Seattle Commits to Restoring Salmon to the Skagit River - The Margin

The landmark settlement commits Seattle City Light to anadromous fish passage after The Margin found the utility had repeatedly misrepresented the river’s science and history to protect its dams. 

The city of Seattle agreed Tuesday, May 12^th, to pay up to $979 million toward restoring anadromous fish passage through its three hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River, a landmark settlement with Tribal nations whose treaty rights were infringed upon for more than a century. 

The $4 billion agreement, commemorated at Seattle City Hall, is part of the city’s application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to renew its license to continue operating these dams for another 50 years. It commits the city to a fish passage program that would allow salmon, steelhead, and other anadromous fish to swim upstream and downstream through all three dams owned by Seattle’s municipal utility, Seattle City Light (SCL), opening access to nearly half of the habitat in the watershed. Representatives from the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe, and Swinomish Indian Tribal Community joined federal and state agencies, Skagit County, and conservation nonprofits at the signing. 

The settlement comes less than two years after The Margin’s multi-part investigation revealed that SCL repeatedly misrepresented the environmental impacts of its dams for over a century, including denying the ability of anadromous fish to swim up and down the river before the dams were built.

For the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, the agreement is a generational milestone. But Scott Schuyler, Upper Skagit Indian Tribe elder and natural resources policy representative, remains cautious about what comes next. 

“I have a lot of mixed feelings,” he said. “I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of the river, our salmon runs, and for our people, but that’s tempered with what has happened over the last 100 years, to our detriment, to the river's detriment. I don't want to celebrate too soon.” 

Beyond fish passage, the settlement includes measures the Upper Skagit Tribe has long fought for. Under a separate off-license agreement between the Upper Skagit Tribe and the city, Gorge Dam will be renamed Skiyou (sky-you) Dam and the Gorge powerhouse bridge will be renamed Syəw̓d (see-yood) Bridge, both Northern Lushootseed (Upper Skagit dialect) words for “spirit or spirit presence.” Together, the renaming will begin restoring the physical manifestation of the Upper Skagit Tribe’s connection to their sacred Gateway to the Valley of the Spirits and the Valley of the Spirits itself. SCL also agreed to let a minimal amount of water flow through a stretch of river sacred to the Upper Skagit, which SCL has dewatered. Additionally, the city will build an Upper Skagit Tribe meeting center in the form of a traditional longhouse, designed by the Tribe in Dax^wálib, the ancestral village SCL desecrated in the early 20th century during dam construction and renamed, Newhalem. Schuyler said the longhouse will be a place for Tribal members to gather and a staging area for fish passage implementation. Re-establishing the Upper Skagit Tribe’s presence in Dax^wálib is essential for the Tribe to begin healing from over a century of cultural trauma and to protect their rights to the area from those who have wrongly claimed rights to it, Schuyler said.

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson did not specifically commit to fish passage in her remarks at the signing. Instead, she pledged that the city would implement the agreement “in good faith.”

The mayor’s word choice could be significant. Skagit County notified the license implementation committee that SCL is convening, in a letter sent by Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Will Honea on behalf of the county’s Board of County Commissioners, that its support for the agreement is contingent on that ‘good faith’ being demonstrated by SCL’s actions. Among acts Skagit County would consider a breach is SCL funding organizations that oppose fish passage.

The timeline is long. Under the agreement, SCL will “design, construct, operate, and maintain upstream and downstream fish passage facilities” at all three dams within 24 years of a new license being issued, which SCL expects by 2030. That means the first fish may not be released above Ross Dam until 2054. 

Honea said The Margin’s reporting exposed a pattern in SCL’s conduct stretching back more than a century. “City Light has spread a lot of money around and put a lot of effort into suppressing any media that is inconsistent with their message,” he said. “The idea that their dams were increasing salmon, that there was never salmon above Newhalem, all of these things had been embedded in the public consciousness through decades of accreted narrative, funded by Seattle City Light.” He credited The Margin’s reporting with forcing a reckoning. “You’ve dug into the details and gotten past the sound bites, into what has actually gone on here since these dams were built. I think it’s been a real game changer.” 

Schuyler said reporting by The Margin gave the Tribe’s position external validation at a critical moment. “The work that you did justified what we were asking for and what we’re doing.” 

The day before the signing, Schuyler and his cousin Jason Fernando were on the Skagit, fishing for Chinook salmon. Armed security watched from the boat ramp as the two made more than 30 drifts in Schuyler’s custom aluminum fishing boat, setting nets and drifting, sometimes pulling in salmon. They ultimately caught 18 Chinook, all of them born at the Marblemount hatchery that SCL funded following a 1946 agreement with the state of Washington, signed as mitigation for the harms its dams caused anadromous fish. 

Schuyler negotiated one critical settlement provision: An Upper Skagit will release the first adult salmon into the waters above the dams. “Hopefully I'll be there for that,” he said. Asked what it would mean to be there, Schuyler added, “Well, I hope I don't pass out and faint.” Chuckling, he continued seriously, “It's gonna be like a missing part of you returned, finally.”

Schuyler thought of his daughter, Janelle, who years earlier had written an impassioned letter to then-Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan about the century of harm the city’s dams have caused her people. “I want you to know that carrying this knowledge of what the city has done here brings me great pain and sorrow every day with my understanding of what has been inflicted on the Upper Skagit people and our salmon,” she wrote.

The mayor never responded. “One of the things I’ve tried to instill in my daughter is it only takes one person to lead the way, to stand up, and others will follow,” Schuyler said. “This was a pretty good example of seeing that happen.”

Schuyler held up their biggest Chinook, nearly as long as he is tall, and Fernando stood beside him, smiling. A faint stream of the great fish’s blood dripped from its tail and merged with the Skagit River’s mighty flow.

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