On Nov. 20, the Biden administration released a list of proposals for long-term management of the Colorado River. The river, which provides water to 40 million people across seven Western states, 30 tribes and parts of Mexico, is in crisis. Climate change, drought and overuse have depleted its flow by 20% since 2000. After months of stalled negotiations among the Colorado River Basin states over how to address the chronic water shortages, the federal Bureau of Reclamation has now released four alternatives for managing the Colorado River.

It’s unclear how the states will respond to the proposals, despite dire warnings that climate change will further stress the already overtaxed water supply. Meanwhile, there is uncertainty over whether or how the incoming Trump administration will impact negotiations.

The Upper Basin states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — have long clashed with the Lower Basin states — California, Arizona and Nevada — over who should bear the brunt of future cutbacks from the beleaguered river. After failing to reach an agreement earlier this year, the Upper and Lower Basin states filed two competing proposals for the river’s long-term management to the federal government. Despite their current legal obligation to send a certain amount of water downstream, the Upper Basin states argue that they should be able to send less, while the Lower Basin states, which use much more water than their Upper Basin neighbors, contend that any cuts should be shared more evenly across the region during times of scarcity. Meanwhile, the Colorado River Basin tribes, which have historically never received their fair share of water, and conservation organizations have also submitted their own proposals for consideration.

The ongoing conflict has sparked fears that the states will end up embroiled in litigation after the current agreement expires.

The current crisis came to a head in 2022, when water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell dropped so low that they threatened hydropower generation. In response, the states adopted a short-term agreement to cut water use and raise the reservoirs’ water levels in 2023. But those rules expire in December 2026.

The Bureau of Reclamation was hoping that the states would come to an agreement over how to share the river’s dwindling water supply long before that deadline, but so far, negotiations have been mired in gridlock. The ongoing conflict has sparked fears that the states will end up embroiled in litigation after the current agreement expires.

Here’s what you need to know about the latest proposals, and what might come next:

Reclamation’s four alternatives were light on the details.

The proposals provide little advice about how, exactly, to divvy up the water; the agency says they are merely intended to provide “a path forward” for negotiations.

The first option focuses on what federal agencies can do in the absence of an agreement among the states to protect “critical infrastructure.” Shortages would be determined by the elevations of Lakes Powell and Mead, which serve as holding tanks for the Upper and Lower basins, respectively. Cuts would be distributed based on the region’s arcane water rights system, in which older rights take priority. The second “hybrid” proposal combines the first one with comments from tribes and other stakeholders. The third, which incorporates comments from environmental organizations, suggests that Lower Basin cuts should be triggered by water levels in reservoirs as well as factors like rain, snowmelt, and river and groundwater flows across the basin, rather than concentrating solely on Mead and Powell. The fourth is a hybrid of the proposals submitted by states, tribes and conservation organizations, with multiple options regarding which entities would bear cuts  

Notably, the Biden administration did not include in their entirety either of the proposals from the Upper and Lower Basin states. “Clearly, Reclamation is laying out options that have a compromise built in, or incentive for compromise,” said Edith Zagona, research professor of water resources engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The proposals are broad, and experts caution against reading too much into them. Many more details about how the cuts will be determined and shared still need to be hashed out. “It’s hard to know where this is going,” said Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado Law School.

So far, water managers are remaining relatively tight-lipped about what they think of the alternatives.

In a press briefing after the alternatives were released, Tom Buschatzke, the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the primary negotiator for Arizona, said that the various proposals had some really positive elements. At the same time, however, he said he was “disappointed that Reclamation chose to create alternatives, rather than to model the Lower Basin states’ alternative in its entirety.”

Similarly, Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s water commissioner and negotiator for Colorado, said in a statement that her state “cannot speak directly to the contents of Reclamation’s matrix of potential alternatives at this time,” but remains firmly committed to the Upper Basin states’ alternative.

The Biden administration will analyze the proposals and craft a draft environmental impact statement, which it plans to release later this year.

Uncertainty remains about how the Trump administration will impact Colorado River talks.

Negotiators have expressed optimism that the process will continue as planned under the incoming administration. Historically, the federal government has relied on the states to come to an agreement, and new administrations have had little impact on negotiations. Shrinking water supplies are not a partisan issue, said Jennifer Pitt, the Colorado River program director for the National Audubon Society, adding, “The fact of the matter is there’s less water in the Colorado River.”

But the Trump administration could still have an impact on the Colorado River’s future. It could refuse to advance Biden’s proposals, for example. Donald Trump has not only threatened to gut federal agencies, he’s also talked about revoking Inflation Reduction Act funding, which has paid for conservation initiatives and water-saving incentives in the Lower Basin. “That funding helped ward off the acute crisis that the Colorado River faced in 2022,” Pitt said. What will happen if it ends is anyone’s guess.

Multiple recent studies have found that climate change is bringing the Colorado River to a tipping point.

A study released last month, which modeled the drought vulnerability of Colorado’s Western Slope river basins, concluded that the Colorado River may soon reach a grim milestone: There will not be enough precipitation, full stop, to keep Lake Powell full. Other recent studies have found that future drought in the Colorado River Basin may be worse than previously anticipated and much harder to recover from.

Meanwhile, conservation organizations feel they cannot implement strategies to conserve water and restore habitats effectively until the seven states come to an agreement. Ultimately, to avoid jumping from climate change-fueled crisis to crisis, the states need come to an agreement for how to divvy up the water — and they need to do it sooner rather than later, Pitt said. “We’re stuck at the cusp of a crisis and a big fight.”

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The residents of western Washington’s Skagit County, which stretches from the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound, are proud of their county’s agricultural heritage. Throughout the region’s idyllic patchwork of fields and country roads, crop identification signs tell visitors exactly what’s being grown, while family farmstands offer fresh produce.

The amount of farmland, however, has declined over the past century. Now, only 7% of Skagit County is agricultural. And as crop prices fluctuate, costs rise and extreme weather becomes more common, some farmers are turning to more elaborate forms of “agritourism” to make ends meet, opening event venues and expanding their roadside offerings. To some residents, the new buildings and parking lots mean traffic jams, tipsy guests and other disruptions to traditional farms. Others see special events and nontraditional agritourism as the only way to preserve their beloved farmland. 

“People are really focused on protecting our natural resource — the soil,” said Jessica Davey, who runs a farm and wedding venue in Skagit County. “That’s our farmland. It’s rich. It’s fantastic. But who works that resource? Farmers. Why aren’t we focusing more on supporting the farmers?”

EACH YEAR, SKAGIT County’s nearly 900 small and large farms produce about $350 million worth of berries, tulips, apples, potatoes, dairy products and other commodities. Agriculture is both a significant local employer and the heart of the county’s identity. But while some locals feel that agritourism should limit itself to activities directly related to farming, others want a broader definition that includes event hosting. 

“We want options available for creative revenue streams — to keep our farms in business, to keep farming,” said Amy Frye, who runs a 35-acre produce farm. 

“To have a business that is absolutely dissociated from farmland seems kind of antithetical to the whole idea of agritourism,” countered Peter Browning, a Skagit County commissioner who grew up on an organic farm. “We don’t want to completely thwart any sort of business. But if it’s not related to farmland, stay away from the farmland and do it someplace else.”

