APRIL 2024 | CONFEDERATED UMATILLA JOURNAL
APR IL 2024
CONFEDERATED UMATILLA JOURNAL
NEWS DAILY @ CUJ ONLINE
VOLUME 32 • ISSUE 4
THE MONTHLY NEWSPAPER OF THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE UMATILLA INDIAN RESERVATION
Tribe moving ahead with Wildhorse expansion By CHRIS AADLAND Reporter MISSION – Tribal leaders are resuming plans for a massive hotel and convention center expansion project at Wildhorse Resort & Casino that officials estimate could cost nearly $130 million. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s (CTUIR) Board of Trustees (BOT) voted on March 17 to hire two companies to oversee construction management and to finalize the the expansion design that includes a
new 10-story hotel and 1,500-seat convention center. The expansion was originally planned for 2019 but called off when construction costs soared during the Covid-19 pandemic. The March resolution didn’t authorize starting construction, but tribal and casino leaders are also looking ahead to what improvements they’d like to pursue, such as an outdoor event space, once the expansion is complete. Tribal leaders will decide whether to break ground and other details, such as a project budget and
how the tribe – which owns and operates Wildhorse – will pay for the expansion, after reviewing the final design and cost proposals. The project is estimated to cost about $128 million, Wildhorse CEO Gary George said during the March 14 BOT work session regarding the project. However, Wildhorse still has $17 million in debt to pay off from previous projects. The proposed expansion would double the casino’s conventionhosting capacity and would WILDHORSE CONTINUED PAGE 12
CTUIR releases thousands of spring Chinook
Ryan Ashcroft, assistant manager of the South Fork Walla Walla River Hatchery, holds a spring Chinook smolt March 27, 2024, before releasing it and 59,999 of its relatives into the Walla Walla River. LEE GAVIN | CUJ PHOTO
By CHRIS AADLAND Reporter WALLA WALLA, Wash. – For the last year and a half or so, employees at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s (CTUIR) fish hatchery on the South Fork Walla Walla River raised hundreds of thousands of juvenile spring Chinook salmon. Employees collected and incubated fertilized eggs then transferred them
to massive tanks when hatched. They worked vigilantly to make sure the juvenile fish were well fed, kept disease-free and swimming in water that was the ideal temperature for their development – all to eventually release the smolt into the Walla Walla River Basin. They hope many survive into adulthood and return a few years later, which may someday eliminate the need for their jobs. On March 27, about 60,000 of those nurtured juvenile spring
Chinook salmon were siphoned out of a large tanker truck parked where the City of Walla Walla diverts its drinking water from Mill Creek and dropped into the fast-moving water to begin their journey to the sea. The release was part of tribal efforts to reintroduce spring Chinook salmon to a river and basin – and part of a larger scope of work to help salmon species recover in the region – where they’ve been extinct for about 100 years. It also came just days after Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed legislation that the tribe and partners in a Walla Walla River Basin water management initiative say was needed to help ensure those efforts are successful. “This basin holds traditional and historical value to the tribes. But also, it’s a place where we’ve seen our natural resources dwindle,” CTUIR Fisheries Program Manager and tribal member Jerimiah Bonifer said after the March 27 release. “Tribal harvest within the basin is an important part of our First Foods mission.” It was the tribal hatchery’s second release of spring Chinook salmon smolts that staff had reared from egg CHINOOK CONTINUED PAGE 10
The proposed Wildhorse Casino & Resort expansion includes a new 214 room hotel and convention space. CUJ FILE PHOTO
CDA land split vote divides partners By CHRIS AADLAND Reporter MISSION – Last July, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) Executive Director Donald Sampson opened a ceremony celebrating the tribe and four intergovernmental partners taking over ownership of thousands of acres of valuable land with a blessing in which he said the land was “coming back to us – all of us.” The Morrow and Umatilla ports and Morrow County – three of the other four other members of that partnership, the Columbia Development Authority (CDA) – apparently don’t share the sentiment. Last year, the CTUIR and its CDA partners became owners of more than 9,500 acres of the former Umatilla Army Chemical Depot and had plans to use the land for industrial redevelopment, agricultural production, cultural resource protection and habitat restoration. On March 26, the Port of CDA CONTINUED PAGE 15
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