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CapitalPress.com
Friday, March 5, 2021
Snake River Dams
Simpson defends dam-breaching plan
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson
defended his $33.5 billion plan to
breach four dams on the Lower
Snake River during a Tuesday con-
ference call with Idaho agricultural
leaders.
“I’m sure you’re all kind of
wondering why the hell I kicked the
hornet’s nest,” Simpson, an Idaho
Republican, said during a Food
Producers of Idaho conference call.
Simpson said environmentalists
are likely to continue their lawsuits
and legal appeals to save salmon
runs until the dams are either
removed or become too expensive
to operate.
“While a judge can’t order a
dam taken out, a judge can make it
so damned expensive that it doesn’t
make sense to keep,” he said. “What
I’m searching for is
some solutions. If
you’ve got a better
idea, tell me. That’s
all I’m asking.”
Simpson hasn’t
yet introduced any
Rep. Mike
legislation in the
Simpson
U.S. House.
He was asked
what drives his belief that the
salmon would recover if Lower
Granite, Little Goose, Lower Mon-
umental and Ice Harbor dams are
removed.
“I can’t guarantee that anything
will work,” he said. “It’s a complex
biological system. ... I’m not a fish
biologist, but what I can tell you is
listening to those people who are
experts in fish biology, almost all
of them will agree that your only
chance of recovering salmon is to
remove the dams.”
Other factors impact salmon,
Simpson said, but fish runs that
don’t involve the four dams still are
at sustainable levels.
The four dams put salmon runs
at “extinction levels,” he said.
Without taking action, the
salmon will go extinct, Simpson
said.
“I’m positive of that,” he said.
River navigation advocates say
rail and trucks are not economically
or environmentally sustainable
alternatives to barging wheat and
supplies on that part of the Snake
River.
Simpson was asked about the
effect of removing the dams on
grain exports moving down the
river and crop nutrients coming
upstream.
“If nobody can meet the need,
why are we even talking about
this?” Simpson said. “The reality
is they will grow to meet the need.”
Simpson said twice during the
call that the amount of grain being
barged on the river is decreasing.
That’s incorrect, Kristin Meira,
executive director of the Pacific
Northwest Waterways Association,
told the Capital Press.
“It is the same claim we’ve heard
from dam breaching advocates, and
he is repeating it,” Meira said, call-
ing overall tonnage “remarkably
stable” over the last decade.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers and Institute for Water
Resources show an average of
roughly 3.6 million tons of com-
modities, including wheat, was
moved each year from 2009 to
2018. Wheat shipments averaged
roughly 2.4 million tons from 2012
to 2018.
Simpson and dam breaching
advocates may assume that unit
train loop tracks built in eastern
Washington resulted in wheat not
being shipped on the river, Meira
said. Those loop tracks make it
possible for wheat that was already
moving by rail to move more effi-
ciently, she said.
Under Simpson’s concept,
farmers participating in a volun-
tary watershed partnership pro-
gram would be exempt from law-
suits pertaining to the Clean Water
Act, the National Environmental
Policy Act and Endangered Spe-
cies Act.
The environmental groups
responsible for most lawsuits
and Native American tribes have
agreed, Simpson said.
“It doesn’t mean there won’t be
some other lawsuit in some other
arena,” he said. “But I think this
will end most of the lawsuits that
we can anticipate.”
Power company: Dam removal would hurt reliability, raise costs
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
U.S. Rep. Mike Simp-
son’s $33.5 billion plan to
remove four dams on the
Lower Snake River would
hurt the reliability of the
region’s power grid and
increase rates, a representa-
tive of a regional power com-
pany says.
“Hydropower has been
our savior to not only have
reliable, but also affordable
energy,” said Andy Barth,
business development and
community relations officer
for Inland Power and Light.
Inland Power serves 13
counties in eastern Wash-
ington and northern Idaho.
Avista primarily serves urban
areas, while Inland Power
serves most of the rural areas.
Roughly 83% of the
region’s power is generated
by dams, and 11% by nuclear
generators.
That keeps power rates
among the lowest in the
country, Barth said. The
national average rate is 13.04
cents per kilowatt-hour.
