Report from on the Ground at Day of Action in Sacramento
This time last month hundreds of people—representatives from Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust included—gathered on the west steps of Sacramento’s Capitol Building to call attention to the ongoing state salmon and water policy crisis.
No such rally has ever taken place.
After 30 years in regulatory and legislative advocacy regarding water policy, climate, salmon and coastal issues, West Coast water advocate Barry Nelson knows this as well.
“Never before have so many tribes, environmental groups and fishermen joined together to call for change,” he said.
Sierra Club president Brandon Dawson was among them.
“It’s good to bring together people that have been marginalized,” he said.
Dozens spoke. Tribal dancers performed. Scores of volunteers walked the halls of the surrounding government buildings, talking with California senators and assembly members about directing more water to rivers and the communities that depend on them.
All told, The Day of Action on July 5 involved a wealth of concerned parties.
Participants included the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Winnemen Went Tribe, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Round Valley Indian Tribes, Pit River Tribe, Mechoopda Indian Tribe, Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, Save California Salmon, Restore the Delta, California Indian Environmental Alliance, Little Manila Rising, Indigenous Justice, San Francisco Barkeeper, North Coast Native Protectors, Sierra Club, Friends of the River and Tuolumne River Trust.
Oakland-based Sarah Bates, commercial fisherwoman, Golden State Salmon Association board member and Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary advisor, was among those who spoke.
“Today is my baby's first birthday,” she said. “She's not eating salmon tonight. That’s a huge, conspicuous absence. There’s an absence not only on the barbecue, there's an absence in my fish hold.”
Bates continued.
“There's an absence on the docks in San Francisco,” she said. “There's an absence in our markets because there's no fish in the ocean. Why are there no fish in the ocean this year? Because there's no fish in the river.”
As MBFT reported ahead of the event, clear-eyed policy change across the “three H’s”–habitat, hatcheries and hydrology—can make a world of difference.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, added her thoughts.
“California water management decisions are unjust for people,” she said. “[Gov. Gavin Newsom’s] agreements, which are nothing more than backroom water deals for big agriculture, are a continuation of racist policies built into the California water rights system.”
In one of the most stirring moments among many, 20-year-old Spenser Jaimes—representing the Šmuwič and Chumash tribes of what’s now called Santa Barbara—sang two native songs atop those same steps.
The first was a salmon song, the second, a song about momentum.
“When my people sang this song we were paddling or hiking or were in hardships,” he said of the latter, “and we needed to call on our ancestors to give us strength and power and medicine to help us move forward amid difficult times.”
As the state and national flags fluttered above in front of the state rotunda, his voice boomed across the quad, sonorous and steady, carrying the historic momentum of the day.