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Dams of the Columbia Basin & Their Effects on the Native Fishery
Priest Rapids Dam. Courtesy of Grant County Public Utility District
It is the water of life, our water, and it flows now on the dry land across the river in our old horse range. The White Man has torn deep gashes in the Mother Earth, making her bleed. There is nothing we can do about it, nothing. Perhaps there is nothing we should want to do. Perhaps the Watcher wants it that way, because the earth freely offers her gifts to be shared with everyone.
-- Puck Hyah Toot, Wanapum, on the building of Priest Rapids Dam
Priest Rapids Dam: First dam on the Columbia River above the confluence of the Snake River, at mile marker 397.1, completed in 1959, concrete gravity type, hydroelectric PUD owned.
Wanapum Dam. Courtesy of Grant County Public Utility District
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Wanapum tule mat village at Priest Rapids. Courtesy of the Washington State University Archives |
We are a small group of people that never left the area because of the sacredness that these hills and this water have to us. The Wanapums have always maintained their life with the land and we believe we have to live with each and every thing that was put here. |
The license for Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams held by the Grant County Public Utility District expires in 2005. In May 2000, the Yakama Nation requested permission from federal regulators to file a competing license application which, if granted, would allow the Yakama to operate the dams and market their power. The Yakamas promise to run the projects in such a way as to minimize their impact on salmon returning to their spawning grounds on the Hanford Reach.
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