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Dams Don't Make Sense Dave Hayes Moscow-Pullman Daily News, June 15, 2013

In 1947, the Army Corps of Engineers completed their plan to dam the lower Snake River, demonstrating the arrogance they still display today. (The dams were built in the 1960s and '70s.) At that time, according to the Corps' own report, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the Fish Commission of Oregon, the Oregon State Game Commission and the Washington Department of Fisheries all told the Corps "that any series of dams on lower Snake River would be hazardous and might entirely eliminate the runs of migratory fish on that stream." The Corps' reaction: "this office does not concur with this unfounded opinion."

This is the same Corps that today claims perpetual dredging of the lower Snake is beneficial to fish because maintaining the navigation channel enables the agency to barge juvenile salmon downstream. They propose additional sediment management actions to lower the flood risk at Lewiston - a risk the Corps created with Lower Granite Dam.

The lower Snake River dams did not make economic sense in 1947 or when the Idaho Statesman called for dam breaching in 1997. With a decade of declining barge shipments, increased maintenance costs and an explosion of wind energy, these dams make even less sense today.