Latest news with #PacifiCorp
Euronews
3 days ago
- General
- Euronews
Native American teens kayak US river to celebrate dam removals
As bright-coloured kayaks push through a thick wall of fog, voices and the beats of drums build from a crowd of onlookers who have formed on the beach. Applause erupts as the boats land on the sandy spit that partially separates the Klamath River from the Pacific Ocean in northern California. Native American teenagers from tribes across the river basin push themselves up and out of the kayaks and begin to cross the sand, some breaking into a sprint. They kick playfully at the cold waves of the ocean they've been paddling toward over the last month - the ocean that's seen fewer and fewer salmon return to it over the last century as four hydropower dams blocked their ideal spawning grounds upstream. 'I think our ancestors would be proud because this is what they've been fighting for,' said Tasia Linwood, a 15-year-old member of the Karuk Tribe, ahead of the group's final push to the end on Friday 11 July. The Klamath River is newly navigable after a decades-long effort to remove its four hydropower dams to help restore the salmon run - an ancient source of life, food and culture for these paddlers' tribes who have lived alongside the river for millennia. Youth primarily from the Yurok, Klamath, Hoopa Valley, Karuk, Quartz Valley and Warm Springs tribes paddled 499 kilometres over a month from the headwaters of the Wood River, a tributary to the Klamath that some tribes consider sacred, to the Pacific Ocean. The teens spent several years learning to navigate white water through Paddle Tribal Waters, a program set up by the nonprofit Rios to Rivers, to prepare local Native youth for the day this would be possible. During their last days on the water, the group of several dozen swelled to more than 100, joined by some family members and Indigenous people from Bolivia, Chile and New Zealand who face similar challenges on their home rivers. Dams built decades ago for electricity Starting in the early 1900s, power company PacifiCorp built the dams over several decades to generate electricity. But the structures, which provided 2 per cent of the utility's power, halted the natural flow of a waterway that was once known as the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. With the dams in place, tribes lost access to a reliable source of food. The dams blocked the path to hundreds of miles of cool freshwater streams, ideal for salmon returning from the ocean to lay their eggs. Salmon numbers declined dramatically along with the water quality. In 2002, a bacterial outbreak caused by low water and warm temperatures killed more than 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. That galvanised decades of advocacy by tribes and environmental groups, culminating in 2022 when federal regulators approved a plan to remove the dams. Through protests, testimony and lawsuits, the tribes showcased the environmental devastation caused by the dams, especially to salmon. From 2023 to 2024, the four dams were dynamited and removed, freeing hundreds of miles of the Klamath. The renewable electricity lost by removing the hydropower dams was enough to power the equivalent of 70,000 homes, although PacifiCorp has since expanded its renewable sources through wind and solar projects. Two dams used for irrigation and flood control remain on the upper stretch of the river. They have 'ladders' that allow some fish to pass through, although their efficacy for adult salmon is questionable. On the journey, the paddlers got out of the river and carried their kayaks around the dams. For teens, a month of paddling and making memories The journey began 12 June with ceremonial blessings and kayaks gathered in a circle above a natural pool of springs where fresh water bubbles to the surface at the headwater of the Wood River, just upstream of the Klamath River. The youth camped in tents as they made their way across Upper Klamath Lake and down the Klamath River, jumping in the water or doing flips in their kayaks to cool down in the summer heat. A few kayakers came down with swimmer's ear, but overall everybody on the trip remained healthy. Nearly everyone had a story to share of a family's fishing cabin or a favorite swimming hole while passing through ancestral territory of the Klamath, Modoc, Shasta, Karuk and Yurok. More than 2,200 dams were removed from rivers in the United States from 1912 through 2024, most in the last couple of decades as momentum grows to restore the natural flow of rivers and the wildlife they support, according to the conservation group American Rivers. 'I believe that it was kind of symbolic of a bigger issue,' said John Acuna, member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and a leader on the trip. Removal of dams represents end of long fight with federal government The federal government signed treaties with these tribes outlining their right to govern themselves, which is violated when they can't rely on their traditional food from the river. Acuna said these violations are familiar to many tribal communities, and included when his great-grandmother was sent to boarding school as part of a national strategy to strip culture and language from Native Americans. That history "comes with generational trauma,' he said. Their treaty-enshrined right to fish was also blatantly disregarded by regional authorities in the 1970s but later upheld by various court decisions, said Yurok council member Phillip Williams. Standing on a fog-shrouded boat ramp in the town of Requa awaiting the arrival of the youth, Williams recounted the time when it was illegal to fish here using the tribes' traditional nets. As a child, his elders were arrested and even killed for daring to defy authorities and fish in broad daylight. Fifty years later, with the hydropower dams now gone, large numbers of salmon are beginning to return and youth are paddling the length of the Klamath. 'If there's a heaviness that I feel it's because there's a lot of people that lived all in these places, all these little houses here that are no longer here no more," said Williams. 'They don't get to see what's happening today. And that's a heavy, heavy, feeling.' Even as a teen, Linwood says she feels both the pleasure of a month-long river trip with her friends and the weight of the past. 'I kind of feel guilty, like I haven't done enough to be fighting,' she said. "I gotta remember that's what our ancestors fought for. They fought for that - so that we could feel this joy with the river.'