Inland Power’s is 8.37 cents.
Barth spoke during the
recent Spokane Ag Show.
Simpson,
an
Idaho
Republican, has not pro-
posed legislation, but in Feb-
ruary released a $33.5 billion
“concept” for salmon recov-
ery, which includes remov-
ing the Lower Granite, Little
Goose, Lower Monumental
and Ice Harbor dams on the
lower Snake River in 2030
and 2031.
Breaching the four dams
would remove 1,000 mega-
watts of peak capacity from
the power grid, Barth said.
“As of right now, there is
no plan for how we are going
to replace that with reliable
energy sources, something
that can produce around the
clock,” Barth said. “If Wash-
ington is not careful, we will
experience the rolling black-
outs that California did. It’s
a matter of ‘when,’ and not
Associated Press File
The Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River near Pome-
roy, Wash. It is one of four dams that would be breached
under a proposal by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson.
‘if.’”
One thousand megawatts
can power 800,000 homes,
Barth said.
The power grid peak
capacity is currently 92.3
million megawatts, Barth
said. As the region moves
toward using more power
for all-electric vehicles, the
demand for electricity will
“skyrocket,” he said.
Make the Switch!
“Taking electric gener-
ation off of the grid during
this time of transition and
demand increase is irrespon-
sible and negligent,” Barth
said.
Wind and solar power are
good intermittent power gen-
erators, but they are not sta-
ble and constant, he said.
“When the sun goes
down, solar quits produc-
ing,” Barth said. “If the wind
conditions are not just right,
wind can’t produce.”
Eventually, battery back-
ups will be the key to solar
and wind power success,
Barth said, but battery tech-
nology is nowhere near ready
to be used for large-scale
energy storage.
Clean,
dispatchable
on-demand power must be in
place and operational prior to
dam breaching, a representa-
tive of Simpson told the Cap-
ital Press.
Using wind and solar
power as the primary sources
of energy would raise util-
ity costs, the cost of agricul-
tural inputs and outputs and
shipping, and even the cost
of removing the dams, Barth
said.
“This is going to be
extremely expensive, take
many years to finally pay off
these costs and we don’t have
a direct answer as to who
plans to pay for all of this —
which usually means, when
the government doesn’t pro-
vide the funds, the taxpayers
will pay for it,” Barth said.
The concept is intended to
reduce the operational costs
of the Bonneville Power
Administration, the region’s
federal power marketing
agency, and give it greater
flexibility, Simpson’s repre-
sentative said.
Direct power land use of
wind and solar, land that can
not be used for any other pur-
pose, would be 567 square
miles, 2.5 times the size of
Portland and Seattle com-
bined, Barth said.
“That is a lot of land that
will need to be used just for
solar and wind generation,
and we don’t have that kind
of resource to provide, along
with a growing state,” Barth
said.
Simpson’s
representa-
tive said the concept pro-
poses investments in bat-
tery, pump and hydrogen
storage and possibly small
modular nuclear reactors,
“all of which would be clean
and firm power replacement
alternatives.” They could be
sited around the Northwest to
optimize the efficiency and
reliability of the grid.
This is the fourth ver-
sion of a plan Simpson has
pitched over the years, Barth
said. The latest concept
includes a 35-year morato-
rium on dam litigation.
“This little tidbit has a lot
of people who would nor-
mally oppose the breaching
of the dams at least stopping
to listen,” Barth said.
The moratorium does
not cover all dam litigation,
just certain parts of the fish
recovery process, Barth said.
“Rather than an overar-
ching dam litigation protec-
tion, it’s very specific and
there can still be dam litiga-
tion on other sections of the
dam fight,” Barth said.
Normally, Congress can-
not dictate what courts do,
he said, adding that Inland
Power wants assurances that
the courts would uphold the
litigation moratorium.
Barth said the power
company “honestly” doesn’t
know how likely Simp-
son’s plan is to move for-
ward. Simpson has claimed
the plan won’t happen with-
out the support of all Pacific
Northwest lawmakers, Barth
said.
“He knows that if you say
dam breaching, it is a conver-
sation stopper, but he’s ask-
ing producers to look at the
concept,” Simpson’s repre-
sentative said.
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