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Friday, September 2, 2022
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
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Opinion
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion
Our View
Snake River dam report leaves many costly questions
I
n political parlance, it’s called
kicking the can down the road.
And it’s an expensive can at that.
That’s when a politician looks
for a way to put off an issue, at least
temporarily.
That’s what Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray have
done with their report on breaching the
four dams on the lower Snake River.
The issue has been a goal of some
tribes and environmental groups as
a way to help the salmon runs. They
have opposed the dams since they were
built nearly 60 years ago.
Unfortunately for them, if the dams
were taken down the direct costs and
the costs to the region’s economy
would dramatically outweigh any
benefits to fish, according to the Ins-
lee-Murray report.
“Replacing the services provided
by the dams could range in cost from
$10.3 billion to $31.3 billion, and
anticipated costs are still not available
for several necessary actions,” accord-
ing to the report.
Associated Press File
The Lower Granite Dam on the Snake
River near Pomeroy, Wash. It is one
of four dams under consideration for
breaching.
In other words, they really don’t
know the total cost, which should make
any taxpayer shudder.
Imagine, for a moment, that you
were building a really nice house. The
estimate from the contractor came in at
$10 billion to $30 billion — and a lot
more that can’t be determined.
No responsible person — or irre-
sponsible person, for that matter —
would commit to that, not even a pol-
itician. Open-ended estimates can be
translated into two phrases: “We don’t
know the cost,” and “Watch out.”
Farther down in the report, the esti-
mated cost of building either a 3-giga-
watt — the current peak generation
load of the dams — or a 14.9-gigawatt
power plant to replace the electricity
the dams generate came in at $9.3 bil-
lion to $56.9 billion. That range is so
large it is meaningless.
Keeping the dams would cost $150
million to $278 million a year — a bar-
gain compared to the other numbers in
the report.
Some expenses the report writers
were able to figure out were disturbing.
That includes the cost of transport-
ing wheat to export terminals down-
stream on the Columbia River.
Barge rates average 30 to 45 cents a
bushel, while railroads charge 50 to 75
cents a bushel, the report found.
What the report didn’t say is how
unreliable most railroad service already
is. It doesn’t matter how much the rail-
road charges if the train never shows
up, or shows up weeks late.
Another cost the report didn’t
include involved trucking the wheat
Our View
downriver. The region’s roads and
highways would have to be rebuilt —
so would the railroads — along with
the added cost of trucking.
Replacing irrigation water from
the Snake River would be done with
deeper wells and reconfiguring irriga-
tion systems at a cost of about $1 bil-
lion, according to the report. The report
didn’t say why Snake River water
wouldn’t be used.
Missing from the report is a guaran-
tee that environmental groups would
stop suing over the Columbia and
Snake River dams. It was included
in the initial proposal from U.S. Rep.
Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, but has now
disappeared.
So there you have it. Breaching the
Snake River dams is too expensive for
taxpayers, would cost farmers more
in higher transportation and irrigation
expenses, would cost electricity con-
sumers in higher rates to build new
generators, destroy a significant portion
of the region’s economy and possibly
help fish runs.
And the total cost? Who knows?
Federal
lands grazing
challenged
G
An all-electric Tesla Model 3. California will ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars and trucks in 2035, and Washing-
ton and Oregon are following suit.
California jumps off a cliff,
and her neighbors follow
f all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you
jump too? Readers of a certain age probably
recall hearing that parental retort after trying to
justify some youthful indiscretion by explaining that
all your friends did it too.
That rhetorical question came to mind last week
when officials in Washington and Oregon said that
they would follow California’s lead and ban the sale
of new gas and diesel cars and trucks in 2035 to fight
global climate change.
Off the cliff we go.
On Aug. 25 the California Air Resources Board —
an unelected regulatory agency — announced new
rules that will phase out the sale of new gas- and die-
sel-powered vehicles by 2035. Cars and trucks already
registered and on the road can continue to be used,
but new cars, trucks and SUVs after that date must be
powered by something other than fossil fuels — elec-
tricity or, perhaps, pixie dust.
