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- By Elyse Wild
NiMiiPuu culture and existence are at the foundation of the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery.
It’s why the tribal management plan implements Nez Perce traditional language, Nimiipúu timpt, into the restoration work that produces 1.4 million Chinook salmon annually into the Clearwater River basin from the hatchery called Cuy’eemnim sepeepyimniwes, which translates into its literal purpose: a place to cause fish to grow.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saw this demonstrated during a visit to the site on July 24 with Idaho Gov. Brad Little, tribal leaders and hatchery operators.
“Secretary Kennedy was able to witness our efforts and better understand the tribal perspective on our first foods, and food sovereignty and the state of peril salmon are in now,” Nez Perce Chairman Shannon F. Wheeler said.
That peril is directed from executive actions by President Donald Trump that canceled agreements with Columbia River Basin tribes like the Nez Perce in order to move energy production policies forward.
This marks a clear distinction for Kennedy’s health directives that conflict with President Trump and local Idaho Republicans’ economic and energy desires.
“American Indians are experiencing a food genocide through ultra-processed foods — what they call ‘white death’: white sugar, white flour and white grease,” he said in an interview with Native News Online. “Many are now food deserts, though Pacific Northwest reservations have been better off due to salmon access.”
Native Americans continue to bear some of the worst health outcomes of any demographic in the U.S., with the highest rates of chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease and cancers. Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022 revealed that Native people live an average of 67.8 years — a decade less than white people.
After the tour, Kennedy shared how the Nez Perce hatchery is an example of legacy tribal food sovereignty systems that are providing greater health outcomes for the people and environment, both locally and across the entire Pacific Northwest region.
Kennedy doubled down on his health stance while responding to further limitations that his office cannot ban tribes or businesses from selling ultra-processed foods like Hot Cheetos or soda, which are linked to chronic illness.
“We wouldn't prohibit it, but we want massive education programs encouraging healthy choices and improving food access. There's technology now that could deliver good food anywhere at modest prices. We're exploring ways to reach isolated areas, the elderly, and young people,” he said, “We're encouraging SNAP program changes.”
Some of those changes became a reality as Kennedy and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced reforms to the SNAP program, prohibiting the purchase of soda with federal food aid.
“The goal is simple—reduce mass suffering from diabetes, obesity, and other long-term medical conditions,” said Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary.
On Tour With Fish
At Nez Perce, Kennedy saw incubation areas where fish like Chinook salmon, steelhead kelts and lamprey grow before their release into water streams from the tribe in central Idaho to water systems in Washington and Oregon.
“The hatchery is state-of-the-art,” Kennedy said. “The hatchery is very thoughtfully and ecologically run. They are attuned to genetic diversity and restoring the runs of particular salmon in specific tributaries.”
For more than two decades, Kennedy served as the President of the Water Keepers Alliance, a global nonprofit organization working to protect waterways around the world.
During his tenure, member organization Columbia Riverkeepers sued the federal government in 2017 for failing to mitigate high water temperatures in the Columbia River Basin, killing 250,000 adult sockeye salmon in 2015.
The Nez Perce hatcheries opened in the early 2000s, after nearly twenty years of planning aimed at shoring up salmon population loss stemming from a series of dams along the Columbia and lower Snake Rivers.
“It’s a measure for mitigating the loss of salmon that has occurred due to the construction of the eight dams,” Kennedy said.
A 2024 federal report showed that dams along the basin have degraded various salmon species to less than 10% of their historical populations, restricting access to a traditional food source that tribes in the region have relied on for subsistence since time immemorial. The report found the dams were violating the treaties of 1855, which enshrined the tribes' fishing, hunting and gathering rights.
The report followed the 2023 Resilient Columbia River Agreement, which aimed to restore salmon populations and develop clean energy solutions to the dams. The move was hailed as a historic win for tribal treaty rights, but the victory was short-lived. Last month, the Trump administration withdrew the federal government from the deal, effectively putting salmon populations at further risk and violating treaty rights.
