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Discussing Whether OPALCO Should Pay Dues to Lower Snake River Dam Lobbyists by Sharon Grace Orcasonian, March 31, 2022

Our government systems, steeped in short-term competing financial motives,
are processing these whales and the salmon on which they depend to extinction.

Is breaching the four lower Snake River dams a tough decision for us or OPALCO? While anything can be argued from many sides, where do the facts lead? Do economics, science and ethics strongly point in one direction towards breaching the four dams?

The Bonneville Power Administration-funded Fish Passage Center has established that the four lower Snake River dams are driving Snake River salmon and steelhead ("salmon") runs to extinction. Therefore, we must make a choice between saving Snake River salmon or preserving the arguable benefits the dams provide that either have been, or can be, replaced.

If you support dam breaching, please let OPALCO know.

First, it is a myth that breaching the four lower Snake River dams presents a choice between clean energy or iconic Northwest salmon. We can have both clean energy generated by existing new renewables -- primarily solar and wind installations -- and we can have abundant salmon and steelhead ("salmon") runs. The Fish Passage Center's studies reveal that if the lower Snake dams are breached and more water flushed ("spilled") over the four Columbia mainstem dams, spring/summer chinook salmon abundance could increase as much as four-fold.

Second, OPALCO consumers will pay less for electricity if the dams are breached. The lower Snake River dams do not produce low-cost energy. In 2020 the federal government completed the Columbia River Systems Operations/EIS, (CRSO EIS). It showed the four dams on the lower Snake River must be breached to recover Snake River salmon. And with breaching, Snake River salmon will be restored and breaching will reduce Bonneville's annual costs by up to 15 percent compared to the disastrous status quo -- the No Action Alternative. See Table 3-309 below from the CRSO EIS, Chapter 3. (MO3 is the Alternative of breaching the four lower Snake River dams.)

Third, lower Snake River dam breaching will benefit the environment and help reduce climate change. The lower Snake dams have degraded the entire lower Snake River Basin ecosystem. The reservoirs behind the lower Snake River dams are methane factories. Algae growth is spurred in the dams' reservoirs due to their warm temperatures and high nutrient loads from agricultural runoff trapped by the dams. Algae then decomposes in the reservoirs' oxygen depleted water to produce significant amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas at least 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The reservoirs also have flooded out riparian areas that previously acted as carbon sinks. Snake River Basin forests are less healthy because the dams have deprived them of marine nutrients formerly provided by abundant salmon runs. Consequently, the forests have reduced ability to sequester carbon, and have become more susceptible to wild fires that emit catastrophic amounts of hydrocarbons, which further propels climate change. Breaching the dams will recover salmon, return marine nutrients to the ecosystem, restore carbon sequestering riparian areas, and rebuild healthy forests that can again capture and store carbon. This will reduce climate change, help all living things on earth, and provide a safer and more secure environment for future generations.

Fourth, we do not need the energy produced by the lower Snake River dams. In the last decade the energy has been replaced many times over by solar and wind energy. There is a glut of energy in the West, and over 50% of the dams' hydropower is produced during the spring runoff, the months with the least demand for power. The Snake River is at its lowest flows during the hot summer and coldest winter months when energy is needed most. Despite contrary claims, the Snake River dams did not provide anything other than its ordinary output of energy during the June 2021 heat dome and the December 2021 cold snap.

A few other points. Pro-dam advocates conflate the benefits provided by the entire 31 dams in the Federal Columbia River Power System with the benefits provided by the four lower Snake River dams. This is a mistake. The Snake River dams were the last built in the hydrosystem. They do not have the capability of producing the large amounts of energy of the earlier built storage dams, such as Grand Coulee or Chief Joseph dams. The Snake dams are run-of-river dams on a relatively low flow river that cannot store more than a few hours of useful water at any time. They are not storage dams in the sense that they can store water for days or weeks at a time and then release it to meet some urgent energy requirement. Thus, they have little potential to back up variable renewable energy.

Salmon on the lower Snake River are not recovering, as shown by the chart below. The orange line on the chart shows spring/summer chinook spiraling toward virtual or complete extinction. These are the fish the Southern Resident orcas historically depended upon to get them through the winter.

What is your choice? Let OPALCO know.

This should be an easy call for us and OPALCO. Do we allow salmon and the Southern Resident orcas to become extinct on our watch, in exchange for the relatively minimal benefits from the four lower Snake River dams for which there are ready alternatives? Or do we stand with the salmon and orcas to survive as species for future generations to enjoy?

OPALCO contact info: phone 360-376-3500, email communications@opalco.com.