Disagreement has been fierce at times, leading to raised voices at public meetings and souring relationships between once-friendly neighbors. And people’s opinions are unpredictable; for example, local farmers big and small, young and old, are found in all camps.

“We want options available for creative revenue streams — to keep our farms in business, to keep farming.”

Last year, the county’s Agricultural Advisory Board proposed changes to the county code which, if approved by the county commission, would clarify the definitions of agritourism and “agricultural accessory use.” The suggested language states that “celebratory gatherings, weddings, parties, or similar uses … are not agritourism.” The changes, which would reduce the number of events permitted for each landowner from 24 to 12 per year, would also mandate that they be related to farming activities on the property. 

The agricultural board hoped the changes would provide clarity, but they only created more confusion.  Many found them ambiguous; some complained that they could prohibit existing farmstands or impact farms that weren’t even engaging in agritourism. And residents already operating event venues in compliance with existing codes were alarmed by the proposed restrictions.

In early 2023, Davey purchased a rambling, long-vacant estate near Mount Vernon — Skagit County’s “big city” — and revitalized it as both an event venue that specializes in weddings and a working farm that produces hay, a variety of produce and landscaping trees. Given her background in construction lending, she said she was rigorous in her planning and permitting process: “I devoured the county code.” But she fears that the proposed ordinance will put her first-generation farm out of business.

The proposed changes in some ways ran counter to the results of a 2021 county survey, in which many residents cited the benefits of agritourism while noting that traffic and parking were becoming a problem. About 78% said restaurants, breweries and tasting rooms qualified as agritourism, while just under 50% of respondents agreed that weddings and other temporary events did too. 

“The recommended changes were vastly different from the direction of that (report),” Frye said. “A lot of people felt like, ‘Whoa, what happened?’ There was whiplash.” 

MICHAEL HUGHES, a Skagit farmer and chair of the Agricultural Advisory Board, said the changes reflect existing county and state protections for agricultural lands. Hughes fears that if those protections are weakened, “we’ll see more accelerated erosion of agricultural lands and the agricultural economy,” he said. The biggest concern, he added, is the conversion of agricultural land to other uses, such as parking lots and non-farm buildings. 

Approximately 20 event venues are currently operating on agricultural lands in the county, according to Will Honea, Skagit’s chief civil attorney. The extent of agricultural land in Skagit County has shrunk from an estimated 150,000 acres in the 1940s to roughly 88,000 today. But the county has not published a formal inventory of agricultural land converted to event venues and other non-farm uses.

Davey and others said that without such an inventory, it’s irresponsible to treat agritourism as an enemy of agriculture.

The biggest concern is the conversion of agricultural land to other uses, such as parking lots and non-farm buildings. 

“Agritourism has been the poster child for why we’re losing ag land,” Davey said. But that oversimplifies matters: “There’s industry pressure, housing pressure … a lot of different aspects go into that.”

The current debate is not unique to Skagit County. King County, home to both the city of Seattle and the traditionally agricultural Sammamish Valley, has been embroiled in a yearslong legal battle with the state over the regulation of bars, tasting vineyards and other event spaces on agricultural land. In a 5-4 opinion issued in September, Washington’s Supreme Court affirmed the state’s ability to limit the uses of agricultural lands, writing that “agricultural land must be conserved, by maintaining or enhancing the land, and by discouraging incompatible uses.” 

Back in January, the Skagit County commissioners adopted a six-month moratorium on permit applications for new business uses, including events, on agricultural land. They have since extended it through next April and sent the code changes back to the county’s planning commission to be reconsidered. That leaves dozens of small farms facing economic uncertainty — and county residents still at odds.

“It’s definitely stressful to be in this limbo,” Davey said. And with so much ire focused on event venues, she said: “I feel kind of like a leper in my own community.”  

We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

This article appeared in the November 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “What makes a farm a farm?” 

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When 19th-century miners first scouted eastern Arizona, they found that the region’s alpine streams contained more golden wealth than merely ore. The White Mountains are home to the Apache trout, one of only two native salmonids within Arizona’s borders. They’re lovely fish, endowed with mustard flanks, pink and purple undertones, and constellations of black spots. Miners called them “yellow trout” or “yellowbellies.” 

Colonization wasn’t kind to the Apache trout. The newcomers caught and ate them by the bushel, and logging, overgrazing and mining degraded their mountain creeks. Worst of all were the legions of non-native trout — brook, brown and rainbow — that the state stocked for mining camps and anglers, which swiftly overwhelmed their native rivals. When the first iteration of the Endangered Species Act passed in 1967, Apache trout were protected by it, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service classified the species as threatened in 1975. 

This is a familiar ecological saga in the West, where native trout are among the most imperiled groups of species. But thanks to the concerted efforts of federal and state agencies, nonprofits and the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the Apache trout gradually recovered. On Sept. 4, the Fish and Wildlife Service removed Oncorhynchus apache from the federal list of threatened and endangered species — making it the first American sportfish to achieve delisting. The fish’s recovery, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement, “reminds us of the transformational power that collaborative conservation efforts — grounded in Indigenous Knowledge — can have on fish and wildlife.”

Yet the Apache trout’s future is far from assured. The West is rapidly getting hotter, drier and more flammable — hardly promising for a fish dependent on cold, clear flows. “I don’t see this as, ‘OK, it’s time to stop, we’re patting ourselves on the back,” said Nathan Rees, Arizona state director for Trout Unlimited.

ALTHOUGH CONSERVATION SUCCESS stories never have single authors, the White Mountain Apache Tribe deserves the lion’s share of credit for the trout’s comeback. By the 1940s, Apache trout endured in just 12 streams — all of them on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. (At the time, Apache trout were lumped together with Arizona’s other endemic salmonid, the Gila trout; not until 1972 did biologists reclassify the Apache as a separate species.) In 1955, the tribe, which regards the trout as sacred, closed its streams to sportfishing — an act of radical foresight that predated the trout’s federal listing by more than a decade.

In the 1980s, the White Mountain Apache, aided by a panoply of agencies, began assisting Apache trout in earnest. Land managers closed forest roads, improved logging management and fenced cattle out of streams to ease pressure on the fish’s habitat. Tribal and state agency staff bred Apache trout in captivity and returned them to their former public-land domains. Slowly, the fish’s population began to tick upward. 

“The species was resilient and would just persevere.” 

“I think we’re the leaders,” said Tim Gatewood, the tribe’s longtime fisheries manager and a tribal member. “A lot of times, those guys that helped take part in management came through our office, and we kind of told them what we wanted.” 

Most crucially, fish managers curtailed the non-native fish that bedevil Apache trout. In many streams, agencies installed barriers to prevent invasive trout from penetrating Apache strongholds. With those headwaters secured, biologists set about purging the invaders, both with poison and currents of electricity. The process was hardly linear: Rock barriers failed and had to be replaced with sturdier concrete ones, and the 2011 Wallow Fire, the largest conflagration in Arizona’s history, killed thousands of Apache trout and incinerated riparian vegetation. Several times the fish was on the verge of delisting, only to narrowly fall short. 