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Keller Rohrback LLP: Labor Day 2020 Fire Survivors Awarded $56M
PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 18, 2025-- In the ninth jury trial for wildfire survivors against PacifiCorp following the 2020 Labor Day Fires, a jury has awarded eleven plaintiffs a total of $56.1 million. This verdict follows a landmark class action verdict in 2023 that held PacifiCorp liable to the entire class of wildfire survivors who suffered losses. The sole question in the trials that have followed is survivors' damages. The damages trials will continue for the remainder of 2025 and likely 2026. Counsel for the class have asked the Court to schedule five trials per month in 2026. Under the law, the individuals are awarded economic damages (which are doubled) and noneconomic damages, which the 2023 verdict automatically increases by 25% for punitive damages against PacifiCorp. The plaintiffs are: 'Once again, a jury of Oregon citizens has returned a verdict many multiples greater than the low-ball compensation numbers proposed by PacifiCorp at trial. It is unfortunate that PacifiCorp continues to sink significant financial resources into a losing court fight against these survivors' claims instead of simply paying them what jury after jury has concluded they are owed,' said Keller Rohrback partner Will Dreher. 'For the ninth time, an Oregon jury has held PacifiCorp accountable for its reckless and willful misconduct during the Labor Day 2020 storm. It's long past time for Berkshire Hathaway and PacifiCorp to take responsibility. Fire survivors and their families deserve justice for what these giant corporations have done,' said Cody Berne, a partner at Stoll Berne. 'Verdict after verdict, juries are returning consistent, substantial awards to survivors of PacifiCorp's fires,' said Nicholas Rosinia, partner at Edelson PC. 'Each verdict is a powerful affirmation of what our clients have known all along: PacifiCorp's recklessness and gross negligence turned their lives upside down, for which the company must be held accountable.' There have been eight damages trials so far, with three more set in 2025. The Court is expected to soon issue a trial schedule for 2026. There are thousands of members of the class who, under the classwide liability finding, are entitled to damages against PacifiCorp. About the Firms EDELSON PC is a nationally recognized leader in high-stakes plaintiff's litigation, including class actions, mass torts, and government enforcement actions. The firm is litigating wildfire cases in Oregon, Colorado, and now in Los Angeles arising from the Eaton Fire. As lead counsel, the firm has recovered over $5 billion in settlements and judgments. Edelson PC has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boulder, and Washington, D.C. KELLER ROHRBACK L.L.P., with offices in Seattle, Denver, Portland, Phoenix, Oakland, Missoula, New York, and Santa Barbara, serves as lead and Co-Lead Counsel in class actions throughout the country. The team of environmental litigators has a long history of successful representation in a wide range of important environmental litigation. The firm has helped protect people and the environment across the country, with judgments and settlements on behalf of clients exceeding $93 billion. STOLL BERNE, based in Portland, Oregon, represents plaintiffs nationwide in complex environmental, securities, and other class action lawsuits. Recently, Stoll Berne represented the State of Oregon in obtaining a $698 million settlement in a PCB contamination lawsuit against Monsanto. View source version on For media inquiries, please contact: Matt Preusch,[email protected] KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA OREGON INDUSTRY KEYWORD: CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LEGAL SOURCE: Keller Rohrback LLP Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 07/18/2025 07:37 PM/DISC: 07/18/2025 07:37 PM
Business Wire
4 days ago
- Business Wire
Keller Rohrback LLP: Labor Day 2020 Fire Survivors Awarded $56M
PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In the ninth jury trial for wildfire survivors against PacifiCorp following the 2020 Labor Day Fires, a jury has awarded eleven plaintiffs a total of $56.1 million. This verdict follows a landmark class action verdict in 2023 that held PacifiCorp liable to the entire class of wildfire survivors who suffered losses. The sole question in the trials that have followed is survivors' damages. The damages trials will continue for the remainder of 2025 and likely 2026. Counsel for the class have asked the Court to schedule five trials per month in 2026. Under the law, the individuals are awarded economic damages (which are doubled) and noneconomic damages, which the 2023 verdict automatically increases by 25% for punitive damages against PacifiCorp. The plaintiffs are: Plaintiff Jerome Kosel and his wife Michelle Kosel lost their home and decades of cherished possessions in the Santiam Canyon Fire. Mr. Kosel and his family have spent the last five years rebuilding their home themselves. Plaintiff Richard Little and his wife Patti Little lost their riverfront retirement home, historic family photos, a loved one's ashes, and countless family heirlooms in the Santiam Canyon Fire. They were subsequently forced to move outside of the river canyon they called home. Plaintiff Amaya Ramsey was only 16 years old when the Santiam Canyon Fire