The Osprey: The Damning Economics of the Snake River Dams
The Osprey has been covering the never-ending fight for Columbia and Snake river wild salmon and steelhead since the problems caused by federal hydroelectric dams on the river system came to a head in the later 1980s and early 1990s. Recently, a federal judge once again rejected the federal government’s latest plan to recover salmon and steelhead runs, and ordered the Obama Administration back to the drawing board to come up with one that will meet legal and biological muster. This is the fifth time the courts have rejected recovery plans, called Biological Opinions, or BiOps.
Earthjustice attorney Anna Sewell does an excellent job of explaining the latest legal outcome, while putting it into historical context in her story “Judge Says Columbia and Snake Rivers Continue to Cry” beginning on page 7. The venerable and long-time wild fish advocate Bill Bakke has contributed two Columbia River system related stories to this issue as well, detailing how the history of salmon and steelhead management on the river has been, and continues to be, dominated by the hatchery model and how that approach has not only failed to recover wild fish numbers, but has had exactly the opposite effect.
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
• SNAKE RIVER ECONOMICS
• STEELHEAD SANCTUARY
• COLUMBIA BIOP REDUX
• HATCHERY HISTORY
• WILD STEELHEAD DECLINE
• HOH RIVER RESEARCH
But, of special note, is our cover story by Gary Macfarlane of Friends of the Clearwater, who delves into the economic aspects of the four lower dams on the Snake River—notorious salmon and steelhead killers—and how it just doesn’t pencil out. It’s a key argument for taking out the dams that has not received much press until recently, and Macfarlane’s story in this issue of The Osprey really lays it all out, from the small amount of, and easily replaced, power the dams provide to the money-losing, inefficient river transportation business.
And lest you think we have forgotten about steelhead in other regions, Mara Zimmerman of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, tells us about a new long-term study on the Hoh River that promises to provide us with important data on wild steelhead, while John Kober of Pacific Rivers fills us in on legislation to protect Oregon’s famed North Umpqua River wild steelhead habitat.