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Columbia River tribes, Oregon, Washington and conservationists ask judge to lift litigation stay following Trump admin decision to kill agreement

Credit: Ecoflight

By Eric Barker | Outdoor and Environmental Editor
September 12, 2025

Columbia River tribes along with the states of Oregon and Washington asked a federal judge Thursday to lift a stay blocking further litigation over harm caused to salmon and steelhead by federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

The expected move was spurred by President Donald Trump’s executive order in June that torpedoed an agreement the plaintiffs had made with the Biden Administration to study dam removal on the Snake River while funding salmon recovery and tribal renewable energy projects.

According to documents filed Thursday in Oregon District Court, attorneys for plaintiffs and the federal government have agreed to a schedule that would resume legal filings in the case as soon as Oct. 8.

Shannon Wheeler, chairperson of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, said salmon remain in danger of extinction and the status quo is neither alleviating that risk nor moving them toward recovery.

“If this wasn’t the answer to solving the problem, then what is,” he said. “We have to try to do whatever we can for the species.”

The 2023 agreement that was signed by the Nez Perce and other tribes in the basin was seen by salmon advocates as a breakthrough in their decades-long effort to recover wild salmon and steelhead that are protected by the Endangered Species Act. While it did not authorize dam breaching, it did call for studies focused on how to replace barging, power generation and irrigation made possible the dams. It also pledged $1 billion in spending on salmon recovery and renewable energy development. In exchange, the plaintiffs agreed to pause litigation in a three-decades-old case for at least five years.

The agreement was decried by agricultural groups, power interests and others who said they would be harmed by dam breaching and were not included in the talks that led to it.

In June, Trump directed members of his cabinet to withdraw from the agreement, calling it part of a “radical green agenda.”

In their motion Thursday, attorneys for the plaintiffs noted that when federal Judge Michael Simon at Portland approved the stay, he wrote it would serve the “orderly course of justice” as both sides seek remedies outside of the courtroom. With the Trump administration killing the agreement, they argued the stay no longer meets that standard.

“The Trump administration’s recent actions leave us with no choice but to return to court,” Earthjustice Attorney Amanda Goodin said in a news release. “Since this administration has reneged on this carefully negotiated agreement — with no alternative plan to restore our imperiled salmon and steelhead — we find ourselves once again on a course towards extinction of these critically important species. Earthjustice and our plaintiffs, alongside state and tribal partners, have spent decades protecting Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead — and we won’t back down now.”

The legal fight over how much blame for dwindling wild salmon and steelhead runs should be placed on dams has been going on for more than 30 years. Salmon advocates have successfully challenged multiple iterations of the federal government’s plan to operate the dams while also trying to reduce the harm they cause to fish. Simon and his predecessor Judge James Redden have ruled the government’s plans that have dismissed dam breaching in favor actions like restoration of spawning habitat and spill water at the dams have not met the standards of the Endangered Species Act.

The latest version of that plan was written during Trump’s first term and prior to the agreement struck by the Biden administration, was being challenged by the tribes, conservation and fishing groups and the state of Oregon.

Moscow-Pullman: Tribes, states push to revive Snake and Columbia River salmon lawsuit after Trump order

Environmental groups backed by Northwest states and four Lower Columbia River tribes are moving to lift a pause on litigation after the Trump administration withdrew from a “historic” deal.

Credit: Ecoflight

By: Alex Baumhardt and Emily Fitzgerald
September 11, 2025

Northwest states, tribes and environmental groups will resume suing the federal government over its hydroelectric dam operations in the Columbia River Basin that have harmed endangered native fish species.

The move comes after the Trump administration in June withdrew from a “historic” deal made two years ago, when President Joe Biden was in office. This agreement called for putting long-running legal battles aside and investing in the restoration of endangered Columbia River fish runs.

Behind the litigation are 10 environmental groups backed by Oregon, Washington and four Lower Columbia River tribes: The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe.

Court fights over the dams had gone on for more than three decades before the pause. Now, they are back on, according to Amanda Goodin, an attorney with the environmental law group Earthjustice, which filed a motion Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oregon to end the multi-year pause on a 2021 lawsuit.

“The Trump administration’s recent actions leave us with no choice but to return to court,” she said.

On Oct. 8, Earthjustice will officially resume its lawsuit, spokesperson Elizabeth Manning said.

