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Preface
Wilbur Slockish is a hereditary chief and a leader of the Klickitat people whose villages were located along the Columbia River since time immemorial. He is a fisherman who was jailed for three years in federal prisons for fishing and he represents his tribal people and the Yakama Nation on the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The impetus for this article was Wilbur Slockish’s request of the author for the details of what CRITFC staff, the author included, called the 1948 agreement by which the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, along with the federal government, relocated abundant, naturally-spawning salmon from the Columbia River above Bonneville Dam to hatcheries and fisheries located in the lower Columbia River between Bonneville and Astoria. With the help of Libby Burke at the BPA Library, the author’s first discovery was that the agreement was actually forged on October 8, 1947 making it a 1947 agreement. Subsequent discovery revealed the story of a tribal community’s lawful and historic reliance on salmon’s natural abundance reduced to scarcity by a political process designed to end that reliance and substitute economic objectives that conflicted with the life cycle of the salmon and would drastically reduce salmon populations. The long-term effect of the process was to ignite a reaction that would later result in funding for the largest ecosystem restoration effort on Earth through persistent efforts of the tribes to regain what was lost; a zero-sum game of environmental injustice became a win-win game through the dialectic of history.
The historical information contained in this summary supports a theme suggested by Carlos Smith of Warm Springs to the author that traces the root causes by which abundant wild salmon of the Columbia River Basin were reduced to scarcity by federal and state policies and are now being restored to abundance through tribal co-management policies and by tribal salmon recovery projects funded primarily by the Bonneville Power Administration.
Prologue
Randy & the General
Roughly transcribed from a conversation with Randy Settler by John Platt at the dedication of the new Celilo Longhouse on July 23rd, 2005
Yakama Tribal Council assigned Randy Settler to escort the General on a tour of the fishing sites in order to press the need for housing, a new longhouse, and a fish processing center. The General wasn’t buying it.
“You don’t have to have these things” Why do your people need these things”?
Randy brought the General to the Lone Pine access site. There the General saw fishers in huts and tents, living on scaffolds.
“Those people are nesting here,” he said.
Randy said “of course they are. They need a place to stay when they’re fishing.”
“We can’t have that; they’re not permitted to stay here.”
“But why?” said Randy. “The Corps has a duty to protect the homes of the birds and the fish that are at its projects. Why doesn’t it have a duty to protect the homes and the foods for the Indians?”
Just then a voice from the back seat says “Carl, you spend hundreds of millions of dollars for these projects and for protecting the fish and wildlife. Why can’t you help these people,” said the General’s wife.
The General was clearly irritated.
Just then a car pulled up behind the General’s rig with a blue light on the top. Randy said to the General and his wife, who was in the back seat, “let me take care of this.” The General protested but Randy insisted. The blue lights came on and the General and Randy left the car to deal with the BIA police officer.
Officer Gravatt immediately confronted the General asking what he was doing at the in-lieu fishing access site that was reserved for Indian use. Before the General could state his identity, Randy stated his own saying that he was escorting the General on behalf of the Tribal Council. Officer Gravatt said that he recognized Randy from media pictures and, though the General was wearing his uniform, the officer continued to glare at him suspiciously.
Just then a taxi arrived at the site and a large Indian man jumped from the cab and ran to the river. The cab driver called the local police who immediately called the BIA officer who captured the man and, with difficulty because of the size of his wrists, was able to handcuff him and lead him to his patrol car. The General was just leaving the site with Randy and his wife when the officer and his captive approached the car.
“Keep going,” Randy said. The General stopped. Just then, the fishermen managed to grab the door handle with his cuffed hands and implore the General, by name, to stop and help him.
General Strock, you know me, I’m _______ and I need your help. Randy jumped from the car and offered to help his fellow fisherman who was to supply the muscle for his fishing crew next morning. Randy asked the cab driver the amount of the fare. “Five bucks,” he said.
Randy reached for his wallet but it wasn’t in his pocket. He left it in his car back at the Corps offices.
“General, would you give me five bucks.”
“No way.”
“General, I need five bucks or I won’t have a fisherman with me tomorrow because he’ll be in jail.”
A voice from the back said, “Carl, it’s only five dollars.”
The General pulled out a five dollar bill and gave it to Randy.
Randy told the officer to release the cuffs and he would pay the cabbie his fiver. The officer insisted that Randy give the five to him and, only then would he release the fisherman. After a brief squabble, Randy handed over the five dollars to the officer who paid it to the cabbie and, hesitantly uncuffed the fisherman.
As the General, his wife and Randy were leaving, the snockered fisherman asked if he could accompany them on the rest of the tour. Feeling the unease coming from the backseat of the car, Randy spoke quietly to the fisherman who left the scene.
On to Cloudville, Louie Cloud’s village. Louie, an elder, represented the Columbia River fishermen on the tribal council since the 1960’s. He was an ardent advocate.
As they pulled into park the General’s vehicle, Randy warned the General not to park in the place that he was approaching. Again the General protested Randy’s clear direction. Randy pointed to the car parked next to the General’s parking space.
At its bumper was a long heavy chain attached to a massive Rottweiler that glared at the General. He asked Randy if the dog was vicious.
“He probably wouldn’t be attached to a chain that heavy if he wasn’t,” said Randy.
The General parked in a spot a bit further away than the length of the chain and asked about the condition of the housing which consisted of small houses and shacks. “Where do they get their water and electricity,” he asked.
“They get their water from a well and they don’t have electricity”
”What about heat and cooking?”
“Propane,” Randy said while he considered that their substandard housing and utilities replaced houses inundated by dams that were producing thousands of megawatts of electricity powering the cities and industries of the Pacific Northwest.
As the General, his wife and Randy left the car, Louie Cloud, bedecked in a military uniform and a VFW cap greeted the trio. He surprised the General by addressing his name and the General noticed that he had the emblem of the 82nd Airborne. When the General noted that he also served in that division, Louie mentioned that he already knew that fact. Then the General noticed that Louie had ribbons from three separate European offensives fought during WW II.
“I’m the historian for the 82nd Airborne,” said the General, “and I’m not aware of any soldier that fought in three offensives during WW II.
“There were a few of us from Yakama,” said Louie.
“How did you get there,” said the General.
“We were dropped in for the first one,” said Louie.
“How did you get to the next battle?”
“We walked and fought.”
“What about the third?”
“Walked and fought.”
“How long did it take from the second to the third?”
“About six months,” said Louie.
Louie then reminded Randy of his six uncles who fought in the Second World War.
