A Short Chronology of Treaty Fishing on the Columbia River

1969 - Judge Belloni, in Sohappy v. Smith/U.S. v. Oregon (Belloni decision) held that the tribes were entitled to a "fair share" of the fish runs and the state is limited in its power to regulate treaty Indian fisheries (the state may only regulate when "reasonable and necessary for conservation"). Further, state conservation regulations were not to discriminate against the Indians and must be the least restrictive means.

1974 - In U.S. v. Washington (Boldt decision), Judge Boldt mandated that a "fair share" was 50 percent of the harvestable fish destined for the tribes' usual and accustomed fishing places and reaffirmed tribal management powers. (Belloni then applied the 50/50 principle in Columbia River fisheries.

1974 - In Settler v. Lameer, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the treaty fishing right is a tribal right, not an individual right, and that tribes had reserved the authority to regulate tribal fishing on and off the reservations.

1975 - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the last of four lower Snake River dams, compounding downstream passage problems and causing further declines in fish runs. The total number of dams on the mainstem Columbia and Snake rivers rose to 18.

1977 - The federal court, under its jurisdiction in U.S. v. Oregon, approved a five-year plan that set up an in-river harvest sharing formula between non-Indian and Indian fisheries. The plan failed because it did not include specific controls on ocean harvests or specific measures to replace fish runs destroyed by development.

1979 - The Supreme Court upheld U.S. v. Washington (Boldt decision).