There is a line being drawn on the Chehalis River. But I don’t believe that line should be drawn between the Chehalis Tribe and recreational fishermen.
The current dispute over recreational fishing access to roughly 10 miles of the Chehalis River (from South Bank Road near Oakville upstream to Moon Road Southwest near Helsing Junction) is understandably being framed as a conflict between tribal sovereignty and recreational fishing.
I believe that misses the bigger issue. This is a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife problem; one that the Washington governor’s office sure hasn’t helped with.
And it didn’t just start now. When state lands were conveyed to the Chehalis Tribe in 2016, the legal description for the property specifically excluded the beds and shores of navigable water up to the ordinary high-water mark. State records make that exclusion explicit.
According to reporting, and a recap provided by Northwest Sportsman Magazine on the transaction, questions were raised at the time about whether recreational fishing access could be affected. WDFW and a state legislator sought additional time to resolve those concerns.
If those concerns existed nearly a decade ago, why are anglers dealing with the consequences today?
The Chehalis Tribe has sovereignty and a deep cultural connection to the river and its salmon. Its legally established fishing rights should be respected. I do not believe recreational anglers should seek to diminish those rights, nor should this become another opportunity to pit Washington’s tribal communities against its recreational fishing community.
Do I, and many other recreational fishermen, wish wellness and prosperity for our tribal partners? Yes. Without question.
I certainly respected some of the messaging and sentiment provided in the Oct 3 statement on Facebook by former Chehalis Tribal Chairman Dustin Klatush. Do I wholly believe that a comment by the Assistant Attorney General allegedly threatening to “arrest our officers and fishermen, then asked if we wanted things to go back to the way they were in the old days” was true, accurate or not taken out of context?
I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But I wouldn’t appreciate it either if that was said to me.
However, respecting tribal sovereignty and committing to our community’s coexistence cannot mean that the state abandons its responsibility to the people it licenses, regulates and represents.
Coexistence and comanagement doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations. There is nothing inherently wrong with the State of Washington acknowledging that two legitimate interests have collided and saying, “We need to resolve this.”
Because the alternative is a slow-motion quagmire: tribal law enforcement confronting state-licensed anglers, anglers wondering which government has authority over them, guides questioning whether they can safely operate, and WDFW essentially telling its own constituents to stay away from a fishery it has authorized. WDFW says it disputes the Chehalis Tribe’s legal position regarding exclusive fishing authority over the disputed portion of the federally navigable river.
Yet, the department is warning anglers to avoid the area or pass through without anchoring, wading or fishing because tribal law enforcement may cite them or seize fishing gear or watercraft. The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation have also issued their own statement on the matter.
The state has authorized the fishery, licensed the fishermen and established the regulations. Yet, when a dispute over jurisdiction arises, the practical solution appears to be telling those fishermen to stay away.
This isn’t about fishing wherever someone wants. It isn’t about ignoring private property. And it isn’t about challenging tribal sovereignty. It is about whether Washington can establish a lawful recreational fishery and then provide meaningful access to it. If it cannot, what exactly are Washington sportsmen and women being asked to purchase when they buy a fishing license?
We’ve seen the warning signs before. The Chehalis River dispute should not be viewed in isolation. Look at the Skokomish River. The Skokomish and Chehalis disputes are not identical legal questions. But the history of the Skokomish provides an important warning about what happens when questions of jurisdiction, access and state authority remain unresolved.
A 2016 Department of the Interior Solicitor’s opinion concerning the southern boundary of the Skokomish Reservation had significant implications for recreational fishing access.
WDFW recognized the problem.
In 2019, WDFW Director Kelly Susewind wrote to the Department of the Interior arguing that the federal opinion had been issued without input from Washington state and that the state’s subsequent analysis showed it to be factually and legally deficient. He requested that the opinion be reversed or, at minimum, withdrawn.
That’s not an agency that didn’t understand the problem. They certainly understood it. They studied it. And they disagreed with it. Yet, years later, recreational fishing advocates were again asking WDFW to push the federal government to revisit the issue. And WDFW leadership still has not made that request.
The Skokomish issue isn’t proof that the Chehalis dispute will follow the same legal path.
It is something more important. It is a warning about what happens when recognition doesn’t become resolution. Recognition without resolution becomes precedent.
That is my concern with the Chehalis.
WDFW knows there is a dispute. It says it disputes the tribe’s legal position. It recognizes the river’s federal navigability. It knows recreational anglers have a state-authorized fishery. Yet, the practical solution from WDFW appears to simply tell those anglers to avoid the disputed section.
I do understand why WDFW wants to prevent a confrontation on the river. I think we all do. Confrontation is not the solution either. But there is a difference between deescalating a confrontation today and accepting the circumstances that make that confrontation inevitable tomorrow.
