The Dam: Compensation

Horseshoe Falls (part of Celilo) was one of the most photographed and fished areas of the mid-Columbia. Celilo Falls and the Long Narrows consisted of about nine miles of what one historian called the best fishing sites in North America. Courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Congress charged the Army Corps of Engineers with negotiating a suitable settlement with the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs, Nez Perce and unenrolled Indians affected by The Dalles Dam. The Corps decided not to offer in-lieu fishing sites as it had with Bonneville Dam (it considered this option too costly and wrought with conflict). Instead the agency offered Indians a financial settlement for the destroyed fishing stations. Fishing rights on the river were not affected by this settlement and remain intact.

Most Indian representatives argued that no amount of money could adequately compensate them for the loss of this important cultural and economic site. After months of meetings, the Army Corps of Engineers and Indian representatives reached a settlement that compensated each Indian a little over $3750. Reservation members voted to accept the settlement package which totaled more than twenty-six million dollars. The money was bitter payment for the site many considered sacred. Chief Tommy Thompson refused to accept the money even after the falls were inundated.

No compensation could be made which would benefit my future generations, the people still to come.
-- Watson Totus during the appropriations hearings for The Dalles Dam, 7 May 1951.

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