Earthjustice’s plaintiffs include the National Wildlife Federation, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Sierra Club, Idaho Rivers United, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, NW Energy Coalition, Columbia Riverkeeper, Idaho Conservation League and Fly Fishers International, Inc.

Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, said in a statement that Oregon, too, was ready to resume legal action.

“The federal government has put salmon and steelhead on the brink of extinction and once again broken promises to tribal partners. Extinction is not an option. Oregon will return to court to hold the federal government accountable and ensure these iconic fish runs have a future,” he said.

White House spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday.

The 2023 Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement involved pausing active Snake River litigation for a minimum of five years while the federal government worked with tribes and states on a plan to advance recovery of native fish populations in the Columbia Basin.

At the heart of the issue are four Snake River dams that provide irrigation and emissions-free hydropower for nearby communities, but have also contributed to the near extinction of 13 salmon and steelhead populations that return to the Columbia Basin from the Pacific Ocean to spawn.

The fish are important to tribal health and sovereignty and to basin ecosystems, and the declines are hitting southern resident orcas off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon that rely on salmon for food and that are federally listed as endangered.

“These wild native fish are essential to tribal cultures and important to sport, commercial, and tribal fishing communities and economies throughout the Pacific Northwest.  We can and must do better,” said Bill Arthur, the director of the Sierra Club’s campaign to protect salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers.

The Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative included a roadmap for salmon and steelhead recovery, as well as steps to replace the energy, transportation, irrigation, and recreation services provided by the four lower Snake River dams so they could potentially be breached.

The agreement was a way to increase salmon populations and fishing opportunities while improving public services, cutting taxpayer subsidies and meeting promises made to the tribes, according to Mike Leahy, senior director of wildlife, hunting and fishing policy for the National Wildlife Federation.

In June, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum withdrawing the federal government’s support from the agreement, calling it “radical environmentalism” and saying completion of the restoration initiative would “be devastating for the region.”

“It’s been disappointing to see the federal government overrule all the progress made in the region in favor of returning to court,” Leahy said.

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican who represents central Washington, is a staunch supporter of the hydropower dams. He is pushing a bill in Congress that would block federal funds from being used to tear down the Snake River dams or to study removing or altering them.

“Extreme environmentalist groups are once again trying to breach the Lower Snake River dams through litigation,” Newhouse said in an emailed statement on Friday. “The Lower Snake River dams are vital to our way of life in the Pacific Northwest, and I oppose any and all efforts to breach these critical pieces of infrastructure.”

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement that renewing the lawsuit is necessary to protect natural resources, preserve fish runs, and hold the federal government responsible.

“President Trump walking away from these commitments presents a very real threat at a time when the fish are on the brink of extinction. It also continues our nation’s shameful legacy of broken promises to sovereign tribal nations that this partnership sought to repair,” she said.

While environmental groups agree that going back to court is an essential next step, they have committed to finding other ways to continue restoring the Columbia Basin while the lawsuits are ongoing.

“We will nevertheless keep working with sovereigns and stakeholders across the Northwest to find real solutions to restore healthy, abundant salmon and bring our communities forward together,” said Columbia Riverkeeper Legal Director Miles Johnson.

WA State Standard: Lawsuits against federal government over Columbia Basin dams to resume

The Biden-era Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement's pledge to restore native fish populations and invest in tribal clean energy projects had paused courtroom battles.

By Monique Merrill
September 11, 2025

PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) — The Trump administration’s abrupt June withdrawal from an agreement intended to protect endangered Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead has spurred a coalition of conservation groups, tribes and two states to ask a federal judge on Thursday to lift a stay on decades-old litigation against the government.

“Healthy runs are key for successful fish migration — and our salmon and steelhead runs are in crisis,” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said in a statement. “President Trump walking away from these commitments presents a very real threat at a time when the fish are on the brink of extinction.”

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, a Barack Obama appointee, granted the coalition’s joint motion to lift the stay late Thursday, allowing the case to move forward again.

The Biden administration introduced the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement in late 2023. It was the result of a deal struck with Oregon, Washington, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and the National Wildlife Federation, after they had proposed the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.

Under the agreement, the government committed to immediate measures to protect salmon, along with a decade-long plan to manage hydropower operations while meeting rising energy needs.

