Food at heart of tribe's dam dispute

[struggle4progress]

By Jeff Barnard
The Associated Press

Now it is their time, but the salmon have dwindled to a precious few at Ishi Pishi. The Karuk caught fewer than 100 last year. Many Karuk depend instead on government handouts of cheese, frozen beef and canned vegetables, plus the burritos and soda pop they buy from local markets.

The tribe now is challenging a new operating license for four small hydroelectric dams on the Klamath owned by the Northwest utility PacifiCorp.

The tribe wants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to recognize that the high levels of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease can be blamed on the high-fat, high-sugar and high-sodium diet that replaced their lost salmon. <snip>

"But whenever you deny or taint the food source for a people, it really is about human rights." <snip>

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/03/06/e20.wst.dams.0306.html