Is Snake River Dam Removal Back?
This week's court ruling suggests another look be taken at saving Northwest salmon by breaching dams.By New West Editor, 8-03-11
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| A coho fry. Photo by Paul Kaiser, USFWS. | |
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When a federal district court judge ruled on Tuesday that a plan to protect populations of Northwest salmon and steelhead did not meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act, the possibility of hydroelectric dam removal on the Snake and Columbia Rivers was resurrected. But that doesn’t mean it is more than just a possibility.
Central Idaho contains the largest and best-protected contiguous salmon habitat remaining in the continental United States. Conservationists long have lobbied for removal of four dams on the lower Snake River that salmon must traverse on their journey to the ocean, and Judge James Redden’s decision gives them renewed hope, however slim.
For the third time in just over a decade, Redden sent the National Marine Fisheries Services of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA Fisheries) back to the drawing board. He called the agency’s breach of ESA rules “arbitrary and capricious,” a narrow legal definition that does not allow courts to substitute their judgment for that of a federal agency, even when the best available science is weak. Redden’s ruling explains that arbitrary and capricious means the explanation given by NOAA Fisheries for its plan was “so implausible that it could not be ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency expertise.”
The judge wrote, “NOAA Fisheries improperly relies on habitat mitigation measures that are neither reasonably specific nor reasonably certain to occur, and in some cases not even identified.”
He specified that the agency’s plans through 2013 to protect the fish were adequately explained, but not for 2014 through 2018. He gave the agency until January 1, 2014 to flesh out the mitigation plan for the next years, including an examination of the possibility of dam removal.
Even so, not everyone thinks breaching
dams—particularly four along the Snake River—is
really an option back on the table now.
In Boise,
The Idaho Statesman’s take was that
“Dam breaching remains an option — but no closer
to reality — after more than a decade of
litigation.”
Darrell Olsen of the Columbia Snake River Irrigators Association was more adamant. “Dam breaching has been an empty threat since 1994,” he told the Tri-City Herald. “At the end of the day, there’s no money in dam breaching, nor are there any more fish,” he declared. “I don’t view this as a favorable ruling for hydropower or rate-payers.”
Steve Mashuda, one of the lawyers who represented conservation groups, told The Oregonian,“We’re delighted. We need to use the next two years to figure out a new approach, with every stakeholder in the region at the table.”
Terry Flores, executive director of a group called Northwest River Partners that brings together utilities, ports, and farmers, was disappointed. “This is the most scientifically sound and vetted and collaborative and frankly, expensive, biological opinion that we’re aware of,” he told The Oregonian. “It seems as though the judge is letting the perfect get in the way of the very, very good.”
Redden’s ruling was at times scathing. He
wrote that in 2000, when he remand a salmon
management plan, called a biological opinion or
BiOp, he similarly instructed NOAA Fisheries to
ensure that a mitigation plan would occur.
Instead, the agency abandoned the BiOp, altered
its analytical framework, and produced a new
BiOp, which the judge labeled a “cynical and
transparent attempt to avoid responsibility for
the decline of listed Columbia and Snake River
salmon and steelhead.”
The current plan promises habitat improvements
that it predicts will cause growth in salmon
populations, but Redden wrote that such
predictions had no validity when habitat
mitigation measures were not identified beyond
2013.
In an editorial, the Seattle Times said, “Redden has seen and heard it all over the years, and the frustration shows. The judge can tick off the excuses and stalls, from no plans, no water, no money, dams do not count and farmed fish count as wild.”
In Spokane,
The Examiner warned that dam removal
could mean higher electricity costs, while
Science Magazine declared, “The case has
long been considered a high-stakes test of how
far the federal Endangered Species Act can
require changes to modern society aimed at
ensuring the continued viability of species
considered iconic.”
COMMENTS
The wind power you talk about is expensive. What is driving that debate are the tax breaks wind power gets. Hydro is the cheapest and always has been.
What about the thousands of farmers that utilize that water for growing crops?
Judges can cry till tomorrow. Those dams will never be removed.
I didn't say that wind power alone would replace all four dams. The initial development of wind farms and the resulting new distribution networks are both costly and destructive. Maybe more distributed wind generator sites close to existing electrical networks is needed. Large wind farms is the idea of corporations in it for the money.
There is only one resevoir on the Snake that supplies pumped irrigation water, the Ice Harbor. Ice Harbor supplies 36000 acres of irrigated cropland which is <1% of Washington's total cropland. The other three which are: Lower Granite, Little Goose, and the Lower Monument supply 0 acres pumped irrigation.
It's true that destroying all four dams would be wasteful and inefficient now. I'm thinking that a planned reuse of the river's resources should be developed.
Or have we?? Evidently Standard and Poor's was not bought off by trial lawyers and Treasury. No Barney Frank or Chris Dodd to threaten them. So the US is being downgraded as an economic power. And on whose watch??? This is the Change. I HOPE it is all the change we get.
Meanwhile, none of the targeted four Snake River dams is without functioning, working fish ladders, and now we find salmon rearing for a year in the impounded water on their own, growing to size that gives them ten times the survivability in the river and ocean from predators, and below those dams steelhead stop their migration and winter out in the warmer water, and resume their migration in January and February to the far reaches of the Clearwater, Salmon and other rivers not totally blocked by non-laddered dams like Dworshak on the Clearwater, or Hells Canyon on the Snake. Those were Frank Church backed projects that were bought with wilderness designation. NGO whores traded fish blocking dams for more wilderness. And in Idaho, water is used for irrigation. There are myriad dams above Hells Canyon on the Snake that take most of that river's summer flow for irrigation, and none has a fish ladder. From Hells Canyon to Yellowstone N.P., the Snake is one big diversion for LDS farmers of the desert. That constituency drives a lot of the political process in Idaho.
