Featured Voices

Is this Yurok Tribe funding justified?

The Yurok Tribe just loves to build big buildings which are NOT NEEDED and which then are left empty or underutilized. (The Weitchpec Fisheries Research Center is the latest example. It will cost taxpayers $1,619,434)

I CHALLENGE YUROK OFFICIALS TO TELL US HOW CONSTRUCTING ANOTHER NEW BUILDING WILL ADVANCE FISHERIES AND HABITAT RESTORATION?

Will any of the so-called leaders take up this challenge? 

The US Government has funded Yurok Tribe staff positions as one of its “Klamath Basin Restoration: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Projects.” This taxpayer funding is supposed to be for “restoration” but is being (illegally?) used to fund staff positions at the Yurok Tribe.

Shame on the Yuirok and USFWS officials responsible for this boondoggle. Those jobs are at the expense of our fisheries and habitat restoration. The Yurok Tribe should use its own money to fund its staff positions, not our taxpayer restoration funding!

That is just plain wrong and the responsible Yurok and USFWS officials should be ashamed of themselves for raiding restoration money for jobs. The good people of the Yurok Tribe should throw the responsible leaders out!

What are your thoughts about this boondoggle? 

A restoration boondoggle occurs when fisheries and habitat restoration funds are diverted to non-restoration purposes like creating or funding staff positions or dbuilding buildings.

Here are recent examples:

  • Improving Wetland Habitat through Irrigation Efficiencies on Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges: FY22 Funding $2,668,147. This project will mainly benefit irrigators which is why it is a boondoggle. Using restoration funding to benefit irrigators is an ongoing problem in the Klamath, Shasta and Scott Basins.
  •  Klamath Tribes Salmon Reintroduction program: FY22 Funding $913,786. When salmon are reintroduced by humans they are an “experimental population” and can be removed if the politics changes (e.g. if Trump is elected). If, on the other hand, the salmon are allowed to repopulate the Upper Basin on their own, they will receive ESA protection. This fact is why we should allow salmon to repopulate the Upper Basin on their own which, as shown in other basins, will happen quickly once the barriers (dams) are removed.  Humans should get their grubby fingers out of this pie!


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