In Common With: The Fish Wars, the Boldt Decision, and the Fight to Save Salmon in the Pacific Northwest

By Bill Wilkerson

In the 1960s and '70s, the waters of Washington State boiled with conflict.

 

Because of state actions and policies, Washington Tribes had long been denied their fair share of the salmon harvest granted by treaties adopted by the US government and the Tribes in 1854. Tribal members staged "fish-ins" and other demonstrations, and ultimately pursued a federal lawsuit against the state. Decided in 1974 by US district court judge George H. Boldt, the landmark ruling gave Tribes an equal share of fish, meaning yields for non-Native fishermen plummeted. As a result, many non-Native commercial fishing businesses closed, and chaos and legal disputes continued into the 1980s. All the while, the number of salmon available for harvest steadily declined.

 

During this post-Boldt period, a group of Tribal and government leaders collectively decided change was sorely needed. Through collaboration, they forged major, seemingly unattainable agreements to cooperatively manage fisheries, all while protecting and enhancing salmon runs. Author Bill Wilkerson, then fisheries director for the state of Washington, and legendary Tribal leader Billy Frank Jr. were among a select group of courageous visionaries who worked to bring peace to state waters and reverse the steady decline of salmon runs. Without Frank's dedicated participation in these talks, legitimizing the process in the view of local Tribes, it's unlikely these agreements would have ever been made. In Common With is an insider's look at a number of successful negotiations between historic adversaries. They included an international salmon treaty between the US and Canada, a long-term cooperative management agreement between the state and Tribes, and a major accord between the state, Tribes, and forestland managers to protect salmon habitat on privately owned forestlands.

 

This groundbreaking feat of diplomacy and partnership revealed the power of honoring one another's opinions, needs, and wants. This spirit of cooperation and dedication to common ground serves as a shining example for contemporary leaders in today's polarized political landscape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legacy House Press
• Release date: Feb 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9781737595359

Book preview

Chapter 1

Growing Years

My exposure to fishing began at about age eight. I don’t remember much about it, but I know that in my youth I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Growing up in urban Seattle, it was way down on my list of interests.

My father, Bev, was an avid fisherman, and I went with him to be with him. He had no boat, but he owned a ten-horsepower Evinrude outboard motor. He’d haul it to Shilshole Bay, where he would rent an open, sixteen-foot boat, slap on the motor, and take me and my younger brother, Bob, out to his favorite fishing holes on Elliott Bay and north of Golden Gardens Park to troll for salmon. I hooked only a few salmon on those outings. Most of my catch was snapper, ling cod, and other bottom fish. I even pulled in the dreaded, inedible dogfish.

Because of my dad’s love of fishing, my nuclear family spent two weeks every summer at a small resort called Fisherman’s Alibi on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle. The resort was little more than a boathouse, a long dock, and a bunch of small boats. It also had tiny fishing huts and a cluster of cottages, one of which we rented. There were similar resorts adjacent to ours, and they all would fill up with families, many of which were my parents’ friends from Seattle. Bob and I had an abundance of playmates.

Dad fished every day of his vacation from his job as an attorney for the US Department of Veterans Affairs. On occasion, I went out with him, and while fishing didn’t hold much of my interest, I loved being on the water. I do remember Dad reeling in a twenty-five-pound king salmon, and I was very excited for him. That evening, the fish was grilled and shared with friends amid a festive celebration.

As I grew older, my love for the water continued, and I became an efficient swimmer and frequent water-skier on Lake Washington with friends whose families had boats. I simply never imagined I would later have such an appreciation for salmon and other fish below the surface where I skied and swam.

~

After graduating from Roosevelt High School in June 1964, I enrolled at the University of Washington the ensuing fall. It was the best option for me. The UW campus was a short seven-minute drive from my home. I joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, where I lived my first year as an undergraduate. I majored in history at a time when current events were closely followed, given their significant impact on the country’s social fabric.

