VOLUME II Subbasin Plans VOLUME II SUBBASIN PLANS
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United States The Columbia River Anadromous Fish Restoration Plan of the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama Tribes Canada United States VOLUME II Subbasin Plans VOLUME II SUBBASIN PLANS TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction2 Map of Subbasins5 Subbasin Plans Lower Columbia River Mainstem6 Wind River 9 Little White Salmon13 Big White Salmon 16 Hood River20 Klickitat River22 Fifteenmile Creek27 Deschutes River29 John Day River32 Umatilla River35 Mid-Columbia River Mainstem40 Walla Walla River44 Yakima River47 Wenatchee River53 Entiat River59 Methow River64 Okanogan River70 Snake River Mainstem76 Tucannon River79 Clearwater River82 Grande Ronde River89 Salmon River 94 Imnaha River101 Summary Tables Acronyms104 Glossary105 References109 1 INTRODUCTION Klickitat, Yakima, Imnaha, Umatilla, Walla The NPPC was created under the Northwest Power Walla—many of the tributaries of the Columbia Act of 1980 to protect, mitigate and enhance Basin retain the names of the people who inhabited salmon in the basin. After determining the magni- their banks and fished their waters for no less than tude of salmon losses, the NPPC adopted a Fish ten thousand years. Even those rivers renamed by and Wildlife Program amendment setting forth a white settlers remain within the territories where program to restore salmon through individual tribu- our ancestors, the people of the Umatilla, Nez tary plans (subbasin planning) with implementation Perce, Yakama, and Warm Springs tribes lived and slated for 1990. died since time immemorial. The Pacific Salmon Commission was created in Prior to treaty signing in 1855, our Indian people 1985 under the Pacific Salmon Treaty to rebuild traveled throughout our territories in the Columbia chinook salmon runs and allocate harvests between Basin to places where we knew fish and game were United States and Canadian fisheries. available for sustenance and livelihood. In the The Columbia River Fish Management Plan was treaties, which opened the basin to white settle- approved by the Federal District Court of Oregon in ment, we reserved the right to travel to all of these 1988 to address production and harvest issues usual and accustomed fishing places to take fish among the federal, state, and tribal governments. while also reserving the exclusive right to take fish Provisions included the development of subbasin on our reservations. For its part, the United States plans to achieve the earliest feasible rebuilding of agreed to secure these rights. basin salmon stocks. For almost a century following the treaty councils, In 1991 the National Marine Fisheries Service list- federal policy generally ignored the treaties by ed certain Snake River salmon stocks as threatened allowing the salmon populations of the basin to or endangered, shifting attention to the preservation decline through over harvest and upper basin devel- of fragmented and isolated populations in the Snake opment and by misusing mitigation authorities such River, its tributaries and Redfish Lake. During the as the Mitchell Act and the Lower Snake River Salmon Summit, a series of citizen/industry/gov- Compensation Plan in a discriminatory manner. But ernment meetings convened in the early 1990s to in 1968, with the initiation of the lawsuit now called confront the salmon crisis, key participants rejected U.S. v. Oregon, we acted to protect our birthright. the approach that included subbasin restoration pro- Twenty-seven years later, U.S. v. Oregon is still on grams in favor of a focus on Endangered Species the federal district court docket and provides a Act listings. means of dispute resolution when discussion and The NMFS listing also restricted the ability of fish- negotiations fail between our tribes, the United ery managers to use propagation as a tool for States, and the states of Oregon, Idaho and rebuilding by including the “evolutionarily signifi- Washington. cant unit” (ESU) policy, a severe restriction on the Since 1968, the federal, state and tribal govern- ability of fishery managers to utilize propagation ments created or used other institutions to address techniques that were included as elements of the the problem of declining salmon stocks. These subbasin plans and the Columbia River Fish included the Northwest Power Planning Council Management Plan. (NPPC), the Pacific Salmon Commission, the Regrettably, the ESA designation of Snake River Columbia River Fish Management Plan adopted by salmon set back efforts to restore the basin’s declin- the federal court in U.S. v. Oregon, and the consul- ing salmon populations throughout the basin— tations conducted by the National Marine Fisheries efforts that were mandated under U.S. v. Oregon, Service (NMFS) under the Endangered Species Act the Pacific Salmon Treaty and the NPPC’s Fish and (ESA). Wildlife Program. However, scientific research 2 indicates now that numerous non-listed populations in Volume I of Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit, offer will be lost unless protection and restoration efforts the best scientific knowledge available on the