Randy then took a document from his briefcase dated 1965. He showed it to the General.
“This document is from the Department of Interior to the Commanding Officer of the Pacific Northwest Division of the Corps and it was prepared by Louie when he was chairman of the Fish and Wildlife and Law and Order Committee of the Yakama Nation. It calls for the Corps to provide housing, access, and a new longhouse to replace that which was flooded by the dams.”
“Louie, did you ever speak to the General who received this memo about the tribes’ request,” asked Randy.
“I did,” said Louie.
“And what did he say”
“He said he appreciated the request and would take care of it.”
On 23 June 2005, General Carl Strock joined with the Columbia River tribes to dedicate a new longhouse at Celilo Village that adjoined the Celilo In-Lieu Access site, one of 31 developed by the Corps under Public Law 100-581.
The Last Truth We Got
On the 25th and 26th of June 1947, a federal-state committee for the Columbia River met at the Marcus Whitman Hotel in Walla Walla, Washington to hear testimony on a proposal to delay dam construction that would eventually upend 15,000 years of natural history in the Columbia River Basin.[1] Earlier that spring, on March 24, 1947, the Assistant Secretary of Interior under the Truman Administration transmitted a recommendation for a ten-year moratorium on construction of The Dalles and Lower Snake River dams to a Washington, D.C. committee representing the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, and War as well as the Federal Power Commission. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state fishery agencies needed the time to develop remedial measures that could preserve the Columbia River fishery[2] (emphasis added). The recommendation was forwarded to the committee’s Northwest arm, the Columbia Basin Inter-Agency Committee (CBIAC), a regional body that also included representatives of the governors of the Columbia Basin states[3].
The CBIAC unanimously rejected the moratorium and approved a modified recommendation at Portland, Oregon on October 8, 1947 that was adopted by the Truman Administration and funded during 1948 by the 80th Congress. Though the projects were delayed until other hydro construction was completed, Federal and state action on the recommendation cleared the way for construction of The Dalles Dam and the four Lower Snake River dams. With the agreement of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Washington and Oregon fishery agencies, the recommendation initiated the relocation of abundant upper Columbia salmon runs to hatcheries and non-Indian fisheries below the dams. Finally, the recommendation proposed surveys to determine how Indians would be compensated for the loss of their main stem fishery guaranteed by the United States in treaties. But without the agreement of the indigenous people of the Columbia Plateau, that action of the Columbia Basin’s federal agencies and state governments called forth a persistent challenge by four generations of Indian people that has demonstrated the resiliency of both the salmon of the Columbia Basin and their champions.
The newspapers in the Columbia Basin, particularly in Walla Walla, Astoria, and Portland paid close attention to the moratorium hearing and related actions and decisions. A month after the Department of Interior had communicated its moratorium proposal, the April 21, 1947 Astorian reported that the Assistant Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Milton James, testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee requesting $350,000 to study methods for minimizing fish losses. James predicted “the virtual extermination of Columbia River fish if dams proposed by the war and interior departments were built along the mighty stream” leading to the conclusion that there would be no fish losses to minimize because the salmon would not survive above the dams. The committee recommended $100,000 and its report suggested that the measures to minimize losses should be “financed by the fishing industry.”
In another article, The Astorian front page of April 21 reported on testimony by Bonneville Power Administrator, Dr. Paul Raver, requesting funds for power line construction stating the “BPA power lines were so taxed that at many points they were cooled artificially to prevent a ‘blowup.’” According to the Astorian, the committee recommended that BPA’s funds be cut by two-thirds to $6,907,800 based on the fact that Bonneville’s had underspent its budget by $7 million. The committee also recommended that Bureau of Reclamation funds for the Columbia River Project be cut by a similar percentage because of underspending, according to the Astorian.
While appropriators that spring were only offering a pittance for minimizing losses to the Columbia River fishery, they felt compelled to chastise the federal hydropower developers and marketing agencies for not spending enough on their development projects. The future was dimming for the salmon fishery on the Columbia.
In the April 21 edition, The Astorian editorialized on the moratorium proposed by Interior stating that the department “has at last openly admitted that its program for power, irigation [sic] and navigation dams strung along the Columbia and Snake rivers will kill the Columbia River fishery.” The editorial scoffed at the moratorium stating:
“The moratorium is to permit the fishery to die lingeringly rather than suddenly for the department apparently believes that slow death is less painful. The idea seems to be that McNary dam alone will merely wound the fishery and that the ultimate deathblow is to wait a decade or two until the other projects are built.”
“The department, in its contention that McNary dam will only reduce the fishery 15 per cent, evidently ignores the opinion of competent biologists that this dam alone will just about be enough to deal the deathblow.”
The May 15th Astorian amplified the McNary Dam connection when it reported that Tom Sandoz, president of the Columbia River Packers Association, termed the contention of the Interior Department that McNary was too far along to stop or delay “ridiculous,” stating that the appropriation for the dam to date amounted to only 14% of its total estimated cost.
The Walla-Walla Union Bulletin of June 1 took the opposite view quoting Herbert West, Mayor of Walla Walla, stating that McNary was necessary for navigation in order to get wheat past Homley and Umatilla Rapids “at a cost lower than by any other method.”
The Union Bulletin also announced the hearing in the June 1 edition:
“The problem of providing multi-purpose dams for the development of the Pacific Northwest without endangering the annual fish runs and resulting in injury to commercial and sport fishing will be considered by the Columbia Basin interagency committee at a meeting in Walla Walla June 25 at the city hall.[4]
The article reported that Colonel Theron Weaver, Commanding Officer of the Corps of Engineers North Pacific Division and chairman of the of the interagency committee, pointed out that “[r]epresentatives of Indian Tribes who by treaties have fishing rights on the Columbia River, also will be heard. These tribes would be compensated for any loss of fishing sites occasioned by the construction of dams and their views are therefore important to the final solution of this phase of the problem.”