During my sophomore year, some fraternity brothers and I signed up for the Army ROTC program. With the war in Vietnam escalating and the increasing prospect of being drafted, we all thought that becoming officers made sense. It proved to be one of the most important decisions of my early life. I learned that the ROTC program allowed cadets to attend graduate school before fulfilling the obligation of military service. Suddenly, I had good reason to take my schooling more seriously. I knew I needed to get my grades up to be accepted into graduate school.

I turned my sights on enrolling in law school once I graduated from the UW. Looking back, I must have been at least partly influenced by my dad’s public service career as a government attorney. But the Vietnam War figured in as well. Support for the Vietnam War was waning, and public protests intensified against it. I grew very much opposed to the war, and I did not look forward to becoming an Army officer. There was a growing belief that US involvement in Vietnam would wind down over the next few years. Therefore, a three-year-long law school program seemed like a perfect option to delay my military service and hopefully to avoid ending up in Vietnam.

During my junior and senior years at the UW, I became a serious student and my grade point average climbed. I also fell in love with Maralyn, whom I had met at a fraternity party. As I approached graduation day, I applied to several law schools and had offers from all of them except one. Ironically, the UW Law School turned me down because of lower grades during my early college years when I didn’t take my studies seriously. Ultimately, I accepted an offer from the University of Oregon Law School.

After graduating from the UW, I enrolled at UO Law School in Eugene and married Maralyn that winter after my first quarter.

During my second year in law school, we were home during the Christmas holiday. That’s when I experienced what I now consider a life-shaping event. I had an encounter with US Senator Henry M. Jackson. I had met Jackson many times over the years when he visited my parents. My mom was a high school and college friend of Jackson’s. Dad and Mom had lived in Washington, DC, during much of World War II, when Jackson began serving in Congress. They and Jackson were very close during those war years, and my folks continued as longtime supporters of his. I remember them hosting fundraisers for him at our Seattle home.

On this particular holiday, my parents hosted a campaign fundraising party for Jackson and asked me to pick him up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. My then-brother-in-law, Al Ferro, was at my house at the time and accompanied me for the task.

I hadn’t seen Jackson since high school, and by then, my politics had drifted to the left of him. I held a strong opposition to the Vietnam War, and I was not a fan of his hawkish position supporting the war. Al was a graduate student fulfilling a PhD in biology and also had antiwar views. My mom knew how we both felt and reminded us to treat Jackson with respect.

I well remember what she told us. If you can’t be gentlemen, then we’ll have someone else pick him up.

We met the senator at the airport arrival gate, and he greeted both of us warmly. Once we got to the car, he pulled out a guest list for the party. Jackson went down the list asking us for a physical description of each guest, their background, and their relationship with my mom and dad. He took notes on my descriptions.

Then he asked both of us about our lives and future goals. Al told him about his graduate studies, and I mentioned law school. Jackson asked many questions, and he seemed genuinely interested in our plans. We avoided talking about Vietnam.

At one point, I asked the senator what he liked about his elected position. Politics involves dreaming and coalescing around new ideas and solutions and then getting enough votes to pass those dreams and ideas into law, I remember him saying. I like bringing people with different ideas together to solve problems and building alliances of various interests to support the solutions. Then I enjoy persuading my colleagues to vote for them.

At the party, Jackson greeted strangers like they were old friends. He made everyone feel respected. Our briefing on the guest list must have helped. He knew the room and the people better than any of them must have believed was possible. He was open and honest about his ideas and was very straightforward in responding to those who offered views other than his. Al and I began the evening skeptical of the senator. Now we were filled with awe and respect.

I never forgot his words about creating ideas to solve problems and building support for them. Later, I would come to apply that principle to the issues I would confront. I call it the Jackson Rule. That meeting with Jackson cemented my desire to devote my future law career to government and public policy.

