Day 4

Mr. Arnett

Day 4

            Today we visited the law office of Howard Arnett at Karnopp Petersen LLP. Mr. Arnett has been a lawyer since 1979 focusing on Tribal laws that need representation against government encroachment. Some issues that conflicted with tribal treaties and government projects include building hydroelectric dams on rivers including Deschutes river acts as a boundary line for the Warm Springs Reservation. The very middle of the river divides reservation from state jurisdiction but natives have the “reserved rights to fish and pick wild berries” as signed in treaties that were signed by the tribe’s forefathers. 

            Mr. Arnett has fought for and counseled for the tribe for many years. Making sure that the state of Oregon recognizes the Warm Springs Reservation is a confederated tribe that have their government that upholds their laws and way of life that signed by treaty. Mr. Arnett played a slideshow of how the tribe operated and relied heavily on fishing and trade. Since the dams were built on Columbia River and Deschutes River, Salmon population was impacted creating problems for the fish to reach the ocean and re-enter to spawn. The new changes to the watershed was not supposed to change salmon habits but their habitat was largely impacted. Now the Warm Springs Tribe is one of two tribes in the nation buying out the hydroelectric providers. Portland General Electric will soon be owned and run by the tribe in order to preserve salmon for future generations.

            In course to protecting salmon, the Selective Water Withdrawal Tower was built to attract young fish to the tower. The tower is at the base of the dam where the river splits into two which before caused confusion with juvenile fish searching for the ocean. As they gather and they are harvested in large amounts and put into trucks to be release many miles down the river to enter the ocean. The cost of the tower was a 90 million dollar investment paid by the dams. The tower is one of a kind anywhere around the world has been a success since it being built in 2010.