The agreement followed decades of litigation and prompted the plaintiffs to ask the court to pause proceedings. However, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to withdraw from the agreement in an executive order titled “Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Generate Power for the Columbia River Basin.”

Trump accused the agreement of placing too much value on the treatment of fish and concerns about climate change over the “nation’s interests in reliable energy resources and the needs of American citizens.”

“The reasoning underpinning the court’s decision to impose the stay has been nullified by recent events. The court should lift the stay in this case and allow interested parties to proceed with the litigation,” the plaintiffs wrote in their joint motion to lift the stay.

Amanda Goodin, an attorney for Earthjustice representing the conservation groups, said the plaintiffs had no choice but to return to court.

“Since this administration has reneged on this carefully negotiated agreement — with no alternative plan to restore our imperiled salmon and steelhead — we find ourselves once again on a course towards extinction of these critically important species,” Goodin said in a statement.

Under the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, the government committed to supporting the development of tribally-sponsored clean energy projects as well as investing $300 million over 10 years to restore native fish populations.

“The Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement was a historic opportunity to restore salmon populations, uphold commitments to sovereign tribal nations, and meet our region’s clean energy demands,” Oregon Attorney General Rayfield said in a statement. “By walking away, the federal government has put salmon and steelhead on the brink of extinction and once again broken promises to tribal partners. Extinction is not an option."

The plaintiffs intend to move for a preliminary injunction with an opportunity for oral argument early next year, aiming for a ruling ahead of the planned fish passages in March.

The former administration also committed to studying the replacement of the irrigation, recreation and transportation services provided by four dams on the lower Snake River.

Those dams continue to harm salmon and steelhead, according to Bill Arthur, director of the Sierra Club’s Snake/Columbia River Campaign.

“We have a responsibility to return to court to improve and modernize our hydropower system so we can have affordable and reliable clean energy well into the future, alongside healthy and salmon and steelhead runs,” Arthur said in a statement.

Courthouse News Service: States, tribes revive long-running lawsuit after Trump nixes fish deal

Credit: EcoFlight

Sep. 11, 2025
By Isabella Breda

A decades-long court battle over the ongoing operations of the federal hydropower system in the Columbia River Basin has reignited after the Trump administration withdrew from a key agreement.

The Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribal nations, states of Oregon and Washington and environmental nonprofit organizations on Thursday requested the court lift a stay that would end a pause on the groups’ litigation. The request was approved by a judge.

The five-year pause was buoyed by the 2023 Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, which provided a path to remove the four dams on the Lower Snake River and help restore salmon runs.

The federal government, under the Biden administration, committed $1 billion to the work that would have included boosting clean-energy production led by tribal nations and replacing other services of the dams, like transportation and irrigation infrastructure.

President Donald Trump in June clawed back the agreement, which he stated “placed concerns about climate change above the Nation’s interests in reliable energy sources.”

“It’s always been our goal to work in partnership to develop this more comprehensive vision where we recover salmon, and we also look to replace the services of the Snake River dams and invest in our regional economy,” said Amanda Goodin, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, representing the environmental groups. “All of that is much easier to do outside of court than it is with a court order.”

Dam operations on the Columbia and Snake have been fought over for more than 30 years, in one of the longest-running unresolved legal fights in the region. Of the 16 Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead stocks that historically returned to spawn above the present-day location of Bonneville Dam, about 40 miles east of Portland, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Nearly a quarter of Snake River spring/summer Chinook populations and 14% of wild Snake River steelhead populations had fewer than 50 spawners last year, according to data provided by the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribal nations and the states of Washington and Oregon.

Lifting the stay in litigation is an opportunity to do what’s needed to ensure the salmon survive until there is a more permanent solution in place, Nez Perce Chairman Shannon Wheeler said.

“We need to take necessary action that will help the salmon, considering their dire status,” Wheeler said. “We also know that status quo hasn’t changed the negative trajectory of the species.”

The Seattle-Times: Legal battle reignites over Lower Snake River Dams, salmon

Joel Kawahara, fishing for coho salmon while trolling on his boat the F/V Karolee, out of Sitka, Alaska, in September 1994. Kawahara testified before elected leaders about the impacts of hydroelectric dams on salmon, volunteered at streamside tree plantings and often fed his community with fresh-caught fish and oysters from his beach on Hood Canal or treats from his garden. He died at sea this month at the age of 70. (Courtesy of Karen Ducey)

August 21, 2025
By Isabella Breda
Seattle Times staff reporter

A lifelong fisherman, tireless advocate for salmon recovery and a friend to many, Joel Kawahara died at sea this month. He was 70.

