A deal to remove dams from the Klamath River has stalled amid opposition from a local Tea Party group, The New York Times reports.

Tribes in northern California and southern Oregon supported the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which was announced in February 2010. The Karuk Tribe, the Klamath Tribes and the Yurok Tribe hoped it would lead to more salmon runs and the return of ancestral land.

But the Klamath County Tea Party Patriots has been fighting the deal out of fear it will harm local farms. The group ousted local politicians who supported the agreement.

The deal “is not going to go anywhere at all,” Tom Mallams, a farmer who won a county seat with the backing of the Tea Party, told the Times. “It’s slowly dying on the vine.”

Not all tribes in the Klamath Basin have supported the agreement.

Get the Story:
Tea Party Blocks Pact to Restore a West Coast River (The New York Times 7/19)

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