Witnesses from the place known as N’Chiwana, the area from the Cascade Rapids, whose waters drove the turbines of Bonneville Dam, to the mouth of the Snake, unconditionally opposed the plan. Sam Kash Kash, Chairman of the Umatilla Tribal Business Committee and a grandson of one of the 1855 treaty signers, testified at the hearing quoting Joel Palmer, United States representative at the treaty grounds at Walla Walla in 1855, stating, “we want to set up this document which will protect your right to fish and hunt, gather roots and berries in your accustomed fishing places throughout the United States.”[5]
Chairman Kash Kash continued saying, “we won’t accept, we reject any offer, regardless of whether you bring your gold in hay racks, or whatever you bring it in, we don’t want the money. We want our rights.“[6]
He was followed by Chief Tommy Thompson of Celilo, who recognized the common usage of the fishery by both Indians and non-Indians, saying through his interpreter, John Whiz, “there are lots of white people mak[ing] their living off fishing and if you make a dam you will cut their livelihood off too like you will my people.”[7]
He paid homage to the Creator saying, “God put the water here . . . to irrigate the mother earth and irrigate your heart” and then noting the effect that construction of The Dalles Dam would have on salmon by inundating Celilo Falls, he said, “The falls has been made natural for the fish to follow the current up the river.”[8]
Henry Charley spoke for the Celilo Fish Committee[9] and also noted the impact that the dams would have upon the non-Native community believing perhaps that the treaty protections for the Indian fishery would be insufficient to sway the panel and delay construction. He stated his understanding of the treaty discussions and the events that followed, foretelling the effect of conservation policy on treaty rights:
“Other peoples come to Celilo [and] get the fish to eat, white people and English. They live on that last truth we got. Preservation he [Isaac Stevens] says. ‘I will protect you from white people.’ Where is it? Where is the buffalo? Where is the deer? Where is the elk? Where is the moose? Conservation took it all away. . . . And today we are on the last truth we got, fish.”[10]
Though the meaning of Henry Charley’s statement may still seem ironic to many, the public view shaped and reflected by the media failed to understand his concern. The Oregonian quoted Charley’s testimony in part reporting that it was the “[f]unniest statement made at the hearing.”
The clear opposition of the treaty fishers from the area to be flooded was not only mocked by the media, it was clouded by the Native Peoples’ federal representative and by neighboring tribal people who had accepted the termination/assimilation policy[11] as an inevitable course leading to the trampling of treaty fishing rights during the march of impounding progress.
Edward Swindell, Jr. represented the Office of Indian Affairs with a statement that he said “was presented on behalf of the descendants of the several Indian tribes having treaties with the United States” guaranteeing the off-reservation right to fish “for the purpose of obtaining a major portion of their food supply from the salmon runs of the Columbia and its tributaries.” He enumerated the “tribes in question” as the Walla Walla, Cayuse, and Umatilla Tribes, the Nez Perce Indian Tribes, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, and “the so-called mid-Columbia River Indians who are affiliated with any one of the above-mentioned tribes,”[12] a reference to the tribal people who continued to live along N’Chiwana despite federal policy aimed at removing them to the reservations established by the Stevens Treaties.[13] Notably and perhaps unconsciously, he failed to mention the Yakama Nation though it was represented by its tribal council chairman, Eagle Seelatsee,[14] and its attorney, Kenneth R. L. Simmons, who also represented to Nez Perce Tribe at the hearing.[15]
Swindell stated that approximately five thousand individuals were dependent “directly or indirectly” on the Indian fishery[16] and that, in addition to Celilo, other fishing sites exist “but their number in comparison with the innumerable such sites in existence at the time of the treaties is infinitesimal.”[17] He noted that the proposed construction program “will either completely extinguish the run or disseminate them to such an extent that neither the Indians nor the general public will receive any appreciable benefit.”[18] Swindell then characterized the effect of the proposed dam construction program “insofar as the Indians are concerned,” as constituting “the final abrogation of the rights which their ancestors so zealously reserved for themselves and their posterity.” (emphasis added)[19]
On behalf of the Office of Indian Affairs and those tribes for which it served as trustee, Swindell proposed abandonment of plans for the construction of The Dalles Dam as well as “any other dam or dams designed primarily for slack water navigation which would destroy the Indian’s fishing rights”[20] a reference to the Lower Snake Dams. However, he inferred the inevitability of dam construction and the destruction of tribal fisheries when he also proposed the “relocation” of upstream migrations in the lower tributaries.[21]
Relocation of runs that had migrated between the Pacific Ocean and northwest rivers east of the Cascade Range for a period of at least 15 thousand years required the use of hatcheries to propagate fish trapped at upriver locations before releasing their progeny in lower river areas. Relocation of salmon under the Lower Columbia River Development Program (LCRDP) as it would be named had clear historical connections to the post-war, post-depression economic development efforts according to recent critics[22]. Use of hatcheries to feed fisheries offered an alternative to maintenance of salmon habitat which the post-war industrialists in the Pacific Northwest viewed as impediments to needed economic growth. Seventy years had elapsed since the Clackamas Hatchery was constructed in the Columbia River Basin, and the fishery management agencies as well as the economic and political leadership of the Basin saw hatcheries as the means by which key fisheries could be maintained while making much of salmon’s habitat available for development including unimpeded navigation to the breadbasket of the Pacific Northwest, the Inland Empire.[23]
Intensive organizational efforts preceded the recommendations of the state and federal fishery agencies for the Lower Columbia River Development Program. In August, 1943 in Seattle, representatives of the Oregon and Washington legislatures and their fishery agencies as well as the Fish and Wildlife Service and lower river commercial fisheries formed the Columbia Basin Fisheries Development Association. Once formed, the organization enlisted the involvement of both the Idaho Fish and Game Commission as well as the Oregon Wildlife Federation and the Izaak Walton League representing sports fishing. [24]
The discussions crystalized in a memo dated June 23, 1947, two days before the Walla Walla hearings, that was included a month after the Walla Walla hearing in the record of the July 23rd meeting of the CBIAC. In that memo, the Fish and Wildlife Service, collaborating with the fish agencies of Oregon and Washington, agreed to “actively support a program of dam construction and water utilization on the Snake River drainage above the confluence of the Salmon River and on the Columbia drainage upstream from and including Foster Creek.” The memo went on to request $10 million for the Lower Columbia River Development Program during its first six years and $20 million for the entire 10-year period.[25]
In his Walla Walla testimony, Swindell also advanced the possibility of developing in-lieu fishing sites,[26] and the utilization of fish carcasses, not needed for hatchery operations, “either for commercial or subsistence purposes.”[27] In addition to compensation for the value of the fishery and fishing sites to be destroyed by the projected development, he finally proposed “the undertaking of studies indicating the physiological effect upon the Indians brought about by reason of the elimination of salmon as a major part of their diet.” (Emphasis added)[28]
Witnesses from other Pacific Northwest Indian Tribes supported the moratorium but voiced a perspective that did not assist the treaty fishers’ case. Directly following Henry Charley, George Adams, a Skokomish tribal member who also served in the Washington State Legislature, represented the Northwest Federation of American Indians as its president. He supported the relocation of salmon runs to the lower Columbia stating that “we think that the Government should provide money through our . . . Department of Fisheries and the Oregon Fish Commission to build hatcheries and bring back the salmon runs in the rivers below Bonneville Dam.”[29] He also favored compensation stating that “[i]f dams are built that flood our fishing grounds at Celilo Falls, the Federal Government must reimburse the Indians for their losses of food and income.”[30] (Emphasis added).