Kawahara left Neah Bay on Aug. 8 in his fishing boat, the Karolee, on a trip for salmon, but after his family and friends didn’t hear from him over the weekend, they reported him missing.

The Coast Guard boarded the Karolee near Northern California last week. Nobody was aboard. The search was suspended after covering nearly 2,100 square miles off the West Coast in cutters, aircraft and with small boat crews.

When he wasn’t on the saltwater, Kawahara was often fighting for the future of salmon and fishing families, his friends and colleagues shared.

They remember him as a bit of a Renaissance man, in touch with the water and deeply invested in his relationships and his duty to advocate for his industry, the salmon and habitat they rely upon.

Kawahara testified before elected leaders about the impacts of hydroelectric dams on salmon, volunteered at streamside tree plantings and often fed his community with fresh-caught fish and oysters from his beach on Hood Canal or treats from his garden.

“He was both a fisherman who took and he saw the responsibility that was associated with taking of giving,” said Joseph Bogaard, the executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for policy and actions to restore Columbia-Snake River basin salmon runs. “It’s that principle of reciprocity, which was just part of his DNA.”

‘Where else can you go and be part of nature?’
Joel and his brothers, Ken and Karl, grew up in Lower Queen Anne. Their dad owned a fishing tackle store on 2nd Avenue.

They spent most weekends at their grandparents’ home on Dabob Bay on Hood Canal — fishing for salmon in front of the house, collecting oysters and cooking them over a bonfire.

The three brothers all went different directions after leaving home, but it was clear Joel would always be a fisherman, Ken Kawahara said.

Their dad retired and would spend his summers fishing in Alaska, and Joel would always be with him. “My dad decided, well, if I just keep doing this, Joel’s never going to do anything else. So he sold the boat,” Ken Kawahara said.

He spent a few years at Boeing, but the work on military contracting conflicted with his values.

“I was and am pacifist in my philosophical core,” he described in an email interview with The Seattle Times in 2023. “ … I kept my mouth shut, saved money and bought Karolee in 1987 so took vacation time to fish in Alaska.”

It was clear he belonged on the water.

“What else can you do that keeps you in the open spaces for half a year and still make enough to live?” Kawahara wrote. “Where else can you go and be part of nature, at the whim of nature for your livelihood and when weather gets bad for your life?”

Tele Aadsen, of the fishing vessel Nerka, met Kawahara when she and her partner were both kids growing up in the fleet.

Kawahara never hesitated to take on a mentorship role, Aadsen said, recalling when Kawahara took her partner, Joel Brady-Power, to the bar to break down “in a human way” what to know to serve on boards needed to keep the fishery going.

He always wanted to help.

His friends and colleagues shared stories of him lugging big batteries onto a young fisher’s boat, trading notes, talking about the lure or plug that was working well for him and sharing his deep understanding of how ocean conditions and the weather influenced the movement of salmon.

Kawahara stayed invested in everyone he met, said Dan Ayres, a former shellfish manager at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

He remembered personal details and checked in with people he seldom saw, baked a pie for a friend in the Karolee’s tiny galley and offered salmon to his former deckhand to ensure the health of her unborn baby.

Kawahara never seemed too concerned about his own fishing, Aadsen said. He caught fish, Aadsen said, but he seemed more focused on ensuring everyone else had the access and opportunity to harvest, that salmon were abundant and protected.

The Seattle Times: Joel Kawahara, 70, lifelong fisher, dies at sea after leaving Neah Bay

Kathy Criddle photographs birds from the Columbia River within the Hanford Reach National Monument on July 9. The national monument, established in 2000, is a haven for birders, anglers and others who enjoy the natural wonders around this free-flowing stretch of the Columbia. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

Aug. 3, 2025 at 6:00 am

By Gregory Scruggs

ABOARD THE CAN DO III ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER, Benton County — Todd Steele learned the river from his father, Rich. He got the boat, the Can Do III, from his dad, too. And back in 2000, Todd helped launch the Can Do II when Vice President Al Gore came to the Reach.

