THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2022 A3
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
Lower Snake River
Dams may need to go to help salmon, report finds
BY NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. — The
Biden administration on Tues-
day released two reports ar-
guing that removing dams on
the lower Snake River may be
needed to restore salmon runs
to sustainable levels in the Pa-
cific Northwest, and that re-
placing the energy created by
the dams is possible but will
cost $11 billion to $19 billion.
The reports were released
by the White House Council
on Environmental Quality.
“Business as usual will not
restore salmon,” said Brenda
Mallory, chair of the council.
“The Columbia River system
is the lifeblood of the Pacific
Northwest.”
If the four Snake River
dams were ultimately re-
moved, it would be largest
such project in U.S. history.
In 2012 the Elwha Dam on
Washington state’s Olympic
Peninsula was removed to re-
store habitat. At the time, the
National Park Service said the
elimination of the Elwha Dam
was the largest such project in
U.S. history.
Many salmon runs continue
to decline, which environmen-
talists blame on dams, Mallory
said, and her office is leading
multiagency efforts to restore
“abundant runs of salmon to
the Columbia River Basin.”
Mallory cautioned that the
Biden administration is not
endorsing any single long-
term solution, including
breaching the dams.
A draft report by scientists
at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
found changes are needed to
restore salmon, ranging from
removal of one to four dams
on the lower Snake River to
Associated Press file
Ice Harbor Dam is one of four dams on the lower Snake River.
reintroduction of salmon
to areas entirely blocked by
dams. A second report studied
how power supplies could be
replaced if dams are breached.
“These two reports add
to the picture — that we are
working alongside regional
leaders to develop — of what
it will take over the decades
ahead to restore salmon pop-
ulations, honor our commit-
ments to Tribal Nations, de-
liver clean power and meet the
many needs of stakeholders
across the region,” Mallory
said.
More than a dozen runs of
salmon and steelhead are at
risk of extinction in the Co-
lumbia and Snake rivers.
Billions of dollars have been
spent on salmon and steelhead
recovery, but the fish continue
to decline, speakers said, and
it is time to try a different ap-
proach. Dam breaching is
opposed by grain shippers,
irrigators, power producers
and other river users. Dam
supporters blame declining
salmon runs on other factors,
such as changing ocean con-
ditions.
“We need to go to larg-
er-scale actions,” NOAA sci-
entist Chris Jordan said in a
briefing on the report Mon-
day.
“We are at a crucial mo-
ment for salmon and steel-
head in the Columbia River
Basin when we’re seeing the
impacts of climate change on
top of other stressors,” said
Janet Coit, an administrator
for NOAA Fisheries.
Six Republican members of
Congress from the Northwest
blasted the reports as biased.
“They are cherry picking
points to justify breaching
the Lower Snake River Dams,
which will permanently and
negatively impact our way
of life in the Pacific North-
west,” said a statement from
U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse,
Cathy McMorris Rodgers,
and Jaime Herrera Beutler, all
from Washington, Cliff Bentz
of Oregon, Russ Fulcher of
Idaho and Matt Rosendale of
Montana.
Kurt Miller, executive direc-
tor of Northwest RiverPart-
ners, which is made up of river
users, said electricity ratepay-
ers will see higher bills if the
dams are breached. The rate
increases could reach 65%,
Miller said.
“The study confirms the
fact these dams are irreplace-
able for the region if we want
to meet our emissions reduc-
tion objectives and maintain
a reliable grid at an affordable
cost,” Miller said.
The issue has percolated in
the Northwest for three de-
cades, sparking court fights
and political debates over the
future of the four dams on the
Snake River that environmen-
talists blame for the decline in
salmon and steelhead.
U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson,
R-Idaho, kicked off the lat-
est round of debates in 2021,
when he released a plan say-
ing it would cost $34 billion
to remove and replace the
dams’ services in order to save
salmon. U.S. Sen. Patty Mur-
ray and Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee, both Democrats, are
also preparing a report, with
their recommendations ex-
pected later this summer.
Last month, Murray and
Inslee announced that re-
placing the benefits provided
by the four giant hydroelec-
tric dams on the lower Snake
River in Washington state
would cost $10.3 billion to
$27.2 billion.
Breaching the dams would
significantly improve the abil-
ity of salmon and steelhead
to swim from their inland
spawning grounds to the Pa-
cific Ocean, where they spend
most of their lives, and then
back to their original spawn-
ing grounds to procreate and
die, Murray and Inslee said.
Major benefits of the dams
include making the Snake
River navigable up to Lewis-
ton, Idaho, allowing barges to
carry wheat and other crops to
ocean ports. Eliminating the
dams would require truck and
rail transportation improve-
ments to move crops.
The dams also generate
electricity, provide irrigation
water for farmers and recre-
ation opportunities for people.
Breaching the dams would re-
quire an act of Congress. Ne-
whouse and McMorris Rod-
gers have introduced a bill to
protect the dams, which are
located in their districts.
In the late 1800s, up to 16
million salmon and steel-
head returned to the Colum-
bia River Basin every year to
spawn. Over the next century
and a half, overfishing whit-
tled that number down. By the
early 1950s, just under 130,000
Chinook were returning to the
Snake River.
Construction of the first
dam on the lower river, Ice
Harbor, began in 1955. Lower
Monumental followed in
1969, Little Goose in 1970,
and Lower Granite in 1975.
The dams stretch from Pasco,
Washington, to near Pullman,
Washington, and stand be-
tween migrating salmon and
5,500 miles of spawning habi-
tat in central Idaho.
The dams have fish ladders,
but too many of the salmon
die as they swim through the
dams and across slack water
reservoirs on their migrations.
In 1991, Snake River
salmon and steelhead were
listed as endangered species,
requiring production of a fed-
eral recovery plan.
The U.S. government has
spent more than $17 billion
trying to recover Snake River
salmon, through improve-
ments to fish ladders and
other measures, with little to
show for it.
This story has been updated
to correct that the goal of dam
removal is to restore salmon
runs to sustainable levels, not
historic levels.
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