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Groups are urging Northwest leaders to act on U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson's infrastructure and Snake River dam proposal.
The plan would breach the four lower Snake River dams to help salmon, whose numbers have dwindled for years. It aims to restore what American Rivers calls in a report out this week, "the most endangered river in the country."
Julian Matthews, a Nez Perce tribal member and co-founder of the group Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment, said the dams are harming tribal treaty rights to fish for salmon in the region.
"We didn't give them up and say, 'Well yeah, but if there's no fish, then we won't have that right'," he said. "We said that we have that right, and want to make sure that right is enforced by the federal government and our elected officials."