The city of Seattle will include a program for fish passage around its dams on the Skagit River, as part of a settlement with the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe of a case on behalf of the tribe and of salmon that live in the river.

That program was filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as part of the city’s license renewal request for those hydroelectric dams. These are strange times indeed, when FERC becomes the guarantor of river rights.

Washington dam removal is controversial but may be the best chance for salmon, earth.com 2019-08-20

There are at least two ways of approaching such cases on rights: rights of nature itself (fish, rivers, etc.), or rights of humans.

Human rights are the subject of the Florida citizen petition for a state constitutional amendment for Rights to Clean and Healthy Water. Florida registered voters, please sign that petition:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/

And then please get your friends and relatives to sign it.

This Seattle case used both approaches, according to the press release:

On April 19, 2023, the City of Seattle settled one of the first “rights of nature” cases filed in the United States. That case, brought in 2022 by the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, with salmon as a plaintiff, sought a declaratory judgment recognizing the legal rights of salmon and declaring that the lack of fish passage measures at the City’s dams harmed the Tribe’s culture and traditions, religion, and Treaty rights.

This part of the win is also very good: “their agreement “was based upon their relationship of mutual respect and consultation.””

If more governments and corporations had such an attitude, there would be much less need for such lawsuits.

Manuela Andreoni, New York Times, May 5, 2023, Nature Lawyers Up: A growing number of countries and courts say the environment should be endowed with legal rights.

…

Two weeks ago, the city of Seattle settled one of the first cases arguing for the recognition of the rights of nature in U.S. courts. The agreement recognized that salmon had the right to pass through the city’s dams. Seattle will now introduce a program to comply.

…

It’s not just about legal theory.

The struggle is also about changing hearts and minds, said Mari Margil, the executive director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, a nonprofit group that works to advance the rights of nature around the world.

Transforming our relationship with nature requires “legal change, really fundamental legal change,” she told me. “But that change happens only when we have a really fundamental society or cultural change.”

She argued that the movements that won recognition of the rights of women and enslaved people succeeded only because they caused enough of a shift in attitudes that people came together to demand change.

It’s about how we think of the natural world, how we feel about it. It’s not a coincidence that these laws have caught on so much more deeply in countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia, where Indigenous nations and communities have a spiritual relationship with nature and see themselves as part of it.

Embracing this legal movement may change the way we think about fundamental issues such as the energy transition. It will require a lot of mining for battery minerals and land for renewable power plants. But is there a way to live that doesn’t hurt nature as much?

It’s a question for all of us.

CDER PR

Press Release, Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, May 2, 2023, Press Release: City of Seattle Settles “Rights of Nature” Case Filed by the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe — Agrees to Create Fish Passage Through Skagit River Dams,

On April 19, 2023, the City of Seattle settled one of the first “rights of nature” cases filed in the United States. That case, brought in 2022 by the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, with salmon as a plaintiff, sought a declaratory judgment recognizing the legal rights of salmon and declaring that the lack of fish passage measures at the City’s dams harmed the Tribe’s culture and traditions, religion, and Treaty rights.

At the time of settlement, the case was pending within the Sauk-Suiattle Tribal Court of Appeals, with an April 30 deadline looming for Seattle to submit its application for renewal of its federal license to operate its hydroelectricity generating dams on the Skagit River.

As part of the settlement, the City — as the federal licensee for several Skagit River hydroelectric dams that feed power to Seattle — agreed to include in its hydropower license renewal application a fish passage program. That provision, filed by the City with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on April 28, commits the City to construct, operate, and maintain upstream and downstream fish passage facilities at some or all of the dams as informed by coordination with tribes and federal agencies. As recited in the settlement stipulation, neither party admitted the merits of either party’s claims, rather their agreement “was based upon their relationship of mutual respect and consultation.” The purpose of the fish passage is to “meaningfully contribute to recovering self-sustaining, harvestable salmon runs in the Skagit River watershed.”

Jack Fiander, tribal lawyer for the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, explained, “This settlement agreement creates a roadmap for the creation of a fish passage system to return salmon to their native ecosystem and restore the lifeblood of the tribes. It is truly a watershed moment happening as the result of a joint effort by the Skagit River Treaty tribes, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the United States Department of the Interior to protect the salmon. It’s time for the rights of fish and other species around the globe to be represented, just like the voice of the tribes needs to be honored.”

Mari Margil, Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), which assisted with the lawsuit, declared, “We hope that this is the first of many rights of nature cases that result in real, practical steps toward protecting the rights of ecosystems and species. The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe’s pursuit of this lawsuit, coupled with the continuing, decades-long efforts of the Skagit River Tribes to enforce the rights of tribal members, created the environment for this settlement to happen. It sets a framework for other campaigns to follow.”

The City of Seattle’s current FERC license expires on April 30, 2025. A new license is necessary for the City to continue operating the dams.

Background on the Rights of Salmon Case

The Sauk-Suiattle rights of salmon case was brought as several tribal nations, as well as communities within the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, and countries including Ecuador and Bangladesh, have recognized the legal rights of nature through lawmaking and court rulings. In August 2021, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, in Minnesota, became the first tribe to bring a case to enforce the legal rights of nature in a tribal court.

The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, known as the Sahkumà hu, ceded their aboriginal territory to the federal government through the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. As explained in the court filing, despite the Tribe’s treaty-protected right and obligation to protect fish migrating to and from the Tribe’s traditional fishing grounds, the City of Seattle constructed dams on the Skagit River without consulting with any tribe. The dams, the lawsuit argues, obstruct the passage of adult fish upriver, and block nutrients necessary to the health of juvenile fish as they migrate down the length of the river on their way to the ocean, contributing to the severe decline of salmon species.

The Skagit River provides habitat for all five wild salmon species, including two that are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. In addition, the Southern Resident killer whales in Puget Sound, which depend on salmon from the river, were listed as endangered in 2005.

A copy of the lawsuit and more information on the case may be found at this link.

To learn more about the rights of nature movement, including laws, court rulings, and enforcement efforts in the U.S. and around the world, visit CDER’s website: centerforenvironmentalrights.org.

CONTACT:

Jack Fiander, General Counsel, Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe, towtnuklaw@msn.com

Thomas Linzey, Senior Legal Counsel, Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, tal@pa.net

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 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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