University of Oregon Library
Received ons 07-27-04
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v. 29 f I
Spilyay
Tymoo
P.O. Box 870
Warm Springs, OR 97761
ECRWSS
Postal Patron
Warm Springs, OR 97761
U.S. Postage
PRSRTSTD
Warm Springs, OR 97761
July 22, 2004 Vol. 29, No. 15
Coyote News, est, 1976
50 cents
1 1 police
officers
on leave
(AP) - Eleven police officers re
cently were placed on administrative
leave from the Warm Springs Police
Department, after allegedly threaten
ing a walkout. The officers, including
Police Chief Don Courtney, reportedly
were protesting working conditions, low
pay and outdated equipment.
Raymond Tsumpti, the head of the
Confederated Tribes Public Safety
Branch, said the officers were put on
administrative leave earlier this month
for "breach of public trust" after he
perceived the possibility of a walkout.
In their absence, the nine officers
left in the department have been work
ing overtime to pick up the slack.
The temporary suspensions came
about after officers submitted indi
vidual letters and at least one group
memo to Police Chief Courtney, dis
cussing a number of concerns such as
low pay, old patrol cars and an unpleas
ant working environment.
Two lieutenants, five sergeants, the
criminal investigations supervisor and
the police chief are among the employ
ees suspended with pay.
JV POLICE on page 8
Sohappy to sue
boarding school,
federal agencies
(AP) - The mother of Cindy
Sohappy, who died in a boarding school
administered by the U.S. Bureau of
Indian Affairs, intends to sue the school
and the federal agencies that oversee
it
Sohappy died of acute alcohol poi
soning last December at age 16, after
being placed in a detention cell by
school administrators at the Chemawa
Indian School.
After the girl's death, the U.S. Attor
ney General's office considered filing
involuntary manslaughter charges
against workers who had contact with
Sohappy on the night she died.
But an investigation found that there
was not enough evidence to charge the
school's staff with the girl's death, as
sistant U.S. attorney Bill "Williams said
last month.
Her mother, Renee Sohappy of
Madras, hired a Bend attorney to in
vestigate filing the federal lawsuit.
Attorney Foster Glass said Cindy
Sohappy's family believes the teenager's
rights were violated.
They believe she was subject to
wrongful imprisonment; and was given
insufficient medical care while being
detained.
"They put her in a place where she
was no longer free to leave and no one
took care of her," Glass said.
"They're getting off scot-free for my
daughter's death," Renee Sohappy said
last month, after learning that the gov
ernment would not pursue criminal
charges.
"It left a long scar on me and my
kids. What is it going to take for them
to realize what they did to my daugh
ter was wrong?"
Cells no longer used
- Results are still pending in another
administrative investigation, by the U.S.
Department of Interior inspector
general's office.
The Department of Interior earlier
this month ordered the BIA to halt the
detention of juveniles in its jails.
Several of the cells were found to
be "life threatening," the department
reported
The Chemawa cells have not been
used since Sohappy's death, school of
ficials say.
Historic day
Agreement
on dams
holds promise
for future
By Dave McMechan
Spilyay Tymoo
Warm Springs was the scene last
week of a rare gathering.
. At the gathering were individu
als and organizations that often dis
agree, and at times strongly disagree
over issues involving natural re
sources. The gathering in Warm Springs
was rare because all those present
were in agreement on an important
natural resource issue.
"We had these governments, pri
vate utilities, and fish and river
people coming together to cel
ebrate," said Jim Manion, general
manager of Warm Springs Power
Enterprises. "You don't see that
very often."
The purpose of the meeting -held
on the grounds of the Mu
seum at Warm Springs - was to cel
ebrate the signing of an agreement
for the long-term management of
the Pelton-Round Butte Hydroelec
tric project. The Confederated
Tribes and Portland General Elec
tric are co-owners of the dams,
which are licensed for operation by
the Federal Energy Regulatory Com
mission (FERC).
Over the past few years, the tribes
and PGE have been working with
government agencies and other in
terested parties toward a 50-year
renewal of the FERC license. The
gathering last week demonstrated
that all the parties now agree on the
important issues regarding future
operation of the dams. The agree
ment is a final major step toward
the granting of the new license.
Among those in attendance at the
signing ceremony were representa
tives of the Confederated Tribes
and PGE; federal agencies includ
ing the Forest Service, the BIA and
BLM, the National Marine Fisher
ies and the Fish and Wildlife ser
vices. State agencies and local govern
ments - Madras, Redmond, Bend
and Jefferson County - were also
on hand; as were people from
American Rivers, the Native Fish
Society, Oregon Trout, Trout Un
limited and WaterWatch of Or
egon. Gale Norton, U.S. Secretary of
the Interior, spoke on behalf of the
federal government.
See DAMS on page 8
'Life threatening conditions at
(AP) - The federal Bureau of In
dian Affairs has ordered the Confed
erated Tribes of Warm Springs and the
Yakama Nation to stop housing juve
niles in detention facilities.
