Washblog

The benefits we here in the Northwest recieve from the Columbia and Snake river dams is immeasurable. We enjoy some of the cheapest power in the nation and at its core, those benefits have been passed on to us through industry and rich agriculture. Our benefit cost salmon dearly. By some estimates, salmon returns up these rivers has gone from millions to a mere ten thousand. This problem has led many groups to support tearing down 4 dams on the Snake River in an effort to restore wild salmon.

Like most Eastern Washingtonians, I don't support this and I think the science and ideas behind this are naive. I think the environmental and economic impacts of tearing down dams far outweighs any benefits. I am not passionate, heated or even all that scientific about it. I just feel that hastily tearing down the dams, that will eventually have to come down anyway, is a bad idea for all. What we do need to do is tone down the rhetoric and do what we need to do until such time comes if or when they must be removed. We don't get that from our republican leadership.

I paid a visit to the House Water and Power Subcommittee hearing in Pasco yesterday (read about it here and here). The event was hosted by two of my favorite folks; Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris. While this was a hearing, it was also a politcal ploy - and a smart one - for the two to come back to a core passionate Eastern Washington issue in time for the upcoming mid-term elections for which they are both challenged.

I didn't expect much and I wasn't dissapointed. It wasn't a heated discussion of "to-breach or not to breach". It was a discussion to bolster The Endagered Species Compliance and Transperency Cost Act proposed by McMorris and Hastings, and to bolster their candidacies. The act would direct energy suppliers such as Bonneville Power Admnistration to advertise how much it costs them to comply with the Endangered Species Act when spilling extra water from the dams to increase juvenille salmon migration down the rivers. These costs would show up in ratepayers utility bills. This is clearly designed to incite folks to an issue that has much larger implications than utility rate increases. And nevermind the costs that could be shown from subsidising irrigation and industry as well. Those costs too, are passed down to the consumer.

This is essentially a response to a federal judge's ruling to increase flow during those migrations. Doc's opening statement (page 1, page 2) clearly shows where the discussion was going.

Unfortunately, over the last ten years, this has increasingly become a litigation-driven process. We now have an unelected, and I belive unaccountable, federal judge in Portland who appears determined to run the river himself with little regard for the impacts of his decisions on this side of the mountains. At a court hearing last fall, he referred to Northwest irrigation, transportation and power as "subsidies" and gave great deference to proposals set forth by interest that have an agenda to tear out the dams. As a result of his court orders, a steady drip of expensive fish measures of questionable value flows from his courtroom directly onto the backs of ratepayers and river users.

He might as well have used the term "Activist Judge" you think? Just as a good measure to rile up the base. But what neither McMorris' proposal and Doc's rhetoric acheive are solutions. In fact, Doc's idea of a solution is somewhat fatalist in my view.

It is time to acknowledge that we have long past the point of diminishing returns with modifications to the hydrosystem. If we truly want to aid salmon, let's look at harvest policies, and utilizing hatcheries to supplement naturally-spawning salmon, and the ongoing unchecked predation of salmon by exploding populations of protected California sea lions and Caspian terns.

He almost, almost came close. The population of preditors is a factor and hatcheries can help but we should continue to find ways to get salmon past the dams. Investing in better solutions could perhaps reduce the costs of say... litigation! The only thing we have past the point of diminishing returns are his and McMorris' partisan congressional seats. There is not going to be a solution born out of statements like his. And unfortunately, it appears the other spectrum on this issue is waging an all or nothing campaign. Or is it?

We who support Lower Snake River dam removal do not consider it a goal. It is a means to the goal of restoring wild salmon and the communities that depend upon them. If other measures do the job, we will happily pronounce dam removal dead ourselves.

Glad to hear it Pat!

But there's the rub. For other measures to work, they have to be tried.

They have to be funded and implemented to have any effect. This is not happening.

That artcle is from 2002 and makes a good point. And makes an even stronger one to Hastings and McMorris that this is no place for politics. It is an opportunity, which they both missed, to help find new and better solutions for Northwest salmon recovery.

Update: I have to tell you how unimpressed I was with McMorris. At one point, between panelist speakers, she asked that they summarize before they went into an in depth discussion. This clearly shows her lack of depth on this issue and shows exaclty what a political ploy her proposal is. If she was for real, she would have already known this issue up and down and could summarize the panel discussions herself. I know that Doc Hastings understands this issue. At least I can give him that. But his weak character, partisanship and willingess to call efforts "past the point of diminishing returns" is a clear sign that this man has no respect for the environment. Our planet and our ecosystem are not things you just give up on.