Behind a judge's refusal to go along with Obama's river plan
The Obama administration has essentially adopted the Bush administration's position that everything is fine for fish on the Columbia if it says so. A federal judge, who has lost patience, is demanding better planning, even if it requires dam removal.
(Page 2 of 2)
Ward explains that his group hadn't actually identified the dams in question before, and hadn't extended its concern to sturgeon and lampreys. Also, the fisheries experts were in a position now to point out that things done over the past decade hadn't really worked. They said that "wild Snake River salmon and steelhead have continued to decline as a result of delayed mortality from the hydropower system, despite recent improvements in ocean productivity, passage and adult returns." And they noted that "the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Lower Snake River Compensation Plan Office, charged with compensating for salmon and steelhead losses associated with turbine mortality at the four lower Snake River dams, has concluded it cannot meet its salmon compensation objectives."
The fishery experts could acknowledged the recent rise in salmon returns, but warned people not to assume things are getting better. "[D]espite recent years of relatively large runs of some salmon and steelhead populations, and good flow and ocean conditions," they said, "it is prudent to expect a repeat of extended periods of smaller runs, and poor flow and ocean conditions, coupled with continued gradual warming of water temperatures."
They also argue that dam breaching wouldn't be all that draconian. They point out that "economic analyses have shown that river shippers pay only 9% of the total costs of maintaining and operating the lower Snake River navigation system (far exceeding subsidies for rail and highway freight transportation), and the remainder is subsidized by electric ratepayers and federal taxpayers." So it's really just a question of what the body politic decides to subsidize.
In addition, they say that "the power generation of the four lower Snake River dams has constituted an average of 4% of the Pacific Northwest power needs (mostly during spring runoff when it is least needed and most replaceable), while only producing about 1% of regional power needs during high demand periods." It's legitimate to ask whether, if global climate change is really the main threat facing Pacific salmon and all the rest of us, breaching four functioning hydropower dams is really the right thing to do (although some of the people asking that are a bit suspect). But the economic impact would be trivial. In 2009, Northwest Power and Conservation Council modelers found that breaching the dams would boost the average Northwestern ratepayer's bill by less than 1%.
Redden has already made it clear that breaching should be on the table, at least as a contingency. In his 2009 letter to the attorneys, he wrote that the "BiOp does not articulate a rational contingency plan for threatened and endangered species in the event that the proposed habitat improvements and other remedial actions fail to achieve the survival benefits necessary to avoid jeopardy.” In case they do fail, Redden proposed “developing a . . . plan to study specific, alternative hydro actions, such as flow augmentation and/or reservoir drawdowns, as well as what it will take to breach the lower Snake River dams if all other measures fail.”
Does Ward think the fishery group's resolution resolution on breaching will have much political impact? No, he's not delusional. Realistically, he says, "when agencies see this, they'll just ignore it." The big question is whether or not they'll basically ignore Redden pointed statements, too.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism. Become a member of Crosscut today!
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feeds
Comments:
Posted Thu, Aug 4, 7:53 a.m. Inappropriate
No mention, whatsoever, of harvest? Doesn't killing fish, uh, kill fish? Ah, politics. I mean, science. I mean....
I've heard WA Department of Fish and Wildlife is intentionally misreporting data on tribal fisheries. The coverup is being orchestrated via the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs. That agency, by the way, recently obtained an "exemption" to the State's spending "freeze" (good one!) to hire a Confidential Secretary. Hey, if you're gonna be falsifying data, you gotta keep it on the downlow.
Posted Thu, Aug 4, 8:56 a.m. Inappropriate
In response to BlueLight:
Yes, harvesting fish kills fish, but fishing is nothing compared to the dams. Take a look at this table:
http://www.workingsnakeriver.org/images/stories/snakeriver/pdf/Finaldam_harvest_table2.pdf
Granted, it doesn't list tribal fishery impacts, but people would have to fish an awful lot to kill as many fish as the dams do. Plus, the fish killed by the dams are utterly wasted. Fish killed by fishing feed people and the economy.