“We’d get close, and then there’d be a setback,” said Julie Carter, aquatic wildlife branch chief for the Arizona Department of Game and Fish. “But the species was resilient and would just persevere.” 

Today, surveys indicate that the species currently inhabits less than a third of its former range, which once encompassed nearly 700 miles of stream. Still, recovery efforts have saved the fish from immediate jeopardy. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona has 30 discrete populations of Apache trout, enough to satisfy the agency’s recovery plan. The Apache trout is now among a tiny handful of Western fish, alongside the Modoc sucker, the Oregon chub and the Borax Lake chub, ever to escape the threatened list — and the only one to which an angler might conceivably cast a line. 

IN ITS 2023 PROPOSED delisting rule for the Apache trout, Fish and Wildlife acknowledged that the Southwest suffers from “a megadrought that has large consequences for streamflows” and thus for the suitability of trout habitat. Megafires, too, remain a concern: According to the Service, some important drainages still face “a high risk of crown fire … and subsequent debris flows” that could smother trout streams.

For those reasons and more, not everyone is celebrating the trout’s delisting. In public comments submitted to Fish and Wildlife, Robin Silver, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, excoriated the decision for its failure to account for “the foreseeable effects of climate change and related long-term impacts.” While the agency’s analysis suggested the fish’s prospects were fairly rosy for the next 30 years, Silver objected to the timeframe’s relative brevity. Silver also noted that some streams are still battered by overgrazing, and that non-native fish barriers aren’t foolproof. “The bottom line is that the habitat is objectively not protected,” Silver said. 

Over the next six decades, climate change’s impacts on Apache trout may be complex. According to one 2023 study, some formerly frigid headwaters could become just mild enough to support spawning trout, increasing Apache habitat. When the study’s authors incorporated the likelihood of reduced rain and snowfall into their model, however, they found that a number of Apache-bearing streams will become less hospitable by the year 2080. 

Apache trout are hardly the only Western salmonid in climate-related peril. A 2021 study found that the distribution of bull trout and cutthroat trout stands to contract, respectively, by 39% and 16% by 2080, as their streams become warmer, drier and more vulnerable to invasive species. Such projections present a conundrum for managers: How should agencies weigh a species’ current status against its dubious future? 

“The bottom line is that the habitat is objectively not protected.”

One answer is to pursue restoration projects aimed at enhancing climate resilience. This year or next, for instance, Trout Unlimited will begin to restore Thompson Meadow, a section of the Black River watershed degraded by overgrazing. According to Rees, the group intends to plant willows, fence out elk and construct more than 200 artificial beaver dams — efforts that will, in theory, cool the drainage’s overheated flows and bring back the complex shaded habitat that Apache trout require. The White Mountain Apache Tribe, the trout’s traditional keepers, has received more than $2.5 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to replace derelict road culverts on trout-bearing creeks, allowing the fish to flee to cold headwaters as downstream reaches warm.

“I know (delisting) is not the end here,” said Gatewood. “It’s just more work.”

This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation. hcn.org/cbb

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In early August, Vice President Kamala Harris and her newly selected running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, swept through the Southwest, holding massive rallies in Phoenix and Las Vegas and energizing Democratic voters just before the party’s national convention, which concluded yesterday. Now, as the official Democratic presidential ticket, they need the staunch support of a few key voting blocs in Arizona and Nevada, crucial swing states that will help determine the outcome of the November election.

Christian Solomon, Nevada state director for the nonprofit Rise Free, which works with college-age voters, described the diverse, ecstatic crowds at Harris and Walz’s rallies. “Everybody’s life is just kind of exploding with this,” he told High Country News.

Arizona and Nevada are now reliably purple states, in part due to the influx of Democratic voters to metropolitan regions over the last decade. President Joe Biden, who stepped down as the Democratic candidate late last month, narrowly won both states in 2020, but recent polls suggested that he was losing support in his attempt at re-election, especially following a poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump. Ever since Harris stepped up, she has reinvigorated major demographics in the party’s base — including women and minorities — and she’s making noticeable inroads among independents.  

“Everybody’s life is just kind of exploding with this.”

Recent polls from the research firm Focaldata and the New York Times/Siena College are showing Harris with a slight edge over Trump. Her gains in western swing states are at least partially attributable to her choice of her running mate. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who had also been under consideration, would have been more recognizable to Arizona voters, but Walz has shown a surprising ability to generate support among young people and independents.

Last year, voters who do not identity with a political party outnumbered Democrats and Republicans in both Arizona and Nevada. In Nevada, their numbers have risen consistently for more than a decade, aided in part by the state’s new automatic registration system. In Arizona, nearly half of voters under 30 are now registered as independent.

Thom Reilly, professor and co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University, said that independent voters are notoriously difficult to predict, but that they do tend to favor new candidates over incumbents. Nationally, they seem to switch every so often: In 2016, Trump’s success among independents helped vault him to the White House, but Biden recovered enough of their votes to win in 2020. This year, independents were trending toward Trump again until Harris reset the map. As of this month, she is polling nine points ahead of Trump among non-party-affiliated voters.

In general, voters crave economic policies that directly affect their quality of life, an area where Walz’s record is particularly strong. As governor, he has locked in policies for free school meals, child tax credits and increased labor protections for gig workers.

He also appeals directly to independents who are disillusioned by the polarized party system, according to Sondra Cosgrove, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada and executive director of the civic engagement nonprofit Vote Nevada. Walz authorized the expansion of ranked-choice voting across Minnesota, a type of electoral reform that increased voter turnout in the Twin Cities. By allowing for some expansion without enforcing it statewide, Cosgrove said, Walz signaled a spirit of pragmatism and compromise. “I’m hoping that this is going to be a Tim Walz moment, where he can say, ‘I hear you. Let’s work on this. Let’s figure out,’” she added.

As for Harris, she has secured support from critical groups, such as the endorsement of Nevada’s powerful Culinary Local 226, a union that represents service industry workers in Las Vegas. She is polling well among women in both Arizona and Nevada, driven in part by her strong support of reproductive rights. As vice president, she has made multiple trips to Nevada, touting the importance of gun control in the wake of the University of Nevada Las Vegas shooting last year. She has also regained some of Biden’s 2020 support among Latino voters, who comprise a quarter of Arizonans and one-fifth of Nevadans.

Trump still has significant support in the Copper and Silver states. Many Arizona residents want to see tougher action on immigration, and the former president has made securing the border one of his top issues, while repeatedly criticizing Harris on this front. As vice president, she supported President Biden’s mission to address the root causes of immigration by working with the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. While instances of illegal crossings from the three countries has decreased, they increased overall under Biden, until the administration’s recent cap on asylum. Harris has defended her record with the more recent policy, which border officials say reduced crossings over the summer.

Most polls have Trump and Harris essentially tied, and neither can be certain of the support of independent voters. Reilly, from Arizona State, noted that two-thirds of registered independents in Arizona failed to vote in 2020. This year, the voters he surveyed in June said they were more likely to turn out for down-ballot issues like abortion or water conservation than on behalf of either party. Still, it’s impossible to discount the dramatic shift in favor of Harris.