The order followed the U.S. Inte
rior Department's investigation of 74
jails and detention facilities overseen by
the BIA.
Investigators found "life threaten
ing" conditions at some of the jails, and
Inspector General Earl E. Devany
urged the BIA to make immediate re
forms, according to an interim report
presented to the Senate in June.
"BIA's detention program is riddled
with problems and, in our opinion, is a
national disgrace with many facilities
having conditions comparable to those
found in Third-World countries,"
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Dave McMochanSpilyay
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton discusses the P'elton-Roiind Butte project with Jim Manion.'general manager of
Warm Springs Power Enterprises.
Fish to spawn again above dams
The relicensing of the Pelton-Round
Butte dams includes a plan to return
salmon and steelhead runs to 226 miles
of rivers and streams above the hy
droelectric project.
The tribes and PGE hope to rein
troduce the fish runs above the dams
by 2007. This would be the first time
since 1968 that salmon and steelhead
migrated past the dams.
The plan calls for construction of a
large tower in the reservoir behind the
dams to pump enough water to guide
young salmon to an intake tunnel.
There, workers would collect the fish
and put them in tank trucks to haul
them to a release point below the dams.
The Pelton-Round Butte project was
completed by PGE in 1964. Although
it was constructed with fish passage
facilities, the downstream system failed.
The fish passage problem was cre
ated in large part by the downstream
currents in a reservoir taking a wrong
turn. Young salmon and steelhead fol
lowing the currents rarely found their
way to the ocean.
Warm Springs' juvenile
offenders now are sent to the
Northern Oregon Regional
Corrections Facility in
The Dalles.
Devany told the Senate Committee on
Indian Affairs on June 23.
The report cites 10 deaths, includ
ing the alcohol poisoning of Cindy Gil
bert Sohappy, 16, of Warm Springs,
who died Dec 6 at Chemawa Indian
School in Salem.
The agency operates or funds 74 jails
on tribal or federally owned lands
across the country. They included
Chemawa's four holding cells, which arc
no longer in use.
for the
The solution will be a 270-foot high
underwater tower arising from the bot
tom of the lake behind Round Butte
Dam. A 130-foot wide disc at the top
of the tower will draw in most of the
surface water, turning the currents and
fish back downstream toward the dam.
Fish will be screened at the intake
and trucked downstream of the dams
for release on their journey to the Pa
cific. The tower will also blend waters
from various depths to improve the
conditions, including water tempera
tures, for downstream fish.
Species to be reintroduced above
the dams include summer steelhead,
which is a federally listed threatened
species; and spring chinook salmon.
Resident kokance should naturally con
vert to sockeye salmon as they head
downstream.
The project also is expected to help
restore bull trout in the Deschutes by
letting them mingle again with stock in
the higher, colder Metolius.
The tribes and PGE are prepared
to spend more than $135 million on
When the preliminary report was
printed in April, Devany's investigators
had visited 1 4 jails, mostly in the South
west. They have not been to the Warm
Springs Jail, the only tribal facility in
Oregon, nor to Yakama's lockup, one
of six run by Washington tribes.
Previous inspections by the Portland
regional BIA staff had turned up prob
lems at both of those jails, including
inadequate separation of juveniles and
adults, tribal officials said.
Ray Tsumpti, Warm Springs public
safety general manager, said BIA of
ficers from Portland told him last
month to stop housing juveniles at the
jail, which has 48 beds for adults and
12 for youth offenders.
Tsumpti attributed the problem to
a lack of jail staffing.
tribes
the hydro project during the 50-year
term of the new license. The vast ma
jority of the money will go to fish-related
measures. More than $21 million
is planned for fish habitat improve
ment on Deschutes River tributaries,
including water rights acquisition.
The project's reservoirs and their
shores are popular recreation sites, in
cluding camping, fishing, boating and
water skiing. The plans do not restrict
recreation and should improve recre
ational fishing for salmon and steelhead
over the long run through increased
populations and better habitat.
Ron Suppah, Tribal Council chair
man, said the agreement helps strike a
balance between modern needs for
power generation and the ancient tribal
cultures that grew up around salmon
and the scarce water of the high desert
of central Oregon.
"As we walk into the future and try
to better the world, I hope we can put
aside our differences and reach out to
each other," Suppah said.
(Tlx- AP helped with this story.)
tribal jails
Warm Springs' juvenile offenders
now are sent to the Northern Oregon
Regional Corrections Facility in The
Dalles. Yakama's go to a public juve
nile detention facility near the reserva
tion. During the Senate hearing, Devany
described the jails as "suicide prone
buildings" and cited the Yakama
Nation's windowless cellblock.
Last month a man hanged himself
there. Officer Lincoln Kahdamat, a
spokesman for the Yakama depart
ment, said Thursday.
Kahdamat said windows in the 27-year-old
jail had been boarded up by
earlier orders of BIA inspectors, who
feared inmates could break the glass
and use it as weapons.