The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

This is an “Open Letter to the Tribal Council.” I have to address it to them and to you because you members are the ones that will ultimately pay for this if it ever comes to pass. It has to do with the removal of Enloe Dam and what you should know about it.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Tribal Council, please accept this letter as a “last ditch effort” to persuade you to have no further discussions regarding Enloe Dam. I have sent each of you my video explaining our position exactly as it was stated those many years ago. Now, it seems like the “Chris Fisher Show” is back on the road again. Each time he says the Colville Tribes “wants” to remove Enloe Dam, the organizations and people he is talking to think it is coming from you, the leadership! He is wrong, and he was there at the meeting in Canada and heard the same thing I did so many years ago:

“That any removal of Enloe Dam will cause the replacement of that dam with the original falls, so that no salmon can enter Canadian waters. That no salmon were ever in the Similkameen River above Coyote Falls, nor will there ever be. Therefore, the Okanagan Nation Alliance and the Colville Tribes approve the PUD’s application to FERC for powering Enloe Dam.”

The “Chris Fisher Show” doesn’t remember that part of the meeting. It was the most important part of the meeting. That no ocean-reared salmon ever enter Canadian waters in the Similkameen drainage. The dam removal will cause the Colville Tribes a great deal of money, the PUD, you the Tribal Member and the PUD customers. The lawsuits coming from its removal from the Canadian Government alone will be astronomical. Remember, we sort of won a victory on the Columbia River in Canada. The BC Hydro, the Canadian Fish and Wildlife, are but a few of the groups of lawsuits we will be facing if you start talking about removal of Enloe Dam and introducing salmon to the Similkameen River drainage.

Please tell the Fish and Wildlife People to back off and shut down the “Chris Fisher Show” once and for all; he is wrong and is making you look bad, as if you don’t remember what you promised: “to keep the Similkameen drainage free of diseased ocean-reared salmon.”

Lim Limt,

Arnie Marchand

an Okanagan Indian and member of the

Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation