Dams constructed across the United States provided electricity and irrigation water, prevented floods, and created lakes for boating and fishing. Those same dams prevented anadromous fish from being able to return to their native streams to spawn, resulting in a steep decline in salmon and steelhead populations. Dam building also forced Native Americans off their lands, inundated sacred sites, and limited their ability to fish at usual and accustomed sites. This case study uses the “Land Back” movement as a springboard for the creation of a “Dams Down, Water Back… Salmon Back” movement to spur actions to remove dams, return rivers and streams to the stewardship of the tribes. It outlines some of the legal precedent for doing so but challenges the reader to build the case for one or more of the many dams that block the flow of U.S. waterways.
Copyright 2024 The Evergreen State College. Teaching notes for this case are available at http://nativecases.evergreen.edu. Kathleen M. Saul is a Resource Faculty member at The Evergreen State College. Van Maxwell-Miller graduated from the Graduate Program on the Environment (MES) at The Evergreen State College in June 2024. Thank you to Barbara Leigh Smith and Linda Moon Stumpff for their many insightful comments on earlier drafts of this and other cases and their continuing mentorship.