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Tribe: Bring salmon back to Upper Columbia River

By Jim Camden, The Spokesman-Review
Published: February 3, 2016, 8:14pm

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.

The government, tribes and other partners would look at economical ways to move the fish, possibly collecting and trucking salmon around the dams in giant tanks on the routes up and down river.

Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, said reintroducing the fish could lead to new fights over the Endangered Species Act, and the protections for those fish could cause problems for utilities, businesses and residents in that stretch of the Columbia. Almost all of that is in his legislative district, and the prime sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Derek Stanford, D-Bothell, never gave him a chance to discuss those concerns before drafting it.

“I’m offended not to be included,” Kretz said.

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