Yakamas withdraw from tribal fish agency

TOPPENISH, Wash. – In a dispute over law enforcement practices on the Columbia River, the Yakama Nation has withdrawn from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and revoked the commission’s jurisdiction over tribal members.

“They’re trying to claim that they’re the head of the whole Columbia River, but they’re not,” Yakama Tribal Council Chairman Louis Cloud told the Yakima Herald-Republic for a story Monday. “We have our own enforcement. We don’t need Inter-Tribal.”

The Portland-based commission was formed by four Columbia River tribes – the Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla and Nez Perce – nearly three decades ago to help the tribes enforce fishing regulations and protect treaty fishing rights, habitat and ensure conservation.

The commission “has not received any notification that the Yakama Nation has revoked or rescinded or removed themselves in any way from the commission,” commission spokesman Charles Hudson said Monday.

The commission’s 11 officers, who are delegated authority by the tribes and are commissioned as police officers in Washington and Oregon, police about 300 miles of river between Bonneville and McNary dams.

Some Yakama tribal members have complained that commission officers are overstepping their authority. One of those unhappy tribal members is a nephew of the man who went to federal prison over Columbia River fishing rights nearly 20 years ago.

Last September, Jeff Sohappy, nephew of David Sohappy Sr., pulled a 150-foot net filled with dead fish from his Columbia River fishing site about 20 miles west of The Dalles, Ore. Sohappy, 49, said the net did not belong to him but had been illegally placed at his site, he said. He was cited for wasting fish and told to appear in state court in Oregon.

Normally, cases involving tribal members go to tribal court. Sohappy suspects he’s being treated unfairly by the fish commission. “They’re just getting too damn bigheaded. They’re exercising authority that was never delegated to them.”