During my second year of law school, another opportunity surfaced, directing my future course. I had served as a student assistant to University of Oregon law professor Frank Barry, who earlier had been solicitor general for the US Department of the Interior. I greatly respected him, and he liked my work. Barry encouraged me to apply for a Presidential Legal Intern Fellowship in the Nixon Administration in Washington, DC. I applied, and I remember the excitement I felt when the letter on White House stationery arrived announcing my selection, along with twenty-three other fellows from throughout the country. Maralyn and I then were off to the nation’s capital in the summer of 1970.

I had a friend who happened to be on Jackson’s staff in Washington, DC. I told her I needed housing and asked for suggestions. She mentioned my needs to Jackson. The timing was perfect. Coincidentally, Jackson had just met with a friend, former Deputy Postmaster General Paul Aiken, who told Jackson that he and his wife planned to spend the summer in Kansas and needed someone to house-sit at his Washington, DC, home. Jackson recommended Maralyn and me, and we found ourselves in a beautiful, spacious home not far from the vice president’s residence on the grounds of the US Naval Observatory in northwest Washington, DC.

The internship assigned me to the Interior Department researching public policy issues. I loved living and working in the country’s political heartbeat. It was an exciting time in the capital with so much social change and turbulent protest of the war. I interacted frequently with my White House fellows at events and get-togethers.

By the time I returned to the Pacific Northwest to resume law school, I had a job offer to go back to Interior following graduation. With that offer, I was filled with excitement, knowing I would launch my career in Washington, DC.

~

It didn’t quite happen as I thought. A better opportunity came.

Midway through my final year in law school, I received a call from Dick Turner, a family friend of Maralyn’s. Dick had been in private law practice in Tacoma before he accepted an appointment in Washington, DC, as special assistant to the general counsel of the US Small Business Administration (SBA).

When Turner called me, he had just been given a new assignment. He now served as director of the Office of Domestic Business Policy in the US Department of Commerce.

Wilk, I want you to join me here at Commerce, Turner said. This is a chance for you to be a part of the action in this town.

I readily agreed to join him. With law school in my rearview mirror, I spent nearly two years in Washington, DC, as Turner’s special assistant in the Office of Domestic Business Policy as well as a brief stint on special assignment with the special trade representative in the White House. After that, I worked another two years as special assistant to the general counsel of SBA.

In those four years in the nation’s capital, I learned a great deal about how the federal government worked and made many contacts in the administration and in the Congress. But Maralyn and I felt a pull to return to the Pacific Northwest. I wanted to use the experience I had gained and apply it to my own law practice back home in the state of Washington. Thanks to the federal Intergovernmental Personnel Act, an opportunity surfaced in 1976. I secured an assignment from SBA to return home and work at the Washington State Department of Commerce in the administration of Governor Daniel J. Evans.

It was this assignment that would further spawn my involvement in issues related to the Boldt Decision, Tribal treaty rights, and the Fish Wars and push me in the direction of working on those issues for the rest of my career.

Chapter 2

Entrance into Public Policy

My first exposure to daunting, complex issues of fisheries policy came in 1976 when I began my assignment at the Washington State Department of Commerce. Then–Commerce Director Jack Larsen asked me to help prepare a federal funding package for economic relief to commercial fishermen who were losing their businesses. It was fallout from the Boldt Decision.

In his final year as governor, Dan Evans had set up a task force to address the financial stress faced by a panicked fishing industry, which saw its share of the salmon catch virtually cut in half. Larsen, a member of the task force, designated me to represent him in the group’s affairs. From my Washington, DC, experience, I knew of federal loan and grant programs to assist struggling businesses and industries, and I had relationships with agencies that oversaw those programs.

Task force activities put me squarely in partnership with the Washington State Department of Fisheries. I joined forces with Deputy Fisheries Director Frank Haw and Dr. Pete Bergman, who headed the department’s salmon program. At the time, Haw was serving as interim department director after his boss, Don Moos, departed Fisheries before the end of Evans’s last term in office. For me, this marked the beginning of a friendship with Haw and Bergman and a decades-long effort to strengthen state and federal salmon fisheries policy.