burned her family's home—her 'safe place,' adjacent to the wooded forest where her young imagination ran wild. The ensuing displacement separated her family and has had long-lasting impacts on Ms. Ramsey. Plaintiff Lillie Harvison was living in a home she considered 'the last place she would ever live' before it was burned in the Santiam Canyon Fire. Ms. Harvison was forced to flee the approaching wildfire in the middle of the night, through encroaching flames. She lost the tranquility of her garden and hummingbirds, the canopied swing she always dreamt of, and dozens of collected, inherited, or handmade housewares. Plaintiff Melissa Marr lost her home in the Santiam Canyon Fire. After the traumatic loss, Ms. Marr and her family worked hard to rebuild the life they had before the fire, but tragically, Ms. Marr passed away before her case went to trial. Plaintiff Beverly Unruh, a cancer survivor, and her husband, Don Unruh lost their custom-built retirement home in the Echo Mountain Complex Fire. They left home early to help evacuees at their church and later learned that their property and the scenic environment were destroyed. Ms. Unruh lost deeply significant family heirlooms, such as war memorabilia, love letters, and handmade items from past generations. Plaintiffs Bruce and Connie McGowan 's home was already on fire by the time they narrowly escaped the Echo Mountain Complex Fire; Mr. McGowan had to push a flaming tree out of the road in order to escape. In the fire, the McGowans lost the home they had built from the ground up and priceless family antiques, including an original seventeenth-century grandfather clock. The McGowans were displaced to smaller homes until they each passed away prior to trial. Plaintiff Gerald Wescott and his wife Norma Wescott's house suffered significant smoke and ash damage in the Santiam Canyon Fire, which also burned down several structures and the lush forest on their property. They lost cherished family heirlooms and Mr. Wescott's musical equipment. Mr. Wescott has spent the last five years cleaning up the charred remains and replanting thousands of trees in an effort to restore some of the natural beauty to his property. Plaintiff Glen Kent escaped the Santiam Canyon Fire in the middle of the night, with nothing but the clothes on his back and slippers on his feet. Mr. Kent and his wife were surrounded by flames as they drove to their daughter's house in Salem. Mr. Kent lost his family's riverfront retirement home, his wife's wedding band, his military medals, and countless family heirlooms in the fire. Plaintiff Rick Allen also escaped the Echo Mountain Complex Fire in the middle of the night, with only his dog and a framed photo of his late wife. Mr. Allen lost deeply cherished belongings and irreplaceable mementos from his lifetime. 'Once again, a jury of Oregon citizens has returned a verdict many multiples greater than the low-ball compensation numbers proposed by PacifiCorp at trial. It is unfortunate that PacifiCorp continues to sink significant financial resources into a losing court fight against these survivors' claims instead of simply paying them what jury after jury has concluded they are owed,' said Keller Rohrback partner Will Dreher. 'For the ninth time, an Oregon jury has held PacifiCorp accountable for its reckless and willful misconduct during the Labor Day 2020 storm. It's long past time for Berkshire Hathaway and PacifiCorp to take responsibility. Fire survivors and their families deserve justice for what these giant corporations have done,' said Cody Berne, a partner at Stoll Berne. 'Verdict after verdict, juries are returning consistent, substantial awards to survivors of PacifiCorp's fires," said Nicholas Rosinia, partner at Edelson PC. "Each verdict is a powerful affirmation of what our clients have known all along: PacifiCorp's recklessness and gross negligence turned their lives upside down, for which the company must be held accountable." There have been eight damages trials so far, with three more set in 2025. The Court is expected to soon issue a trial schedule for 2026. There are thousands of members of the class who, under the classwide liability finding, are entitled to damages against PacifiCorp. About the Firms EDELSON PC is a nationally recognized leader in high-stakes plaintiff's litigation, including class actions, mass torts, and government enforcement actions. The firm is litigating wildfire cases in Oregon, Colorado, and now in Los Angeles arising from the Eaton Fire. As lead counsel, the firm has recovered over $5 billion in settlements and judgments. Edelson PC has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boulder, and Washington, D.C. KELLER ROHRBACK L.L.P., with offices in Seattle, Denver, Portland, Phoenix, Oakland, Missoula, New York, and Santa Barbara, serves as lead and Co-Lead Counsel in class actions throughout the country. The team of environmental litigators has a long history of successful representation in a wide range of important environmental litigation. The firm has helped protect people and the environment across the country, with judgments and settlements on behalf of clients exceeding $93 billion. STOLL BERNE, based in Portland, Oregon, represents plaintiffs nationwide in complex environmental, securities, and other class action lawsuits. Recently, Stoll Berne represented the State of Oregon in obtaining a $698 million settlement in a PCB contamination lawsuit against Monsanto.
