Synopsis & Treatment
for
River of Renewal
for
River of Renewal
Conflict over water & wildlife in the Klamath Basin turned farmers and ranchers against American Indians and salmon fishermen in Oregon and California. But after lawsuits and winner-take-all politics brought disaster to the farms, the fish, and the fisheries, these stakeholders came together to forge a consensus for the common good. Will the future witness the extinction of salmon in what was once North America's third greatest salmon-producing river? Or the restoration of the Klamath as a home for life?
River of Renewal shows one of the great rivers of America in crisis while telling the story of a "sidewalk Indian" who discovers his roots among the Klamath River tribes. Jack Kohler comes to the mouth of the Klamath River to make a film about the 1978 Salmon War, the subject of a play in which he had acted as a Yurok gillnetter. Then an event occurs at the headwaters that brings the conflict over salmon into the 21st century. Farmers protest the federal cut-off of irrigation water due to a judge's ruling under the Endangered Species Act to protect three fish species, including coho salmon. In Klamath Falls, Oregon in May, 2001, Kohler observes civil disobedience by farmers in violation of federal law. Bypassing the ESA, the Bush Administration orders the unlimited release of water to farmers in 2002. Later that year, 80,000 spawning salmon die in the Klamath estuary. That disaster leads to the collapse of the salmon fishery off the California and Oregon coasts several years later. The polarization of Klamath Basin communities gives way to conflict resolution and consensus building in view of the potential decommissioning of Klamath Basin hydroelectric dams that cut salmon off from hundreds of miles of spawning habitat. Recognizing that their livelihoods all depend on the health of the river, stakeholders who had been antagonists agree to share the water and to demand the removal of the dams.
Treatment: The Klamath Basin is united by water and divided by people. What is essential for life puts the diverse communities of the region in conflict with each other. After an opening that shows the competing demands for water between farming and fishing communities, the film follows the course of Jack Kohler's journey from the mouth of the Klamath to the headwaters of the Klamath Basin.
On the Yurok Reservation at the mouth of the Klamath, Kohler visits an Indian fish camp and goes out gill netting with Merkie Oliver. He interviews Raymond Mattz about his defense of gill netting in the U.S. Supreme Court, which led to the restoration of the Yurok Reservation. Mattz, Oliver, and others recall the Salmon War, when Indians, attacked by federal agents for gill netting, resisted with a form of civil disobedience they called “protest fishing.”
In Hoopa Valley on the Trinity River, the major tributary of the Klamath, Kohler watches the building of the first weir across the water in over half a century. Fish dams like this once fed thousands; now there are few fish to trap. Kohler interviews the 92-year-old elder who guides those who work on this project.
After visiting Iron Gate Dam, which blocks salmon from spawning in the Upper Basin, and touring the Iron Gate fish hatchery, Kohler joins U.S. Forest Service biologists, Salmon River community members, and Karuk tribal members in the annual count of spring chinook. Outfitted in wetsuits, they snorkle down the river in search of spawning fish. The “springers," whose runs once exceeded a million salmon each year, are approaching the point of no return.
Near the confluence of the Salmon and the Klamath rivers is Ishi Pishi Falls. Kohler observes Ron Reed, a Karuk, catching salmon in the pools near the rapids with a net attached to a ten-foot pole. From Reed, from tribal council vice chairman Leaf Hillman, and from Leaf's son Ike, Kohler learns about pikiawish, the fix-the-world ethos of the Klamath River tribes.
Continuing upstream, Kohler goes to the Upper Basin. Kohler visits the farm of John Anderson near Tulelake, California. John's father Bob Anderson speaks about the history of the Klamath Project, which drained large lakes to clear land for farming. John Anderson says that the water cut-off forced him to stop raising crops except for alfalfa, which he feeds to his cattle.
On the reservation of the Klamath Tribes, Dino Herrera, a Klamath/Modoc tribal member, tells Kohler of the decline of the Upper Basin salmon and sucker fisheries. “My grandfather made a prophecy,” he says, “that someday in his lifetime there would be no salmon, and that I would live to a time when there were no suckers. If that day comes, another part of our culture will disappear.”
