Salmon, tribal sovereignty, and energy collide as US abandons Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement todayheadline

Earlier this month, the Trump administration pulled the federal government out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement — a deal struck in 2023 by the Biden administration between two states and four Indigenous nations aimed at restoring salmon populations and paving a way to remove four hydroelectric dams along the river system. The move is likely to revive decades-old lawsuits and further endanger already struggling salmon populations.

But hydroelectric producers in Washington and Oregon have hailed the administration’s decision, citing an increased demand for energy driven primarily by data centers for AI and cryptocurrency operations. 

“Washington state has said it’s going to need to double the amount of electricity it uses by 2050,” said Kurt Miller, head of the Northwest Public Power Association representing 150 local utility companies. “And they released that before we started to see the really big data center forecast numbers.” 

Indigenous nations, however, say ending the agreement undermines treaty rights. Through the 1855 treaty between the United States and the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and what is now the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, Indigenous nations ceded 12 million acres of land to the federal government in exchange for several provisions, including the right to hunt, gather, and fish their traditional homelands. But in the 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of hydroelectric dams along the Lower Snake River — a tributary of the Columbia River — that had immediate impacts on salmon runs, sending steelhead and Chinook populations into a tailspin. 

That drop in salmon, the tribes have argued, violates the fishing clause of the 1855 treaty. 

“It’s a contract right. They’re not a special public interest or private right or anything else. [The tribes] deserve to have, and demand to be, respected,” said Daniel Cordalis, a water rights attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. “They’re just not.” 

After decades of lawsuits filed by the affected tribes, the 2023 Columbia Basin Agreement put a pause on litigation and opened up possibilities for salmon restoration and the possibility of removing the dams along the Snake River. With the Trump administration pulling out of the agreement, parties are back to where they started. 

“The federal government’s historic river management approach is unsustainable and will lead to salmon extinction,” said Yakama Tribal Council Chairman Gerald Lewis. “This termination will severely disrupt vital fisheries restoration efforts, eliminate certainty for hydro operations, and likely result in increased energy costs and regional instability.”

To date, fish hatcheries have struggled to produce enough salmon and steelhead to meet recovery goals. The restoration efforts have been paid for by the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal agency responsible for maintaining the dams and marketing the power generated from 31 dams along the river system to local utilities. For the last decade, data collected by monitors such as the Fish Passage Center, a federal agency, has shown the Columbia River system’s average water temperature rising to temperatures that endanger salmon.

“For as long as these dams remain in place, the fish will continue to be threatened and endangered,” said Eric Crawford, Trout Unlimited’s Snake River director.

A 2022 report by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, recommended dam removal as the best method to save salmon. In a Public Power Council statement, representing hydropower systems in the U.S, claimed operating costs for fish and wildlife mitigation comprise one-third of the bill to utility customers. 

But Kurt Miller of the Northwest Public Power Association welcomed the Trump administration’s decision, saying that utility companies had been left out of the conversations that led to the agreement. That, coupled with an expected rise in electricity demand due to the construction of data centers and the Trump administration’s goal to “unleash” American energy, is likely to take precedence over salmon recovery efforts and legal contracts struck between Indigenous nations and the federal government. 

“We have rights and interests that go through the whole United States,” said Daniel Cordalis. “We should be heard, we should be consulted, and we should be represented on all those interests too, not when convenient.”