A “first of its kind” federal commitment to salmon recovery has presidential bite behind it. Now let’s see the money
About time: Big talk about restoring the Columbia River Basin is coming out of Washington D.C. Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons
By Kendra Chamberlain. October 24, 2023. If you’ve grown weary of politicians making grand proclamations about “taking steps” or “making progress” or “funding studies” toward environmental recovery, get in the back of a very long line.
But, also, pay attention to the Sept. 27 announcement from the White House titled “Memorandum on Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and Other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River Basin.”
“It is time for a sustained national effort to restore healthy and abundant native fish populations in the [Columbia River] Basin,” reads the memorandum signed by President Joe Biden.
The White House making Columbia River Basin salmon recovery a national priority has far-reaching consequences.
Under the declaration, federal agencies, including the Bonneville Power Administration, Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Fisheries Service and Department of Interior, will have 120 days to assess how they can better support fish restoration.
These departments are also directed to identify federal programs that could help fish recovery in the Columbia River Basin and resources those programs would need.
“Within 220 days of the date of this memorandum, all agencies … shall provide the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (Director) an assessment of the agency’s programs that can advance the policy [and] shall prioritize these activities to the extent feasible in their program and budget planning.”
Tribal rights formally recognized
Importantly, the memorandum pointedly recognizes the U.S. government’s treaty obligations to indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest and stretching into Canada.
“In 1855, the United States and four of the Tribal Nations of the Basin entered into treaties specifying that these Tribal Nations reserved the right to harvest fish on their reservations and at all usual and accustomed places,” it states, adding that “at that time, an estimated 7.5 to 16 million adult salmon and steelhead returned to the Basin each year.”
The treaty tribes include 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.
Rights on: Celilo Village leader, Yakama tribal member and CRITFC lead fish technician Bobby Begay on the Columbia River in 2001. Photo by: Jim Richardson/National Geographic/CRITFC
Fish populations in the Basin have declined sharply over the last century. A NOAA Fisheries report from last year found endangered salmon and steelhead species have declined by 48% in the Basin in the last five years.
Yakama Nation Fisheries has estimated that fish runs today are typically less than 2 million.
The memorandum also suggests federal government culpability for the demise of salmon runs.
“Actions since 1855, including the Federal Government’s construction and operation of dams in the Basin, have severely depleted fish populations … causing substantial harm to Tribal Nations and other communities reliant on salmon and steelhead,” it states.
If anyone is justified in greeting lavish government decrees with a big ol’ eye roll, it’s Indigenous people. But, for now at least, Tribes are applauding Biden’s “historic” commitment to salmon recovery.
“He has sent a clear message throughout the federal government that business as usual is no longer acceptable,” said Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Chair Corinne Sams. “Never before has the federal government issued a Presidential Memorandum on salmon. This is historic.”
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) is composed of the four treaty Tribes in the Basin.
“We are optimistic that this first of its kind Presidential Memorandum on the Columbia Basin will chart a new course for the federal government that will lead to true restoration of our fisheries,” Warm Springs Tribal Council Chairman Jonathan W. Smith, Sr. said in a press release. “There is no time to waste, and the Warm Springs Tribe is committed to working with the federal agencies, our fisheries co-managers and Columbia Basin stakeholders to make sustainable, healthy and abundant fish returns a reality.”
To be followed by massive expenditures on additional failed projects to deflect and distract from the root causes of population decline…just like Clinton’s promises, Bush’s pledges, and Obama’s plan. And the unelected bureaucrats who write these decrees? They recycle upwards in a corrupt system, while biostitutes pimp their “solutions” and journalists write about it all.