This article was created for Propublica’s local reporting network in collaboration with Oregon’s public broadcasting. Sign up for Dispatch to get stories in your inbox every week.
Less than two years later, President Joe Biden’s administration announced what tribal leaders were welcomed as an unprecedented commitment to native tribes whose lives were devastated by the construction of federal dams along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.
The deal, which took two years to negotiate, has halted decades of lawsuits that have caused harm to the salmon that have supported those tribes culturally and economically for thousands of years. The government has pledged to invest billions of dollars in alternative energy sources created by the tribes to allow for the removal of four hydroelectric dams considered particularly harmful to salmon.
It was a surprising step following repeated failures to support the tribal fishing rights sworn in a treaty preserved by the government.
The contract is now another of these broken promises.
President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday, pulling the federal government out of the contract. Trump’s decision showed that it has halted government-wide initiatives to restore abundant salmon runs on the Columbia and Snake rivers and ended the government’s willingness to consider removing dams that block free flow.
Thursday’s move was immediately condemned by tribes and environmental groups that fought to protect the salmon.
“The administration’s decision to end these commitments reflects the historical pattern of federal government’s broken promises to tribes,” Jakamanation Tribal Council Chairman Geraldruis said in a statement. “This termination could significantly disrupt critical fisheries’ recovery efforts, eliminate certainty for hydro-operation, and lead to increased energy costs and local instability.”
However, the government’s commitment to the tribe was largely elucidated from the time the deal was inked.
The important provisions were already suffering under Biden. After President Trump won the presidency, his administration spiked most of the research sought in the contract, hugging millions of dollars in fundraising, cutting down most of the staff who work to implement the salmon recovery. Biden’s promise to seriously consider removing the dam gained little traction before it was replaced by what Trump’s energy secretary Chris Wright called “passionate support.”
The White House Task Force chair will implement an agreement to enforce the contract in April for what he saw as Trump’s efforts to eliminate almost everything he was working on.
“The federal agency that was in Hook to do the job was destroyed through non-targeted, inefficient and costly purges of federal employees,” former Columbia River Task Force Chairman Nick Brosser told Propublica and OPB. “When I left, most of the things were on hold or suspended. Even signed contracts were on hold. This is a dishonorable thing.”
Trump’s White House announcement called the Biden administration’s commitment “a hassle,” and said the president “continues to provide a promise to end the previous administration’s false priorities and protect Americans’ livelihoods.”
“President Trump is committed to unleashing control of America’s energy and reverse all enforcement actions that put an undue strain on the production and use of energy,” the announcement reads.
However, the decision can have unintended consequences, experts say.
Trump signed an executive order in April to “restore the competitiveness of American seafood,” but by rescinding the Columbia River Agreement, he cancelled millions of dollars to support a program that sows the ocean to catch fish. He signed another executive order on his first day in office to “unleash American energy control,” but now he overturns the commitments made under the Biden Salmon trade and builds the domestic energy source. This week’s lawsuit has brought the federal agency back to court. There, judges repeatedly tied up electricity production at hydroelectric dams due to the impact on endangered fish.
“It’s fascinating to make lengthy comments on the absurdity of the president’s orders, including the fact that what he wants – the stability of electricity generation – is actually put more at risk by this action,” Blosser wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Instead, I look for inspiration for powerful salmon. They don’t stop swimming upstream when they reach the waterfall.”
Return to court
Before beginning negotiations for the Columbia River Basin Agreement in 2021, federal agencies had lost courtrooms in hydroelectric systems for more than 20 years. The judge ordered the federal government to use less water to make electricity, instead spilling more rivers on dam locks, allowing fish to ride in the past more safely.
Agreements with states and tribes are guaranteed up to 10 years without these cases. Trump canceled it.
