"The Nez Perce tribe is asking Sen. Mike Crapo to help establish a stakeholder’s “solution table” to negotiate a long term agreement on salmon and power in the Columbia Basin.

Chairman Brooklyn D. Baptiste wrote Crapo September 26 that the recent decision by U.S. District Judge James Redden striking down yet another biological opinion on the Columbia and Snake dam operations, provides yet another opportunity to work toward a permanent solution to the controversy that has been going on since 1990. The tribe is in a unique position to speak since it had not joined other Columbia tribes in the Accords with the federal agencies, Washington, Montana and Idaho.

But it had reached a deal on water rights with Idaho and its water users over its claims to the Snake River. It still works with the tribes in the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission yet stands with Oregon, environmentalists, sporting companies and fishermen as challengers in court to the biological opinion."

Get the Story:
Rocky Barker: Letters from the West: Nez Perce ask Crapo to help set table for salmon talks (The Idaho Statesman 10/6)