{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Tribal Chair ponders resource responsibility","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":389,"description":"July 7, 2021 — The current governor declared the latest California drought from the cracked, dry basin of Lake Mendocino, which is generally believed to provide some portion of water to 600,000 people from Coyote Valley Dam to Marin County. \r\nAs per the original arrangement, Mendocino County is entitled to 11.3% of the water.\r\nThe dam was dedicated on June 6, 1959. The ceremony included a beauty contest, speeches, and a strawberry festival, according to a history written by local scholar Victoria Patterson (nee Kaplan).. If the man-made body of water were a human, it would be barely old enough to collect social security.\r\nBefore building the dam, the Army Corps of Engineers bought a piece of property near the East Fork of the Russian River. That’s where seven Shodokai Pomo families had settled when they returned to the valley after their families had been forcibly removed in the mid-19th century. Among them was Priscilla Hunter, former Chair of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and mother of Michael Hunter, the tribe’s current Chairman. “When we say ancestors, people think hundreds of years ago,” Hunter noted. “I think about that often when I’m out there.” \r\nHe thinks the people who were displaced by the dam should have first dibs on the water. Like everyone else, they’re now dependent on it. Hunter has sixty households under his purview, as well as a casino and gas station that do a brisk business. A hundred-room hotel and recycled water project are under construction. \r\nWater is tight in Redwood Valley, with each person only receiving 55 gallons per day for all domestic water services. This does not include the 200 or so agricultural connections in the valley that were shut off in mid-April. “And yet you see vineyards keep expanding,” Hunter observed. “It seems to be that this county put vineyards before they put Native Americans...we should have first rights to that water, which we don’t.”\r\nHunter says his fellow elected representatives at the county...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}