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Northwest Tribes Build Momentum in Large Gathering for Dam Removal, Salmon Restoration by Isabella Breda Seattle Times, November 3, 2023

Scientists have found dam removal on the Lower Snake River
essential to rebuilding salmon runs in the Columbia Basin.

TULALIP -- Salmon once came to the Spokane people.

Young salmon would hatch in the river, then travel hundreds of miles to the sea.

Some would grow big enough to feed the orcas, others would come back and feed the people -- or spawn and carry on future generations.

That's what happened for thousands of years, until Grand Coulee Dam was completed in 1942 and cut off salmon from their historical habitat, said Carol Evans, former chair of the Spokane Tribe, to a gathering this week of Northwest tribal nations and allies.

The nations convened here for a two-day summit, their fifth annual gathering and the largest yet in a growing movement for salmon and orca recovery. The more than 300 attending Salmon People and allies are determined to bring salmon populations across the Columbia Basin back to abundance.

They were hosted by the Tulalip Tribes during the event organized by the Nez Perce Tribe, which has made dam removal on the Lower Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia River in southeast Washington, the cornerstone of an ongoing commitment to restore salmon and health to the river and all of its beings, including southern resident orcas that each spring target the fattiest, most prized salmon that spawn in the river, spring Chinook.

It's a cause now endorsed by tribes, environmentalists, elected officials, nonprofits and others from around the region and the nation.

Once thronged with 10 million to 16 million salmon, today returns of Chinook are down to a little over 1 million fish over Bonneville Dam, the lowest in the river, in a good year, and those are mostly hatchery fish. More than half -- nearly 100,000 square miles -- of the original spawning habitat for salmon in the Columbia Basin is blocked by dams.

On the Lower Snake, four dams produce about 5% of the region's electricity and provide transportation through locks at each dam all the way to Lewiston, Idaho. One dam provides irrigation for farmland. All four are equipped with fish passage, but about 5% of out-migrating salmon are still lost at each of the eight dams from the Lower Snake to the sea.

The dams also impede passage to some of the best, high-elevation cold-water habitat left in the region, crucial to salmon survival as temperatures warm.

Scientists have found dam removal on the Lower Snake, combined with other recovery efforts, essential to rebuilding salmon runs in the Columbia Basin.

Bringing together tribes across the region as well as a range of environmental groups to join in the fight for dam removal has been a multiyear strategy that springs from tribal traditions of building alliances across families and boundaries of every kind.

"We talked about our common relative, the salmon," Nez Perce Chair Shannon Wheeler said. "We have issues with declining numbers of salmon, and it affects our health and the economy; it affects our spirituality, our culture."

Wheeler knew he had to go beyond the Columbia Basin. He went to the Coast Salish people and learned they too were affected by the decline of salmon, and had a similar obligation to care for them.

He brought the issue to the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, and the National Congress of American Indians, and would eventually deliver their resolutions, calling for dam breaching on the Lower Snake, to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Gov. Jay Inslee.

"The orca and the salmon are central to who we are and part of our identity," said Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, and vice chair of the Quinault Indian Nation. "But it's also part of our sacred duty and calling to protect them."