“There is no winner here”

In 1846, the Klamath Tribes signed a treaty surrendering some 20 million acres of their historic lands in exchange for a reservation along Upper Klamath Lake and the perpetual right to hunt and fish. After the Klamath Project irrigation system was initiated in 1907, a century of development fueled a surge of toxic algae killing the C’wam and Koptu, two species of native sucker fish sacred to the Klamath Tribes and protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1988.

The 2021 historic drought has heightened the stakes of the water crisis, the Upper Klamath Lake draining below critical thresholds for managing both species’ survival. Federal officials announced in the spring the dam gates would remain shut for the first time since 1907, depriving 1200 farm operations from their main water source. Most are family businesses and descendants of homesteaders, who now feel abandoned by the government who enticed them to farm these lands in order to feed the nation.

Also cut off from water supplies are several wildlife refuges that are home to 25 at-risk species of birds and fish. One of them is the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, established by President Roosevelt as the nation’s first waterfowl refuge in 1908. It is one of the most biologically productive refuges within the Pacific Flyway, and wildlife biologists worry that the water crisis will take a devastating toll on many colonial water birds, such as white-faced ibis, heron, egret, cormorant, grebe, white pelican, and gulls.

This work is part of a feature story published in Libération in July 2021.