Indian Tribes Strike Deal To Drop Dam Opposition

ENVIRONMENT 

By Tom Banse

Olympia, WA  April 7, 2008 3:13 p.m.

Wholesale electricity rates are likely to jump to pay for a federal-tribal deal on Columbia and Snake River dams.  Four Indian tribes will receive nearly a billion dollars for switching sides in a long-running salmon dispute.  Correspondent Tom Banse reports. 
 
The Yakama, Colville, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes will share $900 million over ten years to use on tribal hatcheries and salmon habitat restoration.  In exchange, the tribes agree to stop pushing to tear down the four lower Snake River dams.

They also promise to support federal plans for managing river flows and power generation on the Columbia and Snake Rivers.  Yakama Nation councilwoman Fidelia Andy is relieved to end two decades of litigation against federal agencies.

Fidelia: "We are now putting aside hostilities and putting trust in one another.  We are eager to leave behind the gridlock and processes that lead nowhere."

Ultimately, the money for this settlement comes from consumers of federal hydropower, which is most of us.  Idaho's Nez Perce tribe also participated in the settlement talks. 

But it has misgivings about the lower Snake River dams and hasn't signed the deal.  A range of environmental groups plan to carry on the fight over dam operations basinwide.
   

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