NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Environmental groups oppose Simpson’s dam removal plan
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
SALEM — It’s rare that farmers
and environmental groups agree.
But both agricultural stakehold-
ers and environmental organiza-
tions say Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s
proposed $33.5 billion salmon recov-
ery deal is a no-go.
A group of 17 environmental
organizations say Simpson’s plan
would speed up salmon extinction
and harm human health, calling it
“untenable.”
The group, including the Center
for Biological Diversity and Spokane
Riverkeeper, sent
a letter on Tues-
day, March 16, to
Oregon Sens. Ron
Wyden and Jeff
Merkley and Wash-
ington Sens. Patty
Murray and Maria
Cantwell, all Demo-
Simpson
crats, opposing
Simpson’s plan.
A representative for the Center for
Biological Diversity has not returned
calls seeking further comment.
Agricultural stakeholders and
power companies also oppose Simp-
son’s plan.
Simpson, a Republican, has not
introduced legislation, but in Febru-
ary unveiled a plan for salmon recov-
ery that includes removing the Lower
Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monu-
mental and Ice Harbor dams on the
lower Snake River in 2030 and 2031.
His proposal includes a 35-year
extension of the license of all remain-
ing dams in the Columbia River
Associated Press, File
Ice Harbor dam near Burbank, Wash., is one of four dams on the lower Snake River that would be taken out under
a proposal by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho.
Basin greater than 5 megawatts, and
a 35-year moratorium on litigation
related to anadromous fish under the
Endangered Species Act, National
Environmental Policy Act, and the
Clean Water Act.
“Each of our organizations
strongly supports the removal of the
four Lower Snake River dams to help
restore the region’s culturally signif-
icant wild salmon and steelhead,
and we fully support aiding every
community impacted by the removal
of the dams,” the letter states.
“However, this goal cannot be
achieved by suspending the protec-
tions of our bedrock environmental
laws for a generation or more, along
with an unprecedented attack on
environmental justice for millions
of people that live across the Colum-
bia River basin,” the letter contin-
ues. “The proposed suspension of
core environmental laws is the most
sweeping we have ever encountered
and is unacceptable.”
The groups claim in their letter
that breaching the dams could save
four of the most endangered salmo-
nid species from extinction. But
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Simpson’s proposal demands “the
most extensive rollback of environ-
mental safeguards in the modern
environmental era.”
“Rep. Simpson is asking millions
of the region’s residents to sacrifice
their clean water protections and
is risking the future of many other
endangered, threatened, or sensitive
species in the Northwest as the price
for removing these four dams,” the
letter states. “Moreover, this deal
would set a terrible and dangerous
precedent for the rest of the nation,
creating a model wherein environ-
Oregon jobless rate remains high, at 6.1%
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
Times of sun and
clouds
Mostly cloudy, a
shower; cooler
68° 41°
57° 38°
Breezy with a
couple of showers
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morning
Chance for a
couple of showers
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
53° 36°
51° 35°
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HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
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OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
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PENDLETON
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Olympia
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Kennewick Walla Walla
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53/43
72/41
Astoria
51/44
Pullman
Yakima 65/41
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Portland
Hermiston
54/44
The Dalles 72/40
Salem
Corvallis
50/41
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La Grande
62/35
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
51/41
58/36
61/36
Ontario
69/44
Caldwell
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59°
26°
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Albany
50/43
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Pendleton 58/34
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HERMISTON
Enterprise
68/41
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36°
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PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
54/39
Aberdeen
60/40
56/37
Tacoma
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Wenatchee
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Today
Medford
58/38
Fri.
NW 4-8
S 7-14
Boardman
Pendleton
SW 6-12
WSW 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
48/30
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Oregon State Police vehicle
rams wrong-way driver
BAKER CITY — A Missoula, Montana,
man is in the Baker County Jail on multiple
charges after he drove the
wrong way on Interstate 84
and collided with an Oregon
State Police trooper who was
trying to find the wrong-way
driver on Friday, March 12.
