Snake River Currents

Volume 1, Issue 15

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SRBA mediation talks continue to focus on framework concepts that could allow the parties to proceed with more detailed work on stream flow protection. Tribal negotiators have recently examined historical impacts on tribal fisheries and other resources. Upcoming discussions will continue to address flow protection in the Salmon and Clearwater basins.

Environmental Group Gives Federal Salmon Managers Failing Grades

The new federal salmon recovery plan was released in December 2000. Now an environmental group, American Rivers, has released its first "report card" on the performance of the managers of river conditions in the Snake and Columbia Rivers.

The federal dam managers did not do well. They failed to meet federal standards for water quantity and temperature in the Snake and Columbia rivers. In doing this, they violated both the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.

The purpose of the new federal salmon plan was to increase salmon recovery efforts in order to avoid the partial removal of the lower Snake River dams. But instead, the federal government suspended key recovery measures this summer. Migrating salmon are now dying in the warm, slow moving reservoirs behind Snake and Columbia River dams.

On both the Columbia and Snake Rivers, salmon managers were given an “F” for supplying enough water for salmon in both the spring and summer. They were given an “A” for water temperature in the spring, but an “F” for the summer.

On the Snake River, federal dam managers failed to meet spring water quantity targets 97.5% of the time, and failed to meet summer water quantity targets 100% of the time. Snake River summer water temperatures violated the Clean Water Act standard 83.3% of the time.

Unfortunately, the flow targets are, as their name suggests, only targets. They have been routinely ignored by dam managers under both the

1995 federal salmon plan and the new 2000 plan. But the Clean Water Act standard of 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) is mandatory and legally binding.

Last April, the Army Corps of Engineers was ordered by a federal court to review and amend its operations plan to bring the four lower Snake River dams into compliance with the Clean Water Act (see Snake River Currents, April 10, 2001). The Corps did not change its operations, however, and river conditions violated the Clean Water Act standard for essentially the entire summer.

Dam managers can help flush salmon, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act, downstream to the ocean by keeping flows sufficiently high in the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Increased flows also reduce water temperatures during the hot summer months. Warm water temperatures cause the salmon to become physically stressed and more susceptible to disease. When temperatures get high enough, salmon are killed outright.

Fisheries scientists have noted that the suspension of recovery measures this year has resulted in very poor survival for migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead. They predict that the runs will be decimated when these young salmon return from the ocean as adults.

American Rivers and others concerned with the survival of the salmon runs believe Congress should begin laying the groundwork for partial removal of the lower Snake River dams now. That is what is likely to be needed to save Snake River salmon for future generations.

Coyote and the Five Swallow Sisters

Five swallow sisters had blocked the salmon migration with a dam. Coyote heard of this while traveling down the river and decided to do something about it. Coyote was too well known to approach the sisters directly, so he turned himself into a baby strapped on a cradle board and set himself adrift in the river. Soon he lodged up against the sisters’ dam where he was discovered by the youngest of the five. “Oh, look at the poor baby,” they all cried, and took him home with them. The next day they all set off to go root digging in the hills leaving the baby.

As soon as they were out of sight, Coyote turned himself back into his real self and set to work. He made himself five digging sticks and five oak-burl mortars. He then attacked the dam with the first digging stick. For four days he worked, each day with a new digging stick, stopping only as the sisters approached the village. On the fifth day, as the sisters were digging roots, the youngest’s digging stick broke. This being an ill omen, they all ran back to the village suspecting that something was amiss with the baby.

They found Coyote hard at work with his last digging stick, breaking up their dam. Coyote quickly put on the first oak mortar as a helmet to protect himself from the sisters’ attack. They broke first one, then the second, then the third and fourth. But Coyote was nearly through the dam, which gave way in a flood just as the fifth mortar helmet broke. The sisters were defeated and the salmon swam up to join the people. Thereafter, the swallow sisters mud nests must signal the return of Chinook salmon each spring.

                                                                               -- from “I Am of This Land”

Reminder: SRBA Court Proceedings Lewiston, October 16, 2001 Nez Perce County Courthouse 10:00 a.m. IDWR information meeting; 1:30 p.m. status conference

The Army Corps of Engineers has been conducting a feasibility study of ways to improve juvenile salmon migration through the hydropower system on the lower Snake River. Last month it finished reviewing written and oral comments on their Draft Feasibility Report/Environmental Impact Statement (FR/EIS). The Corps received approximately 230,000 written comment documents.

The only federal project that received more public comments than the FR/EIS is the U.S. Forest Service Roadless Initiative. The comments came from all over the country with a surprising number of comments from the Northeast and Florida. As expected, there were many comments from the Pacific Northwest. Other population centers, such as California and the Chicago area also provided a substantial number of comments.

We can only conclude that the survival of salmon, and the restoration of the salmon runs are of great concern to people all over the country, and not just a regional issue. Hopefully, their political influence will help salmon restoration efforts.

“The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was … The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man’s business to divide it … The earth and myself are of one mind. The measure of the land and the measure of our bodies are the same … Understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who has created it.”

                                                                                 --Chief Joseph

The Colville Confederated Tribes v. Walton

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation began a court case in the 1970s to prevent a non-Indian owner of allotted lands from using surface and ground waters in the No Name Creek basin. The State of Washington intervened and claimed that it had authority to grant water permits on the Reservation.

The case presents the many aspects and problems involved when a Tribe begins to administer and manage its water resources. The Nez Perce Tribe will face similar issues after its reserved water rights are decreed in the Snake River Basin Adjudication.

No Name Creek flows into the saline Omak Lake and is completely within the Colville Reservation. The Colville Tribes introduced Lahontan cutthroat trout into the lake to help replace the depleted Columbia River salmon runs as a food source. The trout thrived in the saline lake, but irrigation use on No Name Creek depleted the flows during spawning season, and impacted the fish population in the lake.

The Colville Tribes brought the non-Indian irrigator into court to prevent him from depleting No Name Creek during the time when flows were most needed by the fish.

The District Court decision, which was against the Colvilles, said that water for spawning fish could not be awarded to the Tribes. This decision was appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the decision in 1985.

That Court held that the reserved water right to establish and maintain the Omak Lake fishery includes the right to sufficient water to permit natural spawning of the trout. This decision was based on the Winters Doctrine, which states that there was an implied reservation of water to fulfill the purposes of an Indian Reservation that occurred when the Reservation was created.

The Court of Appeals went on to say that “… permitting the Indians to determine how to use reserved water is consistent with the general purpose for the creation of an Indian Reservation.”

The Court also addressed the State of Washington’s questions on sovereignty. The Court said that the state’s interest in extending its water law to the Reservation is limited in that case, and that the irrigator’s state permits are of no force and effect. The irrigator’s water rights were derived from the purchase of allotment lands that have reserved rights. A non-Indian purchaser cannot acquire more extensive rights to reserved water than were held by the Indian seller.

This case was victory for the Colville Tribes in their efforts to manage their water resources and maintain a healthy fishery at Omak Lake.

Fish Counts for Hatchery and Wild Fish

Here are the fish counts for hatchery and wild fish over Lower Granite Dam so far this year:

Chinook 186,140

Chinook jacks 7,120

Coho 0

Sockeye 36

Steelhead 21,418 (steelhead since June 1)