Earlier in the hearing, Milo Moore, the director of the Washington Department of Fisheries, in testimony that he requested be off the record, noted “the Indian problem at Celilo and other places.” He complained that the Indian Service told the Department that, under the Stevens Treaty, the tribal fishers were allowed to fish at will and that Washington’s lack of jurisdiction allowed fish escaping the non-Indian fisheries to be caught at Celilo rather than reaching the spawning grounds.[31] In his remarks, Moore seems to have been referring to his understanding of the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Tulee vs. Washington[32] In that case, Sampson Tulee, a Yakama Indian was charged with fishing with a net off-reservation without a Washington State fishing license. The court held that the Washington statute prohibiting fishing without a state license is invalid as applied to a Yakima Indian.
Moore’s testimony lent further credence to the position of the Washington, Oregon and federal fishery agencies and other unnamed “fisheries interests” who had agreed to support upriver dam construction and upriver salmon relocation.”[33] Though The Dalles dam was noticeably absent from this message of support, the subcommittee formed to advise the CBIAC on its decision after the hearings, referenced the effect of the moratorium on the inundation of Celilo Falls:[i]
“From the navigation standpoint, however . . . removal of the Celilo bottleneck by The Dalles dam and lock would be delayed until about 1961 to 1962, under the alternatives (as compared with about 1958 under presently visualized schedules.”[34]
George Adams noted Milo Moore’s remarks and referenced the “great work” the department was doing in constructing and operating hatcheries saying “these [hatcheries] all have a great tendency to rebuild and replenish the fish”[35] However, no rebuilding or replenishment of runs, hatchery or otherwise, was contemplated for the LCRDP above the proposed McNary Dam site. That would not occur until authorized by Congress in 1976.
Another Indian witness purportedly supporting the moratorium was Wilfred Steve, a member of the Tulalip Tribe who was introduced by a Washington State Senator as “our public relations officer for the Department of Fisheries and the Indians.”[36] Wilfred Steve also supported compensation saying, “If you are going to do away with their fisheries, pay them off. That is their due.”[37] Though Native Americans were recognized as American citizens by the Congress in 1924, Mr. Steve apparently was not aware of this historical fact or he had a different interpretation of citizenship as well as the Stevens treaties when he said:
“These Indians . . .have been well taken care of by the Government, and they are going along with them in hopes that someday they would be all citizens of the country, and we are in hopes, us younger men that have taken advantage of the educational system of modern western Christian civilization, that that day would be coming very soon. We hope that there will be no Indians, that we will be all citizens of our great country. That is the aim of our education systems, and I think that is the intent and purpose of these Indian reservations and sacred agreements that these Indians entered into.”[38]
The Regional Director of the Bureau of Reclamation, Robert J. Newell of Boise, represented the Department of Interior on the CBIAC. At the outset of the hearing, he stated that Interior found itself “spotted between two fires.”
“On the one hand there is the accepted estimate of power requirements in the early future which would necessitate an active program of development of hydro projects. On the other hand is the effect of the present plans for such development on the fish and Indian interests which the Department is obligated to promote and protect.”[39]
Though Interior was proposing compensation for the tribal fishery and fishing sites that were expected to be eliminated by the construction of The Dalles and Snake River dams, it was proposing translocation and hatchery construction as the solution for the expected impact of the dams on the lower river fisheries that were the basis for river economies below Bonneville Dam. Nonetheless, representatives of the lower Columbia River fisheries vigorously supported the moratorium while generally limiting their criticism of the assumptions underlying the Columbia River development program.
Their testimony was coordinated by Tom Sandoz, Executive Vice President of the Columbia River Packers Association, who represented the Columbia Basin Fisheries Development Association, an organization representing the Oregon and Washington Columbia River fishing industry. In addition to industry representatives, the Association also included state agencies as well as state legislators.[40]
In his opening remarks, Sandoz stressed that the fisheries community did not oppose either the Bonneville or Grand Coulee dams. The fisheries community simply sought protection of their industry but that decision makers failed to appreciate the damage to the fishery that the dams would inflict. He argued that the fishways at the dams did not provide the protection that was expected and he estimated the economic loss over a period from 1942 to 1946 at $20 million.[41]
The experience of World War II was the overriding metaphor used by both proponents and opponents of the moratorium. Sandoz invoked the constitutional rights of equal protection and due process in the context of the war stating:
“Who are we that are engaged in the fishery to be eliminated? We have had some of that in Europe and we went out and our boys died to stop it. I say that we in the fishery are just as loyal, just as honest, pay taxes, and just as rightfully due our share of this great Northwest’s resources as any man who wants to build a power dam.”[42]
A few years earlier and three months before the United States declared war, Richard Neuberger, writing for the Saturday Evening Post, invoked the same principle of justice. After recounting the plan of the state and federal fishery agencies to halt the Celilo fishery as a conservation measure addressing upriver salmon mortalities caused by the dams, the future United States Senator from Oregon said,
“A number of wildlife experts hope to forbid Indians from spearing and netting the homeward-bound salmon at Celilo Falls, but others ask if we take away even this from the country’s original owners, what are we accusing Hitler of, anyway?”[43]
Sandoz also referenced the war in terms of the industrial base for aluminum production it had created in the Northwest that had become a major beneficiary of cheap hydroelectric power. He challenged the BPA Administrator, Paul Raver, for his prediction of potential blackouts if new hydro generation was not implemented, stating that only 7 per cent of Bonneville’s power sales went to the public utilities while 55 per cent went to the aluminum industry, “[p]lants that you and I built with our wartime taxes.” [44]
“Is that any justifiable argument to eliminate the revenue of thousands of fishermen?” he asked. “If any generators in our cold storage plants stop for lack of power and fish spoil in the freezers next winter, I am going to be on Dr. Raver’s doorstep.”[45]
Astoria, Oregon was well-represented at the hearing. The President of the Port of Astoria, William McGregor, introduced each of the 25 citizens who had traveled by chartered plane to Walla Walla for the first day of the hearing because they were unable to obtain hotel reservations. Their delegation included not only representatives of the fishing industry and local government but also the owner of the local drugstore, the president of the Elks Lodge, the Sheriff of Clatsop County, the President of the Astoria Regatta, the owners of the mortuary, and even the local hardware.[46] The Mayor of Astoria, Dr. Orval Eaton, implored CBIAC to save the community from ruin stating that “we down there have practically all our eggs in one basket, and if you drop the basket, the lower Columbia River is going to be out of business.”[47] McGregor of the Port of Astoria added to this argument by stating perhaps ironically that “with our timber in Clatsop County largely logged off in the early part of this century, we must look to the natural resources that still are with us in the lower Columbia . . . .”[48]
Astoria’s life was on the line. Its City Council passed a resolution the previous June protesting “erection of any further dams or obstructions in the Columbia River or its tributaries.” The resolution further stated:
“We do not want to impede progress in the Northwest area or prevent what is good for the nation. We do, however, sincerely and honestly feel that the salmon fishing industry should not be further sacrificed for dams that are so unneeded at this time.”
