Tribes’rights to shellfish upheld
By Hal Spencer
The Associated Press
OLYMPIA, Wash. — In a huge
victory for Washington tribes, the
U.S. Supreme Court on Monday
affirmed their right to harvest
shellfish on private beaches. The
decision stunned private proper
ty owners.
The court rejected without
comment an appeal of a lower
court ruling that upheld the
tribes’ shellfish rights. State of
ficials, shellfish growers and
private property owners had
challenged that decision, con
tending the Indians’ 19th centu
ry treaties give them no legal
claim to shellfish on private
property.
“Once again, the Supreme
Court has made it clear that the
tribes’ treaty-reserved rights to
natural resources in western
Washington are as valid today as
the day the treaties were signed,”
said Billy Frank Jr., an elder in
southwest Washington’s
Nisqually Tribe and chairman of
the Northwest Indian Fisheries
Commission.
“We’re just stunned that this
could happen in America, that
our property rights and our priva
cy rights could be trampled,”
said Barbara Lindsay, a spokes
woman for United Property
Owners of Washington, most of
whom own shellfish-bearing
beach lands in the Puget Sound
region.
“No tribes anywhere else in
America have a treaty right to en
ter private property as they do
here,” said Lindsay, one of thou
sands of property owners affect
ed by the ruling.
Tribal leaders hastened to say
that Monday’s court action does
not mean Indians will be indis
criminately tramping private
beaches to dig clams, mussels
and other shellfish.
“It’s a long process before you
can go on a beach and harvest,”
said Doug Williams, a
spokesman for the Northwest In
dian Fisheries Commission.
“There must be a biological
assessment of the area, sampling
and testing and a written notice.
In fact, as far as I know, there
has been only one harvest off of
a private landowner’s beach”
since the 1994 ruling on tribal
shellfish rights in U.S. District
Court in Seattle. The case was
subsequently appealed to the
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Ap
peals.
Tribal members also will be
permitted to harvest on private
property only five days a year.
Still, Lindsay said, in the end
“we will have people on our
beaches, invading our privacy”
to dig for shellfish.
“When people bought these
properties, they had no idea there
were treaty rights to shellfish.”
Commercial shellfish growers
contend the ruling could threaten
their livelihoods and “will crip
ple or destroy the growers” by al
lowing tribal members to enter
their property.
“Our members are devastat
ed,” Bill Dewey, a spokesman for
the Puget Sound Shellfish Grow
ers Association, said Monday.
“This is an incredible burden for
the growers.”
But lawyers for the 17 Indian
tribes noted in their appeal that
the 9th Circuit ruling allows
tribes to harvest only shellfish
that would exist naturally, with
out the growers’ help.
Dewey doesn’t see it that way.
“The burden is on the grower
to prove” which shellfish are nat
urally occurring and which are
not “for every bed,” he retorted.
"This is an incredible burden
for the growers.”
Attorney General Christine
Gregoire, whose office sided with
the private property owners, said
she was disappointed by the high
court action.
In the 1855 treaties, the tribes
gave up most of their land in
then-Washington Territory in
exchange for reservations, mon
ey and the right to continue fish
ing in traditional fishing
grounds.
A series of court rulings during
the 1970s defined what areas
must be considered traditional
Indian fishing grounds, and af
firmed the tribes’ right to take up
to half of the salmon and other
fish from those areas.
In 1989, a coalition of 17 tribes
and the federal government sued
Washington state, seeking to clar
ify the Indians’ right to gather
shellfish under those treaties.
In 1994, U.S. District Edward
Rafeedie said shellfish are cov
ered by the 1970s rulings, and
the Indians, therefore, can take
up to half the shellfish within
their traditional fishing areas —
including lands now privately
owned.
But because the treaties also
Four teen-agers rescued
from snowy mountain
The Associated Press
GRANTS PASS — Four teen
agers were rescued Monday from
the snow-covered slopes of
4,438-foot Onion Mountain after
they failed to return from a 100
mile bicycle trip on Easter Sun
day.
Douglas Williams and Chester
Blacksmith, both 16, Josh Fost,
18, and Jake Hamlin were alive,
but one of the four was unable to
walk because of frostbite, the
Josephine County sheriffs office
said.
The Air Force Reserve’s
939th Rescue Wing in Portland
sent an H-60 Pavehawk rescue
helicopter to the scene at 1 p.m.
to airlift the teen-ager out. He
was stranded about 300 yards
up the side of a cliff, Air Force
Reserve spokeswoman Karole
Scott said.
The injured teen-ager was suf
fering from frostbite and hy
pothermia; his three friends al
ready had been evacuated by a
snowmobile, she said.
The sheriffs office had re
leased no further information by
mid-afternoon, and none of the
four had shown up at local hos
pitals.
The teen-agers were reported
missing at 11:25 p.m. Sunday,
about 12 hours after they left for
their trip.
Rescuers launched a search
and found bicycle tracks on the
road leading to Onion Mountain
Lookout, an old Forest Service
fire lookout, but were unable to
follow the tracks because of deep
snow.
It appeared the teen-agers were
pushing their bicycles farther up
the mountain, the sheriffs office
said.
Rescuers returned with snow
mobiles and a Sno-Cat Monday
morning and found the four
about 7 a.m., about four miles be
low the lookout.
said the Indians could not har
vest shellfish “from any beds
staked or cultivated” by other cit
izens, the judge said the tribes
can take shellfish only from nat
ural beds and not from cultivated
beds. That barred the Indians
from harvesting on most proper
ty owned by commercial shell
fish growers.
The 9th Circuit upheld most
of Rafeedie’s ruling but allowed
the Indians to harvest shellfish
on some private cultivated
beds.
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