Annette Cary / Tri-City Herald (TNS)
The nation’s vitality secretary defended a recent federal settlement on the decrease Snake River dams after Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., mentioned breaching the dams can be “catastrophic.”
He questioned Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm earlier this week at a listening to of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water.
The settlement made public in December lays the groundwork for the federal authorities to work with 4 Northwest tribes and the states of Oregon and Washington to guard and restore salmon, steelhead and different native fish to the Columbia River Basin, together with the Snake River.
It additionally requires research on how the advantages of the 4 Snake River dams in Washington could possibly be changed. Benefits embody electrical energy manufacturing, barging of farm merchandise and different items, irrigation and recreation.
Commitments made to states and tribes within the settlement are estimated to cost the federal authorities greater than $1 billion.
The settlement, labored out behind closed doorways in federal litigation, has been known as a “roadmap” towards breaching the dams from Ice Harbor close to Pasco to Lower Granite close to Lewiston, Idaho.
“The settlement makes commitments to develop vitality alternative for the dams, in addition to recommending spillage operations,” Newhouse mentioned.
Spilling extra water over the dams reasonably than utilizing it to supply electrical energy may also help juvenile salmon, however an excessive amount of spill will increase gases — akin to oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen — within the water that may kill juvenile salmon.
“Adjusting spilling operations may make the dams functionally out of date and useless,” Newhouse mentioned. “Energy costs will skyrocket, individuals who rely on the river system will endure, and I consider the salmon inhabitants shall be harmed, as nicely. It is in truth a de-facto breaching of the dams.”
Congress has the only real authority to breach the dams, Granholm mentioned through the Wednesday listening to.
“I believe the settlement was a optimistic step to replenish salmon, to have the ability to deal with hatcheries, to work with the tribes on further energy,” she mentioned.
But that is as a result of there’s not sufficient energy being produced, reasonably than to interchange hydropower, she mentioned.
The settlement requires the federal authorities to help the 4 decrease Columbia River tribes — the Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce and Warm Springs — in growing tribally sponsored clear vitality tasks.
Newhouse mentioned it appears clear from the Biden administration “that the plan is in truth breaching the dams.”
But Granholm mentioned the settlement would forestall consideration of breaching the dams for 10 years. Although it features a examine of alternative advantages, “There isn’t any de facto or subterfuge right here,” she mentioned.
WA transportation points
Newhouse additionally has requested a Washington state official concerning the impacts of dam breaching.
He and 6 different Republican Northwest congressional representatives, together with Washington’s Cathy McMorris Rodgers, just lately despatched a letter to Roger Millar, Washington state secretary of transportation, asking how the state would deal with elevated truck and prepare visitors if the Snake River dams are breached.
At a January listening to of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., advised Millar that about 39,200 rail vehicles and almost 150,800 semi vehicles a yr can be wanted to maneuver cargo that presently is barged on the Snake and Columbia rivers.
That would require thrice the variety of heavy and tractor-trailer drivers now employed in Washington, Oregon and Idaho at a time of employee shortages in each trucking and rail, the letter mentioned.
Now 60% of all U.S. wheat exports are barged by way of the decrease Snake River dams, with a single four-barge tow carrying as a lot wheat as about 540 semi-trucks.
It is the bottom cost transport possibility, in keeping with the lawmakers signing the letter.
Without the dams to permit barging on the Snake River, the elevated gas prices, freeway upkeep prices, terminal facility upkeep cost, driver pay and automobile upkeep prices would come to $69 million a yr, the letter mentioned.
Rail prices would probably be larger as nicely, it mentioned.
More than $1 billion can be wanted for capital investments in freeway, rail, grain elevators and different infrastructure, it mentioned.
Capacity on highways and railroads can be at all-time excessive, it mentioned.
The letter requested Millar for extra data on how the Washington state Department of Transportation may proceed to fulfill transportation wants if the decrease Snake River dams are breached and the way it might present alternate options to proceed to develop the Pacific Northwest financial system.
Signing the letter along with Newhouse, McMorris Rodgers and Chavez-DeRemer, have been Reps. Cliff Bentz of Oregon, Russ Fulcher of Idaho, and Matt Rosendale and Ryan Zinke, each of Montana.
