Santa Cruz Film Festival 2009

OFFICIAL SELECTION: EARTHVISION ENVIRONMENTAL JURY COMPETITION

“Since the beginning of time,” they’ve been living along the Klamath River, in the far north of what’s today called California. The Karuk, Yurok and Hoopa tribes are among the few in the United States who have managed to keep their traditions alive. Their culture is centered around a majestic fish: the Pacific salmon. A hundred years ago up to a million salmon would swim upstream to their spawning grounds each year. Today, only a few thousand return to the river. Four large hydroelectric dams cut off their path and have turned the water into a toxic soup. In 2002, nearly 70,000 adult salmon died in front of the eyes of the Native Americans in one of the worst fish kills ever recorded in US history. The tribes’ existences are in jeopardy.

Managers at PacifiCorp, the dams’ operators, praise hydropower as a low-cost, climate-friendly source of energy, a valuable resource they say can’t afford to be lost. But now they are in trouble. The long-term license for the hydro project needs to be renewed. Conditions of such a license will be very expensive for the company - maybe too expensive. The tribes’ position is clear: for the fish to survive, the dams have to go. Their struggle may trigger the largest dam removal project in history.