Editorial: A loss for Northwest tribes, salmon and energy

By The Herald Editorial Board

The Trump administration last week scuttled an agreement between federal, state and tribal governments, meant to end decades of court litigation over tribal treaty rights and the survival of Columbia Basin salmon stocks, while aiding the growth of clean energy sources.

It’s a move that contradicts executive orders President Trump signed just months ago to restore “American seafood competitiveness” and “unleash American energy dominance,” and is all but certain to send the federal government back to court to defend itself against a coalition of four Northwest Indian tribes, Washington state and Oregon, environmental, energy and other groups, which two years ago had signed the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement with the Biden administration.

The agreement suspended litigation by the National Wildlife Federation and the “Six Sovereigns” — the tribes and states — in return for federal commitments to restore the Columbia Basin and assure plentiful fishing in perpetuity, including a promise of at least $1 billion in federal funding and efforts, including a $300 million investment in salmon habitat restoration by the Bonneville Power Administration, which administers the Snake River and other Columbia basin dams. Significantly, much of the money was to go toward the expansion of 1 to 3 gigawatts of electricity from tribally managed clean-energy projects, including solar, wind and energy storage.

At the heart of the earlier lawsuits — if not the agreement — was the fate of four Washington state hydroelectric dams on the lower Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia, which while producing some of the Northwest’s abundant electrical energy also are responsible for blocking some salmon from their reproductive cycle and threatening the health of fish.

Tribes, environmental groups and others have sought the breaching of the four dams in southeastern Washington as the best chance for restoration of chinook and other salmon runs, steelhead and other fish to which treaties since the 1850s have guaranteed tribal access, an outcome among other actions deemed as necessary for salmon survival in a 2022 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Importantly, however, the agreement included no commitment for removal of the dams, acknowledging that Congress ultimately was responsible for such a decision. Instead the pact was intended to show that what the dams provide in electricity, barge transportation and more could be replaced, while opening up 140 miles of salmon-spawning habitat.

The Trump administration’s move is likely to send the issue back for more litigation.

Back to court

“Without the agreement, there is no longer any basis for a stay,” said Amanda Goodin, senior attorney with Earthjustice, which had represented plaintiffs in past litigation. “Unfortunately, this shortsighted decision to renege on this important agreement is just the latest in a series of anti-government and anti-science actions coming from the Trump administration.”

The Trump memorandum wasn’t a surprise, Goodin said by phone earlier this week, as the administration since inauguration had been firing federal workers in related agencies and canceling grants and contracts key to the work outlined in the pact. But there had been no advance notice from the White House, she said, and no offer to accept feedback from the state and tribal parties regarding an end to the agreement.

Goodin expects that the four tribal nations — the Yakama, Nez Perce, Warm Springs and Umatilla tribes — and two state governments will continue their partnership, but that work, unsupported by the federal funding that had been promised, will be difficult to advance.

What’s lost

“This was the kind of work that salmon and fishing and orca advocates have been seeking and encouraging for a very long time,” said Joseph Bogaard, executive director for Save Our Wild Salmon, representing conservation, commercial and sportfishing groups and others.

Hoping for vindication in the courts, Bogaard said, offers less assurance.

The courts for decades have been critical to winning short-term protections for salmon, including ordering spills of water over dams to cool river temperatures to prevent fish kills.

“But they are not as good a forum for creating multifaceted policy,” he said.

That’s where, in the last four or five years, the cooperation among the “Six Sovereigns” in partnership with the Biden administration outlined the agreement’s goals, efforts and responsibilities.

“It was in every sense, a holistic approach that sought to bring folks together and then move them forward together, and that’s the missed opportunity.”

Bogaard sees no “semblance of any kind of a plan” among the Trump administration, leadership in federal agencies, the Bonneville Power Administration and utilities that will honor treaties with tribal nations by ensuring the survival of salmon species.

Meanwhile, populations of salmon — spring and summer chinook and sockeye — and steelhead continue to teeter closer to extinction. Bogaard noted that some tributaries of the Snake River, such as Washington’s Tucannon River, are seeing fewer than 50 fish returning to spawn.

Some 45 years ago, he noted, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a coalition of western states was created to balance energy and environmental needs. Its goal at the time was to ensure the return of 5 million adult salmon returning to the Columbia Basin by 2025; this year, about 2.3 million are predicted to return, he said.

Sapping energy

There’s a loss, too, for energy, both for current hydroelectric production and new sources, including projects for solar, wind and energy storage, said Nancy Hirsh, policy director for the Northwest Energy Coalition.

Even though little in federal funding had yet to be delivered, the Columbia Basin pact, Hirsh said, had made notable progress in talking through issues and setting goals and expectations and planning.

“The agreement really advanced the energy conversation,” she said. That included the start of work for power system modeling that was to be performed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, through a grant from the Department of Energy, that would have looked at how the region would meet its goals for clean energy, climate and salmon recovery. That analysis, she said, would have examined needs down to the utility level and looked at opportunities for technical assistance for energy projects operated by the tribal governments.

It’s not clear, she said, if the Department of Energy will pull the salmon portion of that effort, or eliminate the entire scope of work.

At the time of the signing of the agreement, even the Bonneville Power Administration, loath to part with any of its dams, recognized the agreement as key to avoiding further litigation while providing more energy reliability.

Ending the agreement, along with delivering less certainty, will likely mean a loss of potential energy projects and add to the abandonment of grants and other Biden-era funding for clean energy projects throughout the U.S. — many in Republican congressional districts, such as in Eastern Washington — already announced by the Trump administration and outlined for elimination in the budget reconciliation bill that has passed the House and now is being considered by the Senate.

“Any slowdown in the development of those resources in a responsible and environmentally and culturally beneficial way is going to impact our climate commitments and our salmon recovery and tribal commitments,” Hirsh said.

Broken promises

At heart, the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, was a commitment to respect the treaty rights of the region’s tribal nations and pursue solutions to the survival of salmon and more.

“The federal government’s historic river management approach is unsustainable and will lead to salmon extinction,” said Gerald Lewis, Yakama Tribal Council chairman in a statement. “Courtroom battles cannot provide the innovative, holistic solutions we need. This termination will severely disrupt vital fisheries restoration efforts, eliminate certainty for hydro operations, and likely result in increased energy costs and regional instability.”

Under a different administration in coming years, there might be hope for restoration of the agreement and a recommitment to its provisions, but with lost momentum and with a hastening approach of extinction for at least some wild salmon stocks.

“We reserved the right to actually catch fish,” said Jeremy Takala, chair of the Yakama Fish and Wildlife Committee, “not merely the right to dip our nets into barren waters.”