
the dams.
So who are these stakeholders,
and what are they talking about? They include
the Yurok, Hoopa Valley, Karuk and Klamath
tribes; the Klamath Water Users Association;
the states of Oregon and California; Siskiyou,
Klamath and Humboldt counties; a slew of
federal agencies, including NOAA, USFWS and
the Bureau of Reclamation; and numerous
conservation groups including CalTrout, Trout
Unlimited, American Rivers, the Northcoast
Environmental Center and the Pacific Coast
Federation of Fishermen's Associations.
PacifiCorp also has been at the table on
occasion.
"It's the hardest thing I've
ever been associated with," says Greg
Addington, executive director of the Klamath
Water Users Association, which represents
irrigation districts in the upper basin. "You
have vastly different philosophies and
ideologies. You have people with years of
history of fighting each other, and
litigating. You've got all the players. You've
got the tension of the Bush Administration."
While the parties have kept
mum on the emerging framework, they readily
reveal their expectations.
"We have three things we have
identified from the beginning that we need to
have addressed in a settlement," says
Addington. The farmers want affordable power
-- something they've enjoyed for nearly a
hundred years, initially in an agreement with
the hydro dams' first operator. But PacifiCorp
has decided not to renew its 50-year low-cost
power contract with the irrigators, so the
farmers could be in the market.
The farmers also want a known
quantity of water. And they want assurances
that salmon habitat restoration in the upper
basin doesn't backfire on them. "If dams come
down, if fish passage is put in, if there's
going to be an introduction of fish to the
upper basin -- if people recognize it's a good
thing to open it up to habitat -- we're
probably paranoid, but, the regulatory
significance of that ... what does it mean for
us?" Addington asks.
The tribes, conservation
groups and some others want four dams removed
by 2015, and for the river entire, including
tributaries above the dams, to be restored.
"I think we're making big
progress," says Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign
coordinator for the Karuk Tribe. "We're
talking about instream flows in the river, and
irrigation diversions -- how much water can
these guys take and leave enough for fish in
the river, so we can have farms and fish?
We're looking at a future where, every fall,
there'll be a salmon and a potato festival.
"And, we're talking about
affordable power rates for the farmers. Their
power rates are going up 1,200 percent. Their
power needs are relatively modest, so there's
opportunity for them to set up their own power
district, perhaps develop some solar energy.
... But they might need some funding. We're
saying, hey, you help us with those dams, and
we'll help you with your power."
Addington echoes that promise.
"If we can achieve what we need, we'll help
them achieve what they need," he says.
So everything's going
swimmingly -- except, that is, with one key
stakeholder, PacifiCorp. "Most of the talks
have been without PacifiCorp, because the
company hasn't been very helpful," says
Tucker. "They've refused to provide data sets.
They keep giving lip service to settlement,
and [they] have proposed options. But the
options would not get the dams out in a timely
manner."
At some point, Tucker says, a
settlement package must be offered to FERC.
"We can send it to FERC without PacifiCorp's
endorsement, or we can convince PacifiCorp to
come along and join us. ... We've got to get
the company on board."
It's unclear yet whether two
events last week might prod PacifiCorp in that
direction -- or make it balk even more. Warren
Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway which
controls the subsidiary that now runs
PacifiCorp, didn't budge last weekend when
North Coast tribal members appealed to him and
his 27,000 attending shareholders to take down
the Klamath dams. He said he left that
decision to FERC.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed May
2 against PacifiCorp seeks immediate removal
of the dams. The plaintiffs -- the nonprofit
group Klamath Riverkeeper and seven
individuals (four Yurok and Karuk tribal
fishermen and two tribal world renewal priests
who use the river for ceremonies, and a
Berkeley-based commercial fisherman) -- claim
PacifiCorp's dams have created disruptive
flows and warm water temperatures, fostering
growth of an algae called Microcystis
aeruginosa. The algae has produced liver
and tumor-promoting toxins recorded in
concentrations far above World Health
Organization standards for public safety, and
"significantly reduced the Klamath fishery
population, limiting both the tribe members'
and the commercial fishermen's catch and
jeopardizing their economic survival,"
according to the lawsuit.
"The people on the lawsuit are
not part of the settlement talks," clarifies
Regina Chichizola of Klamath Riverkeeper. "The
reason we felt we had to file the suit was
because the talks have gone on for a long
time. With the algae, nothing has been
happening. PacifiCorp has fought us every step
of the way. And now, with summer coming, we're
looking at toxic algae blooms up to 5,000
times the level" recommended as safe by the
WHO. "We need relief."
The plaintiffs demand a jury
trial. And their lawyers are heavy hitters.
They include Joe Cotchett, of Cotchett, Pitre
& McCarthy, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., of
Kennedy & Madonna, LLP. "Why take this case?"
said the brusque Cotchett last week on the
telephone. "Why wouldn't I take it? They're
very deserving and wonderful people. If you
can't represent Native Americans, who can you
represent?"
Cotchett frames the lawsuit
somewhat differently than Chichizola. "The
lawsuit was only necessitated by the fact that
the resolution talks have either slowed down
or stalled," he said.
Jill Geist, the Humboldt
County supervisor taking part in the
settlement talks, says she was surprised to
hear of the lawsuit last week but notes that
it deals specifically with the toxins. The
talks focus on a multitude of long-term
solutions to water quality and supply issues.
"And you'll notice that the fingerpointing and
rhetoric has toned down" between the farmers
and fishermen, she says.
Addington, of the KWUA, says
of the lawsuit that he "personally wouldn't
have gone that route" and he hopes "they don't
go too far." He also congenially refused
repeated pleading by Tucker to join in on the
Omaha demonstrations: "I told him it's really
not our style. But we support what they're
doing and their drawing attention to it. And
at the end of the day, when we get ready to
implement the settlement, we're going to need
all the attention we can get." |
