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Dam Assessment Just Another Sales Pitch by Editorial Board Capital Press, October 28, 2021

The dams produce 12% of the region's low-cost hydropower. The locks allow large shipments
of grain and supplies to transit the Columbia and Snake rivers as far upstream as Idaho.

There are assessments, and then there are sales pitches.

The plan of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray to "assess" taking out the four dams on the lower Snake River is just another sales pitch.

It is a foregone conclusion that the task force they choose will determine that taking out those dams is a good idea.

And here's the kicker: They will come up with a price tag that's less than the $33.5 billion guesstimate of Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, who has made a name for himself by pushing the idea.

With the "assessment" in hand, Inslee and Murray will continue to beat the drum about the dams and what a good idea it is to punish farmers, ranchers, barge operators, power customers and others for the alleged benefit of fish.

The Snake River dams have already been extensively studied. The Bonneville Power Administration studied them in 2007. The Washington Policy Center studied them in 2019. The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association studied them in 2020, as did the the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, federal Bureau of Reclamation and the Bonneville Power Administration (again).

They all reached the same conclusion: Taking out the dams would unravel the regional economy. The dams produce 12% of the region's low-cost hydropower. The locks allow large shipments of grain and supplies to transit the Columbia and Snake rivers as far upstream as Idaho. The reservoirs behind the dams irrigate more the 48,000 acres of fertile farmland.

By the way, the dams do have systems in place that allow salmon to bypass them. Not only that, better fish passage systems are available for a tiny fraction of the cost of taking out the dams. For example, Whoosshh Innovations, a Washington state company, has demonstrated the effectiveness of its fish passage system, but Inslee and Murray seem to be unwilling to even look at alternatives that don't cost billions of dollars.

Folks like Inslee, Murray and Simpson instead want to flush the four dams and their benefits down the drain.

The irony included in the concept of taking out the dams is too obvious to miss. Taxpayers have paid billions of dollars to build and operate the dams. Now these few politicians want taxpayers to pay again -- to destroy the dams and build 1,000 megawatts of generators and railroads and highways to handle the massive increase in rail and truck traffic it would require to replace the barge traffic through the Columbia Gorge.

And farmers will be forced to pay out of their pockets the higher cost of transporting their crops to export terminals. At the same time, many farmers would lose access to irrigation water.

The dams were built in the 1960s and 1970s. Assuming it takes $35 billion to tear them down and replace their electrical generation, transportation and other facilities, politicians would have spectacularly succeeded in wasting taxpayer money.

While wasting taxpayer money is a specialty of Congress and other politicians these days, this would set a new standard: spending tens of billions of dollars and ending up with no more fish, more pollution, more expensive electricity, more truck and rail traffic through the Columbia River Gorge, fewer jobs and a smaller regional economy.

Considering all that, Inslee, Murray and Simpson could congratulate each other on pushing and participating in one more multibillion-dollar government boondoggle.