Gore’s visit on June 9, 2000, coincided with President Bill Clinton signing an executive order at the White House designating the Hanford Reach National Monument, preserving more than 196,000 acres and 46.5 miles of the Columbia from future dams, dredging and agriculture.

The presidential pen stroke protected the Chinook salmon gravel beds, the pelican roosts and the striking geology of the sagebrush steppe in one of the last relatively undisturbed pockets of the Columbia Basin. This parcel adjacent to the Hanford nuclear site in Central Washington is beloved by anglers and birders but also coveted by farmers.

Press accounts of Gore’s visit that day claim the vice president toured salmon spawning grounds on the Columbia near Richland. But Todd Steele insists Gore never even made it inside the boundaries of the national monument. Rich Steele ferried Gore, Sen. Patty Murray and Gov. Gary Locke around the Reach, but Secret Service agents nixed a proper river trip, Steele said. A photo op would have to suffice.

Todd chuckled at the memory of his father on a searing July afternoon as the cobalt Can Do III drifted downriver in the shadow of the imposing White Bluffs, thin layers of sediment piled 600 feet high over millions of years. Pelicans soared overhead and deer lapped water from the riverbank.

The evening light hits a portion of the Ringold Formation, part of Hanford Reach National Monument’s White Bluffs. The national monument was established in 2000, protecting one of Washington’s most unique natural areas. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

The broiling heat, the boat, the scenery, the flora and fauna — a quarter-century later, the scene felt similar, with one noticeable absence: Rich.

Until his death in July of last year at age 89, Rich Steele was an indefatigable defender of the Reach and these waters, the last nontidal, free-flowing stretch of the mighty Columbia south of the U.S.-Canada border. He was a giant from the generation of conservationists who saved the Reach. 

Across a half-century of advocacy, Rich led hundreds of river jaunts at his own cost for visiting politicians, hosting representatives from county governments in the Tri-Cities, the governor’s mansion in Olympia and even the White House. The blue-collar environmentalist earned the respected nickname of “the Riverkeeper” for his efforts to persuade powerful people across partisan divides to protect the Reach.

Todd Steele navigates the Columbia River within the Hanford Reach National Monument on July 9. Guarding this free-flowing stretch of the Columbia is a family business for the Steeles. 

Todd, the youngest of three, tagged along often, lending a hand and quietly absorbing his plain-spoken father’s passion for this free-flowing stretch of the Columbia, whose cold, clear current has cleaved a braided channel of islands. It’s a stretch that feels like a river — a marked contrast to the reservoirs that stretch along most of the Columbia, tamed by hydroelectric dams.

“I was just there to support him,” Todd said.

Todd, 63, is now driving the boat — at a time when once-permanent protections for public lands seem less ironclad. The first Trump administration sought to shrink national monuments, and the current Congress has floated proposals to sell public land.

Later this month, Sen. Murray is booked to travel through the Reach by jetboat, stopping at Murray’s Beach, a sandy perch just upriver from the White Bluffs. It’s named for the senator, a longtime advocate for the Reach on Capitol Hill. She’s made this journey several times before, observing ongoing impacts on the river’s ecology from irrigation and agriculture.

The sprawling nuclear campus, which relied on cheap hydroelectric power and abundant river water for coolant, created a conservation paradox: Security concerns kept development off the Columbia as the Department of Energy established a buffer zone around its top-secret Cold War facility — and wildlife flourished in the vicinity of what some consider the world’s most contaminated environmental site.

When science company Battelle opened the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 1965, Rich worked on a boat as a lab technician, collecting water samples from Hanford Reach to test for radioactivity and monitor fish stocks. Motoring up and down the river, he learned every twist and turn.

“He was a self-made guy who surrounded himself with smart people,” Todd said.

An avid fly fisherman, Rich was roused to action when the Army Corps of Engineers proposed building the Ben Franklin Dam on the Columbia in the 1960s. While the dam would have generated enough power to cover 40% of Seattle’s annual electricity usage, it would have flooded Hanford Reach.

A coyote pup walks across a road in the Hanford Reach National Monument on July 8. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

American white pelicans soar above the Columbia River on July 9. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

Rich had already lived through the erection of the Snake River Dams and John Day Dam, the combination of which eliminated coveted spots where he had fly-fished for steelhead on the banks of the Columbia and Snake.

