A5
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2020
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Tri-City Herald
Water from the Snake River rushes down a fi sh ladder at Lower Monumental Dam.
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Brown calls for breaching
4 lower Snake River dams
By ANETTE CARY
Tri-City Herald
Gov. Kate Brown said
removing the four lower
Snake River dams in Wash-
ington state is the most cer-
tain way to boost salmon
and steelhead recovery in
the Columbia Basin.
She sent a letter to Wash-
ington’s Democrat Gov. Jay
Inslee last week , offering
her support — and outrag-
ing Washington state’s three
Republican U.S. congressio-
nal representatives.
“Gov. Brown’s position
is not only misguided, it
is shocking and extreme,”
said Reps. Dan Newhouse,
Cathy McMorris Rodgers
and Jaime Herrera Beutler,
in a joint statement Friday.
“This is yet another
example of state offi cials
trying to interfere in the
operation of critical federal
infrastructure,” they said.
They will wait for the
release of the federal envi-
ronmental study of the
Columbia and Snake river
hydrosystems “before jump-
ing to conclusions that would
devastate our regional econ-
omy and local communities
— including those in Ore-
gon,” they said.
U.S.
District
Judge
Michael Simon in Portland
ordered the environmental
study by federal agencies,
and required it to include the
option of tearing out the four
Snake River Dams, after he
concluded that not enough
was being done to pro-
tect endangered fi sh in the
Columbia Basin.
The dams are from Ice
Harbor Dam near Pasco
upriver to Lower Granite
Dam near Pomeroy.
The draft environmental
study and recommendations,
developed in collaboration
with a variety of Oregon and
Washington state agencies,
is expected to be released in
a matter of weeks.
“It is surprising to see a
letter of this nature, express-
ing a position for the state
of Oregon, for an extreme
approach on the river sys-
tem, prior to the release of
the federal agencies’ pro-
posed operations,” said
Kristin Meira, executive
director of the Pacifi c North-
west WaterWays Associa-
tion, a nonprofi t trade asso-
ciation of ports, businesses
and agencies that support
navigation, trade and eco-
nomic development.
Brown said the science
already is clear that the
“most certain and robust
solution to Snake River
salmon and steelhead recov-
ery” is removing the Snake
River dams. It would reduce
direct and delayed mortality
of the species, she said.
“No other action has the
potential to improve overall
survival two-to-three fold,”
she said.
It would provide a “dra-
matic increase” of food for
Pacifi c Coast orcas that
feed primarily on C hinook
salmon, Brown said. They
may forage off the mouth of
the Columbia River while
females are gestating in late
winter.
“The imperilment of
southern resident killer
whales is a tragedy shared
by all of us in the Pacifi c
Northwest,” she said.
As movement is made
toward dam removal in
Washington state, steps
should be taken to mini-
mize or make up for poten-
tial harm to those who ben-
efi t from the dams, she said.
Oregon is ready to be an
effective leader and part-
ner in those efforts, Brown
wrote.
The dams provide low-
cost hydropower, and Tri-
Cities-area electrical utili-
ties say they are particularly
important for preventing
brown outs in the Tri-Cities
during the coldest days of
the year. Electricity demand
is high then but the wind is
not blowing to generate elec-
tricity with wind turbines.
The dams also allow the
Snake and Columbia rivers
to serve as the third largest
grain export gateway in the
world, with more than half
of the wheat barged on the
system passing through at
least one of the lower Snake
River dams.
And the Ice Harbor Dam
reservoir supports reliable
irrigation of 37,000 acres of
farmland.
Those who advocate for
retaining the Snaker River
dams, including hydropow-
er-supporter Northwest Riv-
erPartners, say that nearly
all rivers from southeast
Alaska to southern Oregon
are experiencing similar or
worse trends in C hinook
salmon returns compared
to the lower Columbia and
lower Snake rivers, includ-
ing rivers without dams.
The organization says
that a National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Admin-
istration Fisheries analysis
showed that C hinook from
rivers that feed into the Sal-
ish Sea are the top priority
for salmon stock for south-
ern resident orcas.
“(Brown’s) portrayal of
the role and importance of
the lower Snake River dams
in the survival of the south-
ern resident orcas is at odds
with information available
from NOAA Fisheries, the
federal agency responsi-
ble for the recovery of both
orcas and Chinook salmon,”
Meira said.
Supporters of retain-
ing the lower Snake River
dams warn that if they
are removed, the hydro-
power dams on the Colum-
bia between Washington
and Oregon will be the next
target.
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2.5M pounds of radioactive waste
illegally dumped at Oregon landfi ll
By MONICA SAMAYOA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
The Oregon Department
of Energy has issued a notice
of violation to a hazardous
waste facility for accepting
more than 2 million pounds
of radioactive materials
east of the Columbia River
Gorge.
Chemical Waste Manage-
ment, a subsidiary of Waste
Management Inc., was ille-
gally dumping radioactive
materials it received from
a North Dakota company,
Goodnight Midstream, at its
waste landfi ll near Arlington .
Chemical Waste Man-
agement is the only hazard-
ous waste landfi ll in Oregon
and according to the depart-
ment , Oregon law prohibits
the disposal of radioactive
materials in the state.
“We received an inquiry
from a citizen from North
Dakota in September who
was under the impression
fracking waste from North
Dakota was being disposed
of in an Oregon landfi ll,” the
department’s assistant direc-
tor for nuclear safety Ken
Niles said.
The agency found that
Chemical Waste Manage-
ment dumped nearly 1,284
tons of radioactive waste it
received from Goodnight
Midstream over a period of
three years, totaling over 2.5
million pounds.
Goodnight
Midstream
provides brine water sup-
ply and recycling services
to the oil and gas indus-
try for fracking operations.
The liquid that Chemi-
cal Waste Management had
received had been in contact
with rocks underground that
contained radium, said the
department’s nuclear waste
remediation specialist Jeff
Burright.
“Then they fi ltered that
water so that they can reuse
it, that radium was captured
in what are known as fi lter
socks, which are very long
teabags if you will, and it
accumulated there and what
we’ve gathered is about 80%
of the total waste consisted
of these fi lter socks,” Burri-
ght said.
Oregon has a threshold of
fi ve picocuries per gram of
radium 226. Picocuries are a
measurement of the radioac-
tivity in a liter of air.
“The waste that was
received at Chemical Waste
Management Arlington had
a range of concentrations
over the time running from
just a few picocuries per
gram up to the maximum in
about one and half tons total
was around 1,700 picocuries
per gram,” Burright said.
Initially, Chemical Waste
Management had no records
of a relationship with Good-
night Midstream. But it
was later confi rmed that the
North Dakota company con-
tracted a third party, Oilfi eld
Waste Logistics, to dispose
of its solid waste. Shipping
manifests showed that OWL
was sending Goodnight Mid-
stream’s waste to Arlington.
“OWL basically misrep-
resented the fact that this
waste could come into Ore-
gon. … In the manifest that
they provided to Chemical
Waste Management Arling-
ton, it basically said that this
waste does fi t within Ore-
gon’s regulations,” Niles
said. “The other part of the
problem is that Chemical
Waste Management did not
do their due diligence to
ensure what they were being
told by OWL was in fact
accurate.”
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