Yurok Tribe Finalizes Deal to Remove Klamath River Dams

On September 29, 2009, Scott Williams, as counsel to the Yurok Tribe and part of the Yurok Tribe’s negotiation team, successfully concluded negotiations on an agreement to remove four dams in the Klamath River. The New York Times accurately describes the dam removal agreement as a “landmark” deal, and a critical part of the largest river restoration project in American History. (September 30, 2009). The dams are impassable to fish, and for a century have blocked access of salmon and other anadromous fish to hundreds of miles of historic habitat. In consequence, the Yurok Tribe’s fishery has been in a steady, and deep decline; the fish kill of 2002 on the Yurok Reservation, which caused the loss of over 60,000 Chinook salmon and several hundred ESA-listed coho salmon, made clear to the Tribe that business as usual in the Klamath Basin was no longer tolerable. Scott and the Yurok team of negotiators worked to establish alliances with Basin farmers, other Basin tribes, conservation groups, the United States, Oregon and California; that group developed a Basin Restoration Agreement in 2008; the river restoration package is now complete with the addition of PacifiCorp, the owner of the dams, as a party to the agreement to remove the single greatest barriers to restoration of the river and the Tribal fishery.