Day 3

Today I had the opportunity to meet Jeanette Burkhardt, the watershed planner for Yakama Nation, who explained the issues and plans the fishery program has been doing to save Salmon and restore vegetation land. Jeanette’s job consists of grant writing for funding and educational outreach. While we were discussing the issues Yakama Nation rivers experienced daily, she explained the history of the local Condit dam that was destroyed in 2013 because it was affecting white salmon and steelhead who were being killed by the underground sediment that was gain by the construction of the dam in 1912. I was very shocked to know this dam was constructed to provide electric power for paper mill factories and these growing businesses during the 19^th century was not aware or conscious of the damage they were part of. I am angry to know many growing industries using CO2 emissions are being negligent of their productions process. Jeanette also took us on a short hike where the dam was demolished by thousands of pounds of dynamite because the concrete was very difficult to break down due to the process it went. The dam was constructed by old machinery and the concrete was full of salt and cement. One of the other hikes we took was the one of their vegetation restoration site where many native plants were planted along the white salmon river and were amazed of the number of wildflowers and other plants that were growing quickly, as Jeanette explained. Although there are many other plants that are dying due to the shortage of water they need, as Jeanette explained, there are not allowed to irrigate the site because of the irrigation qualifications.

On the other hand, made a favorite part of this day was meeting Chief Johnny Jackson from the fish restoration site near the Columbia river meeting white salmon silver. The chief is a tribe member who has been fighting to save his land that was previously taken away by the government to establish roads and other infrastructures. Due to this gov’t action, many red salmon and other species are no longer available in the area. Thankfully Jhonny fought with a legal law suit and now he got back his land, but many species and land were demolished. His story impacted me because as a former military man, who fought for his country, he had his land, people, and other native species taken out from his land. For a moment I felt anger because I felt it was not fair. Johnny is still fighting in other cases for land and impresses me that he does not give up regardless of his age of more than 80 years.