Here is a link to the article.
Michael Hanson for The New York Times
Canoes from tribes throughout the coastal Northwest converged on the Swinomish reservation, the host for this year’s gathering.
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
Two Elwha Dams Finally Shut Down (With a Classic Slade Gorton Quote!)
Here is the news article, and an excerpt:
Taking the dams out is part of a more than $325 million restoration plan intended to bring back five runs of salmon to the river. More than three quarters of its watershed is within Olympic National Park, making it one of the best opportunities for restoration in the lower forty-eight.
The plan is for the river to be free-flowing within three years — after nearly 20 years of talking about it. President George H.W. Bush signed the Elwha Restoration Act in 1992. It took all that time to appropriate the money to pay for the takedown and broker the politics of the project.
Meanwhile, the cost ballooned to about three times original projections. Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, the Republican lawmaker who fought appropriating the money for years, won’t be celebrating Wednesday.
“It is something with which I disagreed, and I don’t wish to be reminded of it,” Gorton said last week at his Seattle law office.
But the shutdown is a step some wondered if they would ever witness. Adeline Smith, 93, one of the oldest members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, said she remembered rescuing baby salmon stranded in pools when operation of the dams would ramp the river levels up and down.
“We felt sorry for them,” she said of the gasping smolts.
Robert Elofson, river restoration director for the tribe, watched as the turbines on Elwha Dam slowly wound down, finally going still. “I’ve got a few tears in my eyes,” he said in the sudden quiet. “The tribe always wanted the dams out of the river.”
Accident Victims at Lower Elwha Sue US under Federal Tort Claims Act
Here are the materials so far in Tolliver v. United States (W.D. Wash.):
US Motion to Dismiss Tolliver Complaint
Ninth Circuit Dismisses Appeal of U.S. v. Washington Subproceeding (Lower Elwah v. Lummi)
Here is the unpublished opinion. The underlying dispute apparently is the usual and accustomed fishing area of the Lummi Indian Tribe.
Here are the materials:
Suquamish Tribe Files Cert Petition in U.S. v. Washington Dispute
Here is the petition in Suquamish Tribe v. Upper Skagit Tribe: Suquamish Cert Petition.
Here is the question presented:
Whether a court implementing an unambiguous court order is bound to apply that order according to its plain terms, or whether the court should instead determine whether the judge who initially issued the order “intended something other than its apparent meaning,” as the Ninth Circuit held in this case.
Lower court materials here.
Turtle Talk 