A gallon of diesel hauls a ton of freight over 500 miles on a Snake river tug and barge hookup. Hauls that freight 250 miles or more on a train. 50 miles by truck, and maybe 8 miles in a pickup truck pulling a trailer. Export grain goes down the river on barges, cheaply, to the lower River grain ports. Grain barges are part of the grain storage system and loading out of a barge onto a ship is economically part of the equation. When you attack the barge system, the alternative is rail, and we don't have enough rail to deep water ports as it is. Transportation is an unintended consequence of removing run of the river dams that create slack water transportation. Like the Mississippi systems. If you can take out dams on the Snake, then the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers are vulnerable. Congress will be able to see that, and vote accordingly.
The Holy Grail of the American environmental deconstructionists is dam removal. And then it will be the end of all natural resource production. By then, Mandarin and Cantonese will have been taught in schools, and Mao's little red book will be required reading in its native language. The people who do not produce a thing, and are sucking our economy to its essential bones, want to kill this country for some sort of Edenic vision of a past that was never really there. I liken it to the ongoing genocide of native American culture, history, and resource use. Denial. Fear of a tooth and claw world of genetic fitness. Nerds in search of a haven and security. And all at someone else's expense. What will happen when "someone else" revolts and refuses to pay another sous to their public hanging by the zealots of environmental extremism?? If you take out one dam, then take them all out. Every one of them. And get ready to rub your two sticks together.
Question #2: Why is it with all that is wrong with Columbia River origin salmon runs, that we still have Treaty fisheries, sports fisheries, and commercial fisheries?? People kill fish, salmon, all the while EcoObsessives sue to remove dams?? Dead fish don't screw..make babies. And if you want to increase a population, you have to have more babies. Treaty fishermen want the Feds to kill sea lions that kill salmon. The judge who heard the case last year said that as long as there is a fishing season on the fish, sea lions, protected by the Marine Mammals Act, have every right to catch their share, ESA be damned. You cannot "save" anything that still has a directed, licensed permit issued to kill it. Or can you?
Question #3: Why is it irrigation water is important. Oregon gets less than 4% of the irrigation water taken from the Columbia River system. Our last governor threatened to veto a plan to irrigate another 40,000 acres with Columbia River water, water that is not spawning habitat, but just a transportation route. That would be 100,000 acre feet of water per year. In June, a million acre feet of water a day went by that same area. 100,000 acre feet would be a literal drop in a very large bucket. He was a union and EcoObsessive elected government for government by government governor. He pimped for the left. Almost all of Idaho's irrigation water comes from above Hells Canyon dam, and mostly from that river where it quits being the border between Oregon and Idaho and above. Salmon can't get to Salmon Falls today. Or up the Payette or Boise Rivers. 90% of the Snake River in Idaho is off limits to salmon due to dams without fish ladders. Or the Owhyee, Malheur, Power rivers in Oregon. Therefore, why is it so important to remove the lower four dams that do have fish ladders that work??? With 85% of the upriver habitat dammed without fish ladders, what, really, is the point?? Just an exercise in power and the raison d'etre for NGO money raising? Green credential wearing?? Civic duty where you don't have to address poverty and human degradation, get your hands dirty, and you sensibilities offended???
This past winter, as well as this spring, and the drought years prior, make the case that dams are a good thing overall.
I need to dredge up my old stuff on the Army Corps analysis on the Columbia. They had historic data on salmon runs and replacement power costs. If you annualize the power costs against the improvement in historic fish production, the bottom line of just the four dams ACOE looked at was $267 per pound of new fish. Kind of striking considering the time in 1997 or so I was across from Wishram one day and there was an Indian selling fish off his tailgate.
I bought two pounds for ten bucks, grilled it up right there on the hibachi.
Yes, building new dams sure needs to pencil out better than it was in the bad old days of Dominyation, but for gosh sakes, blowing existing dams for salmon, or even making modifications, is often prima facie irrational.
You could go going skiing at the new resort in Colorado. Wonderful place at ten thousand feet where the road ends and the little village is located. Called Irrational. The runs are all downhill to nowhere, and there are no lifts to get you back up the hill. OK. Somewhere. Where the snow ends. Most people hop a freight into Denver after a run. They make new friends with investors from the West Coast on their way to NYC to live for free in a shelter or in the doorways to Chuckie Schumer's offices.
I'm sending a grandson to boarding school. It is named Irrational Prep. They spend 14 hours a day in class learning how to be independent. They are also taught how to cheat on exams. And after class they do P.T. for 2 hours, go eat at the dining hall, shower under supervision, and then go to bed with hourly bed checks until get up time at 4:00 am, and another shower, breakfast and back in class at 6:00 am. They get Independence Day off for a picnic.
I have a horse entered in the Irrational. It is a race where the winner is the horse leading when the first horse dies of exhaustion. It is an endurance race around a track. The dead horse gets the Dogmeat Trophy. The winning horse wins Endurance Horse of the Year. The entry fee goes to pay down the National Debt. And is tax deductible.
I bought a new bicycle called "The Irrational." It has a 20 horse power assist gas engine you start by turning on the ignition, engaging a clutch, and letting your momentum from peddling start the engine and you then can go 130 miles per hour. It gets 20 miles to the gallon.
I am going to start a new club called The Irrationals. The Big "I." It is for people who plan to vote for Obama in 2012. It is a spin off of the 2008 club, also called the Big "I", which stood for "idiots." I actually went to the local art movie house last week and saw a middle aged, fit, scholarly looking man with a mousy wife, and both were wearing "Obama in 2012" blue Tee shirts. No polo player over the heart. Just a little teeny embroidered lemming.