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Portland, Oregon
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The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission today denounced
the Bonneville Power Administration's proposal to cut salmon-protective
measures at Ice Harbor, John Day, The Dalles and Bonneville dams.
"The bottom line is that BPA's plan sets the stage to sell
out Northwest fisheries and salmon-restoration efforts," said
CRITFC chairman Harold Blackwolf Sr., a member of the Confederated
Tribes of the Warms Springs Reservation of Oregon. "The region
is only beginning to realize benefits from decades of hard work
and sacrifice for robust returns, but this get-rich-quick proposal
might return us to the dark ages."
BPA's plan includes reducing or eliminating summer water-spill
programs that help juvenile salmon navigate through federal dams
en route to sea. CRITFC scientists estimate that spill curtailment
could kill as many as 140,000 fish.
"This plan reneges on tribal treaty rights and BPA's obligation
to treat fish and electric power as equals," said CRITFC executive
director Olney Patt Jr. "It chops away at salmon-restoration
progress so critical to our tribes' cultures and economies and to
the entire Pacific Northwest."
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About CRITFC
The Portland-based Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission is
the technical support and coordinating agency for fishery management
policies of the Columbia River Basin's four treaty tribes: the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes
of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes
and Bands of the Yakama Nation and the Nez Perce Tribe.
CRITFC, formed in 1977, employs biologists, other scientists, public
information specialists, policy analysts and administrators who work
in fisheries research and analyses, advocacy, planning and coordination,
harvest control and law enforcement. |
