Source: Indian Country Today

http://www.indiancountry.com/article/1050332327

On April 14, 2003 Indian Country Today reported that "California Gov. Gray Davis signed Senate Bill 22 into law, which is aimed to protect a Quechan tribal sacred area from a proposed nearby open pit gold mine... Tougher questions abound in other areas considered sacred to other California tribes. For example last year somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 salmon died on the Klamath River, considered sacred to, among others, the Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes. Later studies concluded that business interests ranging from logging to farming to urban public utilities were among the culprits that contributed to higher water temperatures and thus lower oxygen levels that resulted in the massive die-off."