Operations like the Nez Perce hatcheries — which together produce 2.1 million steelhead and chinook a year — have proven critical to bolstering diminishing populations of salmon in the Columbia River Basin.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) oversees management policy and offers technical fishery services to the tribes in the Columbia River Basin, including the Nez Perce.
Jeremy Five-Crows (Nez Perce), CRITFC communications director, told Native News Online that today’s salmon runs can be wholly attributed to the hatchery system.
“They're the lifeline right now,” Five-Crows said. “The hatcheries are the reason why people, both tribal and non tribal people, can even fish for salmon, because there are millions of fish being put into the system through the hatcheries.”
Salmon is central to the traditional diet of the Columbia Basin tribes.
“We eat a lot of salmon in this area, and that's really what's driven the tribes to put all of the resources and time and effort and decades of work to protect and restore salmon. Ultimately, in seven generations, under ideal circumstances, we wouldn't even need hatcheries.”
Kennedy extolled the proficiency of the Nez Perce hatcheries and emphasized a desire to collaborate with the department to transform food access on tribal lands.
“Indian Country involves three departments: the Interior with the BIA, the USDA running SNAP programs, and my department running IHS. We're collaborating to facilitate access to traditional foods on reservations,” Kennedy said.”My vision, collaborating with [Secretary of the Interior] Doug Burgum and [Secretary of Agriculture] Brooke Rollins, is to use all our agencies together to change food systems on reservations.”
So far, those collaborations are steering toward eliminating all Biden-era programs and hitting legacy programs like SNAP with reorganization that is creating various outcomes that could prevent support.
For instance, the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program was designed out of COVID relief and created networks that would work with 90 different tribal food banks. Food systems built to purchase products from local farmers to get healthier local options to nearby people with USDA support are now in limbo. This week, the federal agency opened public comment for tribal governments and other stakeholders to share ideas on the USDA’s Reorganization Plan. The public comment period ends Aug. 26, feedback can be sent to [email protected].
There is new funding to discuss. On Aug.1 the Senate overwhelmingly approved $8.2 billion to be spent this year for the federal food subsidy program WIC. It comes from the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act that totals $27.1 billion in discretionary funding. It also includes $1.87 billion for the Agricultural Research Service and $425 million for SNAP.
Mental Health
Kennedy shared with Native News Online how cultural practices, such as those implemented within operations at the fish hatchery, can be essential to addiction care.
For many Native communities, restoring traditional food systems are part of a larger effort to center culture in mental and behavioral health amid the scourge of the opioid crisis that disproportionately affects Indian Country — one of the most pressing health issues in Indian Country.
Kennedy highlighted his experience with addiction and treatment — he was in active heroin addiction for 14 years and has been in recovery for four decades — as a strength to lead the nation’s health services. He also finds this to be an immediate common ground to fund solutions with Native American communities.
In September 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data showing, for the first time in years, a decline in overdose deaths among the general population. While the drop has been celebrated among public health advocates and in major media outlets, it’s a different story in Indian Country, where overdoses are on the rise.
“This touches every American family, but Indian Country suffers most,” Kennedy said.
Steve Knockwood is a peer recovery specialist for Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness in Maine. The organization offers addiction recovery services that are rooted in Wabanaki culture, tradition, and values. Its KTANAQSON Food Sovereignty Program restores the traditional food systems of the tribes, including in the distribution of it through a food bank that is open to all.
“It's this food that has been grown by our own hands, by our own people, for our own people, with no barriers, no stigma attached to it,” Knockwood said. “You're gonna see tribal leaders along with our elders and single mothers all getting what is meant to be shared. It's teaching us that it's okay to rely on one another, and that is one of the biggest concepts in recovery.”
It’s an approach that now has support from the United States Secretary of Health. How it gets there fully remains to be seen.
“There's no single solution, but a constellation of solutions,” Kennedy concluded. “Including traditional therapies on reservations.”
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