BPA TURNS 75 A LOOK BACK AND A LOOK AHEAD
Voices Heard
Jody Calica, Warm Springs The first gift was water, giver of all life.
Second, was the fish.
Ron Suppah, Warm Springs The Indian remember how much fish was in the
river.
Debora Whitefoot/Yakama Nation Member: Water is a big thing, as Native Americans.
Margie Schaff/Partner Schaff & Clark-Deschene, LLC
The hydroelectric system benefited everyone.
Debora Whitefoot/Yakama Nation Member: Everyone needs electricity.
Margie Schaff/Partner Schaff & Clark-Deschene, LLC
But it really had a negative impact on the tribes, on their cultures and on their livelihoods.
Jody Calica, Warm Springs Our people have been here up to 40,000 years.
Since time immemorial, we put everything aside, renewed family ties, family histories, sense
of spirituality, sense of worship.
[ ] and that’s how we build relationships and interest in the local community.
Direlle Calica, Warm Springs The fishery at Celilo was the biggest of the
year.
Katie Barber, Author of Death of Celilo Falls But ultimately what supported that kind of
gathering, annual gathering, was the fishing that was happening there and that fish filtered
out throughout the region and fed thousands and thousands and thousands of people for
generations.
John Platt, CRITFC Advisor Those fish when they spawn bring tremendous
marine nutrient back to those ecosystems.
Roy Sampsel, Institute for Tribal Government, Portland State University
What a magnificent story of life and creation that is.
Insert from TV Clip [TRYING TO LOCATE A DIFFERENT SELECTION] “A great and historic site on
the Columbia had vanished.
The Indians with their long braids and black wide brimmed hats solemnly watched their ancient
fishing grounds at Celilo falls slowly disappear under the water.”
Direlle Calica, Warm Springs I don’t think anybody quite comprehended
changes that were going to take place on the river…
Steve Wright, BPA CEO and Administrator It’s hard for us as non-tribal members to
truly understand how important fish and wildlife are to the tribal culture and to them as people.
.
Jody Calica, Warm Springs We weren’t place bound, we had this more
dynamic interraltionship that we need to respect and renew.
Ron Suppah, Warm Springs We had to be good stewards or good managers
of all those things the creator gave us.
Direlle Calica, Warm Springs Science went into how we lived and operated
our culture and communicates.
John Platt, CRITFC Advisor Tribes pay homage to the way that our natural
systems work.
Bill Drummond, Deputy BPA Administrator The Impact of the dams was huge.
Bill Willingham, Army Corps of Engineers Consulting Historian
The problem was much more complex than was initially understood.
Katie Barber, Author of Death of Celilo Falls We have fish ladders so that fish can go up
the river, coming down the stream was another problem.
Roy Sampsel, Institute for Tribal Government, Portland State University
We had periods of time when there weren’t enough fish to hardly fish at all.
---MUSICAL TRANSISION
Terry Goudy-Rambler, Yakama Nation I’d like to thank each and everyone of you
for being here today to witness a historical moment.
Col. Steven Miles, Army Corps of Engineers We are proud to join the tribes and the states
in this public commitment here today.
Steve Wright, BPA CEO and Administrator We believe in addressing the whole ecosystem
in a holistic approach and that includes hydro system operations, habitat restoration and
the appropriate use of hatcheries.
Kat Bringham, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Our natural resources are going to work together
to rebuild our future.
Steve Wright, BPA CEO and Administrator We are working together to try to restore
fish and wildlife in a fashion that is consistent with the tribes values.
John Platt, CRITFC Advisor They have thousands and thousands and thousands
of years of experience working with these resources on this land.
Chuck Hudson, CTRIFC The tribes over the years have amassed one
of the most effective fisheries management forces in the world.
Hunter Osborne, Shoshone Bannock This is Spring Creek -- our largest scale
habitat restoration project that we’ve done to date.
Ron Suppah, Warm Springs If you take a look at how the scale looks
from 1996 to 2011, you’ll notice that the fish count has gradually escalated over that
period, it has gone up and risen.
Jody Calica, Warm Springs In our lifetime we have seen four or fix six
year old fish coming back to the Sherar’s falls area.
We used to catch those at Celilo.
Steve Wright, BPA CEO and Administrator And so we try to stay focused on this each
and every day about what kinds of things that we’re doing and how it might land in the
tribal world.
John Platt, CRITFC Advisor Bonneville is listening, and many other people
in this region are listening to what the tribes have to say about salmon.
Katie Barber, Author of Death of Celilo Falls I think in a lot of ways our identity to the
region is tied to those efforts.
Roy Sampsel, Institute for Tribal Government, Portland State University
The production, the productivity of those runs are beginning to come back.
Bill Drummond, Deputy BPA Administrator We’ve made tremendous strides.
Steve Wright, BPA CEO and Administrator Things feel very different than they used
to feel.
Roy Sampsel, Institute for Tribal Government, Portland State University
We are not here for a minute or two.
Jody Calica, Warm Springs We’ve gotta manage for seven generations
and the future.
Ron Suppah, Warm Springs We should stay the course.
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