Spokane Tribe celebrates compensation from dam construction

WELLPINIT, Wash. (AP) — The Spokane Tribe of Indians is celebrating the adoption of federal legislation that will compensate the tribe for 2,500 acres of land lost to the reservoir created by Grand Coulee Dam.

Under the legislation, the Spokane Tribe will receive payments of about $6 million per year for the first decade, followed by $8 million every year after that.

The Spokesman-Review reports that those figures are not exact as they are tied to revenues generated by the Bonneville Power Administration.

A ceremony was held Thursday in the tribal town of Wellpinit to celebrate the new law.

The Grand Coulee Dam brought low-cost electricity to thousands of people in the Northwest when it became operational in 1941. But its construction on the Columbia River flooded lands traditionally held by the Spokane Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

The dam wiped away the salmon population that had sustained the Spokane people. Water also flooded grave sites, orchards, gardens and homes, forcing many with deep ties to the land to pack up and relocate.

Signed into law in December, the Spokane Reservation Equitable Compensation Act brought the Spokanes in line with payments made to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. The Colvilles were similarly impacted by the dam’s development but received compensation decades earlier because they pursued it from Congress