Also, because treaties have guaranteed salmon fishing to tribes, the government could wind up spending a lot of money on compensation if the federal policy on the hydrosystem causes the salmon runs to go extinct.
Posted Thu, Aug 4, 11:07 a.m. Inappropriate
The greatest fear that the dam supporters have is that the breaching of the Elwah dams turns out to be successful and that salmon return in large numbers to that river basin. That's in part why it took so long to get permission to remove those dams.
But Dam removal is not unique to our region. Maine is working the same issue for Atlantic Salmon and Chad runs on the Kennebec River, which drains 1/5th of the state. Slowly but surely those dams are coming out as well.
That said, I like hydro power, but we need to leave some rivers to run free. The Snake seems to me a good candidate.
Posted Thu, Aug 4, 11:33 a.m. Inappropriate
Redden should be removed from the bench. He is exceeding his authority, and is himself arbitrary and capricious. For example, there is no proof rivers in Washington State are going to get warmer.
Posted Thu, Aug 4, 2:04 p.m. Inappropriate
Mr. Redden is doing the job he was appointed to, making sure that the government via NOAA has actual data on fish survival rates. Whether or not the West river basins warm or not, doesn't matter. Currently the salmon die in huge numbers going through the dams on the way to the sea, and fail to make it to the spawning grounds now. And no plan that the government has put forward so far has shown how they would change that with actual data. All that has been done has been to try and justify the no action that's currently being done and to delay any action for as long as possible.
Posted Fri, Aug 5, 12:45 p.m. Inappropriate
Thank you Judge Redden for making a bold decision. We have turned the Columbia and Snake Rivers into a series of lakes that are not suitable for wild salmon anymore. We can still have affordable power and salmon too. Take the concrete out of the rivers and do off channel hydropower instead. There's no real need for a seaport in Lewiston, ID. The only reason the Lower Snake dams were built was because Senator Magnuson forced the issue despite analyses by the Corps of Engineers that the cost/benefit ratio didn't pencil out. It's time that we correct the mistake.
Posted Sat, Aug 6, 4:04 p.m. Inappropriate
Thank you Dan Chasan and Crosscut for posting this piece. It is amazing how little media coverage the Judge Redden's ruling recieved this time around. One of the reasons the federal plans have relied on so much smoke and mirrors is the deference they give to state plans, and though our state is good at planning it is unable to mandate habitat restoration nor stop continuing degradation and losses of habitat, ie, we are losing way more than we are restoring, so the downhill slide continues. We have known for at least a decade that high water temperatures and low water velocity in the river are signficant contributors to salmon losses, but little can done with the dams in place. Agriculture is wary of a return to a transportation monopoly by the railroads if the dams are breeched; surely we can find a way to help them avoid that outcome. The chart posted by another commenter tells the true story, I just the source had been noted.
Posted Mon, Aug 15, 7:51 p.m. Inappropriate
Republished by Fishlink "Sublegals" Vol. 17, No. 30, 5 August 2011 (fishlink@straylight.primelogic.com):
“Another serious threat to the Columbia river fishery is the proposed construction by the U.S. Army Engineers of Ice Harbor and three other dams on the lower Snake river between Pasco, Wash., and Lewiston, Idaho, to provide slackwater navigation and a relatively minor block of power. The development would remove part of the cost of waterborne shipping from the shipper and place it on the taxpayer, jeopardizing more than one-half of the Columbia river salmon production in exchange for 148 miles of subsidized barge route.... This policy of water development, the department maintains, is not in the best interest of the over-all economy of the state. Salmon must be protected from the type of unilateral thinking that would harm one industry to benefit another.... Loss of the Snake River fish production would be so serious that the department has consistently opposed the four-phase lower dam program that would begin with Ice Harbor dam near Pasco.”
--> From the State of Washington Department of Fisheries Annual Report for 1949
Login or register to add your voice to the conversation.