Together, our work on the task force resulted in a vessel license buy-back program designed to provide economic relief to the commercial non-Indian fishing industry, which suffered large-scale reductions in the size of the fleet. Working with the state’s congressional delegation, we successfully obtained a $4 million grant from the US Economic Development Administration to fund it. The Washington Legislature subsequently enacted the necessary law to put the program in place.

Haw and Bergman had Fisheries responsibilities that placed them at the heart of enormous challenges the state agency faced in carrying out requirements of Judge Boldt’s ruling. Haw, who was a fish biologist, had become legendary for his innovative expertise in building the sportfishing industry in Puget Sound, on the Washington coast, and along the Columbia River. He had cowritten a book, Saltwater Fishing in Washington, with another Fisheries biologist, and it became widely recognized as the bible of sportfishing in the region.

Bergman, meanwhile, had invented a so-called coded wire tag system with a fellow PhD, Keith Jefferts, enabling the department to effectively monitor the salmon harvest. The system revolutionized fish management, particularly for migratory fish, and was ultimately used internationally.

Together, Haw and Bergman were the best of friends. Haw was tall and had an outgoing personality. He was a true outdoorsman. Bergman, meanwhile, had a mane of white hair and a professorial bearing. They both had risen to the top of the Fisheries Department organization and relished being there.

Bergman and Haw had worked with other Fisheries Department scientists to develop what was called a resident salmon program for chinook and coho species. They had found that by delaying the release of baby salmon from state hatcheries, many tended to spend longer periods of their lives in rivers, streams, and Puget Sound and less time migrating into the ocean where they could be harvested by commercial fishermen in other states and in Canadian waters. Delayed release of salmon created more robust fall, winter, and spring sportfishing seasons when summer commercial fisheries were closed.

I credit these men with first educating me on the chaos and anger in the wake of the Boldt Decision and its execution. I’ve always prided myself on being a quick study, and I plunged into the history of the Fish Wars, treaty rights, and management of the salmon resource by reading books and articles and listening to stories from the many people I was meeting.

I also learned of their concern about the declining numbers of salmon. They believed many people in the Fisheries Department had lost sight of their most important job as fish managers: to protect and enhance the resource. The culture at Fisheries had seemed to place greater focus on salmon allocation and enforcement, particularly targeting Tribal fishermen. My involvement during those early years with Bergman and Haw fueled my career-long passion to help achieve what seemed then to be a near-impossible goal to reverse the decline of the salmon.

Credit them, too, for getting me hooked on sportfishing, particularly for salmon. They took me fishing. I admired their passion and skill. For them, what began as a hobby in their teenage years evolved into something they dedicated their lives to professionally. These two men loved their work.

Over the years, they created an informal group called Neah Bay Associates, composed of Governor Evans, Fisheries Director Moos, and others who ventured to the north coast community of Neah Bay for an annual salmon fishing trip. I was first invited to join the group in 1977. We would go on to fish together for more than twenty years at many coastal areas in the state, from Sekiu to Ilwaco. Neah Bay remains the most beautiful place I’ve ever fished.

Certainly, I benefited from my dad’s habits. But fishing didn’t interest me until I met Haw and Bergman. I realized I was learning from gurus, and I seized on their tutelage. The big difference from my growing-up years was that I was catching lots of salmon. Combined with my interest in public policy, fishing became a passion for the next half century.

~

When I began working on fisheries issues, the state and the nation were undergoing significant change politically. It was the post-Watergate era, which followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon. His replacement, President Gerald Ford, had pardoned Nixon, a decision that ushered in a new wave of resentment among a significant number of Americans weary of Watergate.

