Stand in Solidarity with Tribal Nations

A pumped-storage hydroelectric development threatens irreplaceable tribal cultural resources, fish, and wildlife

Columbia Riverkeeper’s Q & A breaks down why environmentalists should stand in solidarity with tribal nations and oppose this so-called “green energy” project. 

What’s proposed?

Rye Development wants to build a massive pumped storage hydroelectric project along the Columbia River’s banks in Klickitat County, Washington, near the John Day Dam. The Goldendale Energy Storage Hydroelectric Project would be the largest of its kind in the Northwest.[1]

Rye would excavate two reservoirs: the hilltop reservoir would span 60-acres and the lower reservoir would cover 63-acres (i.e., surface area). Pumped storage generates hydroelectricity for peak periods of demand. When electricity on the grid is abundant, Rye would pump water from the lower reservoir into the higher one. Then, when there’s demand for electricity, Rye would release water in the upper reservoir through turbines and back into the lower reservoir. The energy-generating capacity: 1200 megawatts. 

Rye claims the $2 billion project would be complete by 2028. 

Have impacted tribal nations weighed-in on Rye’s proposal?

 Yes. The Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakama Nation (Yakama Nation) has opposed this development from the start. The development would impact sacred cultural resources, “including archeological, ceremonial, burial petroglyph, monumental and ancestral use sites.”[2]

Here’s how a Yakama Nation representative explained the Tribe’s opposition at a Washington State Senate hearing in early 2020: 

“As you’re aware, the Columbia River was dammed over the last century. In doing so, that impacted many of our rights, interests and resources. All of these things have been impacted: our fish sites, our villages, our burial sites up and down the river. This is another example of energy development, development in the West, that comes at a cost to the Yakama Nation.”

Rye’s development would directly interfere with at least nine culturally significant sites to the Yakama Nation and other cultural property. Cultural property is defined as “the tangible and intangible effects of an individual or group of people that define their existence, and place them temporally and geographically in relation to their belief systems and their familial and political groups, providing meaning to their lives.[3]

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) also weighed in during the initial licensing process. Due to the intensely sensitive nature of cultural resources, letters submitted by CTUIR may not be accessed by the public in order to safeguard any information about cultural resource locations and items that they may contain.