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November 3, 2005: B.C. natives want salmon back in Columbia River

B.C.

B.C. natives want salmon back in Columbia River

IJC asked to determine U.S. responsibility for restoring Ktunaxa's lost fishing rights

By MARK HUME

Wednesday, November 2, 2005

GLOBE AND MAIL

VANCOUVER -- Three years before Laura McCoy was born into the Ktunaxa First Nation in southeastern British Columbia, the U.S. government completed the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in central Washington, changing her people's way of life dramatically.

Now, 64 years after the biggest dam in North America cut off salmon runs migrating into Canada -- which sustained a Ktunaxa fishery that existed for 10,000 years -- the International Joint Commission, an agency set up to arbitrate cross-border water issues, is being asked to consider whether U.S. authorities should be responsible for restoring Ms. McCoy's lost fishing rights.

In submissions to the IJC, the Canadian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission and West Coast Environmental Law, a non-profit organization, have asked that salmon be restored to the Upper Columbia. The river flows 1,700 kilometres through B.C., entering Washington State south of Trail.

The Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission states that up to 75,000 chinook, 55,000 sockeye and 112,000 steelhead were estimated to have been harvested by the Ktunaxa before the dam was built.

But after the construction of the massive dam, which became the largest concrete structure in North America, salmon runs into the Canadian portion of the Columbia River dropped to zero.

That meant Ms. McCoy, now 61, became part of the first generation of Ktunaxa to grow up without being able to fish for salmon in the Columbia.

"We have a group of elders that meets regularly. Some of them remember when the salmon came. But not too many," Ms. McCoy said yesterday from Cranbrook. "One lady remembers when her family used to go down to get salmon. Then they stopped going. She asked why and they told her: 'The salmon aren't there any more.' "

Ms. McCoy said the Ktunaxa were offered compensation by the government.

"I never got to go salmon fishing," she said. "But I remember we used to receive some canned meat because of that. Just a few cans every year for a while. It wasn't even salmon."

Bill Green, a biologist and director of the Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission, said the Ktunaxa have been working for decades on a strategy to persuade the U.S. to restore salmon runs.

He said the Ktunaxa had a research project throughout the 1990s, which involved examining legal issues and devising a strategy. That resulted, in 2003, in a letter asking the IJC to review a 1941 U.S. document, known as an approval order, that outlined conditions for constructing and operating the Grand Coulee Dam and reservoir.

After that request, the IJC sought responses, and this week West Coast Environmental Law filed submissions in support of the Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission.

West Coast lawyer Andrew Gage said the 1941 approval order requires "the protection and indemnification of the Province of British Columbia or of any private or municipal corporation or citizen . . . [from] sustained damage on account of the raising of the natural levels of the Columbia River at and above the international boundary."

Mr. Gage said the order does not set any time limit, and the Ktunaxa claim should be just as valid now as if it had been filed immediately after the dam was built.

"The historical record is clear," states the West Coast Law submission. "The Grand Coulee Dam cut off the escapement of anadromous fish to the Upper Columbia Basin. In so doing, the dam destroyed the fishery of the indigenous peoples of the Upper Columbia who had historically depended upon that anadromous fishery for subsistence, livelihood and cultural purposes."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051102/SALMON02/TPNational/Canada

Topic(s): Fist Nations News, Ocean News, policy news, Water News, Wildlife News

Posted By ECOBC

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