The Kalispel Tribe of Washington is signing an agreement today to end a dispute over the relicensing of the Box Canyon Dam.

When the dam was created in the 1950s, it flooded part of the reservation. The tribe lost cultural sites, runs of bull trout and access to its powwow grounds.

The tribe sued the Pend Oreille Public Utilities District when the dam came up for relicensing. After nearly a decade of talks that were aided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the district has agreed to spend more than $50 million to install fish ladders and to create recreational facilities on tribal land.

“I never thought we’d get here,” said Deane Osterman, the executive director of the tribe’s natural resource department, told The Spokesman Review. “It’s been a long and controversial road.”

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Dam pact aims to alleviate damage (The Spokesman Review 4/10)