Opinion ID: 425151
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: matters in dispute

Text: 2 At issue is the right to take, and the need to protect and enhance, two types of fall chinooks, hatchery fish and the more desirable but vanishing wild salmon (brights). The hatchery fish are bred in the lower river, migrate to the ocean, and then return to the hatcheries. These fish, which do not spawn, exist in relative abundance. The brights, on the other hand, are born further upriver and return there to spawn and die. Less than half of those reentering the river reach their spawning grounds. The survival of the species is measured at any point in the river by the escapement, or number of fish passing that point. The parties agree that the escapement of brights in 1982 was dangerously low. 3 The disputes of the parties are not without antecedents. 1 The parties previously voluntarily agreed that nontreaty fishermen will fish in Zones 1-5, which comprise the lower 141 miles of the river and contain both hatchery fish and brights, and that treaty fishermen will use the 130-mile Zone 6, the upper half of the river. The upper two pools in Zone 6 contain only brights, but both hatchery fish and brights can be caught in the lowest pool of Zone 6. 4 The district court has had jurisdiction over the case since 1969. Some of the disputes were settled when the district court ordered the parties to formulate the Columbia River Management Plan. After the parties formulated the Plan the district court adopted it. The Plan allows inriver harvesting on a 60% treaty--40% nontreaty basis 2 once the Bonneville Dam escapement exceeds 100,000 fish. The Plan does not establish fishing locations, times, or quotas. The States regulate such details through the Columbia River Compact, an interstate agency which controls commercial fishing on the river. 5 The disagreements over the fall 1982 allocations, out of which this suit arises, began in August 1982, when the Compact determined that the run of brights would be unacceptably low. The Compact restricted treaty and nontreaty fishing, allowing treaty fishermen five days of fishing in the bottom 21.6 miles of Zone 6, plus a week's fishing at one hatchery. The tribes were unhappy because they desired to fish all of Zone 6. As a result, they brought suit in the district court. The court decided that the restrictions on treaty fishing infringed a treaty right to fish at usual and accustomed places and was not necessary for perpetuation of brights. The court issued a temporary restraining order, later converted to a preliminary injunction, ordering two days of treaty fishing throughout Zone 6 and four days in the 21.6 mile pool. No changes of relevance to this appeal were made in nontreaty fishing. 6 The States appealed. Initially, we must determine whether the appeal has been mooted by expiration of the 1982 fishing season. Second, we must decide whether the district court erred in altering the fishing season to restore some of the tribes' usual and accustomed places of fishing. Finally, we must confront whether the district court's calculation of the deficit in the Indian share is clearly erroneous. We turn first to the mootness question.