Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
In the Tribal Court of the
Confederated Tribes
of Warm Springs
(Note: All proceedings,
except Probate as de-
scribed below, are held at
the Tribal Courthouse.)
PROBATE
In the matter of the es-
tate of Roy D. Jackson,
W.S., U/A, deceased. Es-
tate no. 2024-PR33. Notice
if hereby given that Rod D.
Jackson, who at the time of
his death last known residence
was 4309 Tommie St., Warm
Springs OR, died on the 2 nd
day of June, 2024 and the
court appointed Valerie
Squiemphen as public admin-
istrator.
In the matter of the es-
tate of Dorina D. Surface,
W.S., U/A, deceased. Es-
tate no. 2024-PR35. Notice
is hereby given that Dorina
D. Surface, who at the time
August 7, 2024
of her death last known resi-
dence was 2509 Looksh St.,
Warm Springs OR, died on
the 5 th day of June, 2024, and
the court appointed Valerie
Squiemphen as public admin-
istrator.
Apology
I am sorry about what I
did on July 31, 2023, and
know the decision I made
was wrong and put me at
risk, and also the commu-
nity. I have learned from
my mistake. Mathew B.
Garcia.
Area fires bring smokey air
Late last weekend,
t h u n d e r s t o r m s m ove d
through parts of the re-
gion, bringing strong
wind and lightning.
Several new wildfires
were reported including the
Elk Lane Fire, located seven
miles northwest of Madras.
The Jefferson County
Sheriff ’s Office said two ar-
eas were given level 3 Go-
Now evacuation orders.
Those levels of evacuation
were in place into early Mon-
day morning.
Belmont Lane northwest
of Madras was shut down
from the PGE gates to S.W.
Columbia. And people were
asked to avoid Mountain
View Drive for fire appara-
tuses.
The Red Cross set up a
temporary shelter at the
Jefferson County Fair-
grounds.
The Bennett Fire was
northeast of Antelope,
burning across several hun-
dred acres. There was a Go-
Know evacuation order for
the city of Antelope.
These and other fires in
the region have created some
smokey conditions.
Around Indian Country
Heatwave, drought deadly
for fish in Yakima Basin
An unsettling discovery
by U.S. Geological Survey
staff gathering gear in the
Yakima Delta in July of-
fered a harsh reminder of
the dangers fish face due to
this summer’s heat and
drought.
Warm water lacking in
oxygen killed at least 75
sockeye salmon, according
to a report, and photos
show some of the dead fish
floating on their backs near
the shore.
Yakama Nation Fisher-
ies Manager Joe Blodgett
said it’s likely many more
sockeye died while waiting
for an opportunity to swim
up the Yakima River to
spawn, reminiscent of large-
scale die-offs caused by
similar conditions in 2015
and 2021.
“By the time we got out
there, we don’t see anything
going on now, but we do know
this is definitely something to
be concerned about,”
Blodgett said. “This year it’s
even more frustrating be-
cause it’s a record return for
adult sockeye in the Colum-
bia Basin.”
U.S. Geological Service
fish biologist Toby Kock said
water temperatures in the 80s
have approached record-
highs in the lower Yakima
River, creating a thermal bar-
rier for any salmon and steel-
head trying to swim in or out
of the Yakima Basin.
Predation concerns and
low flows from the second
year of a statewide drought
add to the challenge of pro-
viding safe passage for fish
on their long journey be-
tween the ocean and spawn-
ing habitat.
Biologists truck Snake
River sockeye to cooler
Idaho waters
On the banks of the
Snake River in far eastern
Washington, sockeye salmon
have had a rough summer.
The water behind the last
major concrete dam they
have to swim past is way too
hot.
California wildfire could spell
the end of threatened salmon
California’s fifth-largest
wildfire has encroached on
some of the last strongholds
for imperiled salmon, poten-
tially devastating a species
already on the brink.
The Park Fire spread into
the Mill and Deer Creek wa-
tersheds in Tehama County,
Calif. The Mill and Deer
creeks are two of the three
remaining creeks where wild,
independent populations of
spring-run Chinook, a threat-
ened species, still spawn in the
Central Valley.
If the Park Fire climbs to
higher altitudes, federal and
state officials said it could
strike the final death blow to
the region’s spring-r un
salmon, which are already at
risk of extinction.
“It’s really concerning. It’s
really sad. Spring-run Chi-
nook populations have taken
such a hit over the past few
years, and they’re just at a
critically low point,” said
Howard Brown, senior policy
adviser with the Central Val-
ley office of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s West Coast
fisheries region. “The emo-
tional toll of seeing a fire like
this hit such an important
place, with (critically at-risk)
populations that are suffer-
ing so bad, it just feels like
the cards are stacked up
deeply.”
