Chapter 4. It’s Illegal
“For us, taking care of each other, taking care of the village, making sure that people have what they need is important. But to sit on millions of dollars, it would be silly. I couldn’t even imagine me living at the village sitting on a million dollars and not doing anything, but just more destruction.”
—Caleen Sisk, Spiritual and Hereditary Leader of the Winnemem Wintu
McCloud Bridge, Shasta County, CA — Looking upstream towards property acquired by the Fresno-based Westlands Water District. September 30, 2018. Tom Levy/The Spiritual Edge
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By Judy Silber
Born in 1923, Bob Burns remembers how things were before Shasta Dam went up. He says the salmon were big and strong then.
BOB BURNS: Well, the river was really a beautiful thing before the Shasta Dam went in because you had your riffles that were traditionally used for gathering of the salmon, and the steelhead and trout, and also the sturgeon.
BURNS: The swift water kept their body built. And so they thrived on the strength of the river and the water. That’s the way I would look at it… spiritually and that was one of the things that I was taught as a young kid to respect, and that seems to have been one of the losses of our people.
When I met him, Bob was 96. He was still an active member of the Nor-El Muk Wintu Nation. Co-chair, in fact. Nor-El Muk territory is west of the Winnemem Wintu’s, west of Shasta Dam in the Trinity Mountains. Bob lived in Hayfork, a relatively isolated spot, population 2,500. Way back when, he’d been friends with Chief Sisk’s mom and her partner, Al Thomas.
BURNS: And now look at you guys, you’re both old people [they’re laughing].
CHIEF CALEEN SISK: We got old. Geez.
BURNS: Damn, do you realize that was over 50 years ago?
HELENE SISK: Yeah.
BURNS: No wonder I need a cane to get around here.
For a time, they all lived together. Shasta Dam had already been built. Separated from the McCloud River and their community, the family had few resources. Soon, more dams would go up. But at the time, the creeks where they’d moved to were full of fish. Bob would tell the girls to collect grasshoppers as bait.
CHIEF SISK: You guys get this bandaid can full of grasshoppers by the time I’m home from work. [Lots of laughing.]
JUDY SILBER: Was that to fish?
BURNS: One time I was up there on Page Boulder. And this creek, there wasn’t any fish in it. And they kept feeding this one fish all kind of grasshoppers [Helene is laughing.]...all of a sudden the whole bank exploded. She finally hooked that…great big old trout, about that long, in little old dinky creek. [Laughter.] She come crying and hollering and screaming...Al cut the thing in half and cooked it.
They lived as an extended family, hanging on to what they could of the old ways from before Shasta Dam’s construction. But Bob says they felt what had been lost. He and Al Thomas worked as loggers. He says before Shasta Dam, the major rivers of this area, the Sacramento, the Pit River and the McCloud, provided for the communities of Native people who lived here.
BURNS: I go back quite a few years and I can remember whenever the old people used to go down on the river down there and they’d gather, even with a big family. They’d go down there, they’d catch salmon, have a feed and they’d go back to the mountains, or go back to wherever they had to go to replenish their stockpile for the winter. But they always had the river to go to to survive.
SILBER: How big were the fish that you were catching?
BURNS: An 80-pound fish was an average-sized fish at that time. Now you don’t get an 80-pound fish. And there was some of them if you didn’t have your line tied to a willow bush or something, they’d pull you off in the river because they were big fish. Or if you made a mistake and hit a sturgeon, the sturgeon could pull you down the river.
But it was fun.
He tells me Shasta Dam buried an entire way of life under a lake.
BURNS: They destroyed a culture and a way of life, not only to one person, but to families and a tribe, not to one tribe, but tribes of people that used to gather there. There were people there from all over the country, they’d come down. Even though they had the Klamath River up there in Oregon, they would still come, clear over the Sacramento, over Scott’s Mountain, down into Sacramento to hunt and fish with those people. And they’d trade and they’d live and enjoy life. They’d claim that the Indian people were savages, but to live back in the life that I had, which was only a few years ago, but yet, they were happy.
