The U.S. government acknowledges that hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest have harmed tribes.
new Report from the Ministry of the Interior It turns out that dams built along the Columbia River in the early 1900s have blocked fish migration and submerged thousands of acres of land, including sacred sites and burial grounds.
As a result, the government acknowledged, tribes were no longer able to access the salmon that had historically provided them with food.
“Acknowledging the devastating impacts that federal hydroelectric dams have had on tribal communities is essential to our efforts to restore salmon to their ancestral waters,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet member, said in a written statement.
According to the report, the impacts of the floods included inundating villages forcing residents to evacuate, damage to cemeteries, and impacts on the ecosystem of the river itself.
The bill specifically provides for harm to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, the Yakama Confederated Tribes and Tribes, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe of the Fort Hall Reservation, and the Spokane Indian Tribe.
The Biden administration is taking steps to restore salmon in the Columbia River, including a 10-year plan that could include dam removal.
The administration announced in December that it had reached an agreement with state and court leaders to provide more than $1 billion for recovery.
