The Yurok and Hoopa Valley Tribes are collaborating with other agencies to save the Trinity River ecosystem. According to members of the Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes, dams on the Trinity River have radically altered the landscape, reducing its flow and making the river less habitable for salmon and other wildlife.
The Trinity River Restoration Program is an ongoing project run by the tribes that takes place every summer and began in 2005. The program aims to radically alter the river by creating bends and variable depths to reflect its natural behavior and to plant native plants along its banks. Aaron Martin is a technical field manager for the Yurok tribe.
“The reason they put those dams in is they're shipping the water to the Sacramento Valley. And the Trinity (River), for 30 or 40 years, lost almost up to 90% of the flows," Martin said. "And that's not a healthy river, you know. Big flows would knock that all around and cause these different surfaces that don't exist now."
Martin said the drought and low water flows due to the dams, cause cascading negative effects for the river.
A key reason for the project is the river's dwindling salmon populations, which are vital to the tribes' way of life. This year's population was critically low. In June, The California Fish and Game Commission added Upper Klamath Trinity Spring Chinook Salmon to the California Endangered Species List. In August, a yearly salmon population survey returned the second-lowest Spring Chinook population since it began in 1994.