William Wooton of the Columbia River Packers Association stated that, in 1945, salmon packers paid $6.5 million to its employees and its fishermen. He said that the packers regularly employed 600 yearly employees and that the number increased to 2,000 during the peak of the canning season.[49] Arnie Soumela, Master Fish Warden of the Oregon Fish Commission, said the Columbia yielded somewhere between twenty and thirty million pounds of salmon annually from the river and seven to twelve million pounds from the ocean.[50] He estimated the value of the commercial fishery on the river as $20 million[51] and said that over 500,000 pounds of fish were landed by the sport fishery in the vicinity of Astoria. He also mentioned recreational fisheries at the mouth of the Cowlitz, Willamette, and Sandy as well as below Bonneville and at Celilo though he made no estimate of their catch or value.[52]
Joseph Jurich, President of the International Fishermen & Allied Workers of America, referenced the contribution of Columbia River salmon to other West Coast fishing towns:
“If the Columbia River salmon is knocked out of the picture you start a cycle, that is going to affect communities such as Fort Bragg, California, Eureka, Crescent City, who are great trolling centers in California, Coos Bay, Depoe Bay and Astoria in Oregon, and Westport, Aberdeen, and even Seattle, Washington, will be affected. Certainly the ports in Southeastern Alaska such as Sitka, Petersburg, Ketchikan, will be affected, and I don’t know the names of all the Canadian ports that would be affected. Certainly Rupert would be heavily affected by this thing.”[53]
In his testimony, Soumela discussed in detail the then current fish management science and assumptions of the Oregon and Washington fishery agencies regarding construction of The Dalles, John Day, McNary, and other dams on the system.[54] He was followed by Don McKernan of the Oregon Fish Commission who discussed cooperative studies occurring in Oregon with the Fish and Wildlife Service and with the Washington fishery agencies.[55]
Soumela estimated that 50 per cent of the salmon entering the Columbia were destined to pass Bonneville Dam and that the value of these fish was $12 million annually with a capitalized value of $250 million.[56] He discussed the effect of the new dams’ height stating that Bonneville was, at that time, the highest dam over which it was known that salmon could migrate but that McNary would rise to 91.7 feet, approximately 150% of Bonneville’s height.[57] He then revealed the results of unpublished reports by the Fish and Wildlife Service indicating the loss per dam to downstream migrating juveniles was “a probable 15%.”[58]
The effects of such reduced survival were likely to be devastating without intensive remedial action. For every 1000 juveniles migrating over 8 dams as proposed, only 272 juveniles would migrate past Bonneville Dam.
With regard to migrating adults, Soumela discussed the effect of dams blocking migration for a period of time while migrating salmon were seeking the fishway allowing them to move upstream. He noted research in the Fraser River and at Rock Island Dam indicating that the delay at the dams resulted in the fish using up the fat stores that provided them with the energy necessary for upstream migration to spawning grounds. [59] He discussed how these effects were cumulative, having a greater effect on the salmon as they traversed multiple dams.
“You have an acceleration of that loss. That loss might be as high as 75 per cent., or it might be 100 per cent., so that you cannot say it will be an arithmetical loss at each dam because it proceeds at geometric progression.” [60]
“With all this it certainly looks like we have a very dark picture in our fisheries resource if the ultimate plan of the development of the Columbia River is carried out, and if the full program goes into effect, the salmon runs to the Upper Columbia and Middle Columbia River, I think, will be seriously, and very seriously damaged.[61]
He closed by recommending that “[a] comprehensive program of lower river development of the fisheries resources must accompany further river development projects to mitigate the losses to the salmon runs by main stem dams on the Columbia River or its tributaries.
Anton Sorensen spoke for the Union Fishermens Cooperative Packing Company in Astoria, a cooperative owned by fishermen. He reiterated the belief of the fishing community and the state agencies that construction of high dams such as McNary “may mean the complete destruction of not only early spring runs of salmon but also the greater part of the late summer or August runs as well . . . .”[62]
It was clear at the time that the dams were having a negative impact according to the fishers. A moratorium would give the fishery interests the time they needed to answer questions about the effect of the dams and the potential success of translocation.
It would also provide time to determine whether equal benefits could be obtained from other means of power and transportation and whether the power sought was actually needed when a vital Pacific NW natural resource was at stake.
Senator Barney Jackson of Tacoma, the Chairman of the Interim Fisheries Committee of the Washington State Legislature, quoted the BPA Administrator at a PUD convention in 1945 as stating that “we will be selling power to Denver, and Salt Lake from our Bonneville power lines . . . . We can fight the California forces who are now fighting us on our $17.50 rate.” [63]
The navigation, power, and irrigation interests had no doubt that the value of controlling the Columbia and harnessing its flow to generate electricity would far exceed the monetary value of the salmon fisheries. The Chambers of Commerce, the ports on the Columbia and Snake, and their representatives in Congress were in Walla Walla to make a record and use it as a springboard to overcome local concerns about salmon and the muted advocacy of the one federal agency within the Department of Interior that had the duty of safeguarding treaty assets for Native beneficiaries.
