NGOs support Tribal work to Bring Back Salmon in the Upper Columbia
by Miles Johnson, Legal Director
The Columbia River and its people upstream of Chief Joseph Dam in north-central Washington have been without salmon for nearly 100 years. But that’s slowly beginning to change, thanks to tireless work by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, and the Spokane Tribe of Indians.
Over the next 20 years, these Tribes—with funding and support from federal and state agencies—have an ambitious and detailed plan to reintroduce salmon into areas in the Upper Columbia Basin that were blocked by the federal government’s construction of large hydroelectric dams. These experimental salmon reintroductions will be intensively monitored to lay the groundwork for permanent fish passage and salmon recovery in the Upper Columbia in the future.
An important sign of recent progress for this effort is the federal government’s release of a draft environmental assessment for Upper Columbia salmon reintroduction and study. That’s why Columbia Riverkeeper and other salmon recovery organizations wrote a letter supporting this document, the Tribes’ leadership, and continued federal work to restore salmon to the Upper Columbia.
The Tribes’ longstanding efforts to return salmon to the Upper Columbia Basin benefits the entire ecosystem and population of the Pacific Northwest, and we encourage the federal agencies responsible for the interruption of these fisheries to support and accelerate this critically important work.