Wednesday, July 15

Today we met with Howard Arnett of Karnopp Peterson LLP Attorneys at Law. Mr. Arnett has been working in Federal Indian Law for 35 years, and has spent much of it representing the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs and their interests in court. He talked to us about one of his most recent projects related to the three dams on the Deschutes River which are partly on the Warm Springs Reservation, and how they intersect with the tribe's treaty rights.

 

The Deschutes River has some unique features which make it particularly good for generating hydroelectric power. It has numerous places where there are fast flows through narrow canyons, providing good, secure places for the dams to be built and strong waters to turn the turbines. In addition, the Deschutes is primarily fed from underground springs rather than snowmelt, which leads to a fairly constant water level throughout the year, ideal for power production.

In order for the Round Butte, Pelton, and Re-regulating Dams to be built, a referendum had to be passed by the Warm Springs voting members. Part of the agreement which allowed the dams to be built included protections for salmon and other anadramous fish, some of which were not followed through on. Part of Mr. Arnett's work has been on getting funds for mitigation projects to return salmon runs to the river. One of these mitigation projects is the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower, otherwise known as the Fish Tower.

Part of what was responsible for the poor salmon runs are the complicated currents in Lake Billy Chinook, due to the confluence of the Crooked, Deschutes, and Metolius Rivers. This made it difficult for the salmon smolts to find their way downstream, and they could not be collected for transportation downstream. The Fish Tower changes the flows to allow salmon smolts to find their way to collection tanks, where they are trucked down below the dams and released. When adult salmon return, they are collected when they reach the re-regulation dam, and released above the Round Butte Dam to travel upriver and into tributaries.

A big, big thank you to Mr. Arnett for inviting us to his office and telling us a little bit about the legal side of natural resource management!