“California now has a groundbreaking, world-lead-
ing plan to achieve 100% zero-emission vehicle sales
by 2035,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “It’s ambitious,
it’s innovative, it’s the action we must take if we’re
serious about leaving the planet better off for future
generations.”
Keep in mind, not one Californian cast a vote for
this, and neither did any of their elected legislators.
But, it’s California, and to quote Forrest Gump, “stu-
pid is as stupid does.”
But it doesn’t end there.
I
In 2020, the Democrat-controlled Washington Leg-
islature passed a measure that put California in the
driver’s seat. Senate Bill 5811, passed by the Washing-
ton Legislature in 2020 on mostly party-line votes in
the House and Senate, committed the state to mirror-
ing California’s vehicle-emission laws.
So, now, Washington by default is set to ban new
fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2035.
Democrats said the bill was necessary because cli-
mate change is a crisis. Republicans complained that
letting California dictate changes in Washington law
was fundamentally wrong.
“We’ve basically given up our sovereignty,” said
Washington state Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake. “It’s
absolutely wrong what’s happening here.”
Yes, but it doesn’t end there.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s office last week
announced that regulators in Oregon are already
developing similar rules.
None of this has been approved by voters, or
passed by the legislature. But, if it’s good enough for
unelected political appointees on the California Air
Resources Board, it must be good enough for Califor-
nians and their neighbors in Washington and Oregon.
How much will all this cost? Where will the infra-
structure to support this come from? How will this
impact working families, farmers and tradesmen? No
one seems to know, and the regulators don’t seem to
care.
Where’s Mom when you really need her?
razing is the foundation of the
U.S. beef industry. And, regard-
less of the source, whether private
or federal lands, the total forage base of
this country is the single factor making the
greatest contribution to the success of the
industry.
There are 770 million acres of range-
land in the U.S. One-half of those acres
are privately owned while 43% are man-
aged by
the federal
GUEST
Bureau of
VIEW
Land Man-
agement and
John
Nalivka
U.S. For-
est Service.
Grazing is
permitted on
about 50% of those federal lands.
Given that all grazing acres are criti-
cal to the U.S. beef industry, I have always
firmly believed it is important to pay close
attention to any appeal by the various
environmental groups to limit grazing on
any of these acres, regardless of whether
they are federal or private.
While climate change may be the lead
headline to “justify” the elimination of cat-
tle grazing in the U.S., I recently read an
article that brought into focus another hot-
topic discussion — wolves — and tied
it to grazing. The article presented man-
agement changes proposed by Oregon
State University to increase the number of
wolves and beavers — I repeat, beavers.
They have added a new dimension to the
discussion!
Remember that gray wolves were put
back on the endangered species list in Jan-
uary 2021 after being delisted in October
2020. OSU’s research paper was entitled,
“Rewilding the American West.”
Without going into the weeds of this
article concerning “rewilding” the habi-
tat, there were a couple of statements that I
thought truly stood out.
First, “the authors determined the most
common threat was livestock grazing,
which they say can cause stream and wet-
land degradation.”
A second statement was “we suggest
the removal of grazing on federal allot-
ments from approximately 285,000 square
kilometers within the “rewilding” (my
quotes) network, representing 29% of total
985,000 square kilometers of federal lands
in the 11 western states that are annually
grazed.”
I would submit that whether it be
wolves, riparian areas, wild horses, cli-
mate change OR beavers, just to name a
few, this is a serious continuation of the
challenges faced by cattlemen in the race
to eliminate cattle grazing.
The challenge to federal lands grazing
has been in the courts for decades and it is
far from ending. Cattlemen, whether graz-
ing federal or private land, must remain
vigilant to the challenge if the beef indus-
try is to remain a solid contributor to U.S.
agriculture, the food industry, and the U.S.
economy.
John Nalivka is president and owner
of Sterling Marketing Inc., an agricul-
tural economic research and advisory
firm in Vale, Ore. He has provided mar-
ket research and advisory services for the
livestock and meat industries since 1991.