Opinion ID: 450762
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Tribes' right and the State's correlative duty

Text: 72 Fishing Vessel held that the treaty fishing clause gives the Tribes more than just equal access to the fishing grounds or merely the chance ... occasionally to dip their nets into the territorial waters. 443 U.S. at 679, 99 S.Ct. at 3071. Rather, the treaty entitles the Tribes to an allocation of fifty percent of the harvestable fish runs that pass through their accustomed fishing places, subject to reduction if the Tribes' moderate living needs can be satisfied with less. 73 While I do not believe that the State can be required to alleviate shortages resulting from wholly natural causes, the language and reasoning of Fishing Vessel compel a finding that the State cannot, in the language of the district court's declaratory judgment, degrade[ ] or authoriz[e] others to degrade the fish habitat to [an] extent that would deprive the Tribes of their moderate living needs. 74 The Court in Fishing Vessel expressed a concern that the State, in adjusting downward the fifty percent share, should not allow the Tribes' allocation to fall below the level necessary to meet moderate living needs. The treaty clause, explained the Court, 75 secures so much as, but no more than, is necessary to provide the Indians with a livelihood--that is to say, a moderate living. Accordingly, while the maximum possible allocation to the Indians is fixed at 50%, the minimum is not; the latter will, upon proper submission to the District Court, be modified in response to changing circumstances. If, for example, a tribe should dwindle to just a few members, or if it should find other sources of support that lead it to abandon its fisheries, a 45% or 50% allocation of an entire run that passes through its customary fishing grounds would be manifestly inappropriate because the livelihood of the tribe under those circumstances could not reasonably require an allotment of a large number of fish. 76 443 U.S. at 686-87, 99 S.Ct. at 3074-75 (emphasis added). 1 Additionally, the Court found its fish allocation scheme consistent with its prior decisions concerning Indian treaty rights to scarce natural resources. There, too, the Court typically ordered a trial judge or special master, in his discretion, to devise some apportionment that assured that the Indians' reasonable livelihood needs would be met. Id. at 685, 99 S.Ct. at 3074 (emphasis added). Certainly this language would not be compatible with any scheme which permitted the State to reduce the Tribes' share below the level necessary to meet their moderate living needs. 77 The Court's reasons for concluding in Fishing Vessel that the Tribes are entitled to an actual share of the fish are also instructive here. As the Court noted when interpreting the treaty clause, 78 Governor Stevens and his associates were well aware of the sense in which the Indians were likely to view assurances regarding their fishing rights. During the negotiations, the vital importance of the fish to the Indians was repeatedly emphasized by both sides, and the Governor's promises that the treaties would protect that source of food and commerce were crucial in obtaining the Indians' assent. See supra, [443 U.S.] at 666-668 [99 S.Ct. at 3064-65]. It is absolutely clear, as Governor Stevens himself said, that neither he nor the Indians intended that the latter should be excluded from their ancient fisheries, see n. 9, supra, and it is accordingly inconceivable that either party deliberately agreed to authorize future settlers to crowd the Indians out of any meaningful use of their accustomed places to fish. That each individual Indian would share an equal opportunity with thousands of newly arrived individual settlers is totally foreign to the spirit of the negotiations. Such a right, along with the $207,500 paid the Indians, would hardly have been sufficient to compensate them for millions of acres they ceded to the Territory. 79 Id. at 676-77, 99 S.Ct. at 3069-70. If it is inconceivable that the Indians would have agreed to be required to fish on the same terms as non-Indians, it is equally unthinkable that they would have agreed to allow the State, or persons authorized by the State, to degrade the fish habitat in a way that would deprive them of their moderate living needs. 2 In this respect, the district court correctly noted that the Supreme Court's resolution of the Phase I allocation question all but resolved the environmental issue in the Tribes' favor. United States v. Washington, 506 F.Supp. 187, 203 (W.D.Wash.1980). 80 The district court's declaration that the State is under a correlative duty to refrain from degrading or authorizing others to degrade the fish habitat to the extent that would deprive the Tribes of their moderate living needs by no means represents an extraordinary limitation of State authority. Relations between the Indians and the federal government have always been the exclusive domain of the federal government--the states are excluded, unless Congress elects to include them. Those cases which allow the State a limited amount of regulatory control over Indian fishing are unusual exceptions to the general rule of non-interference. It was only the peculiarities of a shared fishery which necessitated the ruling in Puyallup Tribe v. Department of Game, 391 U.S. 392, 88 S.Ct. 1725, 20 L.Ed.2d 689 (1968) (Puyallup I ), that the State could exercise a slight degree of regulatory power. That control, moreover was permitted only to preserve the fish from extinction. Antoine v. Washington, 420 U.S. 194, 207, 95 S.Ct. 944, 951, 43 L.Ed.2d 129 (1975); Department of Game v. Puyallup Tribe, 414 U.S. 44, 94 S.Ct. 330, 38 L.Ed.2d 254 (1973) (Puyallup II ). Thus, the result of those cases was to sanction for the first time a limited intrusion by the State into the exercise of federal treaty rights for purposes of fish conservation and proper division of the run. We should not extend this intrusion any further than is absolutely necessary. 81 In summary, I agree with the district court that the Tribes have an implicit treaty right to a sufficient quantity of fish to provide them with a moderate living, and the related right not to have the fishery habitat degraded to the extent that the minimum standard cannot be met. I also agree that the State has a correlative duty to refrain from degrading or authorizing others to degrade the fish habitat in such a manner. 3