Nancy Gomez, 64, a retired administrator at Arizona State, came away from the Vice President’s Phoenix rally impressed at the energy generated by Harris and Walz. She supports the Biden administration’s policies generally, but this election, for her, is about leaving behind the last nine years of Trump. “People are tired of being angry at each other,” Gomez said, “There’s a level of excitement that I haven’t seen in a long, long time.”

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On any given day between April and September, dozens of wildfires are burning throughout the West. More than 4,700 fires have already scorched California this year, burning nearly 30 times the acreage that was charred over the same period last year. The Park Fire — now the fifth-largest fire in the state’s history — has destroyed more than 821 structures and forced residents of four counties to evacuate. 

After more than a decade of increasing risk, many residents of fire-prone areas are well aware of the need to make evacuation plans and clear defensible space around their homes. Some residents are stepping up to fill gaps in regional fire protection. Still, many fire prevention and mitigation strategies can only be addressed by local government. 

Just as individuals vary widely in their approach to wildfire preparedness, so too do community leaders. How do you know that your county or municipality is taking effective measures? 

While the answer depends on the area’s level of fire risk, among other factors, there are certain steps that can help strengthen wildfire defense. We asked three experts working in or alongside local governments about essential, advanced and ideal wildfire-preparedness strategies for Western communities. 

Essential preparedness

Publish a wildfire action plan. In May, Oregon’s Wasco County received a $5.9 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service, the largest in the state so far this year, to conduct multiple mitigation projects, including targeted tree removal and community education. It’s a feat that community development director Kelly Howsley-Glover said would not have been possible without the county’s community wildfire action plan, which aggregates information on local risk reduction efforts, updating a previous version from 2005.

“Plans translate into grants,” she said, because they demonstrate that local agencies are already working together to identify their most urgent needs. This year, Wasco County’s priorities include finalizing a study on vegetation near roads, which can contribute to fires, and adopting new standards for building with nonflammable materials. 

Establish an active dialogue with community members. Both Wasco’s community wildfire action plan and its natural hazards mitigation plan sought public feedback through surveys, which informed how the county prioritized its goals. Over time, the county bridged the communication gap between firefighters and the local farming community, encouraging the latter to play an active role in containing this year’s fire in Larch Creek. 

Build relationships among agencies. Tuolumne County, which sits north of Yosemite National Park, is 75% public land. To effectively reduce the buildup of fallen trees and shrubs, which fuel fires, county leaders must work with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. When county officials realized that they were competing for the same state and federal grants as the Forest Service and other agencies, they decided to host annual meetings among county, state, tribal and federal agencies to streamline their efforts and set shared priorities.

“We have very high fire-severity zones,” said Dore Bietz, assistant director of Tuolumne’s Office of Emergency Services in. “In a rural community that is truly dependent upon finding grant-funded programs, (identifying areas of need) really allows us to work together as a team.”

Update fire safety standards. Detailed building and zoning codes can also ensure that every homeowner is prepared for fires. In Wasco County, these codes remind residents to make sure their driveways are wide enough for emergency vehicles, and, on longer private roads, to have enough turnouts for cars to pass one another safely. They also emphasize that homes need fuel breaks, including barriers of fire-resistant plants. Whether self-certified or externally enforced, standard codes can encourage property owners to act ahead of time and keep their fire agencies in mind. 

Advanced preparedness

Identify areas of greatest risk. The Forest Service and the Bozeman-based research group Headwaters Economics run a program called Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire, which provides fire expertise to local governments. Their study of Wasco County found that unused agricultural lands, previously believed to pose a low risk, had contributed significantly to recent fires when farmers applied no-till practices, leaving enough vegetation to allow wildfires to spread. 

Share data across jurisdictions. When the Tuolumne County team of federal and local officials began to apply for funding, they compiled all their land-use data into a single map that showed where fuels reduction was proposed or already occurring. The map eventually became a publicly accessible tool that is updated annually. It cost the county only a small amount beyond paid staff time, because each office had already collected its own data. 

Develop auxiliary measures for vulnerable communities. The storyboard also helped Tuolumne County secure a $10 million grant from the USDA to create defensible space around over 1,000 homes. These homes were identified as a priority because many of their owners were elderly or low-income and either could not carry out the manual labor or couldn’t afford to hire contractors. In Lost Valley near Eugene, a nonprofit connects young adults with older residents in need of mitigation efforts. 

Ideal preparedness 

Conduct an annual evacuation drill. In Benton County, Oregon, Carrie Berger, fire program manager at Oregon State University and a local Firewise coordinator, was one of the first to receive a text that her community-wide evacuation drill had begun. Despite working with local emergency services for months, she still felt her stomach flip. Then she and her family grabbed their bags, piled into the car and joined hundreds of neighbors participating in the voluntary drill. Five years and four drills later, Berger said she and her neighbors were able to overcome the anxiety by working through the first few steps of an evacuation. “Now,” she said, “I don’t feel uneasy about it. I just go.” 

Widen existing roads or build new evacuation routes. At the time of 2018 Camp Fire, one of the deadliest wildfires in recent history, Paradise, California, had only six emergency exit routes. Some were blocked when cars broke down or fires swept through town. According to an investigation by USA Today and The Arizona Republic, hundreds of Western communities face similar vulnerabilities. 

New roads are costly, and they can harm habitat and wildlife. When designed to minimize impact and maximize access, however, they allow more emergency vehicles to get in and more people to get out when a fire approaches. 

Hire local workers for annual mitigation efforts. Bietz of Tuolumne County reflected that even with millions of dollars of state and federal grant money, opportunities for long-term mitigation are limited. Grants typically run out after five years, and the funding is often spent on contractors, who can charge steep prices for their work. With a longer funding horizon, the county could hire more full-time staff and develop training programs for seasonal fuels reduction or prescribed fire management, involving more residents in active mitigation. 

Creativity is the key to building resilience, Bietz said. “Everyone, if they do their part, from their little household to their community to their neighborhood to their county to their state, helps reduce all of that risk, which means we will survive what’s to come.” 

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Last fall, on a tour of his grain farm on Idaho’s rippling Camas Prairie, Bill Flory stood in a buzz-cut field of recently harvested wheat. A sturdy man with a whitening mustache, the 70-year-old farmer grows wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils and other rotating crops on land his great-grandfather first tilled in 1904 with a horse-drawn plow. Today, farm trucks haul the wheat about 40 miles to the Port of Lewiston, where it’s funneled onto barges. At peak harvest season, four wheat-filled barges a day leave the port and travel through the locks of eight dams — four on the Lower Snake River, four on the Columbia — on their 465-mile journey to the Port of Portland. There, the grain is loaded on ocean-going ships bound for international markets.

Soon, though, all that could change.

Scientists, tribes and environmentalists see removing the four Lower Snake River dams — a last resort, after decades of other options have failed — may be the best and only chance to prevent the extinction of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. But many local farmers and businesses rely on the dams, locks and reservoirs for transportation, irrigation, recreation and electricity, and they say they cannot afford to lose them.

“It would be like taking out the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. Sure, you could do it. But there’d be consequences.”