BURNS: Construction, clearing of the brush and stuff went up in – started in 1938. And they completed it in 1945. And it was sad to see that happen because you lost of your traditional sites, cultural sites, clear back up the river and it just…
BURNS: A lot of the people, I think just lost heart and gave up. They all wound up on Skid Row in Redding, on California Street.
SILBER: Are you seeing people in your mind right now?
BURNS: Pardon?
SILBER: Are you seeing people in your mind right now?
BURNS: Yeah. That never leaves my mind. It never will.
This is the life that was lost after Shasta Dam went up. For Bob Burns, and other indigenous people of the area, the government’s proposed Shasta Dam and Reservoir Enlargement Project opens up these unhealed wounds. It stirs deep emotions.
CHIEF SISK: Are we just going to be another tribe that’s lost everything and we say…one day, oh yeah, my grams used to be…but now we don’t really do that no more.
Winnemem Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk.
CHIEF SISK: We used to be able to go there, but we can’t go there no more so it’s lost. And we don’t think that way anymore. That’s what I don’t want to happen.
***
Back in 2018, the move to raise Shasta Dam higher was gathering momentum. High-up officials in the Trump Administration wanted the dam raise to happen. Powerful Democrats and Republicans wanted it to happen. And politically savvy, wealthy farmers in the Central Valley wanted it to happen. But perhaps no one wanted it more than the Westlands Water District, one of the largest and most powerful buyers of water in California.
In December, 2018, it held a public meeting to begin an environmental review process called CEQA, which stands for the California Environmental Quality Act.
The state environmental review would position the water district as a potential partner for the dam raise. The federal government needed a partner because Congress had approved payment for only half of the estimated $1.4 billion cost. The lure for Westlands was the promise of more water.
JOSE GUTIERREZ: Hi, Jose Gutierrez with Westlands Water District. I just want to say thank you for everybody attending this event. This is a very important process and we’re interested in hearing your, or receiving your written comments today.
At first, Westlands said members of the public couldn’t speak, only leave written comments. But so many people objected, organizers opened up the floor. Most speakers opposed the project and they had a lot of reasons why.
SPEAKER01: To me, this smacks of a 19th-century solution to a 21st-century problem.
SPEAKER02: So the bottom line is we’re building a dam for water that isn’t going to come. Like waiting for Godot and Godot’s not going to come.
They perceived danger in building on top of an 80-year-old dam.
SPEAKER03: You build a structure on top of a dam, this is going to be an experiment for the area.
Redding resident Dan Frost objected to more water going down to Westlands.
DAN FROST: The purpose of the project is to send more water at an enormous cost down to that perpetual, bottomless pit, the Westland’s Water District. Which has an insatiable appetite for both water and public funds.
Chief Sisk’s son, Michael Preston, also spoke.
MICHAEL PRESTON: None of this has never not been said before. All of this has already been said before about the warnings of how the land is being treated, about how the water is being treated, how the animals are being treated. Last, but not least, how the people are being treated. How the Winnemem Wintu people are being treated and have been treated and are continuing to be ignored out of existence. I am a Winnemem Wintu person here. In your face right now.
At the time of that charged-up meeting, Thomas Birmingham was Westland’s general manager and had held that position for more than 20 years. I met him at his office in Sacramento. He told me he grew up in a house with a picture window that looked out onto Mt. Shasta.
THOMAS BIRMINGHAM: And any time that I can see Mount Shasta, I’m home. So there are spiritual connections to Mount Shasta that a lot of people have. I have those connections.
That feeling of a spiritual connection doesn’t change his convictions about Shasta Dam. He’s convinced that investing in a taller dam will pay off.
BIRMINGHAM: It is the most cost-effective water storage project currently being considered in the State of California.
BIRMINGHAM: I’ve had discussions with very high-level officials in the state and federal government in both parties. And privately, they have said to me, directly, raising Shasta Dam is a no-brainer.
