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THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2022
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
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Circulation Manager
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Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
A daunting task to keep water cold
ecent moves to address
water temperatures and
other forms of pollution
souring Pacifi c Northwest rivers
are both worthy and worrisome.
Worthy because salmon and
interrelated species need all the
help they can get. Worrisome
because lawsuits and top-down leg-
islation are clumsy ways to address
highly complex problems.
Convoluted knots of heat and
chemical contamination in the
Columbia River system are famil-
iar to everyone who has followed
salmon-restoration controversies
over the past 30 or 40 years. Much
progress has been made in curb-
ing traditional forms of pollution
from major sources like manu-
facturing, agriculture and munici-
pal sewage, while at the same time
we have learned more about how
closely attuned aquatic species are
to even minuscule traces of some
chemicals.
Heat is less often recognized
by non experts as a form of pollu-
tion. But anything that warms sea-
water or rivers beyond fairly nar-
row limits can make life diffi cult or
impossible for species accustomed
to cold water. When it comes to
salmon, heat not only harms their
own biological processes, but also
degrades the food web on which
they rely.
Early in December, Columbia
Riverkeeper sued the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, alleging vio-
lations of federal Clean Water Act
provisions relating to heat and tox-
ins associated with four large dams
and reservoirs east of Portland
on the Columbia. Without delv-
ing into the details of the lawsuit’s
claims and the Army Corps’ initial
responses, it’s obvious that a fed-
eral agency should be held to the
highest standards when it comes to
managing a great river.
But it’s also obvious that the
Army Corps faces a diffi cult — and
perhaps nearly insurmountable —
challenge in limiting heat buildup
in the vast pools of slow-moving
water impounded behind dams.
This was a daunting task before our
planet started warming up. Keeping
this water cold enough for salmon
is likely to become harder with
each passing year. This is much
R
Sandy DeBano
Maintaining natural vegetation, shade and other riparian features along rivers and creeks is an essential way of helping restore salmon
populations.
complicated by the fact that the
river is legally required to serve a
variety of other functions — every-
thing from power generation and
irrigation to being a transportation
canal between ports from its mouth
to Idaho.
This isn’t to say that ways can’t
be found to keep migration cor-
ridors cold enough for salmon,
but any such answers are likely to
require expertise and legal power
beyond the capacity of a federal
judge and arguing lawyers.
Water temperatures are also at
the heart of new legislation pro-
posed by Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee that would require a wider
swath of protective trees and other
vegetation along thousands of
miles of creeks and rivers. This
leafy cover, coupled with large
woody debris in water channels,
fulfi lls essential functions in habi-
tat — shade, protection from pred-
ators, water fi ltration, prey produc-
tion, fl ood and silt control, and on
and on.
Protecting these riparian zones
is another salmon-restoration goal
that has been around for decades,
and which has been previously
fought over. Although it’s safe to
surmise most rural landowners
in the Pacifi c Northwest are pro-
salmon, stream setbacks have the
eff ect of severely limiting how
that land can be used. Weyerhae-
user and similarly situated forestry
giants can manage to work around
such limits. Family foresters, of
whom there are many, can suff er
crippling blows to assets built up
by decades of careful stewardship
of relatively small acreages.
Yes, as a society we must try
harder all the time to fi nd ways to
mitigate for climate change and
habitat loss. We who live in and
love today’s Pacifi c Northwest
are the benefi ciaries of decades
of development that provided
employment and aff ordable elec-
tricity to our ancestors. We owe a
corresponding obligation to pass
well-functioning lands and waters
along to our children.
At the same time, although law-
suits can be useful, they are a
wasteful and blunt tool — too often
better at fundraising and atten-
tion-getting than at identifying
workable solutions. And legisla-
tion designed by an urban gover-
nor has the same fl aws, unless it is
perfected in the crucible of political
give-and-take.
Bottom line: The Army Corps
must continue fi nding better ways
to protect and enhance the Colum-
bia, something that may require
congressional action to adjust its
mission. And smaller riparian areas
probably do need better setbacks
in light of a changing environment,
but the costs of such enhancements
shouldn’t be put on the backs of
family forest owners.
GUEST COLUMN
Is this the system
we really want?
I
’ve got Humira on my mind.
The AbbVie drug intended to
treat rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s
d isease and other affl ictions is one of
those touted endlessly on television and
streaming services. “Humira helps peo-
ple achieve remission that can last,” an
actress intones excitedly
in one of the many spots.
“You can experience few
or no symptoms.”
This month, The Lund
Report, the health care
information nonprofi t,
reported that Oregonians
MIKE
spent more on Humira
FRANCIS
than any other drug for
the third year in a row.
The 10 insurance carriers that report to
Oregon’s Prescription Drug Price Trans-
parency Program said that $93.5 million
was paid for 19,225 Oregon prescriptions
over the last year, according to the report.
Clearly, AbbVie made a business
decision to plunge heavily into con-
sumer advertising — a practice that
is conducted in only four countries in
the world. And only two countries, the
United States and New Zealand, allow
pharmaceuticals to advertise claims about
product benefi ts directly to the consumer.
The Oregon prescription numbers
explain why pharmaceutical makers are
so keen to place their products in the
minds of consumers. It explains why they
spend so much money lobbying your rep-
resentatives in Washington, D.C., to be
allowed to do so.
How much do they spend?
A study published by JAMA Inter-
nal Medicine in 2020 found that pharma-
ceutical companies and health product
companies spent $4.7 billion, an aver-
age of $233 million a year over a 20-year
period, to lobby the federal govern-
ment; $414 million to contribute to pres-
idential and congressional candidates,
national party committees and others;
and $877 million to state candidates and
committees.
AbbVie, which is headquartered in
corporate-friendly Delaware, is pub-
licly held, which means it must detail its
fi nancial condition in detailed reports to
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Com-
mission. In the most recently reported
quarter, ending Sept. 30, 2021, the com-
pany said Humira, one of multiple drugs
An ad for Humira, a drug used to treat arthritis, Crohn’s disease and other affl ictions.
AbbVie is selling, generated revenues
of $4.6 billion in the United States, and
a paltry $812 million in the rest of the
world.
Clearly, advertising pays.
By the way, the cash price for a pre-
scription for two Humira kits of 40 mg
doses is about $6,200, according to
Drugs.com and GoodRx.com.
If you’re fearful of getting sick
because of how much it will cost, and
you wonder how it is that countries in
Europe and elsewhere can treat patients
for so much less than they charge in the
United States, pharmaceutical sales and
advertising off ers one important clue.
Even if you accept that it’s appropriate
for a pharmaceutical company to pitch
its products to consumers, rather than to
health care providers — which it isn’t —
you have to wonder how many of those
19,225 Oregon prescriptions achieved
the results patients hoped for.
Is this the system we want? Ask your
elected representative if this drug deliv-
ery system is right for you.
Mike Francis is a longtime Oregon
journalist who has extensively covered
military and veterans issues. He resides
on Astoria’s South Slope.