Tribe Settles With Dam Operators Nez Perce To Get $16.5 Million, Agree To Back Relicensing

When Idaho Power Co. seeks approval to keep operating its Hells Canyon dams, it will have the support of Indians who hated the utility for wiping out the salmon that once swam all the way to Boise.

For four decades, Nez Perce Indians had seen Idaho Power’s actions as more than negligent; they saw them as malicious.

The company decimated a run of 18,000 fall chinook salmon when it built Brownlee, Oxbow and Hells Canyon dams in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The tribe put its anger into a lawsuit in 1991, seeking $150 million from Idaho Power.

Now, after five years of court battles and mediation, the two sides have settled. U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge recently approved a $16.5 million payment to the tribe for the loss of a salmon fishery that was guaranteed by an 1855 treaty with the federal government.

As part of the deal, the Nez Perce agreed to back the dam relicensing when it comes up in 2003.

Under the terms of the agreement, Idaho Power will pay the Nez Perce $16.5 million. It paid $5 million to the tribe in 1996. The cost will be factored in with the costs of the Hells Canyon dams and will be charged to ratepayers, said Jeff Beaman, an Idaho Power spokesman.

The company will pay $1.625 million this year and for the next three years. The remaining $5 million will be placed in an escrow account for the tribe in August 2003 when Idaho Power files an application to relicense the three Hells Canyon dams.

The tribe will accrue the earnings from the investments on the account until Idaho Power gets a new federal license for the dams. At that time, the tribe will get the money.

In turn, the Nez Perce dropped the lawsuit and agreed to spend $5 million from its proceeds to help restore fish populations hurt by the dams. The tribe also will deliver a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission supporting the Hells Canyon relicensing application when it is filed.

If it drops its support of relicensing, the tribe would lose the $5 million in escrow and earnings.

“The tribe didn’t sell its treaty rights in this settlement,” said Doug Nash, a tribal attorney. “If the technology allows the Nez Perce to fish again above Hells Canyon then we retain that right.”