use are begun immediately in every Columbia Basin of habitat protection and fish restoration in each tributary. watershed. Further, the plans are based upon a thor- ough technical evaluation of habitat conditions and Since the passage of the Northwest Power Act in proper broodstock sources for supplementation 1980, the basin’s treaty fishing tribes have worked where appropriate. with their neighbors in certain watersheds to restore fisheries for the benefit and enjoyment of all users. But they are not cast in concrete. Instead the plans that follow are intended to engage our neighbors in In the Umatilla, the Confederated Tribes of the the challenge of salmon restoration through cooper- Umatilla Indian Reservation, in cooperation with ative efforts at the watershed and regional level. the State of Oregon and local irrigators, implement- Such cooperative efforts guiding state and federal ed a program of habitat improvement and outplant- government actions are preferable to mandated pro- ing of appropriate stocks that returned chinook grams arising from lawsuits and court orders or salmon and coho to the river for the first time in from state capitals and national offices in seventy years. Washington, D.C. In the Imnaha, a tributary of the Snake, the Nez Federal, state and tribal governments each have a Perce Tribe worked with Wallowa County residents role to play in Columbia Basin salmon restoration to maintain a program for habitat protection and based upon each sovereign’s specific authorities and artificial propagation that, in 1992 and 1993, functions. Through the U.S. v. Oregon process, the resulted in a ten-fold increase in adult spring chi- three classes of sovereign governments learned to nook returns, then the only increasing trend for resolve disputes by defining and answering technical spring chinook in the Snake above eight dams. questions in a manner that provided a firm basis on In the Yakima, the Yakama Indian Nation secured which policy representatives could then find solu- federal legislation to provide enhancement of water tions. We believe these same methods can be applied quantity as a means to implement an ambitious pro- at both the regional and watershed levels so that gram of salmon restoration that has been in the restoration proceeds on a cooperative basis, thereby NPPC’s Fish and Wildlife Program since 1982. avoiding mandated solutions from one government In the Hood River, the Confederated Tribes of the or another. Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon are working The watersheds of the basin are both the biological closely with the Oregon Department of Fish and and social neighborhoods in which we live. During Wildlife and with local interests to rebuild spring the next twelve months, we call upon the stake- chinook and steelhead through a program of habitat holders of each watershed to comment upon these improvement and supplementation of natural pro- proposals and meet with us in a spirit of neighborly duction. cooperation to address salmon restoration. The plans that follow are our tribal proposals to pro- Institutions such as local governments, municipal tect or restore salmon populations in each tributary and public utility districts, schools and irrigation above Bonneville Dam through the implementation districts are key players in this effort and their of detailed subbasin actions that address both habi- review is especially important. tat protection and fish production. These subbasin We call upon state and federal government agencies plans are a refinement of the plans completed by the to assist this effort by supplying technical and fishery agencies and tribes in 1990—plans that financial resources and by constructively participat- defined watershed habitat and production problems ing, along with tribal representatives, in watershed and proposed remedies. They represent the cultur- approaches. Certain activities are already under al and geographic knowledge of our tribes and, in way: Oregon, Idaho and Washington are undertak- combination with the life cycle survival frame- ing various watershed health initiatives under state work, scientific hypotheses and recommendations authorities. In its most recent Fish and Wildlife 3 Program amendments, the NPPC, whose members development policies. For the Sake of the Salmon, a are appointed by state governors, called for BPA to cooperative state, federal, tribal project, is an impor- fund and fish managers to develop emergency pro- tant coastwide Pacific salmon restoration initiative. duction and habitat actions to protect adult spawn- We are calling for a moratorium on salmon postur- ers in 1995 and 1996. The four Columbia River ing and an end to the impasse that has marked tribes and the Shoshone Bannock tribe together salmon restoration since the listing of Snake River with the Earth Conservation Corps and the U.S. stocks in 1991. From the tribal perspective, the Department of Energy are putting young people to progress that marked salmon rebuilding efforts that work fencing off riparian habitat, restoring stream- began in the mid- 1970s was halted as interests sus- bank vegetation and related projects as a part of pended constructive dialogue.