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Flathead Electric Cooperative's Resistance to Remove Dams by Antonia Malchik Missoulian, February 6, 2024

Because theft is exactly what we're talking about here.

As a member of Flathead Electric Cooperative, I was disappointed to read of leadership's resistance to the removal of the dams on the Snake River due to their possible impact on electricity prices.

The removal of these dams is the culmination of years of negotiations following decades -- at least -- of theft of water, land, fisheries, and other resources from people who were here long before the Co-op existed, and whose rights precede the Co-op's by millennia.

Is Flathead Electric -- along with Sen. Jon Tester and Reps. Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale -- seriously saying that stealing from others is ethical as long as it results in lower prices? Because theft is exactly what we're talking about here. It's long past time that we all started working with treaty obligations and the realities of generations of theft, rather than pretending they don't exist simply because acting on ignorance has financial benefit.

There are plenty of us who rely on Flathead Electric who will happily work on solutions for electricity generation that don't come at the expense of delayed and denied justice and rights.