Experts are anxiously
awaiting the wildfire’s next
move, hoping that it doesn’t
spread farther into higher el-
evations.
That’s where adult salmon
wait in cool pools for water
temperatures to drop and
flows to rise so they can
spawn and where year-old ju-
veniles gain strength before
migrating to the ocean.
“We’re kind of at the
mercy of the weather and
wind to see if these fires
creep along doing beneficial
to less-severe things, or if we
see a big run that really cooks
the watershed,” said Matt
Johnson, a senior environ-
mental scientist with the Cali-
fornia Department of Fish
and Wildlife Northern Re-
gion Anadromous Fisheries
Program.
“The species is at real risk
of extirpation or blinking
out. We hope that doesn’t
happen,” he said.
Flames are not the pri-
mary, immediate threat. The
spring-fed streams are mov-
ing so fast that ash in the
water will quickly wash away,
according to wildlife offi-
cials. Instead, firefighting
efforts could pose a direct
threat to the waterways, in-
cluding the use of fire re-
tardant, which is toxic to
fish, though experts say it’s
a necessary tradeoff.
“The important thing
right now is to just try to
stop it on the head, so it
doesn’t burn up these really
precious watersheds,”
Brown said. “The next few
days will be pretty telling.”
The most severe damage
could come later this year—
if heavy rains wash ash,
chemicals and sediment
from the burn scar into the
creeks.
Too much sediment can
smother the eggs and baby
fish or spark a microbial
bloom that sucks oxygen
from the water. Larger de-
bris flows also could scour
the waterways and fill in
holding pools.
Page 7
Around Indian Country
Fish passage restored at
former Oregon dam site
Crews broke the final
obstruction enclosure at a
Southern Oregon dam site,
returning the river to its
historic path, and restoring
fish passage in that reach
of the Klamath River.
The JC Boyle Dam is
one of the four dams
slated for removal as a part
of the Klamath River dam
removal project. It is the
only dam to be removed
in Oregon as part of the
project.
Th event was joined by
representatives and elders
from the Klamath Tribes
and Modoc Nation to view
the moment the river
broke through the coffer-
dam, the watertight enclo-
sure that allowed the con-
struction work.
“While there is still work
to be done, today is a his-
toric day for this reach of
the Klamath River,” said
Mark Bransom, chief ex-
ecutive officer of the Kla-
math River renewal Corpo-
ration. “It was an honor to
be able to witness this
reach of river coming back
to life alongside area
tribes. Each milestone
brings the river into a
healthier state.”
JC Boyle Dam was an
earth-fill dam with a con-
crete spillway. The earthen
portion of the dam ex-
tended over the original
path of the river, while the
concrete portion was con-
structed outside the river’s
path.
Courtesy KRRP
Area of Klamath River where dam was breached.
The reser voir waters
were drained back in Janu-
ary. Since that time, con-
struction crews used the cof-
ferdam to route the river
through the base of the spill-
way while the earthen por-
tion of the dam was
deconstructed. Crews fin-
ished the removal of the
earthen portion last week,
allowing them to break the
cofferdam, restoring the
river in that reach to a free-
flowing state that will allow
volitional fish passage.
Crews will continue
deconstructing the concrete
spillway in the coming
weeks. Once that is com-
pleted, they will restore the
natural slope on the river’s
left side and conclude con-
struction activities related to
JC Boyle Dam removal.
Tribal advocates
The removal of four Kla-
math River dams, the larg-
est dam removal in U.S. his-
tory, is on track to be com-
pleted by November and re-
portedly ahead of schedule.
The $450 million removal
project strives to restore
the river and its ecosys-
tem to its pre-dam condi-
tion with a focus on re-
turning salmon, Chinook
and coho.
If the reintroduction
of salmon is successful,
then it will provide once
again an ancestral food
source to the tribal com-
munities that relied on the
annual fish returns in the
river as one of their first
foods.
The Klamath Tribes
voiced the need for the
dam removals for de-
cades, and now that the
project is nearing comple-
tion, Klamath tribal lead-
ership and employees in
the Natural Resources
and Ambodat Depart-
ments are working with
various state and federal
agencies and the Klamath
River Renewal Corpora-
tion, which is overseeing
the project, to assist in the
many restoration projects
such as revegetation, wet-
land restoration and the
reintroduction of salmon.