OLYMPIA — Members of the Spokane Tribe asked legislators to join an effort to bring salmon back to the Upper Columbia River about 80 years after the Grand Coulee Dam closed off one of the world’s greatest fisheries.
But one key lawmaker said first he would want to be convinced that won’t create legal headaches for people and businesses in the region.
“My ancestors were a salmon people,” Carol Evans, Spokane tribal chairwoman, told a House panel considering a memorial to support reintroducing some species of the fish to parts of the river system walled off by Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams. Losing that source of food and culture “has been devastating to our people,” she added.
The proposal under consideration calls for the federal government and regional entities that help oversee the river system to explore pragmatic and scientific ways to reintroduce salmon and steelhead behind the dams and provide passage for them as they migrate to the ocean then return to spawn. That wasn’t possible when the dams were built, but might be possible now, said D.R. Michel, executive director of the Upper Columbia United Tribes.