Westlands secures water for farms that are located in one of the drier parts of the state, in the San Joaquin Valley. Drive on highway 5, the long, two-lane artery between Southern and Northern California and you’ll pass these fields and orchards of almonds, pistachios, tomatoes, wheat and melons. According to the water district, these and other crops generated more than $2 billion in revenue in 2019. But with climate change, water is scarce. That's why the Westlands water district wants a taller dam — to store more.
BIRMINGHAM: So it’s not all about water supply. It would increase the flood protection provided by Shasta Dam. It would enhance the ability to generate hydroelectric power. In fact, Reclamation’s proposal was that 50% of the increased supply would be dedicated to Fish and Wildlife purposes.
Paricia Schifferle is an environmental consultant who has made it her business to keep an eye on the water district. In environmental circles, Westlands is known as the big bad wolf where no amount of water is enough to satisfy its thirst.
PATRICIA SCHIFFERLE: To give them more water is the bottom line.
The water district has a large federal contract, but it’s a junior water rights holder, which means it falls towards the back of the line in low water years.
SCHIFFERLE: They are at the end of the water bucket line and they want to go to the front of the water bucket line. And right now, their former lobbyist is about to become Secretary of the Interior.
This was early 2019. Donald Trump had just nominated a guy named David Bernhardt to fill the role of Secretary of the Interior, to manage public lands and infrastructure such as Shasta Dam. Democrats objected to the nomination. He'd been a lobbyist for oil and gas companies — and also the Westlands Water District. Here's Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.
SENATOR RON WYDEN: According to the Washington Post – I’ll quote directly from the newspaper: The inspector…the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General is reviewing allegations that Acting Secretary David Bernhardt may have violated his ethics pledge by weighing in on issues affecting a former client, the office confirmed Tuesday.
People like Patricia Schifferle feared David Bernhardt's appointment would add momentum to the proposed enlargement at Shasta Dam. She says his nomination shows the reach of Westland’s power and influence.
SCHIFFERLE: That is the problem. As long as we don’t stand up and demand that these public resources be protected. I think we will lose out to those moneyed interests.
In 2007, the water district purchased 3,000 acres of McCloud River property for $35 million. This is property that would be impacted if the Shasta Dam Enlargement goes through. The purchase helped the water district gain more control over the process.
Patricia Schifferle worries about how a dam raise could impact the McCloud, a river with unique qualities.
SCHIFFERLE: I have kayaked the McCloud and also Box Canyon on the Sacramento, upper Sac and hiked along those areas. It’s just—if you see those waters—those azure kind of blue water, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
Shasta Dam’s original construction swallowed more than 20 miles of the McCloud. The proposed new addition would impact roughly another mile. That area includes pristine wilderness and important Winnemem Wintu sacred sites. It would strip habitat and trees, and not just on the McCloud, but all around the lake.
SCHIFFERLE: We’re going to take the last vestiges of this incredible resource and we’re going to bury it and then we’re going to have a bathtub ring as the flows go up and down.
For those who love the McCloud, the loss is hard to think about and Patricia Schifferle says they really shouldn’t have to.
RON STORK: I mean, it’s against California law. It’s against federal law.
This is Ron Stork, senior policy advocate for the nonprofit Friends of the River. He says California law protects the McCloud's free-flowing state. The state’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Act includes special protections that prohibit future dams or diversions. And in what now appears incredibly prescient, the law includes language meant to stop Shasta Dam from getting any bigger. But here’s the catch: it doesn’t ban a Shasta Dam raise outright. It’s more like this sneaky maneuver that says…
STORK: No agency of the state can cooperate in the planning and construction of the Shasta Dam Raise,
No agency of the state can assist or cooperate in the construction of the Shasta Dam raise. Westlands Water District is a state agency. So by law, it’s banned from getting involved.
STORK: Westlands Water District is an agency of the state. Defined by the water code as an agency of the state. They cannot cooperate in the planning and construction of this project with the federal government. They have absolutely no business doing what they’re doing.
The Shasta Dam proposal appeared to violate California law. But it was still moving forward. That left Chief Caleen Sisk feeling tired and a little defeated.
CHIEF SISK: I’m so busy fighting against the Shasta Dam, trying to get our salmon back, trying to establish a place for us to live, this village. Trying to fight for our puberty rights ceremonies. You know, everything is a fight.
