Tuesday February 27, 2024
Hermiston Herald —
The governors of Washington and Oregon and four American Indian tribal leaders gathered Friday, Feb. 23, at the White House to celebrate last year’s agreement to avoid litigation over dams in the Columbia River Basin.
The agreement, which was announced in December and resulted from years of negotiation among the states, tribes in the region, environmental groups and federal agencies, established a path to reviving the area’s salmon and steelhead populations and called for a 10-year pause in legal fighting.
The governors, tribal leaders and a handful of administration officials held a White House signing ceremony, though the deal has been in effect since the parties signed a memorandum of agreement in December 2023.
Representing the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation were board of trustees member Corinne Sams and Garrett Brown of the tribes’ Office of Legal Counsel.