News Release
| Release Number: | 97-035 |
| Dated: | 3/24/1997 |
| Contact: | Public Affairs Office, 503-808-4510 |
Portland, Ore.-- The first four of 26 authorized treaty fishing sites on the Columbia River are completed, the Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, announced today.
The fishing sites replace traditional fishing areas flooded when Bonneville Dam was built in the 1930s. The four sites (at the Bonneville site on the Washington shore of the Columbia River just upstream of Bonneville Dam; at Underwood, Washington; near Cascade Locks, Ore.; and at Lone Pine near The Dalles, Ore.) were turned over to the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on Jan. 30, 1997.
The four are the first to be improved under a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the BIA and the Corps in June 1995. That Memorandum includes the transfer of all completed sites to the BIA, and their agreement to operate and maintain the sites in the future. The BIA has assumed management responsibility for the facilities and will take over law enforcement on the Bonneville site this spring.
The fishing sites have cultural, religious and economic importance to Native Americans. The government agreed to provide 400 acres of river access in-lieu of traditional sites inundated when Bonneville was constructed.
Rights to the land date back to treaties signed in 1855 in which the tribes established rights to access and fishing on the Columbia River and its tributaries. Four tribes are legally entitled to the sites through those original treaty rights and a 1988 Act of Congress, Public Law 100-581, Title IV, Columbia River Treaty Fishing Access Sites. Those tribes are: the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Warm Springs, Ore.; Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation, Toppenish, Wash.; the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Pendleton, Ore.; and the Nez Perce Tribe, Lapwai, Idaho.
All 26 sites will be constructed by the Corps between 1996 and 2005 at a total estimated cost of $67 million. Site improvements include access roads, boat ramps, docks, sanitation and water facilities, camping areas and landscaping. As improvements are completed, individual sites will transfer to the BIA.
Native American contractors build the sites under contract to the Corps. The work on the first four sites was completed on schedule and within budget. Work on the next contract, for five sites, will begin in summer 1997 and is scheduled to be completed in fall 1998.
Because Native Americans depend on fishing for their livelihood, the public will not be allowed to use the sites for recreation once they are transferred. Sport fishing should not be impaired on the river, however, because some recreation sites currently being used by the tribes will be less crowded for the general public.