Recent history was on the side of moratorium opponents. BPA and Bonneville Dam were war heroes in the Pacific Northwest. During World War II, BPA supplied power for the shipyards in the Portland/Vancouver area, for the aluminum plants that supplied the airplane factories near Seattle and for the top-secret work at Hanford building a bomb that was to end the war with Japan.[64]
Though commentary prior to the war criticized the Roosevelt Administration for building projects whose hydroelectric production would far exceed demand,[65] the war effort along with domestic demand was able to utilize every kilowatt that Grand Coulee and Bonneville could produce. With the installation of six generating units by 1942, Bonneville was generating over 300,000 kW.[66] The Henry Kaiser Shipyards used more than a tenth of that capacity to construct 750 ships representing 27% of total ship production in the United States during the war.[67]
BPA provided electricity for the Alcoa and Reynolds aluminum plants built just prior to the war as well as for four plants constructed by the Federal government and in service by 1943. Powered by the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams, these plants produced more than 25% of the national aluminum production, enough material to fabricate 50,000 warplanes including 7000 B-17’s and 3000 B-29’s.[68]
In addition, over 55,000 kW, the “mystery load”, was used at Hanford to produce plutonium for the atom bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[69]
Electricity was not the only benefit that the dams supplied the war effort. Navigation past the Cascade Rapids increased almost sevenfold from an average of 114,000 tons during the period from 1935 – 1939 to 767,000 tons from 1940 – 1945 once the Bonneville Locks replaced Cascade Locks.[70]
Nonetheless, the Bonneville Power Administrator, Paul Raver, testified that “[i]f upstream structures can be substituted for downstream dams during the coming ten years . . . , the power transmission systems can be adjusted to meet the conditions. He was referring to additional turbines and building Foster Creek, (Chief Joseph), McNary, Umatilla and upper Snake dams.[71]
Navigation and port development rather than hydroelectric generation appears to have been the moving force for opposition to the moratorium. Ports along the Columbia including Walla Walla, The Dalles, Umatilla, Longview, Vancouver and Cascade Locks opposed the moratorium and were led by the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Portland Dock Commission which initiated the parade of opponents. The most powerful testimony on the economic benefits of moving forward came from Hillman Lueddeman, Chairman of the Port Development Committee of the City of Portland. He particularly focused on the effect of improved navigation forcing the railroads to lower rates for commerce between the two sides of the Cascades. His most powerful argument concerned the boost that navigation development would provide for Portland and Vancouver in their competition with another local port that also had railroad connections to the Inland Empire.
New Orleans has stolen the traffic from the Southeast. New Orleans has dwarfed those ports because of draining the inland traffic down through the Mississippi. And, likewise, New York had dwarfed Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore because she has drained that low-cost traffic from that great hinterland down through New York; and Portland and Vancouver can do the same thing.[72]
“Improved navigation” and “navigation development” were terms that included the inundation of Celilo Falls.
In between port testimony[73] were the navigation companies including Shaver[74], Carlson, and the Inland Navigation Company who sought a way over rather than around Celilo Falls arguing that the rock pedestals from which Native People had fished since time immemorial required them to break up multi-barge tows in order to transport through the Celilo Canal.[75] Captain Homer Shaver represented his own company, Tidewater-Shaver Barge Lines, as well as the Columbia Basin Barge Operators association. Before arguing that the fisheries rather than the dams were the prime cause of salmon depletion, he wryly noted the newfound respect accorded the Native fishers by the Astoria fishing fleet:
“I think that the people who have got the real case here are the Indians, as far as fishing is concerned. From their tribal rights and their treaty rights — and this is the first time in my lifetime and history that I know of that the commercial fishermen were so anxious about the rights of the Indians and protecting their rights in fishing.”[76]
Gus Carlson, from The Dalles, of Inland Navigation, developed the argument that overfishing was the cause of the decline of Columbia River chinook stocks. His statement was supported by a comprehensive report on the 1938 Columbia River salmon run published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stating:
“[T]he present intensity of fishing is such that, in 1938, over 80 percent of the spring run and between 60 and 70 percent of the main fall run of chinook salmon were taken in the commercial fishery. In this connection it is pertinent to recall that in the regulation of the Alaska salmon fisheries the Federal Government, acting through the Fish and Wildlife Service, has adopted the principle that the escapement should be not less than 50 percent of the entire run.”[77]
Based on studies by the Oregon and Washington fishery agencies, the concluding sentence of the report’s abstract was that “[m]ain runs of salmon to the Columbia River are practically unprotected and are fished with destructive intensity.”[78]
This argument along with others sent the media into their respective corners of the region. In a story headlined “Moratorium on Fishing Proposed”, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin reported the Inland Empire Waterways Association leaders testified “that the relentless commercial pursuit of salmon had cut down the runs far more than the dams.” They cited as evidence declines in Puget Sound fisheries where no dams were involved.
The Oregonian, in a front page article on June 27th headlined Dam Proponents Charge Overfishing in the Columbia, led their account of the hearing stating that
“[h]ard-hitting proponents of the program to build big dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers for power, navigation, irrigation and recreation purposes fired double-barreled arguments back Thursday against fishing and conservation interests which argued Wednesday for a ten-year moratorium on dam building in the interest of saving migratory fish runs.
The Oregonian further quoted Capt. Homer T. Shaver of Tidewater-Shaver Barge Lines as saying overfishing was the real reason for declines arguing that “the greed of fishing interests, with their big seines, traps and, years ago, their fish wheels had chopped down the fish runs. . . .”
In a front-page article entitled Fish Biologists Refuse to Aid Dam Proponents at Walla Walla, The Astorian counterpunched with a two-fisted reply against both the developers and its upriver media brethren on the Saturday following the Wednesday and Thursday hearings. The article attempted to debunk the proposed moratorium on commercial fishing stating that the Walla Walla leader did not tell the CBIAC or the “the people who crowded the hearings that his 10-year moratorium on commercial fishing was a publicity gag. They discussed its publicity glamor before it was introduced.”
Reporting on fish biologists refusing to provide a scientific basis for the “publicity gag,” The Astorian added that the Inland Empire was able to find a biologist in Frank Bell, former director of Washington Fisheries” failing to mention that Bell appeared at the hearing as a former Commissioner of Fisheries for the United States.
