Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Recreation Management in the Reservation Zone

The 1974 Solicitor's Opinion gave each of the two tribes, the CCT and STI, the legal authority to regulate hunting, fishing, and boating by non-Indians in its own Indian Zone. After that decision, the two tribes agreed to leave regulation of boating, water skiing, and swimming to the Park Service. Some LARO rangers had difficulty with this situation; in 1988, for example, several Park Service rangers chose to stay on the "NPS side" during their boat patrols simply to avoid causing problems. Today, LARO has Law Enforcement Memoranda of Agreement with both the STI and the CCT. If an emergency arises on the tribes' side of the reservoir and the NPS is contacted, LARO responds and then contacts the tribes for their follow-up. If a situation is not an emergency, LARO contacts the tribes and they handle it. The tribes do the same in reverse. [128]

Beginning in 1975, each tribe enacted separate but similar ordinances to regulate the Indian Zones that asserted exclusive tribal jurisdiction over hunting, fishing, and camping from the center line of Lake Roosevelt to the 1,310-foot elevation line and required non-tribal members to obtain fishing, hunting, and camping permits. This confusing situation was modified in 1980 when the CCT agreed with the state that the tribes would recognize a state fishing license on Lake Roosevelt. In that same year, LARO proposed to implement a visitor education and cooperative law enforcement program to eliminate any visitor activities on the Indian Zones that conflicted with tribal regulations. A 1993 supplement to the 1980 agreement provided that each would recognize the fishing license of the other. This meant that either a state or tribal license was sufficient for fishing on Lake Roosevelt, except for the waters within the Spokane reservation. The STI began enforcing the requirement that fishermen have a tribal fishing permit on Spokane reservation waters in 1990. In 1993, when the rights of non-Indians to fish the Spokane Arm was tested in the federal court located in Spokane, the judge ruled that non-Indians do not need tribal licenses to fish the lower Spokane River. Today, non-tribal members may fish from a boat on the STI and CCT reservations with a state license, but as soon as they step onto land they have to have a tribal permit. [129]

Throughout this period of some twenty years of contested jurisdiction over fishing regulations enforcement, LARO personnel tried to remain separate from the controversy. Earlier, the policy had been not to enforce state fishing rules and regulations except in the case of an obvious gross violation, in which case the matter would be turned over to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. As LARO Superintendent William Dunmire commented in 1979:

If we were to begin an enforcement program or accept and use State deputizations, we probably would be obligated to take on the same role in enforcing the Colville and Spokane Indian tribal fishing regulations for that quarter of the lake which is in the Indian Zone. We would prefer not to get into the issue of fishing regulation enforcement in these complicated waters. [130]

LARO's current policy is to enforce state fishing rules and regulations.