KENNEWICK — The formation of a new federal task force focused on salmon in the Columbia River system has been met with concern by supporters of the Snake River hydroelectric dams in Eastern Washington.
The Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of Interior announcement last week of the new Columbia Basin Task Force continues “the all-too-familiar trend of surprise U.S. government actions concerning the future of the Pacific Northwest — without coordination or consultation with the regional stakeholders,” said the Public Power Council in a statement.
The new federal council was announced as a report was released on the impact of dams, outlining the historic and ongoing harm inflicted on Northwest tribes by development in the Northwest, including the dams on the Columbia River and the rivers, like the Snake, that feed into it.
Salmon and other native fish species are at the heart of Native American culture in the Columbia River Basin, and the United States has treaty obligations for Native American harvest of once abundant salmon.
The report was hailed by the tribes as a long-overdue acknowledgment of what their people had lost and the transfer of wealth from tribes to others.
The report was among the requirements in an agreement announced by the Biden administration in December that halts mediation over the Columbia River System Operations, including the lower Snake River dams, for up to a decade and provides more than $1 billion for wild fish restoration.
For another upcoming report in response to the agreement, a virtual public meeting will be held Thursday to provide information and answer questions.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Washington state Department of Ecology are holding the meetings to kick off the Lower Snake River Water Supply Replacement Study, which will consider impacts to irrigation and industrial and municipal water use if the Snake River dams are breached.
Register for the 3 p.m. Thursday meeting at bit.ly/SnakeWaterReplacement2.
Dams task force concerns
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., is among those who believe the administration’s agreement reached in December is a step toward taking out the four lower Snake River dams in Eastern Washington.
He blasted the announcement of the new federal task force, which he said would be made up exclusively of Biden administration officials and would coordinate efforts across federal agencies to continue attempts to break the Snake River dams.
“Why are our local stakeholders and leaders not included on, or even informed of, a task force destined to fundamentally alter our region’s economic landscape?” he asked.
He called the task force “a huge disappointment to those of us that are serious about improving ways for dams and salmon to coexist.”
“This is nothing more than a disingenuous ploy for this administration to check a political box in the name of environmentalism and tribal relations,” he said. “Their only ‘task’ is breaching our carbon free, renewable and affordable energy base that supports the lives of the people of Central Washington.”
The Public Power Council, which represents more than 100 consumer-owned electric utilities in the Pacific Northwest, said residents of the Northwest should be concerned by the “continued myopic focus on dam breaching and potential for runaway rate increases that the U.S. government seems to advance every few years.”
The federal government is ignoring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decades of research and analysis showing that the impacts of clean, renewable hydropower from federal dams on salmon can be successfully mitigated, said Scott Simms, executive director of the Public Power Council.
Northwest public power communities that benefit from hydropower have paid $685 million per year for Bonneville Power Administration to mitigate impacts on salmon, resulting in years with adult salmon returns greater than before construction of the dams, he said.
“We stand to lose our clean hydropower, river navigation and commerce, flood control, recreation, irrigation and — ironically — funding for one of the world’s largest fish mitigation program that also yields millions of pounds of salmon harvested annually from our rivers and oceans,” Sims said.
The Biden administration has failed to account for all interests affected by the complex issue of breaching the Snake River dams in the interest of endangered salmon, said the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, representing ports and other interests that benefit from the dams.
Utilities, farmers, businesses and river transportation and other users must be included in all aspects of the Columbia River Task Force, from start to finish, said Clark Mather, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners.
Northwest RiverPartners is committed to ensuring all communities, including the must vulnerable, can benefit from the existing renewable energy infrastructure, he said.
The organization supports efforts to fulfill U.S. obligations to Northwest tribes, but in addressing harms to indigenous people the nation should avoid deepening or causing other injustices, he said.
Salmon center of tribal life
But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the formation of a federal task force is welcome news for people who count on the Columbia River Basin for recreation and commerce.
He’ll work with the task force both to uphold the federal government’s obligations to tribes and address the needs of all Oregonians, he said.
The new report on historic and negative impacts of dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers said that historically abundant wild salmon and steelhead contributed to thriving tribal cultures and communities.
They were the staples of daily diets and Native American ceremonies.
As dams were built beginning at the start of the 20th century, they blocked fish from migrating into certain parts of the Columbia River Basin and flooded thousands of acres of land, sacred sites and ancestral burial grounds and transformed the ecosystem.
Before The Dalles Dam was built on the Columbia River, sites like Celilo Falls were centers of culture, trade, history and tradition.
“The dams silenced these sites that for thousands of years were filled with the noise of rushing water and people communing, praying, fishing, trading and celebrating,” the report said.
The loss of abundant salmon altered traditional diets and fundamentally changed how tribal members teach and raise their children in the cultural and spiritual beliefs that center around salmon and other fish, the report said.
At one time before development in the Northwest, up to 16 million wild salmon and steelhead returned to Pacific Northwest tributaries each year, according to the Department of Interior.
Today about 2 million salmon and steelhead return annually, with about two-thirds of those hatchery fish, according to the report.
The Shoshone-Bannock estimate the the current annual harvest provides an average of 1.1 pounds of salmon per tribal member, down from 700 pounds historically. The Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce tribes estimated losing 90% or more of their salmon harvest from the time that treaties were signed in 1855, the report said.
Northwest tribes respond
Corinne Sams of the board of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation called the report “an honest acknowledgment” of the “devastating impacts of development of the Columbia Basin on Tribes.”
It showed the transfer of wealth through development from the tribes to non-Indians, she said.
“It is a remarkable document, and a demonstration of the (Biden) administration’s commitment to restore the salmon runs and the ecosystems they depend on in the Columbia Basin,” she said.
The Yakima Nation said the report highlights the broken promises to the Yakama people that have been ignored for generations.
“I am hopeful that through this report, federal entities will listen to Yakama People,” said Gerald Lewis, Yakama Tribal Council chairman.
The report is a stark reminder that the federal dams were built “on the backs of our tribal nations and our people,” said Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee.
“The United States — by telling the truth about the historic and ongoing injustices the federal dams have imposed on our people and by embracing its treaty and trust obligation — is upholding the rule of law and highlighting the urgency to act to prevent salmon extinction,” Wheeler said.
