Copied over from my ifish post in that similar thread (pertinent):

There are 2 recurring themes in many of these posts that need addressing; that the Government is to blame, not the Indians, and that the dams are to fault for us sportfishers getting shortchanged our due fishing opportunity. ...

Contending that it is our Government that should be blamed for the unfair advantages that desendants of Native American Indians get over and above the signed Treaties and Federal Court mandates of an equal split of the fish is partly correct, partly incorrect. (addressing current government, not the ancient government that signed treaties with the 50/50 split written in). The part that is correct is the improper Secretarial Order #3206 that came from the Fed. Dept. of the Interior mandating, mostly via the NMFS, that the Indians should be the last to lose fishing opportunity because of what they lost due to the dams. This is partly at the root of why the Indians got many times more fish than the sportfishers that paid for the fish (there is more reason, that I will address below). I agree in blaming the Government for this mistake. However, the dams were built by former generations, NOT us present day sportfishers who are paying for the hatchery replacement of the fish lost to the dams! And many of us sportfishers don't have any ancestors that took place in dam planning or building. Equally important, and wrongly overlooked by both the Dept. of the Interior and the wrongfully self-serving Columbia Tribal Fish Commission, is that the Indians have been using electricity as we have throughtout the previous century; and by the dawn of this new century are long into using an inordinate huge amount of electricity from said dams to run the hugely profitable Indian gambling casinos! And these exclusive casino rights were given to the NW Indians primarily for compensating lost fishing opportunity. So shame on the Gov. for the wrongful #3206 - the strongest order out of Wash. DC that contributed to the Indians getting 13 times the Col. fishing impact on this year's springers as the sportfishers got! ... However, this idea the Gov. is all to blame and not the Indians, is incorrect and more complex. Why? Likely at the forefront is the Columbia Indian Tribes have a long standing Fed. lawsuit threat on the table, brought forth in most fish allocation negotiations, to sue the Government in Federal Court to have all the dams on the Columbia removed within a set number of years and have replacement energy. While appearing like a grand idea for the fish and fishermen's cause, they know as well as anyone that is not only a sure armagedon to the entire NW economy, including theirs, but it is at least risky to the fish themsevles! Can you imagine the potential impact of immense amounts of mud and silt choking the Columbia River for decades will have on the fish? And there would be NO money left for hatchery propagation of salmon and steelhead. And all the while the Indians would continue to gillnet the remaining native fish into extinction. So I don't really think they want this to occur; especially with their huge windfall profits from the electric casinos going by the wayside with the torn down dams and torn down economy! BUT, they are smart enough to realize the States and NMFS worry enough about another stupid court decision coming down on the side of the Indians, as it wrongly did in the infamous Judge Boldt and Judge Belloni decisions, to cower to the unfair demands by the greedy and unethical negotiation scenarios of the Indians! Why else do you think they can get away with 13 times as many fish when the Treaties and Fedreal Court mandates call for an EQUAL split?!? All the while using the dam's electricity to run their fish compensation casinos! They deserve the criticism they are getting! And it is not racial, so shame on those of them trying to play the race card.

RT