Agriculture was well-represented in opposition to the moratorium. Representatives of the Pendleton Grain Growers, the Oregon Farm Bureau, the Eastern Oregon Wheat League and the Lewiston and the Wasco County Grain Growers believed the fisheries problems could be solved but that construction needed to move forward expeditiously.[79]
J.W. Shepherd, manager of the Lewiston Grain Growers, also represented the Lewiston Chamber of Commerce in opposing the moratorium. He supported continuing construction of “sufficient dams on the Columbia and Snake River to insure ample and economic operation by the carriers of the river.”[80] He argued that the likelihood of competition in foreign markets required cheap transportation and that a moratorium would place the Pacific Northwest at a disadvantage “in competing with Canada, Argentina and Australia in meeting the great consumptive markets of the world.”[81]
However, Henry Roberts of the Washington State Grange had concerns about the “Indian question” that anticipated the litigation tribal fishers and the tribes would pursue once the decision to construct the locks and dams was made. He stated his belief
“that the Army Engineers and all of us as citizens are going to have to go very carefully in seeing that the rights of the Indians are not by-passed. After all, we have an obligation to them and they have their rights, just the same as we have, and when it comes down to actual courts we feel that the Indians probably have the only case in this whole hearing.”[82]
The aftermath of the Walla Walla hearing provided front page and editorial copy for both The Astorian and the Walla Walla Union Bulletin in the months to come. The July 1st Astorian reported that Colonel Theron D. Weaver, CBIAC chair and hearing moderator appeared before the Portland Chamber on the Monday following the hearing. It further reported the impression of an attendee, J.H. Cellars of the Columbia River Packers, that the Colonel told the Chamber the fisheries people submitted no factual matter regarding harm to fish at the hearing and that opponents of the proposed 10 year moratorium on dam building did so.
“Weaver also criticized the fisheries interests for having no plan to meet the present situation, Cellars said.”
The Astorian article further quoted Tom Sandoz characterizing “Weaver and his committee as a ‘stacked deck’ and “that 35 states are beginning to look askance at the way the other 17 western states have been deep in the pork barrel for years.”
The Union-Bulletin in an editorial on the same day heard the echo of the eastern states but from a different direction editorializing that the “fish folk” were playing directly into the hands of “interests in the East which would be happy to have Pacific Northwest power, reclamation and navigation works under a slow bell.”
The Corps of Engineers was not working under a slow bell. The Union-Bulletin reported on July 8th that the Portland District Engineer, Col. O.E. Walsh was holding a public hearing in Lewiston on Snake River dam sites and that principal attention was expected to be given to upper Snake dams but that “information is also believed forthcoming on proposed dams between Lewiston and the mouth of the Snake.”
Following its Walla Walla meeting, the CBIAC met in Portland on July 23rd and received a presentation of a June 23rd memo from the Fish and Wildlife Service outlining the Lower Columbia River Fishery program consisting of habitat improvements and the construction of hatcheries and fishways with an estimated cost of $20 million.[83] The Commission also established a Fact Finding Subcommittee to review the testimony at Walla Walla and develop findings of fact that would serve as a basis for the CBIAC recommendations to its parent committee, the Federal Inter-Agency River Basin Commission (FIRBC).
According to The Oregonian, on August 5, the CBIAC met to review the hearing record and request representatives from the Governors’ offices to participate in decisionmaking.
The Fact Finding Subcommittee filed its report with the Commission and, on October 8, 1947, the Commission unanimously approved a letter addressed to the chairman at FIRBC recommending,
“2. That the authorized dams on the Columbia River system be not rescheduled – that the Lower Columbia River Fishery Program be approved, and that the Indians be compensated for any loss or damage to the Treaty fishing rights.”[84]
The Oregonian of October 9, 1947 reported on the meeting in Portland but did not report on the actual recommendation because, according to the new chairman, R.J. Newell, “the committee was not authorized to issue any statement upon its findings.” However, the story noted that the report was to be sent to Washington, D.C. and that “it was said” to contain “general recommendations for handling the relationship of commercial and sports fishing to commercial power, navigation and irrigation in the future.”
Washington, D.C. approval would ensure that the regional recommendation represented a federally-approved agreement among the Columbia Basin states and the member federal agencies to move forward in concert with the Congress and the Democratic Administration and seek Congressional funding to implement the recommendation. According to The Oregonian, the FIRBC approved the recommendation on November 24. The Portland paper opined on its front page,
“Immediate result of such approval will be expediting of a $13,000,000 program to restore salmon runs on lower tributaries of the Columbia river. A principal recommendation was that all possible support be extended the lower river fishery program as proposed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the states of Oregon and Washington.”
According to the spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a request for an initial appropriation was contained in the administration’s budget for the next fiscal year. The spokesman, Rudolph Dieffenbach, further stated that “the program . . . is to clear away natural and manmade barriers which have blocked the salmon runs in the lower tributaries, then transplant fingerlings from hatcheries to these lower runs.”
The Oregonian closed the article stating that the committee recommendations recognize the rights of Indians at certain points on the river and proposes compensation when those rights are adversely affected by any of the proposed projects.
The deal was sealed.
The agreement was long-lasting despite a profound change in the outcomes that were expected by its advocates. Its expectations of wild fish scarcity above Bonneville Dam and its reliance upon hatcheries as a substitute for productive fresh water habitat were key factors in the hearing that still cast a shadow over salmon recovery successes developed under tribal leadership. The die was cast in 1947 for what was expected in ten years to be both a real and a symbolic end of Indian fishing on the Columbia mainstem but the tribes, like the salmon, were both persistent and resilient in keeping “the last truth” alive.
Indians didn’t stop fishing after Celilo was flooded nor did they give up their legal battle to enforce the treaties. In the spring of 1958, many pinpointed their stationary platform locations and claimed their fishing places at the water’s new surface above the locations their families had fished for millennia. The states responded by arresting and jailing the tribal fishers.
Some fishers, such as Delbert Frank and Earl Squiemphen of Warm Springs, embarked on their own salmon recovery efforts when they saw tributary populations decline after returning home from fighting overseas for the United States during World War II.
When the fishers were harassed and arrested by state game wardens, they went to court personally and, later, with tribal representation, to enjoin state action. The tribal governments of the treaty fishing tribes then expanded their legal initiatives to include habitat protection for both rearing areas and migration routes.
Once the federal termination policy embodied in House Concurrent Resolution 108 was replaced by a new federal policy under the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1974, the tribes expanded their efforts in the direction of salmon program management and basinwide co-management of harvest and production. Formation of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in 1977 as well as the development of subbasin plans by tribal fishery departments between 1979 and 1989 advanced the purpose of the self-determination policy.
The federal and state fishery agencies almost saw the demise of some wild salmon species above Bonneville Dam, and Washington and Oregon are still only halfhearted advocates for upriver salmon abundance instead of remnant run management as one tribal leader described it. Inertia and the competing fisheries that are agency constituencies appear to be barriers toward a policy stressing salmon abundance rather than managing runs in a manner that maintains scarcity.
