Friday, June 10, 2022
CapitalPress.com 7
Tour touts Snake River dam benefi ts, other Western issues
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
PASCO, Wash. — Remov-
ing the four lower Snake River
dams would mean the equiva-
lent of losing enough electric-
ity to power all the households
in Seattle, Portland, Spokane
and Boise, agricultural stake-
holders told members of Con-
gress last week.
Removing the dams would
take out 1,000 average mega-
watts of carbon dioxide-free
power and 2,500 average
megawatts of carbon diox-
ide-free peaking capacity, said
Kurt Miller, executive director
of Northwest RiverPartners, a
hydropower advocacy group
based in Vancouver, Wash.
Washington Rep. Dan
Newhouse, chairman of the
Western Congressional Cau-
cus, coordinated the tour for
caucus members. The tour
showcased the river as a
source of power and water and
a transportation corridor.
The biggest misconcep-
tion about the dams has to do
with the ability of salmon to
Boise River
managers
boost water
stored in
Lucky Peak
Reservoir
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Water managers June
6
started
increasing
flows into Lucky Peak
Reservoir on the Boise
River.
The move means more
water will be available
for irrigation, fisheries,
recreation and power
production this summer.
Unusually wet, cold
conditions in April and
much of May enabled
managers to store more
water than anticipated,
said Ryan Hedrick, a
hydrologist with the
U.S. Bureau of Rec-
lamation’s
Middle
Snake Field Office in
Boise.
Spring
conditions
“allowed us to store
more water,” he said.
Heavy snow in late
December and early Jan-
uary was followed by
mostly dry conditions
through March. Hedrick
said the rain, high-eleva-
tion snow and low tem-
peratures boosted water
supply and decreased
early demand.
“Irrigation
demand
stayed down, so they
weren’t using as much
water,” he said. “We
were able to store that,
too.”
The
river’s
three
main dams are Ander-
son Ranch, Arrowrock
and Lucky Peak. Rec-
lamation owns Ander-
son Ranch, which is the
largest and the farthest
upstream, and Arrow-
rock. The Corps owns
Lucky Peak, farthest
downstream and closest
to Boise.
Hedrick said Rec-
lamation, in coopera-
tion with the Corps, will
raise Lucky Peak’s water
level by about two feet
a day until the reser-
voir reaches nearly full
pool. The water comes
from Arrowrock, which
is full. Anderson Ranch
was about three-quarters
full on June 5.
To the north and west,
Reclamation in early
June began increas-
ing flows out of Cas-
cade
Reservoir
into
the North Fork Pay-
ette River to help with
flood risk management,
he said.
“Early in the year,
projections showed Cas-
cade and Deadwood res-
ervoirs possibly would
not fill,” Hedrick said.
“But due to the wet,
cold spring, we are see-
ing likely full reser-
voirs going into the
summer.”
migrate past the dams, New-
house said.
Adult salmon and steelhead
passage is 96-99% at each
dam using fi shways, accord-
ing to the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers. Juvenile survival at
the dams is greater than 96%
at each dam. Juvenile transport
survival to Bonneville is typi-
cally 98%.
The lowest survival and
least used route for juveniles
is turbine passages, accord-
ing to the corps. A new turbine
design program is underway,
and the goal is 98% survival.
Proponents of taking out
the dams argue that fi sh pas-
sage is inadequate.
Idaho Farm Bureau presi-
dent Bryan Searle referenced
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike
Simpson’s $33.5 billion pro-
posal to benefi t salmon recov-
ery by breaching the dams.
Simpson has been a “good
friend” and longtime ally of
the Farm Bureau on many
challenges, Searle said.
“But there’s one item that
we defi nitely disagree (on),
and we’ve been very open —
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash, center, speaks to media in
front of Ice Harbor Dam near Pasco, Wash. With him are
other members of the Western Congressional Caucus:
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.; Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore.;
Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.; and Rep. Mariannette
Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa.
we sit around the table on a
regular basis and we discuss
it very openly,” he said. “All I
can say is, it just appears to me
like he has a personal, spiritual
love for salmon that I can’t
even comprehend. ”
Simpson’s plan has opened
the door for further calls to
breach the dams, said Heather
Stebbings, executive direc-
tor of the Pacifi c Northwest
Waterways Association.
“I am absolutely, 100%
convinced that this is a gate-
way to trying to get rid of
every dam on the system,”
Miller said.
Leaders of the state Farm
Bureaus for the four states
in the West worked to put
the dams and other industry
challenges in context for the
lawmakers.
