Seattle spent years misleading the public about Skagit River salmon. Now it passage will pay $1 billion for fish

SKAGIT COUNTY, Wash. — In a surprising reversal, Seattle City Light has agreed to speculate $979 million to construct fish passage at its three Skagit River dams, a dedication its personal scientists lengthy insisted was pointless.

It’s additionally a victory for two tribes of the Skagit Valley who by no means stopped combating.

For years, Seattle City Light insisted its hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River weren’t harming salmon. The fish, metropolis scientists argued, by no means traditionally reached these stretches of the river. The rugged North Cascades terrain made it a moot level — the science was settled.

The science, it turned out, was not settled.

In a years-long investigation by the KING 5 Investigatorsreporters uncovered that scientists from throughout the Northwest thought the science was flawed, together with representatives from US Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, the National Park Service, the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe and the Swinomish Indian Tribe. The solely scientists claiming Seattle City Light’s dams did not damage fish labored for Seattle City Light.

Now, the utility is making ready to pay almost $1 billion that indicators a reckoning. The metropolis will pay that hefty tab to construct a extremely technical system – known as fish passage – to maneuver salmon round the three dams on the Skagit.

The landmark settlement, formally introduced on March 5, exhibits the metropolis has agreed to design and assemble fish passage in any respect three of its Skagit River dams — Ross, Diablo, and Gorge — reconnecting 1000’s of habitat severed from migrating salmon for almost a century.

“This collaborative settlement reflects historic Tribal partnerships, environmental investments, and shared commitment to Skagit River watershed stewardship,” wrote Jenn Strang, Seattle City Light media relations supervisor, in an e-mail.

For tribes who’ve fought this battle, it is long-overdue vindication.

“We’re relieved,” mentioned Scott Schuyler, tribal elder and Natural and Cultural Resources coverage consultant for the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, headquartered in Sedro Woolley.

“Upper Skagit was driven by the will of our ancestors to right (these) historical wrongs, to free our river and fish, and bring honor to our ancestors. The Upper Skagit have paid a steep cost for this massive hydroelectric project, which was built on our home and lands that are sacred.”

The Skagit is the largest river in western Washington. It drains the North Cascades, cuts by way of a few of the wildest terrain in the decrease 48 states, and empties into Puget Sound carrying all 5 species of Pacific salmon. For Northwest tribes, it has been a supply of meals, tradition, and id for 1000’s of years.

For Seattle, it turned a supply of comparatively low cost energy.

Beginning in the Nineteen Twenties, the metropolis constructed the dams that produce roughly 20% of Seattle City Light’s electrical energy and assist hold the metropolis’s charges amongst the lowest of any main American metropolis.

The dams additionally lower off roughly 40% of the Skagit River’s habitat from migrating fish. By the time the federal authorities started the means of reissuing the dams’ working license in the 2010s, bull trout, steelhead, and Chinook salmon linked to the Skagit system had all been listed underneath the Endangered Species Act. Chinook are the main meals supply for the endangered Southern Resident orca — a inhabitants whose decline has prompted alarm from scientists, activists, and the public alike.

For generations, members of the Upper Skagit Tribe hauled in plentiful salmon from the Skagit. Today, with wild salmon populations so depleted, many not often get the likelihood to fish for them in any respect. Tribal and pure useful resource scientists from round the area imagine dams on the Skagit have contributed to the steep decline.

Under federal regulation, dam operators should assess whether or not their initiatives hurt fish. If so, operators should take steps to handle it. Fish passage is the most direct such step. The query of whether or not Seattle’s Skagit dams required it would eat the higher a part of a decade.

Seattle City Light’s place, held for years with exceptional consistency, was that fish passage was pointless as a result of salmon by no means traditionally reached the higher Skagit above its dams. The argument had a sure intuitive logic: the terrain is steep, the canyon is rugged, the river drops sharply. Salmon by no means received that far.

To help the declare, the utility leaned on older research — one relationship again a century — that included interviews with early homesteaders and observations of steep rapids thought to dam fish migration. City Light scientists defended the analysis as legitimate historic proof that species like salmon and steelhead that migrate between rivers and the sea, weren’t native to the higher river.

Tribal biologists and federal company scientists mentioned the analysis was outdated, incomplete, and fallacious.

“It’s old. It’s not true,” mentioned Jon-Paul Shannahan, a biologist for the Upper Skagit Tribe, describing the metropolis’s science in 2021.

In 2019, authorities and tribal researchers recorded footage of a Chinook salmon spawning in a bit of river that was, by the metropolis’s personal account, primarily inaccessible to fish — a stretch that Seattle City Light dewaters by diverting flows by way of an influence tunnel.

At a time when water was let into that stretch, tribal biologists discovered Chinook made their approach there anyway.

“It was huge,” Shannahan mentioned at the time. “A complete game changer.”

The discovery didn’t instantly finish the dispute, however it essentially undermined the metropolis’s central argument. If salmon had been spawning in a stretch of river that, in keeping with City Light’s personal science that they had by no means traditionally used, the complete foundation for resisting fish passage started to break down.

Over the following years, federal businesses and tribes documented extra cases of salmon and steelhead showing in locations the utility’s analysis advised they might not attain.

The settlement now on the desk is sweeping in each scope and price.

The full package deal of environmental measures tied to the relicensing — together with habitat restoration, water high quality enhancements, stream modifications, and long-term monitoring — is estimated at roughly $3.8 billion over the 50-year license time period. Fish passage is by far the largest single-line merchandise.

The settlement was reached after years of formal negotiations involving the Upper Skagit, Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish, and Lummi tribes; the National Marine Fisheries Service; the US Fish and Wildlife Service; the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife; and a variety of different federal, state, and native stakeholders, together with Skagit County authorities representatives who advocated for fish passage from the starting of the talks.

“We look forward passage to Seattle City Light implementing fish in good faith,” mentioned Skagit County Commissioner Peter Browning. “The financial settlement is commensurate with what other hydro operators around the region have spent, so we see this settlement as long-overdue environmental justice and regional equity.”

It should nonetheless be accepted by federal rules earlier than taking impact.

Seattle City Light has not issued a public assertion on the settlement forward of the official announcement.

City Light serves roughly 460,000 residential and enterprise clients in the Seattle space. What the relicensing commitments imply for electrical energy charges over the coming a long time has not but been absolutely detailed publicly.

The fish passage infrastructure itself — ladders, lifts, or different programs able to shifting salmon previous dams that rise a whole lot of toes above the river — will be amongst the most advanced engineering challenges ever undertaken on a Pacific Northwest river. Designing and allowing alone will take years. Construction will take extra.

“When the day arrives that the Upper Skagit can see the river to its banks and the fish return, it will feel like finally seeing a long-lost relative you never knew, but always felt the emptiness in your heart because they weren’t there,” mentioned Schuyler of the Upper Skagit Tribe.

Susannah Frame is the information director at KING 5. Previously, she was the station’s chief investigative reporter. Her collection “Skagit: River of Light and Loss” documented the scientific disputes and tribal battle behind this relicensing battle over a number of years.