Media share from The Source on 01/09/2025
https://www.bendsource.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor-01-09-2025-22479075
Letters To The Editor 01/09/2025
RE: “The Damned Deschutes”
Nigel Jaquiss’s recent article misses the point. The story is not one of an electric utility, its critics and the health of the Deschutes River. That framing is too narrow. The real story is one of tribal sovereignty, resilience and self-determination. To be precise, the sovereignty of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is the real story.
Like my tribe, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs possesses ancient sovereignty as a “Treaty tribe.” And, like us, they are a large land-based, rural tribe with limited economic opportunity, persistent poverty, diminished life expectancy and public safety issues, among others.
Unlike other sovereigns, our governments have limited ability to generate revenue to provide for the welfare of our people. We, thus, are required to turn to economic development to generate necessary revenues. Economic development sometimes does fit neatly with our Indigenous cultures and every other policy priority of our tribal governments, yet we press on — because we must. Our teachings instruct us that we have a duty to manage our resources for seven generations into the future, which is necessarily predicated on our people’s continued survival.
I understand that, for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the waters of the Deschutes River and the salmon are the first and second gifts of the Creator. Yet, they made the sovereign choice to become a part owner of the Pelton hydroelectric project. If you wish to understand that choice, you should ask them why and be prepared to listen, really listen. Doing so honors their sovereignty and dignity.
In my view, that did not happen with Mr. Jaquiss’s article. His apparent cramped, antiquated understanding of tribal sovereignty as monolithically synonymous with NGOs’ liberal values or non-Native sports-fishermen’s interests in large trophy specimens of particular species of fish is simply wrong.
Tribal citizens rely on dynamic, modern tribal governments to balance many competing priorities and values in the way that best provides for the wellness of future generations — exactly as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs has done with respect to their economic development on the Deschutes River and their Treaty-protected fisheries. The Tribe should be honored for its careful, thoughtful stewardship of the resources they have protected from time immemorial.
—J. Garret Renville, Chairman, Coalition of Large Tribes