The 1976 election consequently became known as the year of the outsiders. In the presidential election, Jimmy Carter, a little-known Georgia governor, defeated Gerald Ford. In Washington State, Democratic political newcomer Dixy Lee Ray, a Nixon appointee who headed the federal Atomic Energy Commission, returned home and defeated John Spellman, a moderate Republican King County executive, for governor.

Among Ray’s first gubernatorial appointments to her cabinet was longtime Senator Gordon Sandison of Port Angeles as director of Fisheries. He was a respected Democratic lawmaker, particularly for his achievements as chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee. Sandison also was familiar with natural resource issues, representing a district with rich timber and fishing industries and serving for many years on the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

When he took office as director in early 1977, he quickly moved to reappoint Haw as his deputy director and had Bergman continue leading the department’s expanding salmon program. The new director knew of their past efforts building the Fisheries Department’s worldwide reputation as an advanced, scientifically based fish management agency. But the department’s reputation for innovation was being overtaken by criticism of its regulatory responsibilities in the form of raids and arrests on Tribal fishermen accused of fishing illegally and by its slow pace in implementing the Boldt Decision.

Ray’s new administration entered the capitol in the third year of life under the Boldt Decision. By that time state Attorney General Slade Gorton had appealed the decision and the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld it. Gorton then had appealed to the US Supreme Court, but the high court had not yet decided to accept the case. The Fish Wars still raged. Federal, state, and local politicians, Tribal and non-Indian fishing interests, and countless attorneys remained at loggerheads. Economic chaos continued. The issue of fishing and treaty rights dominated the lives of so many citizens of the Pacific Northwest. The post-Boldt era did not begin well.

Sandison set out to restore the Fisheries Department as a scientific leader in fish management. He found a willing ear in the new governor. Ray was a respected scientist who had spent much of her career in academia and at one time headed Seattle’s Pacific Science Center. The governor and Sandison knew their goal would be difficult if the Fish Wars continued.

The new Fisheries director later told me of the governor’s early meeting with him. I like your goals, but I will not be optimistic until I see a plan, she said to him. Right now, most of us only see a fight day after day between the state and the Tribes⁠—a fight mostly conducted by attorneys. There doesn’t seem to be much room for innovative science in that fight.

Sandison pledged to produce a plan for innovative fisheries management and charged Haw and Bergman, whom he considered his top scientists, to prepare it. Fortunately, they already knew where to start.

~

Bergman and Haw had many good ideas for the fisheries management plan that Sandison had promised Governor Ray. They had come up with one major idea in my presence when we got together socially one evening. It was just before Ray’s new administration took over and while Haw was still serving as interim Fisheries director. Over cocktails, Haw lamented the agency’s rock-bottom relationship with the state’s Tribes.

We have opportunities to enhance the salmon in so many ways that we and the Tribes are not taking advantage of, he told us. It makes me sick.

The comment lit a spark in Bergman. Why don’t we do something about it? There are some great ideas that have just been sitting around.

He reminded Haw that they had earlier reached out to the Nisqually Tribe about a project to build a hatchery on the Nisqually River. But after the Boldt Decision, further discussion with the Tribe about the project languished. Bergman mentioned a name, Billy Frank Jr., and suggested they reengage with the Nisqually Tribal leader and try to rekindle the shelved idea. Billy had just taken charge of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC).

Let’s give it a try, Bergman said.

I saw Haw’s face light up. Why not.

Haw waited until after Sandison was in place at Fisheries in mid-January 1977. He found the new Fisheries director looking for ways to kick-start improved relations with Tribes. When Haw pitched Sandison about rejuvenating salmon runs on the Nisqually River, the new director immediately seized on the idea. Sandison got Ray’s sign-off to move forward. Haw then contacted Billy and secured his interest.

