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Reads It Differently by Marvin Entel Lewiston Tribune, May 20, 2022

When you take only one side in the debate of fish vs. dams, insinuating only dams are cause of low fish returns, what kind of logic is that?

People with influence are paid as lobbyists to represent their benefactors, such as the native tribes, to continually state only their point of view regardless of how wrong they may be.

Count the recent number of fish as published by the Lewiston Tribune: 18,339 chinook passed over Bonneville Dam in a week. Only 1,594 got over McNary Dam, so the four lower Snake River dams caused a decline of 16,845 fish the week of April 21-27 up the Columbia?

Of the 1,504 fish over McNary, 521 made it past Ice Harbor and 96 past Lower Granite.

So between the four lower Columbia dams, approximately 10% of the fish make it past to move up the Snake and Columbia rivers, yet 35% of the fish over Ice Harbor make it over Lower Granite.

I understand this is the beginning of the spring chinook run, but the percentages are typical of the fish returns up the Columbia and Snake river systems.

Like a recent article said, when fishing was restricted the fish rebounded and it had nothing to do with dams.

Today the monumental numbers of predators, over-fishing of the Columbia, ocean currents and the closing of the upper Snake and Columbia by dams without fish ladders play a greater part in the dwindling numbers of fish than any of the lower Snake River dams.