Land along the White Salmon River, previously owned by the utility PacifiCorp for the Condit Dam, is on track to be sold to the Yakama Nation.

The sale is being coordinated by the Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit that announced this week it had purchased the property from PacifiCorp.

The 172 acres of ancestral Yakama territory includes forested buffers along the river and areas previously submerged by then-Northwestern Lake, a reservoir above the former Condit Dam. The hydroelectric project blocked the river and fish for nearly a century.

The dam was removed by PacifiCorp after the utility determined it would cost three times as much for upgrades that allowed fish to swim past than to remove it. It was decommissioned and blasted open in 2011, and Northwestern Lake was swiftly drained.

After a 10-year effort to protect the decommissioned dam site, the land is being sold.

“We are an intermediary that helps partners move quickly to secure lands, buy lands, providing partners time to go raise money to ultimately be able to own and manage lands for the long term,” said Gates Watson, the vice president and Northwest director for the Conservation Fund.

The nonprofit bought two parcels from PacifiCorp for $3 million.

Watson said they’ll be working with the Yakama Nation over the next year to transfer the lands to tribal ownership. The tribe is currently fundraising for the purchase from public and private sources.

While the tribe will ultimately own and manage the property, there will likely be restrictions on development that come with state and private funding, Watson said.

A representative of the Yakama Nation did not immediately respond to an interview request.

“Yakamas have fished and lived along this river for millennia, stewarding the basin’s resources. Returning these riverside lands to Yakama stewardship helps restore a lost balance and brings things full circle for all its inhabitants,” Jeremy Takala, chair of Yakama Nation Tribal Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee, said in a press release.

The river provides habitat for Chinook, Coho salmon and steelhead. Indigenous management of this stretch of the river will help the Yakama Nation exercise their treaty fishing rights along the waterway, according to the Conservation Fund.

The tribe also has plans to build a foot trail along the White Salmon River.

Managing the sale also involved working with nearby river residents who are part of the Cabin Owners of Northwestern Lake Association.

Watson said the community of 40 homes has been supportive of the Conservation Fund’s efforts since PacifiCorp could have sold the property to anyone.

“If they’d sold to another private buyer, access to those lands could have been cut off,” he said.

After a century of displacement, Shasta Indian Nation sees hope in dam removal

The White Salmon River isn’t the only site where dam removal led to land acquisitions by tribes in recent years.

In 2024, the Shasta Indian Nation partnered with the state of California on the transfer of over 2,800 acres of ancestral lands exposed during the Klamath Dam removal. That project involved decommissioning and removing four hydroelectric dams and dewatering three large reservoirs along the Oregon-California border.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/06/white-salmon-river-dam-yakama-nation/