Flory isn’t necessarily opposed to dam removal, but he argues that it’s a lot more complicated than proponents suggest. As one of the stakeholders, he has been having tough conversations about transportation logistics and how they would have to change if the dams come down.

“It would be like taking out the 405 freeway in Los Angeles,” Flory said. “Sure, you could do it. But there’d be consequences.”

Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, says dam removal is necessary to restore salmon, a species integral to the tribe’s diet, culture and economy for tens of thousands of years.

As part of the Treaty of 1855, the Nez Perce were promised the right to hunt and fish in all “usual and accustomed places.” “We signed up to have fish in perpetuity, not fish on life support,” Wheeler said. “The question we need to pose is how we change the way we do business to ensure the impacts of transportation aren’t contributing to the declining population of a keystone species.”

Flory and Wheeler both participated in a panel discussion about salmon and dams hosted by the Society of Environmental Journalists last spring. They have a cordial business relationship: Flory, who previously served as the chairman of the Idaho Wheat Commission, leases farmland from the tribe and also owns land within reservation boundaries that his grandfather purchased from a homesteader. They represent two of many stakeholder groups that have spent years debating the future of the lower Snake River dams.

“We signed up to have fish in perpetuity, not fish on life support.”

The dam debate — which was basically gridlocked for two decades — is finally evolving from a binary battle into a more collaborative conversation about how to solve an extremely complex puzzle. The driving question has largely shifted from whether or not to remove the dams to how best to mitigate the economic impacts of removal.

The pivot toward collaboration began in April 2019, when Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson, R, announced his intention to restore salmon populations by coming up with a plan that keeps all stakeholders whole. Simpson and his staff then embarked on a three-year fact-finding mission that included 300 meetings with tribes, farmers, officials and other stakeholders. Those meetings informed the proposal Simpson announced in February 2021: a $33.5 billion framework for recovering salmon by breaching the lower Snake River dams and finding other ways to satisfy the needs they serve, including transportation and hydropower.

Simpson proposed allocating $3.6 billion for Snake River transportation, including improvements to the grain transportation network and subsidies to farmers to offset the increased transportation costs. For farmers like Flory on Idaho’s Camas, Simpson envisioned new spur rail lines connecting existing tracks with the Port of Lewiston, where wheat could continue to the Tri-Cities on the BNSF railway, which runs alongside the Snake River.

When Flory imagines a future without the dams — and the shipping they provide — he worries about volume and timing.  Each year, around 2.4 million tons of freight travels down the river. About 90% of it is wheat, and most of it is barged downriver to international ports. In the absence of barging, that load — about 10% of the nation’s wheat exports — would transition to trains and trucks. But Flory is uncertain whether the existing railways and roads can handle the extra freight.

Washington’s Department of Transportation is currently engaged in a transportation impact analysis regarding that very issue. Jim Mahugh, lead engineer on the study, said that economic factors complicate what might otherwise be a straightforward engineering question. Infrastructure needs will depend on what percentage of the 2.4 million tons of freight is shipped by train versus truck. It’s hard to predict how that will parse out, because it will be driven by economic factors — international markets, fluctuations in supply and demand, and the price of grain.

Farmers in Washington’s Palouse have an advantage: The state owns a short-line rail system that moves 25% of the wheat grown in Washington. But farmers like Flory, on Idaho’s Camas, would likely have to rely on the stretch of the BNSF railway that connects the Port of Lewiston to Washington’s Tri-Cities, where wheat and other products could be loaded onto barges traveling down the Columbia River or continue by train to Portland.

Flory said he’s open to that idea, though he wonders if the BNSF railroad — a single unidirectional track — has the capacity to handle the four barges’ worth of grain a day that leave Lewiston during peak season.

Plus, there’s the extra time it will require: Railroad hopper cars take longer to load than barges. “In three and a half days, my grain can be on an ocean vessel and heading toward export customers,” he says. That speed and efficiency enables him to respond quickly to volatile export markets. If frozen railroads in Canada derail a shipment of wheat from a competing farm, could Flory Farms fill that void as quickly by rail? Would shipping delays cost him business with foreign customers?

The effect of increased volume on railroad infrastructure is also a concern. During a 1992 test drawdown of the reservoirs, the loss of water pressure against the shore caused the ground to shift and slump, threatening the structural integrity of the railroad tracks built on top of it. Any necessary repairs could cause even more shipping delays.

“If we are working toward equitable business in this country, we must consider all impacted parties and the true cost associated with doing business.”

But Flory’s biggest worries are economic: If barging is removed as an option, he expects his costs to go up and his margins to shrink. According to the 2022 Lower Snake River Dams Benefit Replacement Report, shipping by rail is considerably more expensive: 50 to 75 cents per bushel, compared 30 to 45 cents per bushel by barge.

Flory said he would find it challenging to keep his prices low and market share high in Asia, where his club wheat — a soft, low-gluten variety grown almost exclusively in the Pacific Northwest — is used to make Japanese sponge cakes, and his hard red winter wheat becomes high-end ramen noodles. If his prices were no longer competitive overseas, he would have to find markets closer to home, or else grow other crops.

Some point out that barging prices are artificially low because the federal government and regional ratepayers fund the annual $83 million cost of maintaining and operating the Lower Snake River dams. Environmental activist Lin Laughy, who has looked closely at the economics, calculated a subsidy of $40,000 per barge.“It’s an implicit subsidy,” said Eric Crawford, strategic partners coordinator for Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit conservation group involved in many of the conversations about salmon and dams. “What about reimagining how we spend that money?”

“If we are working toward equitable business in this country, we must consider all impacted parties and the true cost associated with doing business,” Wheeler said. “That includes considering the needs of the salmon, because they can’t change their ways. We can.”

“Let’s continue the conversation,” Flory said. “Let’s force some people to come to the table, not sit in the corner and yell, ‘No!’”

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On July 21, President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place, launching her to the forefront of potential Democratic nominees. Harris’ term as VP hasn’t produced many significant policy outcomes of her own, but her experience as a California senator and attorney general, as well as her 2020 presidential campaign, point to a consistent record of pro-climate, pro-environmental policies and an evolved understanding of tribal land issues. Should she eventually assume the Oval Office, her career to date signals a likely continuation of the West’s Biden-era gains in the protection of public lands, water and wildlife as well as support for tribal sovereignty.  

“We couldn’t be more excited,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s lands-protection program. Harris worked with the organization on bills to expand California’s public lands, increase access to nature and develop community incentives for wildfire prevention. “She understood the totality of these issues, and that gives us great confidence.”

Over the past four years, the Biden administration reinstated protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest and conserved more than 41 million acres of public land. It passed the climate-forward Inflation Reduction Act, which was hailed as a windfall for domestic clean energy jobs and a once-in-a-generation wealth transfer to historically marginalized communities. The record bears a striking resemblance to Harris’ own platform for president, which also pursued environmental justice and sought an end to fossil fuels on public lands.

“This was the most impactful one-term presidency on public lands, climate change and environmental justice,” Manuel said. Harris, who was born in Oakland and spent much of her career in California, was also able to provide the Biden administration with insight into regional issues. “A Westerner leading on all these issues is very significant.” 