Haw needed legal support for any formal agreement with the Tribes. Attorney General Gorton stood steadfast against his staff providing any legal work related to the Nisqually project or any other joint projects between Fisheries and Tribes. By then, I had ended federal employment, completed my assignment at the state Department of Commerce, and was building a private law practice in Olympia. Sandison and Haw asked me to help them.

I signed on to provide legal expertise in negotiating and drawing up any agreement reached with the Nisquallys to build the fish hatchery in the Nisqually River watershed.

~

The first time I met Billy Frank Jr., he seemed skeptical of me but willing to listen. Haw introduced me at our initial meeting with representatives of the Nisqually Tribe and other Tribal leaders in early 1977 at an NWIFC meeting to discuss the project. Billy was cordial, and his handshake was firm and warm. He looked like he’d arrived fresh off a fishing boat, in rumpled khaki pants and his signature down vest. His dark-complected, timeworn face was a road map of wrinkles, and his graying hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

After our handshake, Haw told Billy of the attorney general’s refusal to provide legal support for the Nisqually project.

Wilk is a lawyer and has agreed to help us, he said.

Billy smiled. He cited Tribal lawyers’ desire to keep fighting the state in court since Boldt provided a legal wind at their backs.

Hell, I wonder if I can hire any of my own lawyers for this, he responded with a wry grin.

Before that first meeting, I’d heard a lot about Billy. He’d lived his entire life at Frank’s Landing, a six-acre parcel his father bought along the Nisqually River just upstream from where it empties into Puget Sound. It became a focal point in the decades-long fight to assert Tribal rights granted by the Medicine Creek Treaty to catch salmon and other fish.

Billy was among the paramount figures in the fight. A hardened veteran of the Fish Wars, he fished on his own terms throughout his life in defense of his treaty rights. At every turn, he engaged in the fish-in protests challenging Fisheries restrictions on salmon and steelhead fishing and shellfish harvesting. His first arrest was at age fourteen for what state enforcement officers considered illegal fishing, and his rap sheet grew to thirty-six subsequent arrests and many nights in jail.

The Boldt Decision ended Billy’s long activism through protest and civil disobedience. He told me later he was tired of those activities and regular stays in jail. He now sought to work constructively toward preserving and protecting the fish resource. But he remained headstrong in his conviction that Tribes retain treaty rights to the fish. He was not about to compromise that away.

My past is in the past, he said. I’m looking forward to what will happen in the next ten years as far as development of the resource is concerned. Now we have to sit down and be reasonable. The state is a reality we must deal with for the sake of our people and the resource.

At our first meeting to pursue the Nisqually River watershed project, Billy set his forceful concerns before us: declining fish runs and a lawlessness by non-Indian fishing groups on the rivers and in Puget Sound.

They were raping the fish, just raping ’em, he said. There’s no law and order or nothin’.

Haw, Bergman, and I emphasized that Sandison and Governor Ray understood that many people in the state did not believe the Boldt Decision was fair to non-Indian fishing interests and knew that Gorton would challenge the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.

We said that while Ray and Sandison could not change the state’s legal strategy, they were committed to working with Tribes as well as non-Indian fishing interests and other political leaders to protect the fish resource, with or without the attorney general’s staff of lawyers.

Over the next few months, our team worked cooperatively with the NWIFC and the Nisqually Tribe’s team and successfully reached an agreement to build the hatchery and boost salmon runs in the Nisqually watershed. It was the first accord on any issue between the state and the Tribes since Boldt issued his decision.

The governor joined the parties at the Indian commission offices for a formal ceremony in mid-1977 to sign the agreement.

We have shown that good science can happen even in the difficult circumstances we currently face, Ray said. I hope this is the first of many such agreements between the state and the Tribes.

We appreciate that you and your director care about the salmon, Billy told the governor. It has been a long time since we have agreed on anything. We all have resources to protect and enhance salmon, and it’s time we all start recognizing this. That’s our job, all of our jobs.

