for calling and messaging elected and federal agency leaders
The US Army Corps of Engineers can order the Snake River dams to be breached based on the 2002 EIS (Environmental Impact Study) which they spent seven years and $33M developing. The Army Corps of Engineers must begin dam breaching immediately to begin recovery of endangered wild salmon and Southern Resident Orcas of the Pacific Northwest.
- Breaching the dams offers the best opportunity to recover Snake River wild salmon.
- There is neither enough time nor any need for more studies of Southern Resident Orcas or salmon before breaching begins. We know salmon need a free flowing Snake River and the orcas need food.
This is the last and best opportunity to:
- Stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars each year in futile fish recovery efforts in the Snake River Basin.
- Cool the lower Snake River to its natural free-flowing state.
- Begin recovery for the largest historical source of prey for the Pacific Northwest’s endangered Southern Resident Orcas, listed by NOAA in 2015 as one of the eight species most in danger of going extinct in the near future if action is not taken immediately. Their preferred prey is Chinook salmon, historically coming from the Snake River basin.
- Create the largest watershed restoration in North America, an incredible environmental legacy.
- The real issue for BPA is no longer whether threatened and endangered fish can avoid extinction, but whether BPA can survive and thus meet those “vast public responsibilities”—including wild fish recovery— to which it proudly refers. BPA itself is now on the endangered species list, and like Columbia/Snake threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead and the resident orcas of the Salish Sea, only major changes will ensure BPA’s survival.
for reference materials
frequently asked questions
Why were these dams built?
Won’t irrigation go away?
Don’t we need the power they generate?
Do we need the dams for flood control?
What is the impact when the reservoirs are gone?
What will it cost to breach the dams?
What does it mean to “breach the dams”?
Who would do this work?