Prior to joining Biden’s ticket, Harris was best known as a Golden State prosecutor. As California’s attorney general, Harris won multiple settlements against corporate polluters, including a $44 million settlement from the owners of a container ship that spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay. She secured multimillion-dollar deals with oil companies BP, ARCO and ConocoPhillips for negligent monitoring of hazardous materials in gas station storage tanks, and she was part of the team that held Volkswagen accountable for bypassing air pollution regulations, eventually earning more than $86 billion in penalties for the state. However, her claim that she pursued polluters while working in the San Francisco DA office has come under scrutiny.

In the Senate, she co-sponsored bills to develop national wildlife corridors, divert revenue from energy development to national parks and further climate equity by calculating policy impacts on frontline communities. She voted to protect the Antiquities Act and the Great American Outdoors Act, as well as to halt drilling in the Arctic and pass a public-lands package that conserved 2 million acres of land and water. Over the course of four years, she earned multiple perfect scores from the League of Conservation Voters.

Harris’ track record with Indigenous affairs over her decades working in politics is more varied. As state attorney general, she created the first Indian Child Welfare Act Compliance Task Force to protect Native children. But she also opposed multiple tribal applications to put land into “trust” and thereby grow a tribe’s land base. During her time as attorney general, Harris’ office also pursued a legal argument that could have had negative, precedent-setting impacts for tribes that have acquired land in trust. She argued that the Big Lagoon Rancheria, a tribe that was seeking to build a casino on 11 acres of trust land, improperly received that land from the federal government. The case had the potential to open past land-to-trust transfers across Indian Country to litigation, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately ruled against California.

Trump’s impact on Indian Country over four years

Since then, Harris has distanced herself from that position. When then-Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier asked her about this publicly in 2019, Harris said that as California’s attorney general it was her duty to represent the state’s interests, which did not necessarily reflect her own. “As California’s attorney general she was perceived as being more focused on states than tribes,” wrote Mark Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock) in an analysis for ICT. “But that has largely shifted.”

During her 2020 campaign for president, for example, Harris promised to assist tribes in restoring their lands and to make it easier for them to do so in the future. Her campaign also detailed specific policies and initiatives to advance Native voting rights, increase funding for the federal agencies serving tribal communities, and protect Native women and children, building on some of the legislation that she co-sponsored during her time in the Senate. Those bills largely focused on supporting Native health care and addressing the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples, along with the Native Voting Rights Act of 2019 and other legislation concerning tribal wildlife corridors and food sovereignty. 

As vice president, she’s been a part of an administration that has made considerable strides in integrating Indigenous knowledge and tribal priorities into public-lands management, as well as in providing funding for Native-led climate resilience projects and appointing multiple Indigenous people to leadership positions. She was the first sitting vice president to visit the Gila Indian River Community and do an interview with the Native news organization ICT. Asked by reporter Aliyah Chavez (Kewa Pueblo) about the administration’s goals and the decision to appoint Native leaders like Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), Harris said, “I do believe that we are setting a new model for what the interaction and what the partnership should be [with tribes], always grounded in full appreciation and respect for tribal sovereignty.” 

The Democratic Party has less than a month to introduce any alternative candidates before the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19. Other potential frontrunners, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, appear to be rallying behind Harris as the primary candidate who could win the race against former President Donald Trump. 

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On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities and municipalities can punish people for sleeping outside, even when they have nowhere else to go. In the case of The City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the conservative majority sided in a 6-3 decision with Grants Pass, a small city in southern Oregon, finding that its broad public camping ban did not amount to cruel and unusual punishment

“This is the single most important case on homelessness in the past few decades,” said Nisha Kashyap, an attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization, which joined several others in writing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting the rights of unhoused people in Johnson, called the decision “devastating”.

“The decision risks opening the door to a whole slew of punitive measures that cities could enact in an effort to just push unhoused people out of their communities,” Kashyap said.

“This is the single most important case on homelessness in the past few decades.”

Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that fines imposed by Grants Pass on people sleeping outdoors did not “qualify as cruel and unusual,” and thus did not violate the Eighth Amendment.

Gorsuch referred to briefs written by California Governor Gavin Newson, mayors of several Western cities, and conservative-led states, wherein city officials wrote that they need to be able to enforce public camping bans as part of the “full panoply of tools in the policy toolbox” to “tackle the complicated issues of housing and homelessness.”

The ruling removes a narrow but critical provision that had barred some Western states from fining, ticketing and jailing homeless residents for public camping when adequate shelter was unavailable. The decision comes as large cities across the West, facing an escalating crisis in homelessness, have passed a slew of anti-camping ordinances. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, such cities could pass stricter anti-camping ordinances.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown dissented. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that Grants Pass’s camping ban effectively criminalizes people for sleeping, a “biological necessity.” She wrote that the majority focuses “exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.”

The Court did not rule out the possibility that the Grants Pass ordinances violate other protections afforded to unhoused people under the Eighth Amendment, such as the Due Process Clause or Excessive Fines Clause, affirming that the decision is narrow and does not give cities unchecked power to criminalize homelessness, Kashyap said.

The Supreme Court also overturned Martin v. Boise, a previous 9^th Circuit decision that found that imposing civil penalties for camping when homeless residents lack access to any shelter amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. In the opinion, Gorsuch wrote that homelessness is not an involuntary condition and is not subject to Eighth Amendment protections.

“Anything that weakens Eighth Amendment protections is really, really concerning,” said Kashyap, echoing the response from housing advocates.

In a press briefing on the day of the decision, Ed Johnson, director of litigation at the Oregon Law Center and lead counsel for the respondents in Grants Pass v. Johnson, said the “troubling decision that is legally and morally wrong,” and could potentially worsen the homelessness crisis. Johnson has no relation to Gloria Johnson, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

GRANTS PASS IS a city of 40,000 people with a vacancy rate of 1%; roughly 600 of its residents experience homelessness at any given time. There is one shelter, the Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission, which has 138 beds. It is a high-barrier shelter, meaning that people who want to stay there are required to work full-time at the Mission, remain sober and attend church services daily. People who cannot or choose not to meet these strict requirements cannot stay there.

In a 2013 meeting, Grants Pass City Council members said they deliberately sought to adopt laws that would keep homeless people from staying in the city.

“The point is to make it uncomfortable enough … in our city so (homeless people) will want to move on down the road,” said Lily Morgan, the then-city council president. The same year, Grants Pass started enforcing a 24-hour camping ban. Law enforcement officers began aggressively ticketing unsheltered people city-wide, often fining them hundreds — even thousands — of dollars.

Helen Cruz, for example, was fined $2,000 for sleeping in a public park. Cruz had lived in Grants Pass for four decades before she lost her housing in 2016. Even though she was working two jobs, as a house cleaner and at a motel, she couldn’t afford the city’s steep rent.

“The community around here is scared,” Cruz said, who is currently living in a church. She added that she feels like her elected officials “have no kindness and compassion for the homeless.”

In 2017, the Oregon Law center filed a class action lawsuit on the behalf of Debra Blake, an unhoused resident of Grants Pass, who passed away in 2021. Gloria Johnson and John Logan stepped up as class representatives. In 2020, the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit sided with the plaintiffs.

