Annie,
I have no idea where the claim it will benefit fish comes from. All I have is the info from the article and it only meantions the removal of water for cities, and farmers and additional fish habitat. The only way that I could see removing water from the dam would benefit fish would be to increase spill. But since the benefit for the fish would be a normal requirement or dam operation I fail to see the need to pay the tribe for this. In fact, y opinion is that unless they were specifically removed from any liability, their receiving funds from dam operations could leave them open for suits from down river users, not open them up to more money due to down river users demands. Perhaps they are going to spill water from here to fill the lower reseviors so they can run them higher during peak periods and still have water left over for higher required spills during downriver migration (is that what you meant?) Lots of wild guesses that could probably be solved if we just had all the info. In the end, I am just taking wild guess and probably should just stick to what I know.