{"id":4080,"date":"2026-05-07T08:08:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/klamathid.org\/home\/?p=4080"},"modified":"2026-05-07T08:43:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:43:35","slug":"kbc-this-could-be-the-end-of-the-klamath-project-under-the-trump-administration-at-the-hand-of-earthjustice-and-amy-cordalis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klamathid.org\/home\/2026\/05\/07\/kbc-this-could-be-the-end-of-the-klamath-project-under-the-trump-administration-at-the-hand-of-earthjustice-and-amy-cordalis\/","title":{"rendered":"This Could Be the End of the Klamath Project Under the Trump Administration \u2014 At the Hand of Earthjustice and Amy Cordalis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published by Klamath Basin Crisis .org\u00a0 6 May 2026 at
\nhttps:\/\/klamathbasincrisis.org\/litigation\/2026\/EndOfKlamathProjectUnderTrump_EarthJusticeAmyCordalis050626.htm<\/a>
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www.klamathbasincrisis.org \u2014 A Voice for Klamath River Basin Families, Wildlife, and the Future of the Klamath Project<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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This Could Be the End of the Klamath Project Under the Trump Administration \u2014 At the Hand of Earthjustice and Amy Cordalis<\/h1>\n

by KBC News editors, Klamathbasincrisis.org \u00b7 May 6, 2026<\/p>\n

We warned ourselves about this eight months ago. We told each other it was coming. And on May 5, 2026, it came \u2014 exactly as predicted, from exactly the same lawyers, on exactly the same playbook. This time, the target is not just our farms. It is one of the Trump administration’s most consequential Western water decisions, and Earthjustice is asking the same federal judge in California to throw it out before this water year ends.<\/p>\n

Amy Cordalis, the former Yurok Tribe attorney who has built a career and FAME on suing the Klamath Project, and Patti Goldman of Earthjustice \u2014 the same Patti Goldman who has been filing these cases against our families and communities for over two decades \u2014 moved in federal court in San Francisco to throw out the entire 2026 Annual Operations Plan. Right in the middle of irrigation season. With our crops already in the ground. And right on top of the Trump administration’s May 2025 legal reset, which finally restored the rule of contract in this basin after thirty years of erosion and continued lawfare.<\/p>\n

This is the\u00a0tenth lawsuit in twenty-five years<\/strong>. Same lawyers. Same court. Same season. Same families left to absorb the loss.<\/p>\n

Klamath Irrigation District has been educating the Trump Administration on\u00a0Groundhog Day Lawfare<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 a repetitive, predictable, calculated attempt to harm the Pacific Flyway, ecosystem, our farmers, our refuges, our communities, our culture, and our economy by creating \u201cwaiting waste\u201d through the courts. The wait is the weapon. Every year a family does not know if the water is coming, ground is lost that cannot be recovered. Every season under a cloud is a season a young farmer decides not to take over from his father. Every cycle thins out the basin a little more, exactly the way it was designed to.<\/p>\n

And this time, they may finish the job \u2014 by undoing the only federal action in a generation that has tried to stop them.<\/p>\n

What the Trump Administration Actually Did \u2014 And Why Earthjustice Is Panicking<\/h2>\n

In May 2025, the Department of the Interior under Secretary Doug Burgum issued an Updated Analysis from the Solicitor’s Office that reset the legal framework governing how Reclamation operates the Klamath Project. In January 2026, Reclamation followed with its own Reassessment Report. Together, those two documents do something that has not happened in three decades:\u00a0they put the irrigation contracts back where the law actually places them<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 as binding federal commitments that cannot be wished away to satisfy ESA flow demands the basin and watershed physically cannot meet.<\/p>\n

This was not a radical action. It was a return to the plain text of the 1902 Reclamation Act, the 1905 Klamath Project authorization, and a century of contract law. It restored what every farmer in this basin has known all along: a contract is a contract. Water deliveries to the Klamath Project are not optional, nor opinion-based, and they are not subordinate to flow targets manufactured by Interior advisors operating completely outside the law.<\/p>\n

The Updated Analysis is the most important federal action affecting this basin in twenty plus years. And Earthjustice knows it. That is why their motion does not just challenge the 2026 Operations Plan. It asks Judge Orrick to\u00a0declare the May 2025 Updated Analysis and the January 2026 Reassessment unlawful and vacate them.<\/strong>\u00a0They are not trying to win a single water year. They are trying to wipe out the Trump administration’s Klamath policy entirely, before any future Section 7 consultation can ever rely on it.<\/p>\n

What Cordalis and Goldman Are Asking the Court to Do<\/h2>\n

The motion is set for hearing June 10, 2026, before Judge William Orrick \u2014 the same judge who has ruled in Earthjustice’s favor before. The Tribe has signaled it intends to file for summary judgment shortly after June 12, with the open intent of getting the case decided before this water year ends \u2014 and before the Trump administration can defend its policy on a normal litigation timeline.<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>, Cordalis and Goldman want the court to declare unlawful the Department of Interior Solicitor’s May 2025 Updated Analysis and Reclamation’s January 2026 Reassessment Report. These are the documents that finally put on paper what every farmer in this basin has known for a hundred years. Earthjustice wants those documents wiped off the books before they ever get used in a single Section 7 consultation. If they win, the Trump administration’s Klamath reset is a dead letter on arrival.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, they want Judge Orrick to vacate the entire 2026 Annual Operations Plan, including the 221,000 acre-foot agricultural allocation announced on April 6. If they win, the Drought Response Agency, the contractors, and every family who has already planted are operating on a number that no longer governs the season. Mid-water-year. After every operational decision has been made.<\/p>\n

Right now, today, more than 1,000 cubic feet per second is rolling over Keno Dam. Inflows to Upper Klamath Lake are running about 910 cfs. The river below Keno is already getting more water than is naturally coming in.\u00a0The lawsuit asks for more.<\/strong>\u00a0It asks for water that does not exist except in the wettest one-in-three years on record, based on Hardy Flow numbers cooked up by Clinton-Obama-Biden Interior advisors that have never matched the actual hydrology of this basin.<\/p>\n