15-07-2025
- General
Native American teens kayak major US river to celebrate removal of dams and return of salmon
KLAMATH, Calif. -- As bright-colored kayaks push through a thick wall of fog, voices and the beats of drums build as kayakers approach a crowd that has formed on the beach. Applause erupts as the boats land on the sandy spit that partially separates the Klamath River from the Pacific Ocean in northern California. Native American teenagers from tribes across the river basin push themselves up and out of the kayaks and begin to cross the sand, some breaking into a sprint. They kick playfully at the cold waves of the ocean they've been paddling toward over the last month — the ocean that's seen fewer and fewer salmon return to it over the last century as four hydropower dams blocked their ideal spawning grounds upstream. 'I think our ancestors would be proud because this is what they've been fighting for,' said Tasia Linwood, a 15-year-old member of the Karuk Tribe, on Thursday night, ahead of the group's final push to the end on Friday. The Klamath River is newly navigable after a decades-long effort to remove its four hydropower dams to help restore the salmon run — an ancient source of life, food and culture for these paddlers' tribes who have lived alongside the river for millennia. Youth primarily from the Yurok, Klamath, Hoopa Valley, Karuk, Quartz Valley and Warm Springs tribes paddled 310 miles (499 kilometers) over a month from the headwaters of the Wood River, a tributary to the Klamath that some tribes consider sacred, to the Pacific Ocean. The teens spent several years learning to navigate white water through Paddle Tribal Waters, a program set up by the nonprofit Rios to Rivers, to prepare local Native youth for the day this would be possible. During their last days on the water, the group of several dozen swelled to more than 100, joined by some family members and Indigenous people from Bolivia, Chile and New Zealand who face similar challenges on their home rivers. Starting in the early 1900s, power company PacifiCorp built the dams over several decades to generate electricity. But the structures, which provided 2% of the utility's power, halted the natural flow of a waterway that was once known as the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. With the dams in place, tribes lost access to a reliable source of food. The dams blocked the path to hundreds of miles of cool freshwater streams, ideal for salmon returning from the ocean to lay their eggs. Salmon numbers declined dramatically along with the water quality. In 2002, a bacterial outbreak caused by low water and warm temperatures killed more than 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. That galvanized decades of advocacy by tribes and environmental groups, culminating in 2022 when federal regulators approved a plan to remove the dams. Through protests, testimony and lawsuits, the tribes showcased the environmental devastation caused by the dams, especially to salmon. From 2023 to 2024, the four dams were dynamited and removed, freeing hundreds of miles of the Klamath. The renewable electricity lost by removing the hydropower dams was enough to power the equivalent of 70,000 homes, although PacifiCorp has since expanded its renewable sources through wind and solar projects. Two dams used for irrigation and flood control remain on the upper stretch of the river. They have 'ladders' that allow some fish to pass through, although their efficacy for adult salmon is questionable. On the journey, the paddlers got out of the river and carried their kayaks around the dams. The journey began June 12 with ceremonial blessings and kayaks gathered in a circle above a natural pool of springs where fresh water bubbles to the surface at the headwater of the Wood River, just upstream of the Klamath River. The youth camped in tents as they made their way across Upper Klamath Lake and down the Klamath River, jumping in the water or doing flips in their kayaks to cool down in the summer heat. A few kayakers came down with swimmer's ear, but overall everybody on the trip remained healthy. Nearly everyone had a story to share of a family's fishing cabin or a favorite swimming hole while passing through ancestral territory of the Klamath, Modoc, Shasta, Karuk and Yurok. More than 2,200 dams were removed from rivers in the United States from 1912 through 2024, most in the last couple of decades as momentum grows to restore the natural flow of rivers and the wildlife they support, according to the conservation group American Rivers. 'I believe that it was kind of symbolic of a bigger issue,' said John Acuna, member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and a leader on the trip. The federal government signed treaties with these tribes outlining their right to govern themselves, which is violated when they can't rely on their traditional food from the river. Acuna said these violations are familiar to many tribal communities, and included when his great-grandmother was sent to boarding school as part of a national strategy to strip culture and language from Native Americans. That history "comes with generational trauma,' he said. Their treaty-enshrined right to fish was also blatantly disregarded by regional authorities in the 1970s but later upheld by various court decisions, said Yurok council member Phillip Williams. Standing on a fog-shrouded boat ramp in the town of Requa awaiting the arrival of the youth, Williams recounted the time when it was illegal to fish here using the tribes' traditional nets. As a child, his elders were arrested and even killed for daring to defy authorities and fish in broad daylight. Fifty years later, with the hydropower dams now gone, large numbers of salmon are beginning to return and youth are paddling the length of the Klamath. 