Their fight is made harder because the Winnemem Wintu are not federally recognized. A lot of California tribes got left off a list created in the late 1970s by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This puts the Winnemem Wintu in a vulnerable position in their interactions with the federal government.
CHIEF SISK: They look at us and say, not recognized, so we really don't have to deal with you. Do we? It's a courtesy if we do, but whatever you say, we can take it or leave it. That's how federal recognition is a discriminatory tool.
It also impacted their ability to fight the Shasta Dam raise. They had less stature. Don Bader is the Bureau of Reclamation’s Northern California Area Manager. That makes him the higher-up at Shasta and other important dams. I talked with him in early 2019.
BADER: We’ll follow the process that’s required under the 106 consultation and we will be consulting with any impacted people up on that area. Yes.
Section 106 is part of the National Historic Preservation At. It requires federal agencies to consult with all parties impacted by construction at historic sites, even unrecognized tribes. The Bureau of Reclamation started these consultations on the Shasta Dam raise back in 2007. But to finish, it planned to wait — until after the enlargement project earned its final approval. In other words, until it was practically a done deed. In our conversation, Don Bader said the Bureau of Reclamation was sensitive to potential losses of Winnemem Wintu sacred sites, but the agency had brought nothing to the table. Planning documents said flooding at those sites was inevitable.
SILBER: But so just to go back to the sensitivity. You’re a person. They’re people. Like how do you feel it as a sensitive issue?
BADER: Again, I’m going to follow back to our process. Our process requires us to do consultation and that’s what we intend to do.
SILBER: Okay. Some people would say, given the history of California Indians, given that their land was taken, in the case of Shasta Dam, there was no compensation for that land, the history of genocide in the area. So some people would argue that there’s a moral imperative to take care of them and taking care to not decimate a tribe that’s already on the edge of extinction. And so I’m just wondering if you have any comment for that?
BADER: No, I really don’t.
A few months later, I’m out with Chief Sisk as she picks herbs. She wears gardening gloves and carries big clippers to cut medicinal plants. Off in the distance, we see the McCloud arm of Shasta Reservoir, where the river has already been changed by the dam.
CHIEF SISK: If the dam does go forward, we have to come out of this with something. And even if the dam doesn't go forward, we have to come out of this with some change because we can't survive like this. Fighting for everything that we have.
When I spoke to Chief Sisk, California's Attorney General had recently filed a lawsuit to stop the Westland’s water district from participating in the dam raise. She wasn’t impressed. Chief Sisk said it wasn’t enough to just stop the project. To maintain the status quo. She said the Winnemem Wintu needed some kind of relief, some kind of justice for all of their prior loss. So she’d decided to take a radical step and meet with Westlands to see if anything could come of that.
CHIEF SISK: People say Westlands is the Darth Vader of the rivers, right? That all they want is water, water transport, and all they want is money. And while I believe that's true, who doesn't? Who doesn't want that? Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, state water projects, private water projects. They all want that.
Chief Sisk walks over to the other side of the road and pulls at a root buried a few feet down in the ground.
SILBER: How often do you come out here to pick herbs?
CHIEF SISK: All of these only come once a year. If you don't get them now, you don't get them until next year. Because soon they'll all be gone and they won't be back till next spring.
SILBER: And do you feel like this is one of the things you'd rather be spending time on?
CHIEF SISK: Definitely. Than going to sit in the office with Westlands water district, which I'm going to do on the 29th? Yeah.
Chief Sisk has a few ideas about what she wants. If the enlargement project is going to happen, she wants a block dam, a way to hold back higher waters so sacred sites won’t be destroyed. And she wants some traditional territory back in Winnemem Wintu hands.
CHIEF SISK: There are some negotiations that could be done, you know, and, and we're going to explore that. Because we don't have any other options. The Bureau of Reclamation isn't offering anything.
