Lack of regional political leadership to even ask the Corps to breach.  And, a misguided belief by the public and agencies that further studies, legislation, and a new Environmental Impact Statement will solve the problem when in fact all it does is prolong effective action.  25 years has been spent trying every other method to recover salmon.  Strong  pressure on the Corps, Bonneville Power Authority, Governor Inslee, and the Northwest Congressional delegation to breach the dams is urgently needed now before it is too late.

It’s highly unlikely that we can save endangered species without breaching the dams. In the 2002 Feasibility Study/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) (which took 7 years and $33 million dollars to create), the Corps identified dam breaching as the alternative that would provide the highest probability of meeting salmon survival and recovery criteria (see page 25). The Corps’ own conclusion that dam breaching is the best way to recover Snake River salmon remains true today. The majority of scientists agree. Fish passage technologies simply cannot replace the vast benefits of a restored ecosystem.

Simply put – we’ve waited nearly too long already and we already have the answers. Salmon and Orca populations have declined since NOAA’s protection, conservation, and recovery efforts on their behalf began.  All snake river wild salmon and steelhead runs were listed under the endangered species act by the late 90s. Southern Resident Orcas officially became endangered in 2005. No population has met survival, let alone recovery standards.

In 2018, Governor Inslee started the Southern Resident Killer Whale Recovery and Task Force to evaluate options to save the Southern Resident Orca.  Commentators urged Task Force members to act on the breach alternative, already extensively studied in Alternative 4 of the 2002 Environmental Impact Statement (2002 federal EIS), yet Task Force members failed to take a decisive position on breaching.  Washington then undertook a $750,000 Stakeholder Report to further analyze the impacts of breaching, resulting in no consensus or breach recommendation.

On the federal side, the 2021 Columbia River Systems Operation, Environmental Impact Statement (CRSO-EIS), despite acknowledging scientific evidence pointing to dam breaching as the best way to recover endangered salmon and steelhead, again failed to recommend dam breaching.  A lawsuit, in which Dam Sense founder, Jim Waddell is an amicus party (see Waddell Files Amicus Brief Asking Court to Order Immediate Dam Breaching) challenges that decision. But that court battle has gone on for 20 years, with no party, except for Mr. Waddell, as amicus, asking the court to order dam breaching.

In October 2021, Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Patty Murray announced a joint federal-state process for a Lower Snake River Dams Benefit Replacement Study to determine whether there are reasonable means for replacing the benefits provided by the lower Snake River dams (LSRD), sufficient to support dam breaching as part of a salmon recovery strategy for the Snake River and the Pacific Northwest.  They did so with the promise of building off of, rather than duplicating prior work, but the questions to be answered are the same ones that have been asked and answered many times before. NW Energy Coalition’s 2018 Lower Snake River Dams Power Replacement Study is just one example. Dam Sense has also updated the 2002 federal EIS (which contains an in depth analysis of all issues related to breaching) with present day mitigation numbers, and partnered with Earth Economics to produce both a Regional and National Economic Analysis answering many of the same questions posed by Inslee and Murray’s study process.

In sum, governments and NGOs have already spent millions of dollars studying what it means to breach the dams and how to do it. Dollars that are better spent on revitalizing the Snake River ecosystem and improving eastern Washington economies post-breach. There’s simply no reason to wait. In fact, if we want Salmon and Orca to have a future, and to be in ours, waiting is not an option.

The four Lower Snake River Dams are man-made structures with a finite lifetime. They are part of the problematic aging U.S. infrastructure that requires more money for maintenance every year. These dams will be breached in the future due to economics. They are economically unsustainable now. It’s simply a matter of time before the federal agencies admit it. So, the question is will salmon and Southern Resident Orcas still be around when the dams come down, or will it be too late? Extinction is forever. The dams are not.

Republican Rep. Mike Simpson from Idaho has launched a $33.5-Billion “Energy & Salmon Concept” for breaching the dams in the first action taken by any politician to accomplish this solution.

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