TRIBAL LOSSES NOTED
ON 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF BONNEVILLE DAM
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Indians and their supporters held a 50 hour vigil In
Manful observance of the 50th Anniversary of
Bonneville Dam and the beginning of hydroelectric
development on the Columbia River.
"For 50 hours, the drum will beat reminding us of the
terrible losses endured by Indian people so that this
region could have electricity," said vigil coordinator
Roy Samsel, and Indian and a long-time advocate for
Native Americans. Bonneville Dam, the first of more
than a dozen hydroelectric dams on the Columbia
system, and the Bonneville Power Administration
(BPA), the federal agency that markets the electricity,
are 50 years old this year.
"The costs have been greatest to the Indian people:
Their salmon and steelhead runs for thousands of
years, the spiritual, social, and economic basis of life
were nearly destroyed. Most of their traditional fishing
sites were gone flooded by dams and the reservoirs
behind them," be said.
The vigil, took place on Bradford Island near the
Visitors Center on the Oregon side of Bonneville Dam,
concluded Saturday August 8 just as BPA's official 50th
anniversary program began.
from The Oregonian
THE FOLLOWING IS FROM THE COLUMBIA
RIVER INTER-TRIBAL FISH COMMISSION,
SPRING 1987, NEWSLETTER.
It's that on your banks that we fouffit many a figfit
Sheridm's boys in the blockhouse that nitfit
They saw us in death but never in fSgfti
Roll on, Columbia, roll on.
Our loved ones we lost in Coe'sUOle store
By firebaU and rifle, a dozen or more
Wewonby the Mary and soldiers she bore
Roll on, Columbia, roQ on.
Remember the trial when the battle was won
The wild Indim warriors to the taB timber run
We hung every Indian with smoke in his pin
Rott on, Columbia, roU on.
Yem after year we had tedious trials
Fightin' the rapids at Cascades and Dalles
Injuns rest peaceful on Memaloose Isle
Roll on, Columbia, roll on.
These recently discovered missing verses to "Roll On,
Columbia," a song Woody Guthrie wrote for the
Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), tell more of
the history of the development of the Columbia River
than is being acknowledged in the hoopa surrounding
the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Bonneville
Dam and BPA. Ironically, BPA and the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, the agency that built Bonneville
Dam, are using Guthrie's "Roll On, Columbia" as the
theme for their anniversary events.
Fifty years ago this summer, the Columbia's days as a
free-flowing river were already over. The construction
of Bonneville Dam was nearing completion, and the
main debate concerning the monumental project was
over public-versus-private marketing of the electricity
that was about to be generated. There was virtually no
discussion of the negative effects on the fish runs and
the Indian peoples for whom the salmon were essential.
It was 1937, and the country's leaders had other things,
especially the Great Depression and forthcoming World
War II, on their minds. Unlike the Indians that fished
at Celilo falls in the eastern end of the Columbia
Gorge, the native residents downriver from the Bonnev
ille site had been decimated by European diseases, such
as measles and small pox, brought by the newcomers.
Following the 1856 Fort Rains battle (near the Bonnev
ille Dam site) described by Guthrie in the lost lyrics,
most of the surviving Indians In the Columbia Gorge
were cleared out of the key sites, such as the portages
around the Cascades and the Long Narrows Celilo
Falls, and sent to reservations away from the river,
(including the Grand Ronde Reservation) making way
for Euro-American settlement and dams.
The construction of Bonneville and the upriver dams
forced many Indians, who had returned to the river, to
move and inundated villages, petroglyphs, fishing
platforms, and other Important sites. Promises made
In the process of dam construction were often not kept
For example, the Corps of Engineers promised the
Indian tribes with reserved treaty rights to fish the area
flooded by Bonneville Dam that the agency would
purchase over 400 acres of Min-lleu sites" to help
compensate for the traditional fishing sites being
destroyed. Half a century later, only 42 acres of in -lieu
sites have been acquired.
In addition to the diseases, the outright hostilities and
forced relocations, and the loss of priceless places,
Indians were and still are hurt by the destruction of
the salmon and steelhead runs, which were and still
are vital to Indian culture.
The preservation of the Columbia's fish population
was a high priority of the Corps when it designed and
built Bonneville Dam," reads a sign in the dam's visitor
editor's note
Illustration by Virgl Marchand
center. At the time, however, the Corps was not
Interested In being a "nursemaid'' to fish. In foct,
federal agencies claimed that the Dalles Dam would
have a positive net effect on the fish runs by destroying
the Indian fishery at Celilo Falls.
Regardless of motivation, the construction and opera
tion of Columbia Basin hydroelectric dams have been
responsible for three-fourths of the losses of the
salmon and steelhead runs, which dropped from up to
sixteen million fish annually to only two and a half
million salmon and steelhead today.
While celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Bonneville
Dam, the Corps of Engineers and BPA are Ignoring the
harm done to fish runs by hydroelectric development
But more importantly, they are dragging their feet with
restoration efforts to help correct their past mistakes.
MIf electrification has proceeded at the rate that
fisheries restoration has," notes Columbia River Inter
Tribal Fish Commission (CRTTFC) executive director
Tim Wapato, "most of us would still be using candle
light"
These agencies could do much more to meet their legal
(as well as moral) obligations to the Indians hurt by
the almost one hundred dams on the Columbia and its
tributaries. The Corps should purchase more of the
long-awaited in-lieu fishing sites and should, as
requested by the tribes and fishery agencies, spill more
water over dams to increase the survival of salmon
smolts migrating to the ocean. BPA should put Its
lntertie expansion to sell more electricity to California
on hold at least until fish passage around the dams has
been greatly Improved. Mitigation monies should be
used to restore upriver runs, Instead of (as In the past)
just cranking out hatchery fish for non-Indian commer
cial Ashing Interests below Bonneville. Finally, federal
water-management agencies, Including BPA, need to
view the Northwest Power Planning Council as a
partner, not an adversary.