The Lower Columbia River Fishery Development Program earned a new name after the dams were erected when the descriptor “lower” was dropped from its title. Starting from the time when hatcheries were conceived by state and federal policymakers as a technical solution to the problem of making habitat safe for development by removing salmon populations, tribes began adapting the techniques of artificial propagation, transplantation and live capture for restoring wild salmon populations in the gravel to which they home. Successful examples of restoration or recovery abound.
Along the Umatilla, cooperation between irrigated agriculture operators and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation has resulted in the restoration of chinook and coho stocks to the basin.
In the Snake River where the fall chinook population once numbered over a half-million fish, numbers had dwindled to 384 adult fall chinook, 78 wild, counted at Lower Granite Dam in 1990. Redd counts in the lower Snake that year were only 45. With BPA funding, the Nez Perce Tribe focused its attention on using propagation techniques to improve juvenile survival during incubation and early rearing and has actively negotiated for operations that optimize passage conditions for juvenile outmigration. The result has been fish counts exceeding 56,565 adult fish past Lower Granite Dam in 2013 with over 60,687 adults in 2014.[85] Redd counts have increased to an official estimate of 6,715.[86]
Many more examples abound that demonstrate both the scientific foundation of the Tribes’ efforts and their efficacy.
Hydroelectric revenues now fund most of the salmon restoration and recovery efforts in the Columbia Basin above Bonneville. Shortly after CBIAC made its recommendations on the moratorium in 1947, its Fisheries Steering Committee proposed a comprehensive fishery program to be funded by a tax of fifty cents a kilowatt-year on Federal power yielding about $2.5 million a year. It was resoundingly rejected by power interests and considered a “politically naïve proposal” by an official observer.
In 1980, the Congress passed legislation authorizing the Administrator of BPA to utilize its fund fueled by revenues of over $3 billion per year for protection, mitigation, and enhancement of fish and wildlife affected by any hydroelectric facility in the basin. The current annual BPA budget for fishery research and construction is $ 550 million. .
[1] Columbia Basin Inter-Agency Committee (CBIAC). In the Matter of the Effect of the Department of Interior’s suggestion to defer construction of dams on the main stem of the Columbia River below the Okanogan River and on the Snake River below the mouth of the Salmon River, Hearing, June 25-26, 1947. Portland, OR: Bonneville Power Administration, 1947
[2] Pacific Northwest River Basins Commission (PNRBC), History of the Columbia Basin Inter-Agency Committee, Roy W. Scheufele, 1970
[3] Add names of states
[4] The June 24th Union-Bulletin later announced that the hearing would be moved to the Marcus Whitman ballroom because of the size of the expected audience.
[5] CBIAC (1947) at 187
[6] Id..at 187
[7] Id. at 189
[8] Id.
[9] Hill and DuPuis, The Silailo Way
[10] Id. at 191
[11] Describe Termination Policy
[12] Id. at 29-30
[13] Fisher, Shadow People
[14] Id. at 172
[15] Id. at 167
[16] Id. at 30
[17] Id. at 33
[18] Id.at 32
[19] Id. at 33
[20] Id. at 35
[21] Id. at 36
[22] http://oregonflyfishingblog.com/2010/06/23/salmon-hatcheries-in-the-pacific-northwest-part-2/
[23] The region is bounded by the Cascade Mountains on the west and the Rocky Mountains (following the spine of the remote and rugged Cabinet Mountains) on the east, the Blue Mountains (Oregon) and foothills of the Wallowa Mountains to the south, southeast, and encompasses the Columbia river basin (or Columbia Plateau). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northwest_%28United_States%29
[24] Or. Legislature, Interim Fisheries Committee to the 43rd Legislative Assembly, Salem, 1944 1-5
[25] Fred J. Foster to Chairman, CBIAC, memorandum, June 23, 1947. “Statement of Position and Development Plans, with reference to Columbia River fisheries.”
[26] Id.at 36
[27] Id.
[28] Id at 37
[29] Id at 194
[30] Id.
[31] Id at 133
[32] 315 U.S. 681 (1942)
[33] Fred J. Foster, supra.
[34] Columbia Basin Inter-Agency Committee, Subcommittee on Dams and Fisheries, “Summary of the Problem and Findings of the Subcommittee”. September 22, 1947.
[35] Id. at 195
[36] Id. at 139
[37] Id. at 142
[38] Id. at 141
[39] Id. at 15-16
[40] Id. at 62-63
[41] Id. at 65
[42] Id. at 68
[43] Richard L. Neuberger, “The Great Salmon Mystery,” Saturday Evening Post, 13 Sept. 1941, 20-21, 44
[44] Id at 69
[45] Id.
[46] Id. at 77
[47] Id at 74-75
[48] Id at 79
[49] Id at 93
[50] Id at 119
[51] Id at 120
[52] Id at 121
[53]Id. at 107
[54] Id at 118 – 128
[55] Id at 128 – 130
[56] Id at 121-122
[57] Id at 122
[58] Id at 123
[59] Id at 123-124
[60] Id at 125
[61] Id at 125-126
[62] Id at 95
[63] Id at 137
[64]William F. Willingham, “Bonneville Dam’s Contribution to the War Effort,” in Builders and Fighters: U.S. Army Engineers in World War II, ed. Barry W. Fowle (Office of History, Army Corps of Engineers, 1992) 295 – 301
[65] Id at 296
[66] Id at 297
[67] Id at 299
[68] Id at 299
[69] Id at 300
[70] Id.at 50
[71] Id at 50
[72] Id at 265
[73] Id at 291 – 294
[76] Id at 277
[77] United States Department of Interior, Fish & Wildlife Service. The Salmon Runs of the Columbia River in 1938. By Willis H. Rich. Fishery Bulletin 37. Washington, D.C. United States Government Printing Office. 1942. 147 at 130
[78] Id at ii
[79] Id at 297
[80] Id at 388
[81] Id at 389.
[82] Id at 297
[83] PNRBC at 25
[84] Id at 25
[85] “2014 Snake River Fall Chinook Redd Estimate Highest Total Since Surveys Began In 1988,” Columbia Basin Bulletin, February 06, 2015 (PST), http://www.cbbulletin.com/433115.aspx
[86] Nez Perce Tribe, Idaho Power Company, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, 2014 Snake River Fall Chinook Salmon Spawning Summary, By Bill Arnsberg, Phil Groves, Frank Mullins, Debbie Milks. January, 2015. http://www.fpc.org/documents/fachin_planningteam/2014CooperativeFallChReddSummary.pdf