The Skokomish Tribe’s enduring fight to protect their culture, wildlife, and local watersheds
Indian tribes have always inhabited the watersheds of western Washington. Their cultures have been based on harvesting fish, wildlife, and other natural resources in the region. In the mid-1850s, when the US government wanted to make Washington a state, a series of treaties were negotiated with tribes in the region. Through the treaties, the tribes gave up most of their land, but also reserved certain rights to protect their way of life, such as the right to fish:
“The right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians, in common with all citizens of the United States; and of erecting temporary houses for the purposes of curing; together with the privilege of hunting on open and unclaimed lands. Provided, however, that they shall not take shell-fish from any beds staked or cultivated by citizens.”– Treaty of Point No Point, January 26, 1855
The promises of the treaties were quickly broken as the tribes were systematically denied their treaty-protected rights by the State of Washington. The struggle to obtain recognition of those rights climaxed in the “Fish Wars” of the late 1960s and early 1970s when tribal members were arrested and jailed for fishing in defiance of state law.
As the tribes’ trustee, the federal government moved to protect tribal treaty rights by filing the U.S. v. Washington litigation that led to the landmark 1974 ruling by Judge George Boldt. This court decision upheld tribal, treaty-reserved rights and established the tribes as co-managers of the fishing resource with the state of Washington. Later sub-proceedings extended the ruling to include shellfish.
The Skokomish Tribe suffered greatly from the loss and damage of the local river system, natural resources, and salmon — which are a basis of tribal culture. A pair of fish-blocking dams, extensive forest clear cuts, and lower river diking to protect farmland, combined with other factors over time, have nearly choked the life from the river that was once the largest salmon producer in Hood Canal.
The Tribe fought valiantly to oppose the massive Cushman hydroelectric project, but their opposition and treaty-reserved fishing rights were usurped when Tacoma Power completed the first dam in 1926. A second dam built in 1930 took all of the water from the river’s North Fork to generate electricity. Despite being required by state law, neither dam was equipped with fish ladders to provide salmon passage.
The George Adams Hatchery was built in 1962 as mitigation for the dams. The hatchery was funded by Tacoma Public Utilities and operated by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The facility is named for the driving force behind its creation. Adams was a Skokomish tribal member who served the state legislature for more than 40 years beginning in 1939.
The Tribe continued its strong opposition to the dams until reaching a 2009 lawsuit settlement with Tacoma Power. While the two Cushman dams will not be coming down any time soon, the Tribe and Tacoma Power are using proceeds from the settlement to restore much of the watershed’s natural functions from its headwaters in Olympic National Park to its estuary at the river’s mouth.
Along with providing increased water flows and a tram system to aid fish passage around the dams, the tribe and Tacoma Power are using the settlement funds to restore salmon populations decimated by the dams. Two hatcheries have been constructed that will help restore sockeye, spring chinook, coho, steelhead and rainbow trout to the river system. Sockeye, which were highly valued by the tribe, disappeared from the system when denied access to a natural lake that had sustained the fish for millennia. Fossil records show sockeye had been present in the river system at least one million years ago.
Today, the Skokomish Tribe is restoring many of the natural functions of the Skokomish River after more than 100 years of damage from just about every human activity that can harm a river system. A combination of federal, state, and local funding has been critical to restoration to achieve the outcomes the Tribe is beginning to see today.
