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Mississippi River Stakeholders to Tour Columbia-Snake Rivers by Matthew Weaver Capital Press, May 2, 2025

Since President Donald Trump's election,
less emphasis on dam removal is expected.

Members of the Upper Mississippi River Waterway Association will tour the Columbia-Snake River system the week of June 23.

The tour is the latest in an ongoing partnership with Pacific Northwest stakeholders, who toured the Mississippi River in June 2024.

"It's a collaboration of U.S. river systems," said Michelle Hennings, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. "Even though our river systems are a little different, we have a lot of the same issues when it comes to infrastructure and supporting working river systems. It's going to be exciting to show them how we utilize navigation energy, irrigation and tourism."

"The energy generation is astounding on the Columbia and Snake," said Gary Williams, executive director of the Mississippi association. "The sheer value of that alone will be enormously interesting for our group."

The agenda

The group is slated to fly into Portland, tour various ports and Shaver Transportation, Tidewater Barge Lines tugboats and American Cruise Lines vessels.

They will tour Bonneville, Lower Granite and Ice Harbor dams and drive through wheat country as they make their way to the Port of Lewiston in Lewiston, Idaho.

"It's a jam-packed schedule," Hennings said.

She notes it's rare for wheat industry members to see the whole system from beginning to end in such a short period of time.

The original plan was to start in Lewiston and end in Portland, but the Northwest stakeholders wanted to leave the Mississippi group with the lower Snake River dams as the final image.

"That's a lasting impact, because that's the story we're telling," Hennings said. "We're telling our whole system and how everything works together, and if one part of that's gone, our system doesn't work."

Breaching risk

One point that will be emphasized on the tour is the amount of fish passage available in the system and how salmon numbers have increased.

About 2.3 million salmon and steelhead migrate up the Columbia River each year, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. That's double the returns of the 1990s, when the average dipped to 1.3 million, but half of the goal of 5 million fish.

Under the Biden administration, the federal government entered an agreement with several northwest tribes, the states of Oregon and Washington and environmental nonprofit organizations in December 2023 to protect endangered wild salmon and steelhead.

While Congress has final authority to breach the dams, the agreement was viewed as a potential step towards breaching.

Since President Donald Trump's election, less emphasis on dam removal is expected.But the agreement is still in place, Hennings noted. The industry is monitoring the agreement and teaching new legislators about the value of the dams, she said.

"There's always that risk," she said. "This last administration was very challenging for us, but we are working with the current administration to educate them and stress the importance of our system, and how we want to work together with all of the stakeholders to come to solutions so we don't have to harm one stakeholder over the other."

Working waterways

Better understanding the Columbia-Snake's importance as a working waterway will help amplify how vital it is to invest and maintain all navigable highways, Williams said.

The collaboration will help deliver the message of how many jobs and livelihoods depend on the rivers, he said. "Farmers and others rely on these rivers to have access to export markets," he said.

"Having a reliable, resilient and redundant transportation assures corn, soybean and wheat growers on both rivers of having fair and competitive pricing for their grain."

"It's the importance of the river systems working together on messaging protecting our vital infrastructure we need -- for the economy, for agriculture, for energy, farmers, tourism, all of it," Hennings said.