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# Davis “Yellowash” Washines defended the Columbia River as a sacred trust
- URL: https://livesinnature.org/davis-yellowash-washines-defended-the-columbia-river-as-a-sacred-trust/
- Published: 2026-06-01T23:39:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T23:39:39.000Z
- Author: Rhett A. Butler
- Tags: United States, 2026, Men, Indigenous rights

At Bradford Island, near Bonneville Dam, the river carried more than water. Beneath the Columbia’s surface were toxic sediments, dumped near a place where Yakama people had fished since time immemorial. To officials, it was a cleanup site. To the Yakama Nation, it was a usual and accustomed fishing place, protected by treaty. To Davis Washines, known to many as Yellowash, it was also a crime scene.

The victims, he said, were first the water, then the salmon and other life that depended on it, and then the people who depended on them. He spoke from a life spent moving between law enforcement, ceremony, public service, and the river. Evidence mattered to him. So did harm, responsibility, and the obligations carried through Yakama law, culture, and memory.

Yellowash died on May 1st, aged 74\. By then he had served as Yakama Tribal Police chief, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission police chief, member of the Yakama Tribal Council, chairman of the Yakama Nation General Council, government relations liaison in the Yakama Nation Department of Natural Resources, counselor, teacher, trustee, board chair, and ceremonial leader. The titles marked a long public life. They did not fully describe it.

He began in public service in 1973 with the Yakama Tribal Police Department and rose to chief in 1986\. He later became chief of police for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, serving tribes whose treaty rights were inseparable from the fish and the river. Colleagues remembered that he did not need force to command a room. His authority was steady. He spoke calmly, often with a smile, and people listened.

Much of his work concerned things others preferred to treat as settled. The dams had been built. The river had been changed. Waste had been left behind. Salmon still had to pass through polluted water. Yellowash insisted these were continuing harms. The Columbia, Nch’i-Wána to the Yakama, was part of his peoples’ history and identity. The salmon were among the First Foods. Safe fish required safe water. Treaty rights, in his telling, included the right to fish without poison.

He was a descendant of the Klickitat Tribe, one of the 14 original signers of the 1855 treaty, and he carried that inheritance with care. He was called on to conduct traditional ceremonies across the region, drawing on his knowledge of language, culture, and oral history. He also worked in schools and helped young people stay connected to culture, fishing, hunting, and custom.

The designation of Bradford Island as a Superfund site in 2022 was one measure of the persistence he had helped sustain. He did not treat it as enough. The work, he said, was for clean, healthy fish that were safe to eat. “We don’t own this,” he once said. “It belongs to our children. It belongs to our grandchildren. And we’re just taking care of it for them.” For much of his life, he spoke in that spirit: plainly, firmly, and with a sense of responsibility that extended beyond any office he held.

[*Davis “Yellowash” Washines, Yakama elder who spoke for the river and salmon*](https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/davis-yellowash-washines-yakama-elder-who-spoke-for-the-river-and-salmon/?ref=livesinnature.org)