By: John Osborn, Sierra Club Volunteer
On March 1st, join us in Spokane for the 11th Annual Winter Waters celebration of rivers, lakes, and drinking water aquifers, and those who dedicate their lives to protecting them.
Upper Columbia River Group spotlights the Kalispel Tribe’s leadership in protecting Pend Oreille River, working to stop a silicon smelter threatening local communities
Sierra Club is honored to award the 2019 Watershed Hero Award to the Kalispel Tribe of Indians. The Tribe is a recognized civic leader, having donated $17 million during the past two decades through its charitable fund to support environmental leadership endeavors.
From Time Immemorial
The Priest-Pend Oreille country is the ancestral homeland of the Kalispel. Highly regarded for their legacy as canoe travelers, they came to be known as “river paddlers.” It’s this connection to their environment that remains threaded through the generations and sustains their continued environmental advocacy.
In 1855, the Upper Kalispel Tribe were expelled from their lands and forcibly removed to a reservation in Montana. The Lower Kalispel Tribe refused to give up their ancestral lands, but by 1875 the Tribe had been reduced to less than 400 members. White settlers moved onto and claimed Kalispel lands while the Tribe could do nothing to prevent it.
It wasn’t until March 23, 1914, that the United States finally established the Kalispel Tribal Reservation: 4,695 acres. However, living conditions were still difficult. By 1965, the average tribal member’s income was $1,400, and there was only one telephone for the entire Tribe.
With most of the land on the reservation unsuitable for development, the Tribe has created opportunity for tribal members. The Tribe’s resiliency and community cohesiveness have allowed the Kalispel Tribe to confront a difficult and painful history and emerge as a powerful environmental leader, connected to the lands and waters that have sustained them since time immemorial.
Pend Oreille River dams: reducing harms to fish, wildlife
The Kalispel Tribe of Indians have always been a strong and steady voice for protecting habitats for fish and wildlife. This has included work with Seattle City Power and Light in licensing of Boundary Dam to protect and restore resident fisheries in the Pend Oreille watershed.
A major problem for fish is Albeni Falls Dam at the outflow of Lake Pend Oreille. Built in the 1950s, the federal dam disconnected the lake from the river. It destroyed populations of bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout that lived in Lake Pend Oreille and spawned in Pend Oreille River tributaries on and near the Kalispel Reservation. In addition, the Albeni Falls Dam floods wildlife habitat, reduces water quality, and causes eroding shorelines. On behalf of the fish, the Kalispel Tribe has been a consistent voice for adding fish passage at the dam.
In 2012, the Kalispel Tribe entered a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of Reclamation to fund mitigation efforts related to Albeni Falls Dam.
The MOA provides the Tribe with approximately $40 million over 10 years to help meet the federal agencies’ obligations under the Northwest Power Act and Endangered Species Act. The Kalispel Tribe uses this funding to conduct a wide variety of projects to benefit native fish, to improve wildlife habitat, and to acquire lands as mitigation for lost wildlife habitat. The MOA also establishes a partnership between the Tribe and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete an upstream fish passage feasibility study at Albeni Falls Dam.
Protecting public health: challenging the proposed silicon smelter
The Kalispel Tribe has also been steadfast proponents for public health and environmental justice. Recently, they’ve come out against a silicon smelter proposed for Newport that the Washington State government is currently fast-tracking. The plant would pose significant health and environmental risks for the surrounding population due to the region’s frequent periods of stagnant air and inversions.
The silicon smelter is just the latest chapter in a long history of mining and smelting that has left ruinous legacies of pollution in the Upper Columbia River region. In the face of this latest juggernaut coming out of Olympia, the Tribe has stood firm in opposing the smelter.
The Upper Columbia River region is vulnerable. But it is thanks to the tireless advocacy of the Kalispel Tribe that progress has been made in the broader region to protect both human and broader environmental health. Sierra Club acknowledges that the Upper Columbia River tribes have repeatedly been put in positions of shouldering the responsibility in challenging polluting industries and complicit governments, and that we as an organization must strive to continually learn how to best support their efforts.
“Time, vision, patience”
In honoring the Kalispel Tribe of Indians, we also recognize that the journey to protect and restore the Tribe’s homelands is a long journey. Chairman Nenema has noted that, “Many of the things our Tribe has accomplished happened over many years. Things take time, vision and patience, and leaders need consistency in order to make things happen.”
Looking back on two centuries of wrenching change wrought by epidemics, the genocidal forces of Manifest Destiny and looking to the future with the impending consequences of climate change, the Kalispel Tribe has faced - and will continue to face - formidable challenges. Their endurance and courage and during the past two centuries continue to give a voice for the voiceless in this vulnerable region: rivers and forests, fish and wildlife, and the coming generations.
Sierra Club is honored to recognize the Kalispel Tribe with our Watershed Hero 2019 Award.
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Winter Waters Celebration Sponsors:
Upper Columbia United Tribes * Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane * Eymann Allison Hunter Jones PS * William Skylstad, Bishop Emeritus * Columbia Institute for Water Policy * Suzy Dix * Martin Wells & Susan Briehl * Fred Christ * Kathy Dixon & Barbara Rasero * Morton Alexander & Paige Kenney * Tom Soeldner & Linda Finney * John & Joyce Roskelley * John & Rachael Osborn
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Winter Waters 2019 Celebration is jointly hosted by Sierra Club’s Upper Columbia River Group and the Center for Environmental Law & Policy CELP to recognize and honor individuals, tribes, and organizations who have contributed significantly to protecting and restoring the waters of the Upper Columbia River.
When: March 1 (Friday) 6:30 p.m. – 9:30
Where: Spokane – historic Patsy Clark Mansion, 2208 W. 2nd Ave
What: Honoring our heroes – also music, desserts and other small foods, wines
Tickets: $35 per person (purchase on-line or at the door – but please RSVP)
To help with this event and to RSVP contact:
• Tom Soeldner waltsoe@gmail.com (509) 270-6995 or (509) 838-4632
• John Roskelley john@johnroskelley.com (509) 954-5653
• John Osborn john@waterplanet.ws (509) 939-1290
Picture credit: Pend Oreille River: Karen Hedlund