Angela “Angi” Bai-
ley, president of the Oregon
Farm Bureau, said she hears
the most about natural disas-
ter and “beyond extreme”
drought conditions when visit-
ing growers.
“There’s a real sense of des-
peration,” she said. “There’s
not a section of Oregon, north
to south, east to west, corner to
corner, that wasn’t aff ected by
some natural disaster this last
year, and the drought condi-
tions continue.”
Washington Farm Bureau
president Rosella Mosby said
farmers are “over-regulated
and under-represented.”
She pointed to environmen-
tal buff ers, aff ordable hous-
ing availability for workers
and the eff ect of labor require-
ments on food banks.
“All of those extras that go
to food banks come from over-
time hours worked on a farm,”
she said. “When farmers are
considering how to utilize
their crews in a fi eld, if you are
cutting back on your hours in
order to make your margins
work, the extras in your cooler,
fi rst in, fi rst out, that does not
go to the food bank.”
Jamie Johansson, president
of the California Farm Bureau,
talked about a “bureaucrat”
recently suggesting using a for-
est post-wildfi re to build aff ord-
able housing and store carbon.
“Fabulous idea, you
should have been here 40
years ago when they were
chaining themselves to the
redwood trees and kill-
ing the industry,” Johans-
son said. “Problem is, you
ran the mills off . You ran off
the support industry behind
it, and to get that back, it’s
almost
insurmountable
when you look at what the
costs are going to be. We’re
going to have those chal-
lenges in agriculture. ... If
you want to get rid of agri-
culture, get rid of the sup-
port groups and the busi-
nesses we need to sell to.”
Ranchers oppose ESA listing for bats in 37 states
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The Public Lands Council and
National Cattlemen’s Beef Associa-
tion oppose protecting the northern
long-eared bat as endangered under
the federal Endangered Species Act.
The bat is currently listed as
threatened, but the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service just closed a com-
ment period on changing that listing
to endangered.
PLC and NCBA oppose that
listing for many reasons, said Sig-
rid Johannes, director of natural
resources for PLC and NCBA.
“First of all, the northern long-
eared bat is declining in numbers
due to a disease, a fungal disease
called white-nose syndrome. … It’s
not caused by humans and it’s not
being spread through the activities
this listing would prohibit,” she said
during the latest “Beltway Beef”
podcast.
The disease impacts bats when
they’re hibernating in caves, but the
listing would put restrictions on for-
est management activities that take
place in the other half of the year,
USFWS
The northern long-eared bat is
proposed to be listed as an en-
dangered species.
April to November, when bats are
roosting in trees, she said.
In addition, the range of the spe-
cies in the proposal is 37 states, she
said.
“That’s another area where we
raised some objections because that
is including a lot of states where
there’s actually no documented pop-
ulation of northern long-eared bats.
So it’s unnecessarily catching up a
lot of areas in a wide net,” she said.
There are a lot of issues with
the forest implications, particularly
wildfi re. Among other things, the
proposed rule would prohibit tree
clearing from April to November of
any forb, shrub or tree with a diam-
eter greater than 3 inches at breast
height, she said.
That includes pretty much every
plant in a mature forest, she said.
“So that is a signifi cant problem
when it comes to reducing wildfi re
risk, reducing fi ne fuels,” she said.
That’s
particularly
galling
because prohibiting those manage-
ment activities is not going to pre-
vent white-nose syndrome from
aff ecting this particular species of
bat, she said.
“So it’s really a situation where
you’re putting a stop to a lot of
really good and crucial and urgent
work for little to no gain or reward
for the actual species or for the habi-
tat where they roost,” she said.
Another thing to keep in mind is
there can be exemptions for those
kinds of activities under a threat-
ened designation, but there’s no
such equivalent once a species gets
bumped up to endangered, she said.
The ESA has a huge impact on
ranchers and other resource users
who are helping to manage natural
resources on federal lands, and PLC
and NCBA have worked closely
together to mitigate the eff ects, she
said.
“The crux of our argument
hasn’t changed, and it really boils
down to states are the ones who are
best positioned to appropriately
manage species, wildlife species,”
she said.
All of the work to conserve spe-
cies tends to happen in a voluntary
basis on the ground led by local
stakeholders and communities.
That’s what PLC and NCBA want
to see happen in every case where
there’s a wildlife situation that needs
to be managed, she said.
A federal endangered or threat-
ened designation under ESA puts
into place a lot of one-size-fi ts-all
restrictions across the range of the
species that don’t yield good results
for producers or the species and
don’t really help to conserve habitat
in a meaningful way, she said.