~

It didn’t take me long to see Billy as a natural leader. I believe he trusted me in the beginning because he trusted Haw and Bergman. But over the years, we would build a close working relationship and deep friendship. I came to understand Billy’s courage, his principles, and his heart.

Billy’s life had changed significantly in 1977. The NWIFC had been created two years earlier, comprised of treaty Tribes on Puget Sound, Hood Canal, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Washington coast. The commission’s intent was to manage and regulate Tribal fisheries, enhance fisheries resources, and help coordinate efforts to ensure the Boldt Decision was followed. It secured federal funding to assist that effort. Billy had been among many Tribal leaders advocating for such an organization.

We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have any expensive attorneys. We didn’t have any infrastructure to work with the state, Billy would recall later. You guys [Department of Fisheries] will have your infrastructure, you’ll have your science, your technical people, your data collection, your policy people, and your lawyers.

When Congress authorized funds to support the commission, the Tribes collectively had an avenue to monitor and work for full Boldt Decision implementation.

Forest Kinley, the Lummi Tribe’s respected leader, was elected the first chairman of the NWIFC. He agreed, as he put it, to get things started but wasn’t interested in holding the position long. The elected commissioners hired Jim Heckman, a longtime biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), to be the commission’s staff director. Heckman had helped the US government build much of the technical record used as evidence in its case against the state before Boldt. He was respected by the Tribes.

In 1977, Kinley announced that he was stepping down. Billy, who was not a commissioner of the NWIFC at the time, sought to replace Kinley. He campaigned to get elected commissioners representing Tribes specifically named in the Medicine Creek Treaty⁠—Puyallup and Squaxin Tribes as well as the Nisquallys.

Billy had the full support of the Puyallups and Squaxins, Ramona Bennett, the longtime Puyallup Tribal activist, remembered. He was charismatic, smart, and the kind of leader we wanted. But Billy did not have the same strong support from his own Tribe, the Nisquallys. We got him elected anyway.

Billy subsequently was elected as NWIFC chair, beginning a leadership role he would hold until he died, in 2014. He dedicated his life for all his people to have a rightful role in the protection and management of the fish resource. Their assertion that state fisheries politics favored non-Indian commercial and sportfishing interests had robbed them of their livelihood was the fundamental issue in the Boldt Decision.

Billy wanted more than treaty rights. Equally important to him was cooperative management of fisheries across jurisdictional boundaries to prevent overfishing. He also sought preservation of salmon spawning habitat and new fish hatcheries to prevent declining fish runs and save salmon for future generations. Pretty hard to oppose those goals, I thought at the time.

It was Billy who told us that the resources were in serious decline after all the fishing that had taken place for years, both before and after the Boldt Decision. He was the first Tribal leader to call upon all of us involved in fisheries issues to step forward and cooperate with one another to protect the salmon and other fish. We need to share information and ideas and work on solutions to problems together.

It wasn’t easy for him. Tribes had borne many generations of injustices and held a deep distrust of the white man after a treaty was disregarded soon after it was written. Many Tribal elders and leaders readily dismissed calls for cooperation after the Boldt Decision gave them the upper hand.

Billy had so many of his own reasons to feel that way, too. But for him, it wasn’t about that. His primary concern was the resource, and he spent years pulling his people to preserve it. I heard him say many times, We ain’t gonna get a damn thing done if we don’t do it together. If we don’t cooperate, we’ll all be fighting over the last goddamn fish.

Knowing the challenges, criticism, and outright anger he faced in the years we worked together made me more willing to accept all the condemnation I would endure. Working with him on a variety of issues was the biggest privilege of my life. He will forever be one of the greatest leaders of my time on earth. Without Billy Frank Jr., none of the achievements described in this book would have happened.

Chapter 3

Presidential Task Force

The Nisqually River Watershed Agreement was a step forward in the relationship between the state and Tribes. But in the courts, things were moving backward. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled in 1977 in a related fishing rights case that the Department of Fisheries would "exceed its authority and