In 2001, after the Bureau of Reclamation cut off water to farmers in Klamath Project lands, Kohler witnesses their demonstration of civil disobedience. A mile-long line of farmers and their supporters passes banned Klamath River water in a bucket brigade and dumps it into an irrigation canal. The farmers’ protest continues when militants on horseback confront federal marshals who guard the headgates. "Don't you know you're destroying 1400 American families?" a protestor tells the marshals. The following Spring, Interior Secretary Gale Norton comes to the headgates to open the valve that delivers Klamath River water into the canal, disregarding the Endangered Species Act that required the water cut-off the previous year. That Fall, an unprecedented fish-kill of tens of thousands of spawning salmon strikes the estuary. Countless juvenile salmon also die that year. A consequence is the almost total closure of the commercial salmon fishing seasons in California and Oregon in 2005 and 2006. Fishermen together with Klamath River Indians demonstrate at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf to demand the removal of the hydroelectric dams on the Klamath and the restoration of salmon habitat. Commercial fishermen together with tribal members also make their call for dam removal heard at a hearing held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The licenses for the hydroelectric dams on the Klamath have expired, and it is FERC's role to decide on the conditions for relicensing.
By this point, disasters due to water scarcity and loss of wildlife have struck every community in the Klamath Basin. Farmers, off-shore fishermen, government officials, scientists, conservationists and tribal members take part in a conflict resolution, consensus-building process. Their settlement talks culminate in a Basin-wide agreement on dam removal. After the collapse of the Pacific salmon fishing industry, the Bush Administration requires fish passage as a condition for relicensing; yet building fish ladders into the dams cost over a hundred million more than removing the dams and replacing the electricity from other sources.
PacifiCorp, the subsidiary of Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway that owns the dams, refuses to sign the stakeholders' dam removal agreement. Klamath River Indians and commercial fishermen protest by crashing a shareholders' party at a jewelry store in Omaha. They do guerrilla theater designed to make holders of Buffett's stock aware that PacifiCorp profits are destroying the natural wealth of the river. Kohler comes to the conclusion that his everyday actions as a voter and consumer impact the river as well. His journey ends with the understanding that his legacy as a Klamath River Indian is pikiawish—the commitment to do what he can to fix the world.
River of Renewal shows one of the great rivers of America in crisis while telling the story of a "sidewalk Indian" who discovers his roots among the Klamath River tribes. Jack Kohler comes to the mouth of the Klamath River to make a film about the 1978 Salmon War, the subject of a play in which he had acted as a Yurok gillnetter. Then an event occurs at the headwaters that brings the conflict over salmon into the 21st century. Farmers protest the federal cut-off of irrigation water due to a judge's ruling under the Endangered Species Act to protect three fish species, including coho salmon. In Klamath Falls, Oregon in May, 2001, Kohler observes civil disobedience by farmers in violation of federal law. Bypassing the ESA, the Bush Administration orders the unlimited release of water to farmers in 2002. Later that year, 80,000 spawning salmon die in the Klamath estuary. That disaster leads to the collapse of the salmon fishery off the California and Oregon coasts several years later. The polarization of Klamath Basin communities gives way to conflict resolution and consensus building in view of the potential decommissioning of Klamath Basin hydroelectric dams that cut salmon off from hundreds of miles of spawning habitat. Recognizing that their livelihoods all depend on the health of the river, stakeholders who had been antagonists agree to share the water and to demand the removal of the dams.
Treatment: The Klamath Basin is united by water and divided by people. What is essential for life puts the diverse communities of the region in conflict with each other. After an opening that shows the competing demands for water between farming and fishing communities, the film follows the course of Jack Kohler's journey from the mouth of the Klamath to the headwaters of the Klamath Basin.
On the Yurok Reservation at the mouth of the Klamath, Kohler visits an Indian fish camp and goes out gill netting with Merkie Oliver. He interviews Raymond Mattz about his defense of gill netting in the U.S. Supreme Court, which led to the restoration of the Yurok Reservation. Mattz, Oliver, and others recall the Salmon War, when Indians, attacked by federal agents for gill netting, resisted with a form of civil disobedience they called “protest fishing.”