Sr. Trooper Andrew
McClay was evaluated at
Deuel-
Saint Alphonsus Medi-
cal Center-Baker City and Clinkenbeard
released, according to an
OSP press release.
The driver, Logan Raye Deuel-Clinken-
beard, 28, sustained minor injuries and was
treated at the hospital.
Deuel-Clinkenbeard is charged with
second-degree attempted assault, reckless
driving and reckless endangerment.
The incident started just before 2 p.m.
on March 12 when OSP dispatch received
more than 35 calls to 911 about a car travel-
ing west in the freeway’s eastbound lanes at
Milepost 342, near Huntington about 38 miles
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Valentine’s Day.
With business restrictions
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and COVID-19 hospitaliza-
tions continuing to trend
downward, that offers some
hope for greater improve-
ment in March.
Despite the pandemic
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est downturn on record
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Transportation and ware-
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IN BRIEF
New
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High 95° in McAllen, Texas Low 4° in Buena Vista, Colo.
SALEM — Oregon added
13,900 jobs last month,
nearly twice as many as it
gained in January, but the
jobless rate remains stub-
bornly high.
Unemployment was 6.1%
in February, according to
new data out Tuesday, March
16, from the Oregon Employ-
ment Department. That’s on
par with the national rate
and down just one-tenth of a
percentage point from Janu-
ary.
While the jobless rate has
fallen for 10 straight months,
the rate of decline has slowed
to a crawl. Oregon remains
down more than 150,000
jobs from February 2020.
Oregon has regained a little
less than half of the jobs it
lost in the early days of the
coronavirus pandemic.
Last month’s job gains
were almost entirely in
the leisure and hospitality
sector. Restaurants and bars
began reopening to indoor
service last month in many
7:02 a.m.
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9:31 a.m.
none
NATIONAL EXTREMES
mental progress can only occur by
sacrificing human health and envi-
ronmental protections elsewhere.”
“Cynically, Rep. Simpson’s
proposal continues the false narrative
that environmental safeguards are
to blame for declining wild salmon
populations,” the letter states. “Noth-
ing could be further from the truth.”
“While we support providing
funds and resources to help the
communities that would be impacted
by the removal of the Snake River
dams, Rep. Simpson proposes to
spend $34 billion with virtually no
accountability on how those funds
would be spent,” the letter states.
The groups say that under Simp-
son’s proposal, most funding would
go toward “special interests and large
agribusiness,” claiming that fund-
ing would go toward “large factory
farm agribusinesses to further
subsidize operations that already
cause massive water and air pollu-
tion and other environmental ills”
and a “vague list of other infrastruc-
ture projects including unproven
hydrogen storage and small modu-
lar nuclear reactors that have little
to do with the Snake River dams.”
The letter argues that “Rep. Simpson
would be the sole arbiter who picks
winners and losers for decades to
come.”
“The entire purpose of breach-
ing the Snake River dams is to
rescue populations of wild fish,” the
groups write to the legislators. “But,
perversely, Rep. Simpson’s proposal
would jeopardize those very same
fish by removing their legal protec-
tion from other major sources of
harm.”
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• Dayle Stinson
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east of Baker City.
In his report, McClay wrote that he was
just passing Milepost 327 in the eastbound
lanes when the vehicle, a gray 2011 Toyota
Camry sedan, “was traveling towards me at
a very high rate of speed.”
McClay wrote in his report that he
“rammed the vehicle to get it off the road-
way.”
The approximately 15-mile section of free-
way includes multiple curves through the
Burnt River Canyon.
Both Deuel-Clinkenbeard’s car and
the OSP Ford SUV McClay was driving
sustained significant damage from the colli-
sion, and both were towed, according to
McClay’s report.
In a document filed on Monday, March 15,
in Baker County Circuit Court in support of
a motion seeking to release Deuel-Clinken-
beard to either his father or on conditions set
by the court, the father said that his son has
“severe mental health conditions for which we
have been seeking treatment.” The document
also states that Deuel-Clinkenbeard has no
prior criminal history and “needs consistent
mental health treatment.”
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