“You could already see what damming a river does,” said Todd, tanned from a life under the desert sun, with a fuzzy red fly tied to his wide-brim hat. “We know what it takes away and the ecosystems it destroys.”

Rich founded the Columbia River Conservation League in 1968 with his neighbor Jack de Yonge — an editor at the Tri-City Herald and later editorial writer at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer — and Richland Rod and Gun Club President Lowell Johnson. They fought the dam, which the Corps shelved in 1970 and officially took off the table in 1981, then a Corps dredging proposal in the 1980s to make Wenatchee an inland port. Those threats prompted the Save the Reach campaign of the 1990s, calling for permanent protection from dams and dredging. The Washington Environmental Council bestowed its Citizen Environmental Hero Award on Rich Steele in 1995. 

Murray attempted to shepherd a Wild and Scenic River designation for the Reach through Congress, but ultimately pivoted and lobbied Clinton to declare a national monument, which would not require a bill. She entered tributes to Rich into the Congressional Record three times, most recently on Sept. 9, 2024, to acknowledge his death. In her first entry, from 1996, she referred to him as “not your average environmentalist” who was “brought up the hard way in the Tri-Cities.”

A fish’s dorsal fin reflects the sun as it swims in the Columbia River within the Hanford Reach National Monument on July 8. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

The Riverkeeper’s son 

Rich’s persistently positive demeanor served him well as he sought support for conserving the Reach. Championing an environmental cause in politically conservative Central Washington required keeping up, as the boat name suggests, a can-do attitude. 

The area’s Republican House representative, Doc Hastings, opposed the national monument’s establishment as federal overreach, arguing for local control of public lands. Reached by phone at his home in Pasco, the retired congressman hasn’t changed his tune in 25 years. The Washington Farm Bureau picketed Gore’s visit on the premise that the monument would remove future prime agricultural land from cultivation.

Todd is hospitable but not exuberant; he shines as a caregiver. Like his father, he began working odd jobs out of high school before landing at Hanford in the waning years of plutonium production — and then as part of the gargantuan cleanup effort. 

Warning signs mark a hazardous area of the Hanford Site nuclear production facility on July 9. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

Now retired, today he helps care for his autistic 5-year-old grandson, and in the last seven years of Rich’s life, Todd took care of the Riverkeeper, too. Not that the lifelong fisherman was content in a rocking chair. Todd, who keeps mules and horses on his Richland property, saddled up the animals to take his father on pack trips to alpine lakes. They hunted elk, deer and turkey together, too.

“We did all of those things that the Pacific Northwest has to offer,” he said.

Even late in life, Rich kept tabs on the river’s changing fortunes. When the first Trump administration initiated a review of national monuments with an eye toward shrinking or rescinding some of them, Rich intimated that he may come out of retirement to defend the area. Ultimately, Hanford Reach was dropped from the review.

Todd professes intimidated admiration for his father’s recall of political relationships and his ability to maintain a Rolodex of gubernatorial and senatorial aides. “He remembered all of the congressmen and local politicians that he had run-ins with, how he dealt with them and what their true ideals were,” Todd said.

An intuition for working the levers of power is not Todd’s forte, but he’s building confidence. A July river tour for The Seattle Times was Todd’s first time guiding an out-of-towner, a dress rehearsal for when he’ll have Murray’s undivided attention aboard the Can Do III later this month. Todd wants to show the senator the proliferation of invasive milfoil and star-grass that are choking prime salmon spawning grounds and to press her for more permanent protection of Hanford Reach, like elevating its status to a national park.

Fortunately, the Riverkeeper’s son doesn’t have to go it alone.

Karyn and Michael Wiemers, both in their 70s, were part of the Save the Reach campaign in the 1990s and remain active to this day as members of the Hanford Reach Citizens Committee. They’ll be on their own jetboat traveling upriver alongside Todd and Murray.

“He is so like his dad,” Karyn said. “The potential is there. He just needs a little bit of encouragement and support.”

Mike and Karyn Wiemers boat on the Columbia River within the Hanford Reach National Monument on July 9. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

The Wiemers are providing those nudges from experience as confidants of the elder Steele. At points, Rich worked for Michael, one of the many Ph.D.s at Hanford. He preferred having Rich as a colleague on projects because of his strong work ethic.

“Todd doesn’t raise his voice, but he delivers a message effectively,” Michael said. “He’s an unassuming leader.”

