Biden administration acknowledges the ongoing cultural, spiritual, and economic devastations inflicted upon tribes by dams built in Pacific Northwest for non-Native communities continue to impact the Indigenous groups.
Bonneville Lock and Dam comprises multiple run-of-the-river structures spanning the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington states in the US. / Photo: AP Archives
The government downplayed or accepted the well-known risk to the fish in its drive for industrial development, converting the wealth of the tribes into the wealth of non-Native people, according to the report. The Interior Department's report comes amid a $1 billion effort announced earlier this year to restore the region’s salmon runs before more become extinct — and to better partner with the tribes on the actions necessary to make that happen.
"President Biden recognises that to confront injustice, we must be honest about history – even when doing so is difficult," said a statement from White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary. Salmon are born in rivers and migrate far downstream to the ocean, where they spend their adult lives before returning to their natal rivers to spawn and die. Dams can disrupt that by cutting off access to upstream habitat and by slowing and warming water to the point that fish die.The Columbia River Basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with as many as 16 million salmon and steelhead returning every year to spawn.
Of the 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead that once populated the river system, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
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