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169 Chapter 13 Showdown at Lyle Point It’s easy to fall in love with Lyle, Washington: its scattering of historic houses, its vintage hotel, its setting at the mouth of the Klickitat River in the rugged mid-gorge. Few visitors passing through are aware that in the early 1990s, a spit of land at Lyle became the site of one of a heated conflict over protection of cultural resources in the gorge—a conflict that pitted tribal fishermen and conservation groups against a property developer , wind surfers, conservationists, and elected officials in Klickitat County. The cultural footprints of native people are all over Klickitat County: in the huckleberry fields near Mount Adams, where tribal members burned large swathes of forest to regenerate the fields of sweet huckleberries; in meadows and seeps where they gathered medicinal plants; along the banks of the Klickitat River, where they fished for salmon using traditional dip nets; and at Lyle Point, along the shore of the Columbia River. Lyle itself is located along an ancient Indian route. For thousands of years Indians of the mid-Columbia fished at Lyle Point, a flat, windblown expanse of land that juts out into the Columbia River. Its Indian name means “place where the wind blows in both directions.” White settlement began in the 1880s, when Lyle became a sheep and wool-shipping center, but the town remained isolated until 1933, when tunnels along the state highway connected it with the rest of the Columbia River Gorge. In 1938, the construction of Bonneville Dam submerged the Indian village at Lyle Point. But tribal members never stopped fishing from the peninsula’s edge. Because Lyle Point is within the urban boundary of the town of Lyle, it is outside the jurisdiction of the Gorge Commission and the Forest Service. The drama that unfolded there in the early 1990s played out independently of the Scenic Area Act. Yet the saga of Lyle Point provides a textbook case 170 GREAT DEBATES of what can happen when treaty rights conflict with development schemes and a county’s hunger for tax revenue. For years, Lyle Point was an overlooked spot on the Washington shore. As beaches downstream overflowed with windsurfers, the town of Lyle, which huddles close to the river and climbs steep hills to the north, was largely untouched by growth. On the river side, between the last row of small houses and the windswept shore, the peninsula was covered with brush, grass, and clusters of pine amid basalt outcroppings. The BNSF Railway ran along the town side of the point. An overpass provided access. The railroad owned the land, but Indians had fished there, at their usual and customary places along the river, for as long as anyone could remember. There was no development pressure and no conflict. Then in 1974 an organization called Treaty Indians of the Columbia listed Lyle Point as one of the sites it wanted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop as an “in lieu” site, in order to fulfill the government’s obligation to protect traditional fishing areas that had been flooded by Bonneville Dam. With three-quarters of a mile of river frontage, terrain suitable for platform fishing, a boat-launching site, and good gillnet fishing just offshore, it was an obvious choice. Peaceful coexistence at Lyle Point faded as the popular sport of windsurfing marched east. In 1991, the railroad sold the 40-acre point to Columbia Gorge Investors Limited Partnership, a Massachusetts company. Despite protests from the Yakama Nation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Klickitat County commissioners changed Lyle Point’s land use designation to facilitate the point’s development. Hiram E. Olney, the BIA superintendent for the Yakama Nation, said from the outset that he feared conflicts between the new owners and tribal fishermen exercising their treaty rights. “We are opposed to any redesignation or future development which would impair access or lead to conflicts when Yakama fishermen exercise this right,” he said. Indians continued to fish at Lyle Point. But in 1993 county commissioners declared the point a place of “nonsignificance” environmentally and culturally, a finding required in order for the county to approve a subdivision at Lyle Point. The Yakama Tribe appealed. William Yallup, manager of the Yakama Cultural Resources Program, told Klickitat County officials that the tribes and the Corps of Engineers had been talking to Henry Spencer, the new owner of Lyle Point, about [18.217.144.32] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 12...

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