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Make the Request by Scott Levy Lewiston Tribune, November 23, 2021

No party in this lawsuit, however, has moved for such an order.

Along with most everyone watching the dam/salmon drama, the Lewiston Tribune's Opinion page editor (Oct. 21) will be surprised to learn that the litigants in the decades-long federal case have never asked for dam breaching as a solution to the problem. Never.

While the plaintiffs and their allies have implored publicly that the earthen embankments holding back the lower Snake River be breached, they have never asked any of the three federal judges presiding over the long-running case to use the court's "inherent authority" to exercise the one solution that will recover salmon and end the legal arguments.

Now we learn from a court filing that ... "No party in this lawsuit, however, has moved for such an order, nor have the parties presented legal argument on whether the court legally can enter any such order. Thus, it is premature to consider this issue."

It seems obvious to me that the Northwest Power Act, the Endangered Species Act and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution all provide sufficient language for the judicial branch to order dam breaching.

I am reminded of the hopeful schoolchild waiting endlessly to be asked to the dance while the shy classmate finds too many reasons why not to make "The Ask." The prom goes on without them, and only their parents know of the sad dilemma.

With only a short window of opportunity left open before salmon and orcas spiral to extinction, the time has come to make "The Ask." Get up your gumption. ...