In the past few years, many cities in the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction — which includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana and Washington, as well as Oregon — refrained from fining, ticketing and arresting individuals for sleeping in public, legislating with the lower court’s decision in mind. Now that the ruling has been overturned, Western cities like Bozeman, Montana, will be able to pass stricter ordinances.

“(This decision) removes the most basic protections that recognize the humanity of homeless folks,” Rankin said.

This has raised concerns among lawyers and housing advocates about an uptick in local anti-camping measures following the ruling.

In cities outside of the 9th Circuit that already have camping bans, such as Denver, legal protections for unhoused people will be unchanged, although Denver’s current policy is to offer shelter before sweeping residents.

But “it sends a very strong message that cities can choose to be less compassionate,” said Cathy Alderman, the chief communications and public policy at the Colorado Coalition for the homeless in Denver. “The ruling is basically saying, ‘Unhoused people, we owe you nothing.’”

Several ongoing, high-profile lawsuits involving homelessness also won’t be affected, including one in San Francisco, where a U.S. District Court judge in Oakland barred the city from destroying belongings and taking away tents from people living in encampments.

In Grants Pass and elsewhere, the material reality for homeless individuals will change very little, according to housing advocates. Sara Rankin, a professor of law at Seattle University and head of Seattle’s Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, stressed that the scope of Grants Pass v. Johnson is very narrow. Even before the ruling, cities could still legally sweep encampments and fine and arrest unhoused people. That hasn’t changed anywhere in the country. Under the previous decision, for example, unhoused residents in Grants Pass were still required to move every three days.

Now, “folks might have to disperse and leave the city. It might make it harder for us to find folks,” said Leah Swanson, the operations coordinator at MINT, a public health outreach organization in the Grants Pass area.

What rural homelessness looks like

Jodi Peterson, the director of Interfaith Sanctuary Community Housing, a low-barrier shelter in Boise, said that the 9th Circuit’s decision on Martin v. Boise has had an impact, albeit a small one. It has not prevented the city from conducting daily sweeps, but it has created some stopgaps; now, for example, law enforcement is required to call the shelter to see if it has any beds before they ticket an unhoused person.

In the long term, experts expressed concern that additional local resources and public funding will be funneled into criminalizing homelessness, rather than in housing people in the first place. “There’s a lot of data saying that criminalizing unhoused people doesn’t work,” said Ann Oliva, the CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, adding that criminalizing unhoused people only retraumatizes them and makes it harder for them to eventually find stable housing. “Criminalization is actually more expensive than just housing people.”

Legal experts and advocates stressed that the court’s decision will not address the homelessness crisis in the United States. In the long term, affordable housing is the solution, but “we need interim strategies, things like housing-focused shelter, making sure that outreach is robust, and keeping people as safe and healthy as possible,” Oliva said.

“We may not have a home, but we’re still people. We deserve to be respected, just like anybody else does,” Cruz said.

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When Yakama Nation leaders learned in 2017 of a plan to tunnel through some of their ancestral land for a green energy development, they were caught off guard. 

While the tribal nation had come out in favor of climate-friendly projects, this one appeared poised to damage Pushpum, a privately owned ridgeline overlooking the Columbia River in Washington. The nation holds treaty rights to gather traditional foods there, and tribal officials knew they had to stop the project.

Problems arose when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency in charge of permitting hydro energy projects, offered the Yakama Nation what tribal leaders considered an impossible choice: disclose confidential ceremonial, archaeological and cultural knowledge, or waive the right to consult on whether and how the site is developed.

This put the Yakama Nation in a bind. Disclosing exactly what made the land sacred risked revealing to outsiders what they treasured most about it. In the past, disclosure of information about everything from food to archaeological sites enabled non-Natives to loot or otherwise desecrate the land.

Even now, tribal leaders struggle to safely express what the Pushpum project threatens. “I don’t know how in-depth I can go,” said Elaine Harvey, a tribal member and former environmental coordinator for the tribal fisheries department, when asked about the foods and medicines that grow on the land.

“It provides for us,” echoed Yakama Nation Councilmember Jeremy Takala. “Sometimes we do get really protective.”

Although government agencies have sometimes taken significant steps to protect tribal confidentiality, that didn’t happen with the Pushpum proposal, known as the Goldendale Energy Storage Project. Tribal leaders repeatedly objected, telling the agency that if a tribal nation deems a place sacred, they shouldn’t have to break confidentiality to prove it — a position supported by state agency leaders and, new reporting shows, at least one other federal agency. 

Nonetheless, after seven years, in February FERC moved the project forward without consulting with the Yakama Nation. 

The process known as consultation is often fraught. Federal laws and agency rules require that tribes be able to weigh in on decisions that affect their treaty lands. But in practice, consultation procedures sometimes force tribes to reveal information that makes them more vulnerable, without offering any guaranteed benefit. 

If a tribal nation deems a place sacred, they shouldn’t have to break confidentiality to prove it.

The risks of disclosure are not hypothetical: Looting and vandalism are common when information about Indigenous resources becomes public. One important mid-Columbia petroglyph, called Tsagaglalal, or She Who Watches, had to be removed from its original site because of vandalism. And recreational and commercial pickers have flooded one of Washington’s best huckleberry picking areas, called Indian Heaven Wilderness, pushing out Native families trying to stock up for the winter. 

The Yakama Nation feared similar outcomes if it fully participated in FERC’s consultation process over the Goldendale development. But there are alternatives. The United Nations recognizes Indigenous peoples’ right to affirmatively consent to development on their sacred lands. A similar model was included in state legislation in Washington three years ago, but Gov. Jay Inslee vetoed it.

The requirements of the consultation process are poorly defined, and state and federal agencies interpret them in a broad range of ways. In the case of Pushpum, critics say that has allowed FERC to overlook tribal concerns.

“They’re just being totally disregarded,” said Simone Anter (Pascua Yaqui and Jicarilla Apache descendant), an attorney at the environmental nonprofit Columbia Riverkeeper. “What FERC is doing is so blatantly, blatantly wrong.”

THE YAKAMA NATION has been outspoken in its support for renewable energy development, including solar and small-scale hydro projects. But not at Pushpum; it’s sacred to the Kah-milt-pah people, one of the bands within the Yakama Nation, who still regularly use the site.

The proposal would transform this area into a facility intended to store renewable energy in a low-carbon way. Rye Development, a Florida-based company, submitted an application for permits for a “pumped hydro” system, where a pair of reservoirs connected by a tunnel store energy for future use.

FERC has offered few accommodations for the Yakama Nation on the Goldendale project. 

FERC spokesperson Celeste Miller told High Country News and ProPublica in an email that “we will work to address the effects of proposed projects on Tribal rights and resources to the greatest extent we can, consistent with federal law and regulations. This is a pending matter before the Commission, so we cannot discuss the merits of this proceeding.”

“FERC legally doesn’t have to do very much here,” said Kevin Washburn (Chickasaw), dean of the University of Iowa College of Law and former assistant secretary of Indian affairs at the Department of the Interior. “Consultation is designed to open the door so tribes can get in the door to talk to decision-makers.” According to experts, the process can range from collaborative planning that addresses tribal concerns to a perfunctory discussion with minimal impacts, depending on the agency.

