Abstract

One fish, two fish

In March 1957, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepared to close the gates of the Dalles Dam, thereby drowning the great tribal fishery at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, Wyampum Chief Tommy Thompson called on the U.S. Congress to halt the flooding and save his people's salmon. His protest must have seemed quixotic at best to the few whites who even heard it. Meanwhile, broad public concern has been galvanized by Endangered Species Act listings of eight separate stocks of salmon and steel-head conservatives alike viewed proliferating dams as cause for celebration. The politics of dam removal are rocking the region. Biologists agree that many factors, such as indiscriminate logging, careless farming methods and overreliance on hatcheries--contribute to fish decline. But tribal fish experts and nontribal environmental groups alike insist that breaching these four dams on the Columbia's main tributary is an indispensable first step to preventing extinction.