'If there's a heaviness that I feel it's because there's a lot of people that lived all in these places, all these little houses here that are no longer here no more," said Williams. 'They don't get to see what's happening today. And that's a heavy, heavy, feeling.' Even as a teen, Linwood says she feels both the pleasure of a month-long river trip with her friends and the weight of the past. 'I kind of feel guilty, like I haven't done enough to be fighting,' she said. "I gotta remember that's what our ancestors fought for. They fought for that — so that we could feel this joy with the river.'
Reuters
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US Supreme Court sets test for which courts can hear EPA cases
June 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court established rules of the road on Wednesday to determine when lawsuits challenging actions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency related to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions should be heard by regional appeals courts or an appeals court in Washington that often hears regulatory cases. The 7-2 ruling, opens new tab held that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and not the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is the proper court to hear a lawsuit by small oil refiners challenging the EPA's denial of waivers exempting them from national biofuel mandates. That meant that the 5th Circuit had no business ruling in 2023 that the EPA during President Joe Biden's administration had unlawfully denied the oil refineries waivers from a renewable fuels requirement that they blend ethanol and other biofuels into their fuel. Yet under the same test to assess venue that the justices announced in the refineries cases, they ruled, opens new tab 8-0 that a different set of lawsuits by the Republican-led states of Oklahoma and Utah and several energy companies including PacifiCorp challenging the EPA's "Good Neighbor" smog control plan were wrongly transferred to the D.C. Circuit. Both sets of cases turned on a provision of the Clean Air Act anti-pollution law that designates the D.C. Circuit as the exclusive venue for cases over "nationally applicable" EPA actions and rules but leaves cases concerning only local agency actions to regional federal appeals courts. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the Supreme Court's majority in the refineries' case, used his opinion to map out a test for how to interpret that provision and determine the proper venue for lawsuits challenging EPA actions. Thomas said that while the law presumptively routes cases concerning local agency actions to a regional appeals court, they still must be heard by the D.C. Circuit "if a justification of nationwide breadth is the primary explanation for and driver of EPA's action." That justification must supply a "core justification" for the EPA's action, Thomas said, as it did in the case of the six refineries, whose requests for biofuel mandate exemptions were denied based on an interpretation of the Clean Air Act that the agency applied to all refineries regardless of their geographic location. The ruling reversed a 5th Circuit decision in favor of the refineries on the merits after concluding that the EPA's actions were local or regional in nature, not national. "Allowing 12 different circuit courts to adjudicate SREs (small refinery exemptions) would result in a fractured and inconsistent body of law, causing chaos and confusion in the marketplace," biofuel groups Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association wrote in a joint statement. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, in a dissenting opinion joined by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, said the test that the majority laid out was "both mistaken and likely to render simple venue questions unnecessarily difficult and expensive to resolve." They nonetheless concurred with the court's decision to reverse the conclusion by the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the case by Oklahoma and Utah should be transferred to the D.C. Circuit. That case concerned a rule the EPA issued in March 2023 intended to target gases that form ozone, a key component of smog, from power plants and other industrial sources in 23 upwind states whose own plans did not satisfy the the Clean Air Act's "Good Neighbor" provision. Oklahoma and Utah were among 21 states whose air quality plans were rejected by the EPA under that policy. Numerous lawsuits followed, including by Oklahoma and Utah, who sought to challenge the decision in the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. While the 10th Circuit held the case belonged in the D.C. Circuit because it concerned a national policy, Thomas wrote that the 10th Circuit could hear the case because the EPA's action turned on state-specific factors. The Supreme Court last year blocked the Biden-era "Good Neighbor" rule from being enforced while litigation in the lower courts moved forward. The Trump administration has said it plans to repeal the rule.