It wasn't until three years later that I checked in with the Westlands Water District. Lots had happened in between. The pandemic. The Trump presidency. When we met, Thomas Birmingham said this:
BIRMINGHAM: Caleen Sisk is someone who I enjoy and I have been on the river with her and other members of the tribe at various times. I don’t view our relationship as being adversarial in any sense.
He confirmed they discussed giving the Winnemem Wintu more access to their land.
BIRMINGHAM: There have been discussions about making land available to the tribe. There’s never been a rejection of that. As it relates to some specific sites, we have talked about turning over the management of those sites to the tribe. But beyond that, I really don’t want to comment.
While promising, the talks never went anywhere. Because in August 2019, the Shasta County Superior Court issued a ruling. It issued an injunction. It agreed with California that the Westlands Water District was in violation of state law. It could not help fund the dam raise. That meant the project could not get built. Effectively, it was dead.
Still, when we spoke, Westlands general manager Thomas Birmingham said he hadn’t given up.
SILBER: Okay, does Westlands feel like it has a path forward through the legal system?
BIRMINGHAM: Well, this is a fascinating, fascinating subject, for a lot of reasons.
He says the McCloud has these very specific protections, including that nothing can impede its free-flowing state. But he says no one has studied whether a higher dam would actually do that.
BIRMINGHAM: This is one of those circumstances where if you say it long enough, it becomes true: Enlarging Shasta Dam is prohibited by state law. No, it’s not. State law says that a state agency is prohibited from participating in the planning…If, If...and nobody has ever evaluated the “if.”
At the end of 2022, the Westlands Water District had a shakeup. It elected new board members who differed from the old guard. They say it’s time to adjust to a California with less water. Thomas Birmingham retired. It's not clear if Westlands will continue to push for a higher dam. But politicians who believe in the dam raise are still fighting for it.
That means Winnemem Wintu sacred sites remain at risk. At this point, Chief Sisk is pragmatic.
CHIEF SISK: We’re not at that absolute, take the dam down. Or absolute, stop the dam project totally. But we are at, the fish have to return. The river has to be well. Sacred sites have to remain. If you could figure out how to do that, we’re not going to oppose it. But if you don’t figure out how to do that, we are in opposition.
CHIEF SISK: We’re not willing to give up more and get less. Again.
Because of Shasta Dam, Chief Sisk and her siblings are the first generation to grow up away from the McCloud River. This is Chief Sisk’s sister Helene Sisk. She's had a feeling of displacement her whole life. it’s a subject that makes her upset.
HELENE SISK: I just feel like that’s our home where we’re supposed to be. It would be great to live there. I’d go back and live there.
SILBER: What is it that you think you’d have if you were living there?
HELENE SISK: Wouldn’t have nothing but the river. [She laughs.] I don’t know. Peace of mind. Peace of mind living on the river where you belong. Everybody owns the river, except us. All of San Francisco, Westlands now owns part of the river. We don’t own nothing.
SILBER: How does that make you feel?
HELENE SISK: Um, cheated. We’ve been cheated out of our life. We’ve had to conform to some other life. I used to have dreams all the time about the river.
SILBER: Does it make you feel angry? And if so, who are you angry with? Or do you just feel sad?
HELENE SISK: It makes me hate the Shasta Dam. I just hate the government. Why didn’t you just leave us alone? Why did you have to be there in our place? Have to have our spots? Why did you need it? Why did you just…why did you come and steal the kids? Why did you come and kill everybody? Why did you take our place? Just uh, yeah, it makes me a little angry sometimes. Like we’ve been displaced, I guess. Out of our own place.
* * *
A Prayer for Salmon is a project of The Spiritual Edge at KALW Public Radio. Support comes from the Templeton Religion Trust, California Humanities, the Kalliopeia Foundation, Save Our Spirits and The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative of the University of Colorado Boulder. We are produced on Ohlone and Coastal Miwok land.
Thank you to the Winnemem Wintu and the Run4Salmon community for welcoming us, our microphones and cameras into their midst. To contribute to the Winnemem Wintu’s nonprofit, go to sawalmem.io.
Rest in peace Bob Burns. Thank you for the conversations.
Photo by Tom Levy/The Spiritual Edge