The support network is also multigenerational, as the Steeles seek to uphold Rich’s family legacy. 

“We were bystanders, but all the work that he did now can’t be for naught just because he’s not here anymore,” said Todd’s wife, Jackie. 

Their daughter, Savanna, who works at Sound Transit and formerly for Rep. Suzan DelBene, will be on the jetboat tour as well. “She’s really good about bringing things out in Todd that he doesn’t think he can do,” Jackie said.

The next 25 years

As you float Hanford Reach, the river almost seems pristine near the Columbia’s northern and eastern banks. 

Fish are few and far between in midsummer, but the gravel shores still nurse a fall run of “upriver brights” that accounts for 70% of all Chinook salmon in the entire Columbia River system. Sagebrush carpets Saddle Mountain to the north while the White Bluffs to the east showcase the scars of Central Washington’s remarkable geology, forged when the glacially powered Missoula floods raged at the end of the last ice age. The landscape brings to life the exhibitions on display at Richland’s REACH Museum, a natural history and science museum serving the Tri-Cities and one of the most tangible legacies of the establishment of the monument.

 Children take notes while participating in a scavenger hunt at the REACH Museum on July 8 in Richland. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

Looking south and west yields a different vantage. 

Nuclear reactors cocooned in steel, like oversized Monopoly pieces or a forgotten work by contemporary artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, are monolithic reminders of the seemingly endless Hanford cleanup, currently slated to last into the 2070s. The national monument wraps around the Hanford site like Todd’s horseshoe mustache, and one day, in theory, the Department of Energy will declare the site decontaminated. 

(The Department of Energy declined an interview request on postcleanup plans for the site.)

For today’s riverkeepers, however, agricultural runoff is a more worrisome toxin than nuclear contamination. Irrigation channels threaten the stability of bluffs on the river’s edge more than heavy machinery operating inland at the Hanford site. Lush green fields of grapes, apples and cherries hug the river outside the monument boundary. Todd fears that agricultural interests would encroach farther along the river if given the chance, like if the recently aborted congressional effort to sell public lands came back on the table.

“They wouldn’t care about these White Bluffs,” he said. “It’s not in their makeup. Their makeup is making money.”

Grower and agricultural researcher Alan Schreiber, who bought his farmland 3 miles from the monument in 1999, notes that the area was farmed before the federal government evicted residents for the Manhattan Project. “It’s some of the best farm ground in the Pacific Northwest,” he said. “That land returns very little to the economy and it could have been an agricultural powerhouse. But it’s also a fantastic place for wildlife and it wouldn’t be if it had been farmed.”

While he believes that local agricultural interests have made peace with the monument they once fought, he said the farming community has not forgotten federal promises to return the land and would eagerly turn it into farmland if given the opportunity and irrigation rights.

In the meantime, Hanford Reach National Monument remains under the management of the Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal agency that is more conservation- than recreation-oriented. 

The agency’s official stance is that there are no maintained trails in the monument (although several are noted by Washington Trails Association). But public access to the area is limited to a few road-accessible overlooks and a couple of boat launches. There’s no campground partway, something that would make float trips more feasible. Despite legislative efforts by Hastings before he retired, potential hiking destinations like Rattlesnake Mountain remain off-limits to the public because local tribes — the area’s traditional inhabitants are the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Wanapum and Yakama — consider the site sacred.

“Once you build public trails and access starts to happen, that’s another hurdle in our way to be able to reclaim our tradition and culture as Wanapum people,” said Wanapum leader Clayton Buck, whose great-grandfather was promised by the federal government that the tribe, displaced by the Hanford site, could one day return.

The sun sets over the Columbia River within the Hanford Reach National Monument on July 8. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times)

As for a national park designation, Murray laid out that potential path in a phone interview from the Capitol, a few weeks before she was scheduled to board the Can Do III. A new national park may be a longshot, but like every conservation effort along Hanford Reach, it will help to have a smooth operator manning the jetboat.

“I would want to make sure that I sat down with people from the region and there was a broad local consensus from everybody that’s what they want for the future,” Murray said, referencing “the tribes, the community leaders, the businesses, and certainly the passionate river advocates, the fishermen, the environmentalists. Because you cannot pass something back here without a broad coalition.” 

WA national monument, made in 2000, is still protected by this family