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MEDFORD, OR - 2002 will be the 16th year in a row the Klamath Tribes have struggled to survive without their fisheries. "We used to harvest tens of thousands of pounds of fish each year from the rivers that feed Upper Klamath Lake," says Tribal Chairman Allen Foreman. "Since 1988 wešve been restricted to catching one fish each year for ceremonial purposes. Our tribes have suffered for too long. Agricultural pollution and a federal water policy that drains Upper Klamath Lake below its natural level have destroyed our fishery and our way of life."

The Treaty of 1864 reserves to the Klamath Tribes water to support its fishing, hunting and gathering activities. On March 1, 2002, U.S. District Judge Owen M. Panner issued a ruling reconfirming that the Tribes have senior water rights in the Klamath Basin with a "time immemorial" priority date. Panner went on to say the Tribes have the right to prevent withdrawals from lakes and streams to protect fish and wildlife. The decision said, "the assertion that the tribes are entitled only to some "minimum amount" of water is an incorrect statement of the laws the Tribe is entitled to "whatever water is necessary to achieve" the result of supporting productive habitat.

"Harvesting fish is our heritage and our legal right", says Foreman. "These fish are as much a crop to the Klamath Tribes as potatoes are to the farmers. Our goal is the restoration of our fisheries and the United States is bound by its own promises to support that goal."