A River of Salmon Money Starts to Flow
Will all that 💰 actually help the salmon?
This week, the Biden Administration signed a historic agreement with the “six sovereigns”—four Indian tribes and the states of Washington and Oregon—to guarantee one billion dollars over 10 years in an effort to save endangered salmon runs.
One billion has nine zeros, in case you’re having trouble imagining that big of a number. Over the agreement’s 10-year time frame the Democrats are delivering 100 million dollars a year to their friends in the tribes and environmental nonprofits.
These U.S. taxpayer funds will be delivered to fund multiple projects in the Columbia Basin Watershed in the two states, which will largely be controlled by the tribes and environmental groups.
This new agreement is in addition to agreements the Biden Administration made in September of 2023 with the Upper Columbia United Tribes to provide “$200 million over 20 years from the Bonneville Power Administration... to advance the Tribally led implementation plan (to restore salmon). The Department of the Interior also announced it is providing $8 million over two years through the Bureau of Reclamation to support these efforts.”
A river of money.
The historic United States Government Columbia Basin Commitments were developed by U.S. Government agencies in secret negotiations with the tribes and some environmental groups. As a result, many other stakeholder groups in the Columbia Basin did not get to provide input.
Is this agreement an election-year down payment? Since other significant regional stakeholders were excluded from the negotiation table, it certainly looks bad. I’d like to believe this project is all about saving salmon, but color me skeptical. I remember how logging restrictions were supposed to restore spotted owl habitat, but ended up killing jobs and entire communities that depended on those jobs. Even today, the spotted owl populations continue to decline—it wasn’t the logging after all.
Since the environmental stressors impacting the salmon are so complex, it seems possible that the dams are not the entire problem. What about raw sewage getting dumped into Puget Sound? What about gill netting? What about marine mammals at the mouth of the Columbia? What about culverts?
Eastern Washington citizens whose affordable hydropower, river transportation, irrigation and jobs are being threatened are very worried at being shut out of the development of this important agreement. After all, according to the Seattle Times, “Billions of BPA ratepayer dollars have been spent to save salmon in the basin, but not a single run has recovered.”
Removal of the dams off the table—for now.
The Seattle Times notes, “It’s not an agreement for dam removal; in fact, removal of the Lower Snake dams, a long-running and controversial goal of tribes and other groups, is put off for years.” The article continues, “Under the $1 billion-plus agreement announced in December and approved by a federal judge this month, tribes will help restore wild fish and lead in the construction of at least one to three gigawatts of clean-energy production.”
In other words, there are going to be projects to restore the fish, but in addition, the federal government is going to help the tribes become a regional producer of power. That’s a gift that will keep on giving.
It’s a gamble.
The Times points out, “The agreement is a gamble. Plaintiffs (the tribes) get no guarantee of dam removal and no guarantee the alternative clean energy could replace that generated by the four Lower Snake River dams, but they retain their ability to go back to court at any time.”
It’s a gamble for the U.S. taxpayer, too. Taxpayers are giving hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the tribes with no guarantee that the tribes will spend it wisely, actually recover the salmon runs, or not sue again in the future. It’s a very uneasy agreement, indeed. I hope that as this massive project moves forward ALL stakeholders are brought to the table during the design and implementation of recovery projects and power projects. Listening to all voices is the way democracy is supposed to work.
For now, it may be in everyone’s best interest to try to make this complex agreement work. It would be amazing to have some major successes in restoring the salmon runs. It’s not just a benefit to tribal members, everyone in Washington benefits when our ecosystem is working as nature intended. Here’s hoping that a river of salmon money actually brings benefit to the Columbia Basin ecosystem.
Nancy Churchill is the state committeewoman for the Ferry County Republican Party. She may be reached at DangerousRhetoric@pm.me. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own.
Sources:
1) PNW tribal nations, states sign historic Columbia Basin agreement with U.S., Seattle Times, https://bit.ly/49HYkDb
2) Unites States Government Columbia Basin Commitments, 2023-12-14, Earth Justice, https://bit.ly/3Tbu8ud
3) Biden-Harris Administration, Tribes Reach Historic Agreement Supporting Efforts to Restore Healthy and Abundant Salmon Populations to Upper Columbia River Basin, US Dept of Interior, 2023-09-21, https://on.doi.gov/49t4XsP
There is nothing wrong with the salmon runs, as far as I know. The problem is that the tribes use illegal gill nets to harvest the fish by the thousands, to sell them for profit. NOT to engage in traditional food gathering or hunting, but using modern technology to harvest and decimate the salmon.
It would be a lot cheaper to stop the tribes from this wanton practice and make them follow the same fishing regulations as the rest of us have to follow.