Nearly 20,000 electrical cooperative consumer-members and staff have signed a petition urging the Biden administration to desert any plans to breach the 4 Lower Snake River dams that present carbon-free hydropower to greater than 50 Northwest co-ops.
“We strongly oppose any efforts that would breach the Lower Snake River Dams and risk the reliability of our electricity,” states the petition, which was delivered to the White House on Dec. 14 on behalf of Voices for Cooperative Power, NRECA’s grassroots community. The 19,503 signatures have been collected in eight Northwest states in a few week.
NRECA activated the VCP community within the states the place co-ops obtain hydropower marketed by the Bonneville Power Administration from 31 dams within the Federal Columbia River Power System, together with the 4 Snake River dams. Those states are Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada.
“It’s important for consumer-members to speak out on policy decisions that affect whether they can keep their lights on,” stated Kelly Cushman, NRECA’s vp of political packages. “VCP gives them the platform they need to make their voices heard.”
NRECA and its Northwest members turned alarmed in late November when lawmakers leaked a draft authorized settlement by the Biden administration, environmental teams, and tribal and state governments over the federal authorities’s operation of the decrease Snake River dams.
In a lawsuit filed in 2021, plaintiffs charged that the dams are threatening the survival of endangered salmon. The draft settlement helps breaching the dams and changing them with different kinds of renewable vitality.
The VCP petition urges President Joe Biden to “abandon the Draft Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative Agreement as it will have grave consequences and jeopardize reliable, affordable electricity for millions of Americans across eight states.”
NRECA CEO Jim Matheson stated the petition “is a powerful display of support and speaks directly to the importance of ensuring continued access to affordable, reliable electricity.”
“The Biden administration must change course before it’s too late,” he stated.
The proposed settlement acknowledges that the administration doesn’t have the ability by itself to take away the dams. Congress must approve any plan to breach them.
“However, if this draft agreement is signed, I think that’s a step toward the possibility that the dams could be breached,” Cushman stated.
BPA’s web site says “the lower Snake River dams are part of a Northwest energy solution with the capability to generate over 3,000 megawatts of carbon-free power.”
Montana’s co-ops alone say they obtain practically 330 MW of electrical energy from the Columbia River Basin—sufficient energy to serve greater than 100,000 houses.
BPA additionally says that it has fish-passage methods that make sure that greater than 90% of the salmon that migrate by way of the dams survive.
Erin Kelly is a workers author for NRECA.
