2011-04-05 "Action needed to support Winnemem Wintu Tribe" by Dan Bacher
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/04/05/18676448.php]
The Winnemem Wintu Tribe is now working on two very important efforts that require your assistance.
First, this summer they will hold the Bałas Chonas, or Coming of Age Ceremony, for the young woman who will become the next spiritual leader of the Tribe.
"We face the same challenge of getting the stretch of river temporarily closed, and the stakes are even higher," said Debbie Davis, Policy Director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water. "Please take a moment to send a letter of support for the closure."
”This is a matter of survival – the Winnemem people need our ceremonies and our sacred places to live," emphasized Caleen Sisk-Franco,
Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. "The government is endangering our entire way of life by refusing to cooperate. All we are asking is for four days of temporary river closure. That does not seem like too much to ask for the survival of an entire people.”
Please also watch for future emails outlining the practical, on the ground help that will be needed to create the privacy the Tribe needs to bring their next leader into womanhood.
The second effort is to return the McCloud River winter run chinook salmon home from New Zealand. In the early 1900s, McCloud River salmon were transported to New Zealand, and the Maori people have agreed to return these disease-free fish to the Winnemem. "We now need the cooperation of the U.S. and California State Governments," said Davis.
The Winnemem have a plan to establish a conservation hatchery and to reconnect the McCloud River to the Sacramento River. To help the salmon travel around the dam, they would use two natural creeks, Little Cow Creek and Dry Creek, where spawning salmon used to migrate before the dam.
Water from the McCloud River would be channeled to these creeks and flow down to the Sacramento, below the dam. Returning salmon would be able to catch these creeks and spill out in the reservoir near the mouth of the McCloud River. Once there, they would be able to catch the scent of their birth waters and find their way home. There is currently about ¼ mile of channel that would need to be created to make the connection between Cow Creek and Dry Creek and the Lake.
To help the young fry to remember their home waters, the Winnemem will rear the salmon in a small, open air hatchery until they’re large enough to make the journey to the Pacific and fend off the myriad non-native predators that now inhabit the Sacramento and the delta. The hatchery itself will be modeled after the hatchery on the Rakaia River in New Zealand.
The Winnemem Wintu is a traditional tribe who inhabits their ancestral territory from Mt Shasta down the McCloud River watershed. When the Shasta Dam was constructed during World War II, it flooded their home and blocked the salmon runs
Please take a moment to send a letter to support the tribe's efforts to "Dance Our Salmon Home." Please be sure to fax a copy of your letter to: 530-275-4193.
You can get a copy of sample letters and fact sheets by going to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe website: http://www.winnememwintu.us.