The U.S. government on Tuesday acknowledged for the first time the harms that the construction and operation of dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in the Pacific Northwest have caused Native American tribes.
It issued a report that details how the unprecedented structures devastated salmon runs, inundated villages and burial grounds, and continue to severely curtail the tribes’ ability to exercise their treaty fishing rights.
The Biden administration’s report comes amid a $1 billion effort announced earlier this year to restore the region’s salmon runs before more become extinct — and to better partner with the tribes on the actions necessary to make that happen. That includes increasing the production and storage of renewable energy to replace hydropower generation that would be lost if four dams on the lower Snake River are ever breached.
“Sorry we killed most of you in a series of brutal wars and plagues that we started, kicked the survivors out of your countries, systematically erased huge swaths of your culture and heritage, and then made the scraps of land we did give you unusable through mining and water extraction, but stealing your water turns out to be good for an entirely different problem we helped create that will ultimately destroy even more people and land.”
Yeah I don’t know if that checks out. Bad thing still looks bad.