Feds acknowledge dams had ‘devasting impact’ on Pacific Northwest tribes
The Biden-Harris administration has released a report detailing the negative impacts that federal Columbia River dams have had, past and present, on tribal communities in the Pacific Northwest.
The report, part of the Interior Department’s efforts to support tribally led salmon restoration in the Columbia River Basin, is the first comprehensive federal documentation of the harms these dams have inflicted on eight tribal nations in the Pacific Northwest.
The dams have blocked fish migration, flooded sacred lands and transformed ecosystems, resulting in profound losses for tribal communities who have historically relied on salmon and other fish for both sustenance and cultural practices.
“Since time immemorial, Tribes along the Columbia River and its tributaries have relied on Pacific salmon, steelhead and other native fish species for sustenance and their cultural and spiritual ways of life,” Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
“Acknowledging the devastating impact of federal hydropower dams on Tribal communities is essential to our efforts to heal and ensure that salmon are restored to their ancestral waters.”
The report includes recommendations to help the federal government fulfill its trust responsibilities and ensure a healthy Columbia River Basin for future generations: first to recognize and address the unique hardships tribes have faced because of federal dam construction in conducting future environmental reviews; to pursue joint stewardship and management agreements with tribes; to continue work to restore and unite fractured homelands, and to incorporate Indigenous knowledge in environmental decision-making.
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It’s been decades of questions re: Indian boarding schools that operated in the 19 & 20th centuries & the tragic impact they had on students. @TomColeOK04 is determined to get answers via the Truth & Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act.@RepKiley discusses: pic.twitter.com/UTtsLLFroW
— House Committee on Education & the Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) June 13, 2024
Truth and Healing bill advances in House
The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act of 2024 has passed markup in the House Education and Workforce Committee, a key step along the path to full passage.
HR 7227, a companion bill to S. 1723 which is sponsored by U.S. Reps. Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk and a Democrat from Kansas, and Tom Cole, Chickasaw and a Republican from Oklahoma, would create a six-year commission to investigate the federal Indian boarding school system beyond what the Interior Department’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.
The commission would be tasked with gathering records from local, state and religious institutions and taking testimony from survivors, tribes and descendants. It would also locate and identify Native children’s graves and document the ongoing impact of the boarding school system on tribes and survivors.
"I would not be here if not for the resilience of my ancestors and those who came before me, including my grandparents, who are survivors of federal Indian Boarding Schools,” said Davids, who co-chairs the Congressional Native American Caucus, said in a statement. “I am glad my colleagues came together today to advance the establishment of a Truth and Healing Commission, bringing survivors, federal partners, and Tribal leaders to the table to fully investigate what happened to our relatives and work towards a brighter path for the next seven generations.”
In a separate statement Cole said he is committed to investigating the abuses of the boarding school era.
“This Commission will hopefully bring these communities one step closer to healing and peace for themselves, their families, and future generations,” he said.
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Smoke plumes from the South Fork Fire rise above the tree line as the fire progresses from the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation to the Lincoln National Forest causing mandatory evacuations in Ruidoso, New Mexico, U.S. June 17, 2024. REUTERS/Kaylee Greenlee Beal
Tribe opens its doors to community displaced by wildfires
The Mescalero Apache Tribe in south-central New Mexico this week declared a state of emergency after two wildfires broke out Monday on the northeast corner of their reservation.
Flames quickly spread to the village of Ruidoso and the city of Ruidoso Downs, prompting thousands of mandatory evacuations.
Residents of the Mescalero Apache Reservation rest while sheltering at the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort in Ruidoso, N.M., Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Thousands have fled their homes as a wildfire swept into Ruidoso in southern New Mexico. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)
The tribe designated two sites for both tribal and non-tribal evacuees in the area and received a strong response to appeals for donations.
“We are extremely grateful for the willingness of our tribal members, neighboring towns and villages, community groups/organizations and complete strangers for the donations being dropped off at these sites,” the tribe noted on its Facebook page.
So far, the fire has claimed two known lives, burned 9,300 hectares of combined tribal and non-tribal land, and destroyed 1,400 buildings, 500 of them residential.
Photo shows a derailed BNSF train on the Swinomish Reservation near Anacortes, Wash. on March 16, 2023. A federal judge on Monday, June 17, 2024, ordered BNSF to pay the tribe $400 million for intentionally trespassing on the reservation. (Washington Department of Ecology via AP)
Railway fined whopping $400 million for trespassing on Native land
A U.S. District Court judge on Monday ordered the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway, or BNSF, to pay the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community in Washington State just under $400 million for intentionally trespassing on their reservation.
A 1991 easement agreement allowed BNSF to run 25 train cars each direction per day and required BNSF to disclose the “nature and identity of all cargo.”
The tribe says in 2012, “unit trains” of 100 railcars or more were crossing the reservation, and by 2015, BNSF was running six 100-car “unit trains” per week across the reservation to a nearby refinery.
This resulted in significant profits, with revenues from the trespassing cars totaling about $900 million. During a recent four-day bench trial, both parties provided expert testimony on how to calculate the proportion of these profits that should be paid to the tribe.
“We know that this is a large amount of money. But that just reflects the enormous wrongful profits that BNSF gained by using the Tribe’s land day after day, week after week, year after year over our objections,” said Swinomish tribal chairman Steve Edwards. “When there are these kinds of profits to be gained, the only way to deter future wrongdoing is to do exactly what the court did today – make the trespasser give up the money it gained by trespassing.”
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