In Hoopa Valley on the Trinity River, the major tributary of the Klamath, Kohler watches the building of the first weir across the water in over half a century. Fish dams like this once fed thousands; now there are few fish to trap. Kohler interviews the 92-year-old elder who guides those who work on this project.
After visiting Iron Gate Dam, which blocks salmon from spawning in the Upper Basin, and touring the Iron Gate fish hatchery, Kohler joins U.S. Forest Service biologists, Salmon River community members, and Karuk tribal members in the annual count of spring chinook. Outfitted in wetsuits, they snorkle down the river in search of spawning fish. The “springers," whose runs once exceeded a million salmon each year, are approaching the point of no return.
Near the confluence of the Salmon and the Klamath rivers is Ishi Pishi Falls. Kohler observes Ron Reed, a Karuk, catching salmon in the pools near the rapids with a net attached to a ten-foot pole. From Reed, from tribal council vice chairman Leaf Hillman, and from Leaf's son Ike, Kohler learns about pikiawish, the fix-the-world ethos of the Klamath River tribes.
Continuing upstream, Kohler goes to the Upper Basin. Kohler visits the farm of John Anderson near Tulelake, California. John's father Bob Anderson speaks about the history of the Klamath Project, which drained large lakes to clear land for farming. John Anderson says that the water cut-off forced him to stop raising crops except for alfalfa, which he feeds to his cattle.
On the reservation of the Klamath Tribes, Dino Herrera, a Klamath/Modoc tribal member, tells Kohler of the decline of the Upper Basin salmon and sucker fisheries. “My grandfather made a prophecy,” he says, “that someday in his lifetime there would be no salmon, and that I would live to a time when there were no suckers. If that day comes, another part of our culture will disappear.”
In 2001, after the Bureau of Reclamation cut off water to farmers in Klamath Project lands, Kohler witnesses their demonstration of civil disobedience. A mile-long line of farmers and their supporters passes banned Klamath River water in a bucket brigade and dumps it into an irrigation canal. The farmers’ protest continues when militants on horseback confront federal marshals who guard the headgates. "Don't you know you're destroying 1400 American families?" a protestor tells the marshals. The following Spring, Interior Secretary Gale Norton comes to the headgates to open the valve that delivers Klamath River water into the canal, disregarding the Endangered Species Act that required the water cut-off the previous year. That Fall, an unprecedented fish-kill of tens of thousands of spawning salmon strikes the estuary. Countless juvenile salmon also die that year. A consequence is the almost total closure of the commercial salmon fishing seasons in California and Oregon in 2005 and 2006. Fishermen together with Klamath River Indians demonstrate at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf to demand the removal of the hydroelectric dams on the Klamath and the restoration of salmon habitat. Commercial fishermen together with tribal members also make their call for dam removal heard at a hearing held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The licenses for the hydroelectric dams on the Klamath have expired, and it is FERC's role to decide on the conditions for relicensing.
By this point, disasters due to water scarcity and loss of wildlife have struck every community in the Klamath Basin. Farmers, off-shore fishermen, government officials, scientists, conservationists and tribal members take part in a conflict resolution, consensus-building process. Their settlement talks culminate in a Basin-wide agreement on dam removal. After the collapse of the Pacific salmon fishing industry, the Bush Administration requires fish passage as a condition for relicensing; yet building fish ladders into the dams cost over a hundred million more than removing the dams and replacing the electricity from other sources.
PacifiCorp, the subsidiary of Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway that owns the dams, refuses to sign the stakeholders' dam removal agreement. Klamath River Indians and commercial fishermen protest by crashing a shareholders' party at a jewelry store in Omaha. They do guerrilla theater designed to make holders of Buffett's stock aware that PacifiCorp profits are destroying the natural wealth of the river. Kohler comes to the conclusion that his everyday actions as a voter and consumer impact the river as well. His journey ends with the understanding that his legacy as a Klamath River Indian is pikiawish—the commitment to do what he can to fix the world.
