PacifiCorp, Yakama Nation OK land deal along White Salmon River

The Yakama Nation, which co-manages fisheries around White Salmon, retains fishing rights to the land from the Treaty of 1855 with the federal government. Virgil Lewis Sr., vice chairman of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council, called the agreement “a unique opportunity to preserve in perpetuity critical river and upland habitats that sustain our way of life.”

“The Yakama Nation and PacifiCorp have worked together for decades in the White Salmon Basin and elsewhere in our traditional homelands,” Lewis Sr. said. “We will continue to work with our partners throughout the Yakama Nation’s traditional territories in order to honor, protect and restore our culture and the natural resources on which it depends, and to uphold our promise to the Creator to speak for those resources that cannot speak for themselves.”

PacifiCorp has owned the land around the former dam site since the early 1900s.

The 125-foot hydroelectric dam previously blocked more than 30 miles of potential steelhead habitat, 4 miles of fall chinook salmon habitat and nearly 10 miles of spring chinook habitat, according to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. The process of removing the dam began in September 1999, when PacifiCorp signed a settlement with environmental groups, government agencies and tribes to remove it.

Contractors detonated charges in the dam on Oct. 26, 2011, creating a tunnel through its base that drained Northwestern Lake in less than an hour and propelled millions of gallons of water and 2.3 million cubic yards of sediment downriver. The last remaining piece of the dam was removed nearly a year later.

Salmon, steelhead and wild Pacific lamprey were spotted in the area in the years following the breach. Since the dam’s removal, the river has met federal requirements concerning its rehabilitation, according to PacifiCorp.

The agreement announced Monday does not include PacifiCorp property further upriver, which includes leased cabin sites.