Karnopp Petersen LLP July 15, 2015

Howard Arnett: Lawyer; Karnopp Petersen

As the two week journey continues, the day starts with late morning, a delicious pancake breakfast, and a trip to Karnopp Petersen law firm. 

Many roundabouts later to find this large building, we await to hear an amazing presentation provided by lawyer Howard Arnett.

Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs was the first of many topics discussed. Originally, there were 7 signatory tribes and bands to the treaty with the tribes of Middle Oregon on June 25, 1855. There were 10 million acres of "Ceded Area" in North Central Oregon. Of the 65,000 acres of reservation, 98% of it is trust land and 80% of 5,300 enrolled members live near our on the reservation.

The treaty provides the right fish outside of the reservation.

The river forms the Eastern boundary of the reservation. Just bordering the reservation, forms a canyon set aside in the 20th century for hydro-development. The river flow is 90% from ground water than runoff which produces a near even year around flow idea for hydro "peaking" operations.

The Deschutes River Canyon has been recognized as the hydropower location making it the project site. The reservation set aside as "Power Site Reservation" in 1910-1913 and the project was set to have 3 dams along with 3 powerhouses.

The FERC license was subject to intense and prolonged litigation between Warm Springs Tribe and PGE over compensation and conditions. Both the tribe and PGE became co-holders of the 50 year project. The license was issued by FERC on June 21, 2005. New license conditions embodied terms of Global settlement Agreement.

As the project continued, there became a fish passage problem. Although the tribe was assured that that the project would not harm the salmon and steelhead runs, problems developed through the construction of high-head Round Butte dam. The current and temperature change of the river were ineffective and the passage system was abandoned in 1966.

In order to prevent anymore issues, there came a solution. A settlement and FERC license calls for co-licensing to construct a $90 million 273 ft tall selective water withdrawal from the tower. Thus, creating attraction flows to collect a juvenile downstream migrating fish which sends them past the dam.

Overall, the deal concludes with the tribe purchasing one third of the project as of January 1, 2002. Also, giving the tribe an option to purchase interest up to 50.1% as early as 2029.

To conclude the presentation, Warm Spring Enterprises was established by the tribal referendum vote in 1979, pursuant to section 12, amendment III of the Tribal Corporate Charter!