#obligatory acknowledgement of fallibility of socalled rights based approaches and problems of legitimizing colonial courts and laws

[fatehbaz]

Updates on Sauk-Suiattle Tribe and the Skagit River: The owner of the three major dams on the Skagit, Seattle City Light, is currently petitioning the US federal government and moving to extend its operation of these dams for the next 30 to 50 years. This re-licensing would allow Seattle City Light to continue operating for decades in the future, just as they have, without protecting salmon, basically. Almost every other dam in the Pacific Northwest has installed “fish passage infrastructure” which allows migrating salmon and other species to continue traveling along the river course. However, Seattle City Light has not installed the fish passage infrastructure on the Skagit. The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe has repeatedly asked for this installation. So the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe launched a lawsuit against the city of Seattle, with the tribe saying that Seattle is deliberately turning public opinion against Indigenous people while also “greenwashing” its reputation by promoting the city and its dams as “green.”

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The water sustains life here, in spawning grounds and rearing habitat for native salmon and steelhead. But some 20 miles upstream, the Skagit is quiet. It’s been replaced by the soft crackle and hum of high-tension power lines carrying one-fifth of Seattle’s electricity generated by three century-old dams. Almost 40% of the river is locked up for cheap [...] hydropower. Now, as a fight over the river’s future simmers, a question about the value of life itself is being revisited: Does this river have inherent civil rights?

Seattle City Light is moving to extend its use of the dams for another three to five decades, and tribes and other environmental groups have been pushing the utility to do more for salmon.

The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, one of the smallest and poorest in the region, and its one-person legal team asked its own courts to recognize the rights of the salmon. A tribal court struck down the request over jurisdictional concerns, but it brought attention to the way governments, utilities, the legal system and landowners perceive their nonhuman neighbors. [...] The 19-acre Sauk-Suiattle reservation is nestled in the foothills of the North Cascades. It’s bound by mature-growth forests [...] and the Sauk and Suiattle rivers. [...]

“This is where nature is,” said Jack Fiander, a member of the Yakama Nation, and longtime legal counsel for the Sauk-Suiattle tribe. “Where we’re at is sort of like the Amazon is to South America. We’ve got to constantly watch and comment on when somebody wants to harvest timber or something, and it’s getting more and more difficult to protect it.”

When the dams went in the Skagit River, there was no consultation with the people who lived there for generations — the ancestors of the modern day Upper Skagit, Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes and Canadian First Nations, Fiander said.

And the tribes didn’t have the resources then to fight for fish passage.

As the city’s latest re-licensing process ramped up, the Upper Skagit tribe asked for fish passage at the Gorge Dam, the lowest of the three. The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe challenged the electric utility’s “green” power claims, and asked for salmon to have an equal shot at life in the Skagit and its tributaries.

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Headline, photos, captions, and text published by: Isabella Breda. “’Rights of nature’ movement gains steam in Pacific Northwest. Can it help species on the brink?” Seattle Times. 11 February 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

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The Washington State Court of Appeals gave the green light for the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe to proceed in its “greenwashing” litigation against the City of Seattle. In September 2021, the Tribe, based in Darrington, filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging City Light’s claims that it’s the “Nation’s Greenest Utility,” and that its hydro-electric operations on the Skagit River have improved conditions for salmon are misleading and harmful to the tribe. The Tribe said the city couldn’t claim its dams are green because they lack fish passage, like nearly every other dam in the Pacific Northwest. [...]

In the original complaint, the Tribe alleged when Seattle took credit for improving conditions for salmon species on the Skagit, it “wrongfully shifted blame” for dwindling fish populations from the city’s dam operations to the tribes. The “public misperception,” wrote the Tribe, makes them a target of “public ire, harassment, and vandalism.” “Seattle has done the worst for salmon while claiming to be the best, meanwhile pointing the finger at everyone else for Skagit salmon decline,” said Jack Fiander, attorney for the Sauk-Suiattle. “Seattle says their greenwashing is harmless puffery, but when you’re turning neighbor against neighbor to improve your corporate bottom line, it is harmful to our community as well as the fisheries resource.”

The legal proceedings come as Seattle City Light is in the process of relicensing its Skagit River dams with the federal government. A new license would last between 30 and 50 years. Negotiations have been underway for four years, with fish passage being the most hotly debated issue. [...]

Last year, the city of Seattle was successful in getting the Sauk-Suiattle’s lawsuit dismissed by a King County Superior Court Judge. [...] Monday’s ruling reverses the dismissal and allows the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe to proceed. The suit seeks to keep Seattle from advertising themselves as being fish-friendly until fish passage is installed over all three dams.

Seattle City Light was the first public utility in the country to earn a green power certification from the Low Impact Hydropower Institute. The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe said the utility used misinformation to gain the green status.

Skagit River Chinook salmon, steelhead and Bull Trout are all listed on the Endangered Species List and are threatened with extinction. [...]

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Headline and text published by: Susannah Frame. “Court of Appeals sides with Sauk-Suiattle Tribe in ‘greenwashing’ case against Seattle City Light.” King 5 News. 6 March 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

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Italicized first paragraph in this post added by me.

#obligatory acknowledgement of fallibility of socalled rights based approaches and problems of legitimizing colonial courts and laws