Now, CRITFC is working with the UW to determine how best to support THORR on a longer-term basis.
Using the data from THORR, CRITFC can make policy recommendations to the Bonneville Power Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers, the two organizations that manage dams along the Columbia River. Releasing colder water from dams upstream is one strategy that could lower temperatures for salmon survival.
“It was a really good collaboration between the tribes and the University of Washington to work together,” Harvey said.
‘We want to heal you’
“When we collaborate, we create,” said Davis “Yellowash” Washines, a Yakama Nation tribal elder who advises CRITFC.
By working with the UW, with CRITFC and with other tribes, he said, he is helping to preserve the right to fish, to use the land, to uphold his traditions for the next generation — to honor his caretaker role.
“We have a responsibility to our mother, to this ground, to water, to our way of life,” Washines said.
Just like when a physician takes a person’s temperature, so too does the water temperature tell a story about the health of the river. And just like a doctor who dispenses medicines to bring down a fever, understanding river temperature fluctuations allows natural resource managers to prescribe solutions.
“We want to get you well. We want to heal you,” said Washines, who also is vice chair of the Native American Advisory Board at the Burke Museum. “We need to get that temperature down to heal you.”
Virgil Lewis, Sr., another Yakama tribal elder and a CRITFC commissioner, remembers climbing to a hill perched about the Klickitat River as a little boy.
From that vantage, he could look at the river and see it flush with salmon, more than he could count. Today, from the same spot, Lewis said there may be one, sometimes two fish.
While change — removing dams, dredging silt, restoring fish runs — may take decades, the work must happen, Lewis said.
“We have generations that are coming up. I have grandchildren, great grandchildren, that someday will be taking my place fishing,” he said.
Darkwah, the UW grad student who built THORR, also has a vision of returning home to Ghana to use technology like THORR to help support communities there. In the meantime, he said, connecting with elders including Washines and Lewis adds a dimension to his doctoral research and teaching.
“Knowing that my work has an impact out there, it makes me feel more satisfied within,” Darkwah said. “I know that whatever I’m doing is for humanity.”
