Pacific Salmon Visitor Information Center

Opinions

• Daniel Roper

  Apr, 29 2018
  ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
  This Salmon killing dam needs to go!!!
  Right now, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia and Snake rivers, once the greatest salmon rivers in the world. We can do this by removing four outdated, costly dams on the lower Snake River.
  
  But we need your help to make it happen!
  
  For nearly 20 years, despite of multiple court rulings finding their actions illegal, the federal agencies that own these salmon-killing dams have ignored calls to remove them. That changed last May when a judge directly ordered the agencies to develop a “dam plan” to finally protect and restore our endangered wild salmon. Judge Michael Simon directed them to specifically consider lower Snake River dam removal.
  
  Now under court order, the agencies are taking public input on what they should do. Federal, Tribal and independent scientists concluded years ago that removing the four deadly dams on the lower Snake River is the single most effective action we can take to restore wild salmon to this river basin.
  
  Wild salmon, steelhead and pacific lamprey are dying by the thousands due to these dams: Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite – putting other species, good jobs, and unique cultures and ways of life at risk.
  
  American taxpayers and regional consumers—you and me—lose millions of dollars each year operating these dams even though they produce just 3 percent of the region’s power. The electricity the dams produce can be replaced by affordable, carbon-free energy alternatives. The dams’ other primary purpose, barge transportation, has declined 70 percent in 20 years and what little demand remains can be replaced by rail or options.
  
  Further, the dams exacerbate the effects of climate change on salmon, trapping fish in slack-water reservoirs that overheat and contribute to disease, mortality and predation. Removing these four dams would re-open a pathway for salmon to more than 5,000 miles of pristine cold-water streams in the wilderness of central Idaho, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington—building resilience for a healthier watershed and the salmon themselves.
  
  Salmon support a unique Northwest way of life. They are a keystone species that help keep the natural world healthy by bringing nutrients from the ocean back to high mountain streams. They support jobs and cultures. And they are a critical food source for more than 100 other species, including endangered orcas.
  
  Now is the time to remove the four outdated, low-value, deadbeat dams on the lower Snake River. If we free the Snake, we can save the salmon, restore jobs, and achieve the biggest river restoration in history.

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