The Bonneville Power Agency, which sells hydroelectric power from federal dams, took more risks than other agencies in the transaction. When the government signed, Bonneville administrator John Hairston said “we provided operational certainty and reliability while avoiding costly and unpredictable litigation to support our mission to provide reliable and affordable power sources for the Pacific Northwest.”
In its latest annual report, Bonneville granted the agreement that it gave it the flexibility to increase hydroelectric production during periods of high electricity demand, staving back losses in otherwise difficult fiscal years.
The main components of the contract were the reliance on local hydropower and the approval of the need to build new energy sources before dams were removed. No guarantees for the removal of the dam were provided.
The Biden White House had pledged to help tribes develop sufficient renewable energy sources to replace the produce of the four dams on the Snake River. The administration also planned an analysis of how to meet local energy needs without sacrificing salmon.
The Biden administration never lasted. Even the already ongoing tribal-backed energy projects have hit a bureaucratic quagmire. When Trump took office and cut thousands of jobs from the Energy Department, his commitment to a new source of energy also died.
Supporters of the Columbia River Dam, which includes public utility utilities that purchase federal hydroelectric power, criticized the Biden administration for removing them from negotiations that led to the agreement.
Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from central Washington, said in a statement Thursday that he “pleads the President (Trump) for his decisive action to protect the dam.” He said the Biden administration and “extreme environmental activists” threatened the reliability of the power grid and raised energy prices with the removal of the dam.
But even critics of the Biden deal have admitted that they don’t want the issue to return to courts where the judge’s orders pushed the power rate. If Bonneville can’t generate that much hydroelectric power to sell, but still have to pay for hatching and salmon habitat modifications, you’ll need to charge more utilities for electricity.
“We’re a scientist who is a scientist in the federal government’s hydropower purchasing utilities,” said Scott Sims, executive director of Public Power Council, a nonprofit organization representing federal hydropower purchasing utilities.
Amanda Goodin, who represents the environmental advocate who signed the agreement, said the actions of the Trump administration would force a return to court.
“The contract formed the basis for the stay in the litigation,” Goodin said, “Without the contract there is no more basis for the stay.”
More fish will die
The White House said Trump’s cancellation of the Columbia River deal “continues to prioritize the use of natural resources to reduce the cost of living for all Americans over our country’s energy infrastructure and speculative climate change concerns.”
Nez Perce Tribe Chairman Shannon Wheeler said the damage to the Columbia River was not speculative.
“This action is trying to hide from the truth,” Wheeler said in a statement. “The Nez Perth tribes are obligated to tell the truth about salmon. The truth is that extinction of salmon populations is happening now.”
The Snake River, a wild salmon population in Colombia and its largest tributary, has been extremely sparse for decades, and commercial, recreational and tribal self-sufficient fishing is only possible for fish hatching sites.
In a few years, an estimated half of the commercial fishermen of Chinook salmon in southeastern Alaska are from hatching sites on the Columbia River, making them important to “restore the competitiveness of American seafood” as Trump aimed to.
However, some hatching sites on the Columbia River are almost a century ago. Others are so badly underfunded that equipment breakdowns have killed thousands of baby fish.
As previously reported by Propublica and Opb, the number of hatch salmon surviving into adulthood is so low that hatch salmon are struggling to gather enough fish to breed, putting future fishing seasons at risk.
The Biden administration has pledged about $500 million to improve hatching sites in the northwest. His administration didn’t deliver it, and Trump stopped all the funds before finally canceling them with this week’s order.
A salmon hydroelectric dam that kills the Willamette River in Oregon. Congress says it’s time to consider shutting them down.
Mary Lou Socia, former Columbia River coordinator at the Environmental Protection Agency, said the dismantling of the administration’s salmon recovery program would result in “slashing the nose to stay still.”
“We’ve lost decades of accomplishments,” said Socia, who spent more than 30 years at the agency.
“More fish will die when fish managers are not there to make real-time river decisions,” she said. “Or, there’s no funding and more fish die, so the fork repair work takes much longer for the time to happen.”
