The reports were published by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Business as usual will not restore the salmon,” said Brenda Mallory, the board’s president. “The Columbia River system is the soul of the Pacific Northwest.” If the four Snake River dams were eventually removed, it would be the largest such project in US history. In 2012 the Elwha Dam on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula was removed to restore habitat. At the time, the National Park Service said the Elwha Dam removal was the largest such project in U.S. history. Many salmon runs continue to decline, which environmentalists blame on the dams, Mallory said, and her office is leading multi-agency efforts to restore “abundant salmon runs in the Columbia River basin.” Mallory warned that the Biden administration does not support any single long-term solution, including breaching the dams. A draft report by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists found that changes are needed to restore the salmon, ranging from removing one to four dams in the lower Snake River to reintroducing salmon to areas completely barred by dams. A second report looked at how the power supplies could be replaced if the dams were breached. “These two reports add to the picture — which we are working with regional leaders to develop — of what it will take in the coming decades to restore salmon populations, meet our commitments to tribal nations, provide clean power and to meet the many needs of stakeholders throughout the region,” Mallory said. More than a dozen runs of salmon and steelhead are endangered in the Columbia and Snake rivers. Billions of dollars have been spent to recover salmon and steelhead, but the fish continue to decline, speakers said, and it’s time to try a different approach. The dam breach is opposed by grain shippers, irrigators, power producers and other river users. Dam proponents blame the decline in salmon runs on other factors, such as changing ocean conditions. “We need to move to larger-scale actions,” NOAA scientist Chris Jordan said in a briefing on the report Monday. “We are at a critical time for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin when we see the effects of climate change on top of other stressors,” said Janet Coit, NOAA Fisheries Administrator. Six Republican members of Congress from the Northwest criticized the reports as biased. “They are cherry-picking points to justify breaching the Lower Snake River dams, which will permanently and adversely affect our way of life in the Pacific Northwest,” said a statement from U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Jaime Herrera Beutler . all from Washington, Oregon’s Cliff Bench, Idaho’s Russ Fullher and Montana’s Matt Rosendale. Kurt Miller, executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, which is made up of river users, said electricity ratepayers would face higher bills if the dams were breached. Rate hikes could be as high as 65 percent, Miller said. “The study confirms that these dams are irreplaceable for the region if we are to meet our emissions reduction goals and maintain a reliable grid at an affordable cost,” Miller said. The issue has permeated the Northwest for three decades, sparking litigation and political debate over the future of four dams on the Snake River that environmentalists blame for the decline of salmon and steelhead. U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, kicked off the latest round of debate in 2021 when he released a plan saying it would cost $34 billion to remove and replace dam services in order to save salmon. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, both Democrats, are also preparing a report, with their recommendations expected later this summer. Last month, Murray and Inslee announced that replacing the benefits provided by the four giant hydroelectric dams on the lower Snake River in Washington state would cost $10.3 billion to $27.2 billion. Breaching the dams would greatly improve the ability of salmon and steelhead to swim from their inland spawning grounds into the Pacific Ocean, where they spend most of their lives, and then return to their original spawning grounds to spawn and die. , Murray and Inslee said. The main benefits of the dams include making the Snake River navigable to Lewiston, Idaho, allowing barges to transport wheat and other crops to ocean ports. Eliminating the dams would require improvements in trucking and rail transportation to move crops. Dams also generate electricity, provide irrigation water for farmers and recreational opportunities for people. Breaching the dams would require an act of Congress. Newhouse and McMorris Rodgers have introduced a bill to protect dams in their districts. In the late 1800s, as many as 16 million salmon and steelhead returned to the Columbia River Basin each year to spawn. Over the next century and a half, overfishing reduced that number. 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 extend from Pasco, Washington to near Pullman, Washington and they stand between migrating salmon and 5,500 miles (8,850 km) of spawning habitat in central Idaho. The dams have fish ladders, but too many of the salmon die as they swim through the dams and slack water reservoirs on their migrations. In 1991, Snake River salmon and steelhead salmon were listed as endangered species, requiring the production of a federal recovery plan. The US government has spent more than $17 billion trying to recover Snake River salmon through fish ladder improvements 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 to sustainable levels, not historic levels.
