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Salmon are at the Forefront of Calls to Remove the Four Lower Snake River Dams, But the Conversation is Beginning to Also Focus on Tribal Justice by Summer Sandstrom Pacific NW Inlander, June 16, 2022

"There was a time when no one in our tribe had to worry
about whether we had enough fish to feed everyone."
-- Confederated Umatilla Indian Reservation Youth Leadership Council

In the spring, rivers used to be filled to the brim with salmon racing to the ocean, but now on some parts of the Snake River, salmon are a scarce sight.

For decades, local leaders and advocates have been calling for the federal government to study the removal of the four Lower Snake River dams and the obstacles they've created for salmon. Recently, the conversation is becoming more urgent as tribes and environmental groups warn of the looming threat of extinction that could become a reality if action isn't taken soon.

At the Salmon Orca Project's third summit, Life After the Dams, held in Spokane May 20, speakers from local tribes not only spoke about why removing the dams is important, but about the impacts that they've had on their ways of life.

"At this point, we are done arguing on whether or not the dams need to be breached. We know they do," Kayeloni Scott, communications manager for the Nez Perce Tribe, said in her opening remarks. "We're ready to talk about what that's going to look like and how we can move forward and prosper in the future."

This has been a topic of discussion for decades, retired journalist Rocky Barker told the crowd. Barker said that even in the '90s when he started reporting on the issue for the Idaho Statesman, it was clear that it was scientifically and economically possible to remove the dams.

"When I first covered this issue, [it was] about dams and salmon; but in 2020, thanks in part to all of you, it became about tribal justice," he said during a panel discussion. "And the fact is, all the things we said 25 years ago are still true, but now we have another imperative to drive us."

While the four Lower Snake River dams provide the region with many important benefits, such as irrigation, flood control and power generation, it's at the expense of local tribes and wildlife.

The dams create warmer water that makes it more difficult for the juvenile salmon to successfully reach the ocean, and the structures cause issues for the return journeys up the river.

In recent years, dam removal has gotten more urgent attention not only from environmental groups, but also from federal and state elected officials. This March, the White House Council on Environmental Quality stated that it would create an interagency group to analyze the dams and find a long-term solution to the issues the dams have created.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., also committed to releasing a study this year looking at the benefits of removing the dams and replacing the power and services they provide through other means. The draft report was released June 9 and public comment will be accepted through July 11.

The report outlines the economic and environmental impacts of removing the dams, but some believe that there are other impacts of the dams that need to be looked at as well.

"I think it's really incredibly important for us to understand ... the historical trauma that has occurred to Native Americans with the destruction of their life with the loss of salmon, and the impact to their culture, their way of life and their economic sustainability," Washington state Rep. Debra Lekanoff, D-Anacortes, tells the Inlander.

As the dams are federally operated, their removal relies upon action from the federal government. While Lekanoff says that the current administration has taken some of the steps needed to make a difference, other aspects of the issue still need to be addressed.

To her, there needs to be more importance placed on the effects of current actions and legislation on future generations and how it will affect their lives and the world they live in. She says that the policies and decisions made today are "not just decisions that last for the time period of when those administrations are serving."

In addition to problems for wildlife, the dams have created equity issues along the river systems in the Northwest.

Areas around and below the four Lower Snake River dams receive a majority of mitigation dollars used to resolve some impacts of the dams, said Carol Evans, chairwoman of the Spokane Tribal Council, in her remarks at the May 20 summit.

However, areas above the dams on the Columbia and Spokane rivers are the most negatively affected by this issue, and they remain unaddressed. Salmon, which return to certain parts of the Snake River, currently can't return to parts of the Columbia above the Chief Joseph Dam in Bridgeport or above its neighbor, the behemoth Grand Coulee Dam.

"We lost our culture, our way of life, our sustenance," Evans said. "We lived off of the return of the salmon."

While removing the dams seems difficult, especially when trying to replace the massive amount of energy that they generate, some believe that it's an achievable goal.

"When the dams were installed ... the people who wanted to put dams in were not thinking about, 'What will the long-term impacts of this be on the salmon habitat?'" said Berit Anderson, who helps lead an annual conference called Future in Review that explores solutions to similar issues, at the summit. "There's no reason that we need to keep ... these old hydropower technologies in place when they're clearly doing damage to the ecosystems and the farmers themselves."

Recently, youth from the Confederated Umatilla Indian Reservation Youth Leadership Council were inspired to create a petition to remove the dams that has already accumulated almost 20,000 signatures.

The petition accompanies a letter sent by the council to President Joe Biden in June 2021, which states the importance of salmon to the tribal youth and the damage that the dams have caused to their way of life.

"Our elders tell us about a time when there was more salmon than our people could even eat," they wrote. "There was a time when no one in our tribe had to worry about whether we had enough fish to feed everyone. But today, there is less salmon and even their size is so much smaller than before."

The Youth Leadership Council also mentioned the importance of removing the dams as they affect their right to fish promised in treaties with the federal government.

"We're living on broken treaties right now, trying to fish on a river that no longer has the abundance of fish we need," said youth council member Keyen Singer at the Spokane summit.

"Fishing for salmon is who we are as Indigenous people. We rely on the first foods when we have our traditional gatherings or ceremonies. Losing fish, to me, is like losing another ancestor. It's a part of who I am."