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Invest in Fish by Russ Kiefer Lewiston Tribune, January 3, 2021

I’m writing in response to the study that puts the blame for poor returns of Snake River salmon on conditions in the ocean instead of the dams.

The Comparative Survival Study has compared the smolt-to-adult returns of wild chinook and steelhead from mid-Columbia rivers (Yakima, Snake, Umatilla, John Day and Deschutes). These populations show similar patterns of SARs in response to ocean conditions (good and bad). The main difference is that all the other rivers have consistently higher SARs, and at levels that would recover Snake River fish (CSS reports at fpc.org).

Just like wind and solar, hydropower does not always match up with our needs. The four Snake River dams produce the most power in the spring when our needs are the lowest, and the least power in the summer and winter when our needs are the highest.

We should replace the power from these four dams with the following:

• Capabilities to store excess green power for later use.

• More wind and solar.

• Methane collected from large dairies and feedlots. This would reduce global warming by burning the more potent green house gas methane, and increased carbon sequestration from the vast areas the fish fertilize.

Related Pages:
Carbon Sequestration a Comment and the Federal Response in the CRSO EIS process, 2019-2020.