Replacing Salmon: Columbia River Indian Fishing Rights and the Geography of Fisheries Mitigation

Cain Allen Replacing Salmon Columbia RiverIndian Fishing Rights andthe Geography ofFisheries Mitigation A significant shift has occurred in the geography of Columbia River Basin salmon production in the past 150 years. By one estimate, 88 percent of adult salmon returning . to the Columbia River prior to the 1850s originated above Bonneville Dam. By the 1980s, however, only 44 percent of adult returns to theColumbia come from in this portion of the basin (figure 1).1 Many factors have led to this striking change in the biogeography of the Pacific Northwest's signature species, but federal river development and fisheries mitigation programs are undoubtedly two of themost important. Though upper river salmon populations experienced themost serious impacts from federal river development relative to other salmon populations, state and federal fishery agencies concentrated mitigation resources on the lower river. This spatial discontinuity between impact and mitigation had im portant implications for Columbia River Indians. The geographical focus of this study is themid-Columbia River, the stretch of the Columbia fromthe mouth of theSnakeRiver toBonneville Dam. The term upper river refers to the Columbia River Basin above the confluence with the Snake (including the Snake River Basin), while lower river refers to the basin below Bonneville. The dam was completed in 1938, the year Congress passed the firstmajor fisheries mitigation legislation. In 1980, Congress passed theNorthwest Power Planning Act, which together with the Endangered Species Act, would produce complex changes to the regulatory landscape. Those forty-two years would see amassive expan sion in the artificial production of salmon in the Columbia River Basin, 196 OHQ vol. 104, no. 2 ? 2003 Oregon Historical Society RobertL.Hacker,photographer, OHS neg.,OrHi 1354 This location on theDeschutes River, below Warm Springs and near Sherars Bridge, is still an active dip-net fishery. the result of programs meant tomitigate the impact of federal dam con struction on fisheries. This expanded hatchery production was not dis tributed evenly across the basin, however. As we will see, artificial produc tion effortswere focused in the lower river, a spatial bias that contributed to a serious minimization of the fishing rights held by Columbia River Indians. In 1855, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama tribes signed treaties with theU.S. government inwhich they reserved the right to fish at their "usual and accustomed" fishing sites, the great majority of which are on the Columbia River and on tributaries upriver from Bonneville Dam. The location of their fisheries on themiddle and upper river have made Indian fishers vulnerable to the demands placed on fish runs by lower river and ocean fisheries, which intercept the fish before Allen, Replacing Salmon 197 88% 12% Origin of adults returning to Columbia River prior to 1850s I Above Bonneville Dam Below Bonneville Dam 44% ? 56% Origin of adults returning to Columbia River, 1980s Figure i: Changes in the distribution of salmon production in the Columbia River Basin (Northwest Power Planning Council, Columbia RiverBasin Fishand Wildlife Program, Portland, Ore., 1987, app. E, table 6) 4,000,000 3,500,000 3,000,000 2,500,000 1? 2,000,000 o 1,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 0 Indian share s of in-river commercial harvest (percentage) 00 T-i CN O IT) CN ON O IT) &T*Z? This aerial photograph of the JohnDay Dam shows the navigation lock, center, and fish ladder, left. Allen, Replacing Salmon 219 other two were below Bonneville.48 The goal was a return of thirty thou sand adult fall chinook to the hatcheries.49 Steelhead and other fish af fected by the John Day project ? such as spring and summer chinook, sturgeon, coho, sockeye, and lamprey ? were not part of the plan, nor did the Corps provide any compensation for themore than twenty thou sand adult spring chinook thatwere killed in 1968 when John Day went into service.50Only fall chinook, whose spawning grounds were inundated by the JohnDay reservoir,were produced as compensation for the project's destruction of salmon habitat. While fall chinook are a staple of the tribal fishery, the hatchery siting decisions of the 1960s would ensure that very few of the fish produced asmitigation for JohnDay Dam would be acces sible to...