Letters
The recent letter to the editor claiming that eradicating dams on the Snake River wouldn’t save salmon lacks info particular to Northwest salmon restoration.
In October 2022 NOAA launched Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead, a 42-page referenced evaluation prioritizing actions to get better salmon on the Snake and Columbia rivers. At the highest of their priorities is breaching the decrease Snake River dams as a result of the dams are limiting access to the biggest and most local weather resilient spawning habitat within the contiguous U.S. The Idaho Salmon River and Oregon Wallowa Mountain wilderness areas and adjoining forests are excessive elevation, pristine environments with an space the dimensions of South Carolina. This must be and will be the place salmon endure.
Replacement of the typical output of the decrease Snake River dams, which ranges 600 to 1,200 megawatts relying on the season, will not be with out priority. In 2020 three Northwest coal crops had been retired with a mixed common output of 1,600 MW.
Both the Gov. Inslee and Sen. Murray Lower Snake River Dams: Benefit Replacement Report and Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson’s Columbia Basin Initiative give cost estimates for dam breaching and supporting the area’s economic system and communities by means of the transition. While the estimates are within the vary of $10 billion to $30 billion, there are additionally important prices to sustaining the established order with over $24 billion beforehand spent on failed fish restoration.
There generally is a future with salmon if we act on the evaluation and planning at the moment targeted on options for Northwest salmon, Tribes, farmers, energy shoppers and orcas.
Donald J. Miller
Arlington
