the film forum library tutorial contact

Snake River Dams by David Sparks, Ph.D. AgInfo.net, August 10, 2021

The problem is that we and that system, are not fulfilling upon the promises that they were sold on

An executive with a grain company told me that the fish count around the dams in the Columbia River basin was the same as it was in 1938. I asked Josh Mills about that.

Well, I mean, that's partially true because back then, in 1938, there was also an extensive amount of overfishing and there was a lot of other things that were going on at that time that were mitigating the ability for fish to go up and down the ladders.

The difference is, is that lower four Snake River dams are the straw that broke the camel's back. Something of more than 50 to 60 percent of the fish on the Columbia system are destined for the Snake River basin.

And it's one of those situations that I don't believe at this time anybody is asking for removal of any of the Columbia River dams. They’re power producing. They're important for infrastructure and they provide the backbone to cheap power within the region.

The lower four Snake River dams were built, not for power. They were built to make Lewiston the largest inland seaport in the country, to deliver goods from the breadbasket of the northwest, the Palousse region, Whittman counties and all those great places and all those hard working farmers.

The problem is that we and that system, are not fulfilling upon the promises that they were sold on and completed in 1974 when the Lower Granite dam first came online.

It continues to decimate runs and it has turned the travel time for these fish into months instead of weeks. So you lose four to five percent of the Snake River basin fish, whether that's Chinook, whether that's endangered sockeye or steelhead, and you lose four to six percent or more of the entire run of the smolts on the downstream migration at each one of the four lower Snake River dams.