“This is the problem with consultation and its lack of teeth,” said Anter. “If the federal government is saying, ‘Hey, we consulted, check that box,’ who’s to say they didn’t?”

There’s another problem with consultation, too: Any discussions with a federal entity are subject to public disclosure. That’s good for government transparency, Washburn said, but it can make tribal nations even more vulnerable. “And it’s why tribes are right to be cautious in what they share with feds,” he said.

That’s an obstacle at Pushpum. Things became even harder there in August 2021, when FERC notified the Yakama Nation that federal consultation would be carried out not by the agency itself, but by the developer. The Yakama Nation pushed back, asserting its treaty rights to negotiate as a sovereign nation only with another nation, not with a private entity. FERC, however, insisted that designating a third party was “standard practice.” The National Historic Preservation Act, signed into law in 1966, says an agency “may authorize an applicant or group of applicants to initiate consultation,” but maintains that the federal agency is still “responsible for their government to government relationships with Indian tribes.”

The Yakama Nation also worried about commission rules that require anything the tribal nation says to FERC be shared with the developer. “It gets very sensitive when we share those kinds of stories,” said Takala, the tribal councilmember. “We just don’t share to anyone, especially a developer.”

Some say FERC could change that internal rule, since it isn’t required by law. “For them to cite their own regulations and be like, ‘Our hands are tied,’ is ridiculous,” Anter said. For months, FERC and the Yakama Nation went back and forth over the conditions under which the tribal government would share sensitive information, with the Yakama Nation repeatedly asking to share information only with FERC.

Ultimately, FERC proposed four ways the Yakama Nation could participate in consultation. In the eyes of tribal leaders, all these options either posed significant risks to the privacy of their information or rendered consultation meaningless.

The first three were laid out in a letter from Vince Yearick, director of FERC’s division of hydropower licensing, sent on Dec. 9, 2021. For option one, it suggested the tribal nation request nondisclosure agreements from anyone accessing sensitive information. Yearick did not specify whether FERC would be responsible for issuing or enforcing these NDAs.

“It gets very sensitive when we share those kinds of stories. We just don’t share to anyone, especially a developer.”

Delano Saluskin, then-chair of the Yakama Nation, called this option “far from the requirements of NHPA or in line with the trust responsibility that the Federal Agency has to Yakama Nation,” citing FERC policies and National Historic Preservation Act law in a February 2022 letter to state and federal government officials requesting support. He added that it “describes a process that does not protect information that is sacred and sensitive from disclosure.”

Alternatively, FERC said, the Yakama Nation could simply redact any sensitive information from documents it filed. This option, however, would leave FERC in the dark about the details of what cultural resources the project would imperil. That would make it harder for FERC to require project adjustments or weigh the specific impacts in its decision about whether to permit construction.

Third, the Yakama Nation could withhold sensitive information altogether, which would present similar problems.

 Lastly, in a June 2022 follow-up letter, the commission suggested that the Yakama Nation submit a document “with more details regarding the resources of concern” and a request that some of the information be treated as privileged or withheld from public disclosure.

Overall, Saluskin described FERC’s options as a “failure” to conduct legal consultation in good faith.

A federal agency similarly raised concerns: In May 2023, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which advises the president and the Congress on protecting historic properties across the country, wrote to FERC suggesting that it “provide the Tribes with opportunities to share information that will be kept confidential.” FERC’s rule regarding disclosure, the council said, could insulate the agency from meaningful consultation, “and as a result from any real understanding of the nature and significance of properties of religious and cultural significance for Tribes.” 

THE CONCERNS OVER FERC’s engagement with the Yakama Nation are part of a wider discussion of U.S. government protections for tribal privacy and cultural resources. Speaking at a tribal energy summit in Tacoma in June 2023, Allyson Brooks, Washington’s state historic preservation officer, said that even though the consent language was vetoed by the governor, state law for protecting confidentiality around tribal cultural properties is still stronger than federal law, which only protects confidentiality if a site is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

In Washington, if a tribal historic preservation officer says, “‘X marks the spot; this is sacred,’ we say, ‘OK,’” Brooks declared. She said asking tribal nations to prove a site’s sacredness is like asking to see a photo of baby Jesus before accepting the sanctity of Christmas. “You don’t. You say ‘nice tree’ and take it at face value. When tribes say ‘X is sacred,’ you should take that at face value too.”

That approach is vital to the Yakama Nation, which recently saw a developer involved with a project proposed in nearby Benton County leak information that the nation believed was private. 

The Horse Heaven Hills wind farm would be the biggest energy development of any kind in Washington state history. But the sprawling 72,000-acre project overlaps with nesting habitat for migratory ferruginous hawks, a raptor state-listed as endangered.

Court documents related to the permitting proceedings show that the Yakama Nation believed it had identified the locations of the ferruginous hawks’ nests as confidential, in part because the hawks are ceremonially important. In May 2023, the Yakama Nation requested a protective order from the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, a state-level analog of FERC. The order, which the council issued, instructed all parties to sign a confidentiality agreement before accessing confidential information, similar to the nondisclosure agreements FERC proposed. If any party disclosed that information, they could be liable for damages. 

But the order didn’t stop that information from getting out. In February 2024, the Seattle Times published a story on the Horse Heaven Hills wind farm, which included a map of ferruginous hawk nests — a map that was credited to Scout Clean Energy, the developer.

The Yakama Nation quickly filed a motion to enforce the protective order, alleging that Scout Clean Energy had transgressed by passing protected cultural information to the press.

“If a tribal historic preservation officer says, “‘X marks the spot; this is sacred,’ we say, ‘OK.’”

The developer counter-filed, claiming that even if nest locations were a part of confidentiality discussion, the map itself was not, and that it was so imprecise that the critical details remained confidential. The council ultimately agreed. 

Despite the risks, Washburn said that tribes should take any opportunity to share their stories with federal officials, even if the conditions aren’t perfect. “I wouldn’t necessarily encourage tribes to give their deepest, darkest secrets to a federal agency,” he said. “But I would encourage them to meet with FERC and try to give FERC a first-person account of why they think this is important.”

Not all experts agree. Brett Lee Shelton (Oglala Sioux), an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, said FERC is out of step with other federal and state agencies. “It’s hard to believe that it’s anything but disingenuous, using that tactic,” he said. “It’s pretty well known by any agency officials who deal with Indian tribes that sometimes certain specifics about sacred places need to remain confidential.”

And for Bronsco Jim Jr., a spiritual leader of the Kah-milt-pah people, sharing too many details is out of the question. Cultural specifics stay within the oral teachings of the longhouse, the site of the Kah-milt-pah spiritual community. Jim said he doesn’t even know how to translate all of the information into English. “We don’t write it; you won’t see it posted. You won’t see it in books. It’s our oral history. It’s sacred.”   

This article was produced in partnership with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network.

Photo illustration sources: USGS, Rye Development, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Columbia Riverkeeper. Leah Nash, Jurgen Hess/Columbia Insight, Steven Patenaude.

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