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Commentaries and editorials

It's 'Just Money'

by Bill Chetwood
Lewiston Tribune, November 9, 2019

Graphic: Lower Snake River dams combined with their Compensation Plan hatceries are the high cost producers of the FCRPS. It is interesting that the Lewiston Tribune would republish an editorial opinion titled "Dam removal would impoverish the Northwest" with no more evidence of authorship than who it was who published the article. That's especially so in the fact that the assertion of "impoverishment" is so blatantly equivocal.

Even a cursory examination of the economic value of the four lower Snake River dams reveals that huge subsidies are levied and dispersed for the operation of those dams. The cost-effective status of those dams can only be defended by those who ignore the facts in deference to their current limited benefit.

Listing the pertinent facts of decreasing economic value of those dams would far exceed the allowed space of the opinion page, but those facts are available to those who question.

This is just the economic facet of the issue and may be the least of the issues to consider -- as it is "just money." Restoring the environmental damage from past decisions is probably even more unpredictable.

Related Pages:
Questions from Hydropower Breakout Sessions by Orca Task Force members, Swinomish Tribal Lands, Washington 8/18


Bill Chetwood
It's 'Just Money'
Lewiston Tribune, November 9, 2019

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